My friend Haley and I went to see a showing of Mary Poppins in Malibu Bluffs park where Dick Van Dyke opened the night storytelling his experience working on the movie set and also answered questions from the audience. It was shown on this huge screen while we sat on blankets underneath the stars:
Dick answering questions from the audience:
One of the other highlights over the past two months was going to the Celebrity Catwalk at the Hollywood Highlands center (picture below) with my friend Rachel.
Rachel and I were buddies in high school through choir at Clements and she recently moved out here to follow her dreams in the music industry. We re-connected through facebook and I was able to drag her with me to this event starting late for a Thursday night. Here is a picture taken of Rachel and I at the club shortly after we arrived:
The Celebrity Catwalk is a fashion show where proceeds go to local animal shelters. I was excited because Aubrey O’Day (from P.Diddy’s making the band 3) was there. She is the lead singer of the group Danity Kane that I love rocking out to. Other celebs that I was excited to see there include: Kim Kardashian (pictured with Aubrey and a socialite) Bobby Trendy (Anna Nicole Smith’s former stylist), David Hasselhoff (his daughter was one of the models in the show, so he was just a member of the audience) Jenna Jameson (former adult film star), and Kendra Wilkinson (Hugh Hefner’s sporty girlfriend). And yes, these pictures were taken from my very own camera!
Bobby Trendy
David Hasselhoff
Jenna Jameson
Rachel and I grabbed sandwiches at Johnny Rockets prior to the event starting and walked in the doors at 10 till 8:00pm. As the bouncers were checking our bags-every single pen in my purse (and some of them being my favorite) was taken away permanently, being thrown in a stack of other dangerous items such as perfumes. Heaven forbid we smell good and get a few autographs…at least cameras were allowed!
So we head to the bar after glancing around and I order a gin and tonic, and Rachel grabs a rum and diet coke (both costing $6 each). We stand in front of the end of the runway, thinking its going to be a great spot to stand. The place starts filling up, and I am snapping shots of Bobby Trendy and David Hasselhoff, trying to look cool while standing in place grooving to the music, holding my drink, purse and camera. The show started about 45 minutes later and right as the models were about to walk out-what seem liked hundreds of media pile up right in front of us with their big cameras and push everyone else out of the way. I still was able to see all the models and catch the pictures you saw above. After about an hour our feet were tired (I should have worn my crocs) and we headed home.
About two weeks later my friend Eryn (who is just as **I’m not going to say obsessed** interested in celebrity spotting and gossip as I am) and I went on a search for the Polaroid beach house. Now, for those of you who do not watch E! news or get your daily updates from perezhilton.com I will tell you what this is. Polaroid decided for the past couple of years to rent a beach house in Malibu where celebs can show up to eat and drink all they want for free while snapping photos of themselves to capture the indulgent moments of their visits. Paris Hilton lives just a few doors down, so she is over there quite often and so are people like Adrian Grenier, (from the HBO show Entourage) Jeremy Piven, and Matthew McConaughey. Everything from movie release parties, fashion shows, 4th of July parties, celeb birthday parties, etc. are held here on a daily basis. If you pass by Ralph’s (the only grocery store in Malibu) you can see the back side of the PBH where there is valet parking every single day of the week, along with Mac trucks for setting up catering, lighting, etc.
Now back to my story…Eryn and I were about 80% sure that the Polaroid Beach House was on Carbon Beach (home of Leonardo Di Caprio, Jennifer Aniston) so that’s where we spent about four hours walking up and down looking for this house. I should mention at the time of our journey we didn’t know the beach house was behind Ralph’s which is NOT on Carbon beach. Anyway, one of the highlights of our amazing beach workout was seeing and actually speaking to Michelle Rodriguez (from Lost, the movies Blue Crush, Fast and Furious). As Eryn and I were walking back towards our car heading north on the beach, we walk past Michelle who was in a yellow bikini and playing with her dog.
Eryn didn’t recognize her and thought she was some surfer girl with a great body but I knew who she was immediately! Her dog had run right in front of us so she goes “im sorry about that” and we go “oh, it’s OK” while attempting to hold back huge smiles on our faces. Right as we pass Michelle and dog I turn to Eryn and say, “do you know who that was? It’s Michelle Rodriguez”. As she looks back over her shoulder a paparazzi runs over to Michelle to take her picture. She immediately jogs back up the house. The next day, sure enough the below picture of Michelle was posted on perezhilton.com. It was pretty cool to see that knowing we were about 20 feet away!
