Swimming in a pool of celebrity

People often come to LA in hopes of seeing someone famous. I know when I first got here it was pretty exciting to catch a glimpse of a celebrity here and there: David Schwimmer at the Arclight, Rob Thomas at Universal City Walk, a very unshaven and unkempt Val Kilmer at Mel’s during the ill-fated run of his debut on the legitimate stage. After a while you come to see that they really are just other people on the street who happened to get someone to point a camera at them.

But when you run into such a high concentration of celebrities at once like I did yesterday, then it can start to move even the hardest of jaded Angeleno hearts.

Casey works at GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation...say that ten times fast) and every year they have their GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles so that the gay population with all its disposable income can get together to proclaim what amazing advances the gay community has had, mixed in with commiseration about how far backwards the gay community has gone. I think by the end of the show we were somewhere near where we started. Overall it turned out to be a great show and a lot of fun. Where else do you get to see Felicity Huffman plant a big, juicy, wet one on Marcia Cross?

Casey is the volunteer manager for GLAAD and since he’s a good guy and it seemed like a fun event, I offered to help out. He was very kind and assigned me to guard the door of the private celebrity reception room where the red carpet was set up and the hors d’oeuvres were making their rounds. The press came in and set up, which was almost a more entertaining event than the actual celebrity arrivals themselves. Some girl spilled another guy’s coffee and he yelled at everyone in the room for quite a while saying some things that are, by most human standards, not generally acceptable in public. But once they were done, in came the famous people.

There were some impressive celebrities that came through the door. The Fab Five was there in all its glory (Kyan just smiled and pretended nothing was wrong even though he hasn’t returned ANY of my phone calls), Felicity Huffman made her way along, nearly falling on her face though when her publicist stepped on her train, and John Stamos ran through the carpet without stopping for pictures like he was the hottest thing in town. I guess no one told him that “Full House” is over and “Jake in Progress” is nothing to write home about. But then there was Liza Minelli. I didn’t actually see this but Chris, who is madly in love with her, was watching with eager eyes as she entered the room, smiled for a few pictures, then freaked out and had to be escorted away. She came back and did the carpet, sang during the show (after being introduced by Brittany Murphy and Mandy Moore, I might add) and then left the theatre on someone’s shoulder, crying. Oh Liza, Liza. No more pills and booze dear.

After the show, Carla, Jill, Chris and I went looking for Brendan Frasier since Carla was determined to make a pass at him and he kept avoiding her. We were reminded that we had managed to finagle all-access passes and we should barge in on the VIP dinner to find him. He wasn’t visible amongst the crowd, but we did see that one gay kid from “Real World: Philadelphia” and any number of Bravo, MTV, and other “gay” network executives. If only I brought that script I wrote and that student film I shot.

After admitting defeat, the four of us continued on to a party that Chris’ boyfriend told us about. In attendance was one guy who everyone kept saying looked a lot like Corey from “Boy Meets World.” I was pretty sure it wasn’t him, although they did look alike. After people kept asking and I was starting to get dares to encourage this stranger into doing something unsavory, I finally went up to him in my friendly-drunk way and told him we thought he looked a lot like the kid. He said he was getting a lot of that and laughed it off. He introduced himself as Ben.

So it wasn’t him. Ha! Until the guy who had come with some friends of mine told me I had no tact. This guy was obsessed with TV and knew everything about it, so he knew the name of the actor on the show was Ben Savage. Ben...Ben Savage. I guess that means I did rub shoulders with a famous kid, even if I wasn’t sure of it at the time and I’m still not even convinced. But if he was, I suppose I should have taken one of those dares.

Then my strange celebrity encounters continued into the following morning. I was leaving my apartment to meet Courtney for Sunday brunch (like you do) before she left town again and some creepy guy down the stairs asked if I knew which of these apartments was the former home of Motley Crue. Of course I didn’t, but now my curiosity was peaked. Reading this article in London’s Guardian confirms that while it is unlikely they lived in my exact building, they were most certainly my neighbors. Clark Street, fifty meters from the Whisky, cockroach infested…sounds about right.

So there you are everyone. Celebrities really are just as entertaining in person as you might think. Perhaps some day someone will point a camera at any of us and we will be so fortunate to receive an incoherent introduction by Brittany Murphy at some impressive event. A guy can only dream.