Prior to actually seeing Michelle, we spotted a beach house with about 15 papparazzi just 100 feet away under umbrellas snapping photos like mad. At the house, I would say there were 20 people lounging outside- having a good time, but the only person I recognized as we casually strolled by twice was Jon Favreau (from the movies Swingers, The Break Up, Wimbledon).
Upon seeing him, I thought to myself “surely they are not all here for this guy”. Later on we heard from a lady who either lives on or frequents the beach that Naomi Watts was sitting outside the house but I could not find her in the crowd.
Pulling up perezhilton.com later on, I saw that Vince Vaungh was hanging out at the same house later that day. Our four hour workout walking up and down Carbon Beach was not a total wash. The water is crystal clear from the minute you put your feet in, so you truly feel like you are in Cancun when you arrive.
We also spotted the back side of the Silver Spoon house, which basically serves the same purpose as the Polaroid beach house. I snapped a shot of the Silver Spoon land rover as we were walking back to our car (picture shown below-check out license plate).
Another cool LA thing my friend Jessica and I tried was the new kinda-like-but not-frozen yogurt craze called PinkBerry. They almost look like Jamba Juice stores but we went to a kiosk in a local mall. People line up in droves for this stuff, just like they do for those Sprinkles cupcakes I adore. Now, I must admit that some people are skeptical about what exactly PinkBerry is made of and according to California law it doesn’t have enough bacteria cultures per ounce (sounds yummy, right?) to be called frozen yogurt. It’s got tons of sugar but if you want to try something unique I would recommend it.
According to wikipedia: “The tart, frozen dessert has a groupie-like following who sometimes refer to it as ‘Crackberry’. The company acknowledges its cult-like following by maintaining a ‘groupie corner’ on its website”. There are two flavors: regular and green tea. I sampled both and ended up getting the regular flavor, which I honestly cannot tell you what it tastes like for all the money in the world, but it was good. I topped it off with fresh kiwi fruit, but there are about 15 cut-fresh, on site fruit toppings for one to choose from along with kid cereals such as Captain Crunch and Fruity/Coco Pebbles. If you want to read more, check out their official website at: http://www.pinkberry.com/html/pbmain.php. Due to the high amount of sugar its obviously not something you want to eat daily-but a unique tasty treat that if one has access to, should try.
My roommate Danna got here from Qatar earlier this month and she and I have been having a blast hanging out and living in her RV at the Malibu RV park where Matthew McConaughey keeps his Air Stream and lives when he is in the area. You can clearly see the Pacific Ocean from our spot and it is just amazing……our 5 minute commute to work isn’t bad either!!!
One of two note worthy adventures was going to an indoor shooting range for the first time where I got to shoot a 22. Not only was the shooting range fun, but I was hitting the targets, amazing I know. I liked the 22 because it had very little kickback and was easy to handle. Below is a picture of Danna and I wearing our ear shields. We had gone to an Aggie Game watching party in Manhattan Beach earlier that day-that's why we are in maroon. I was shocked that we were not given bullet proof vests, but I guess that’s the chance you have to take when you step in the front door, and normal procedure according to some of my other friends who frequent shooting ranges in Texas.
The other adventure was going to my first Dodger’s game! We got there at about the 5th inning (we got lost and drove 40 minutes out of our way but finally made it). This was just enough time to order a Dodger dog (the stadium’s famously long and delicious hot dog) and watch the Dodgers beat the Padres. We managed to sit in front of three of the most obnoxious Dodger fans in the stadium, but we had a good time. EVERYONE there was in Dodger garb-it was like being at Kyle Field for a home football game, but instead of maroon, the color of the evening was royal blue.
I have seen quite a few movies in the past two months and surprisingly they are all entertaining and I highly recommend them:
Bourne Ultimatum-the best one of the Bourne Trilogy and a must see:
Stardust-is a mystical love story with Michelle Phieffer, Claire Danes and Robert De Niro:
3:10 to Yuma-a great Western shoot-em-out movie with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale:
Eastern Promises-a graphic story of a young Russian girl who gets caught up in the Russian mob in London, starring Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen:
I should mention that over Labor Day weekend I traveled back to College Station, had a wonderful time, and will write about it in another blog. I am waiting for pictures from a friend of mine because the queen of taking photos left her camera in LA when packing for Texas.
One thing I am looking forward to (other than seeing Daniel Baldwin later today, since Danna has joined his softball team) is having my sister Andrea and her friend Johnny come visit for the weekend mid-October! I can’t wait!!!
That’s all for now…love, peace and chicken grease (taken from one of my student workers). Please drop me a line to let me know how you are doing-I love hearing from everyone.
