It’s been awhile since I told an LA story. A long while. So… here we go. It’s a long one. Get comfortable.
One of the biggest perks to my job in the 9021…2 was that I got to take an all-expenses paid trip to the Sundance Film Festival. It was pretty much the most last minute thing ever. I ended up driving up to Park City, Utah from LA in a rented Chevy Trailblazer with 2 tons of brochures stacked up in the back, Dixie Chicks playing on the radio and a friend in the passenger seat along for the ride.
The main purpose of the company’s trip was to sponsor a big party along with Seven jeans and CAA (one of the big talent agencies). I was absolutely ecstatic about this. As an avid reader of fine publications such as Us Weekly and In Touch, I knew that I would see more celebrities at one time in one place than I had for the previous 6 months in LA.
I was right.
Mostly my trip consisted of chauffeuring my boss, my steadily drunken co-worker and other assorted friends and acquaintances all over the place. To the Seven jeans house and back. To the Motorola lodge and back… You get the idea. But there were perks to that too.
Like just driving around and spotting Ashton Kutcher and Rob Thomas and Lance Bass (for some reason, I had regular Lance Bass sightings). And then there was the Seven jeans house where I was offered free jeans (for some absolutely insane reason I turned this down) and literally – LITERALLY – bumped into Paris Hilton and Nick Carter (remember them together?). Then I saw Christina Applegate sipping hot chocolate on the other side of the room and Bo from Days of Our Lives trying on jeans in a makeshift dressing room. Hi-larious!!
My friend and I just sort of stood there feeling awkward and uncool and non-celebrity-ish.
That night was the big party. And after some drama (we couldn’t get into our own party – sad, I know), we were finally rubbing elbows with the big guns. Only there really weren’t any big guns. Just some C and D-listers like Kevin Richardson, formerly of The Backstreet Boys, and Jeremy Sisto. Not that I’m knocking C and D-list. I am Z-list.
My boss and his fiance had taken off because of the aforementioned drama, leaving me with armfuls of brochures and random hats to hand out to the partygoers. I was also, at this point, a bit drunk. Let me tell you, it made it a helluva lot easier to walk up to complete strangers and ask them if they had already reserved their yacht for Cannes and, if not, would they like a brochure?
And then I asked the question to a really tall, attractive middle-eastern man. And he actually wanted one. And he apparently knew my boss. And the next thing you know, his manservant (I kid you not) was holding my purse and brochures while Sam Nazarian – the tall, attractive middle-eastern man, was pouring me a drink from his table. Yeah, table service. This is about the time that I realized that this guy was kinda important. We posed for pictures for Wire Image (they never posted them – jerks) and he continued to woo me. Yup – woo. It culminated with his manservant getting my phone number and Sam informing me that they wanted me to come back to his hotel for an after party. They actually did call too – they were in a limo outside and did I want to join them?
I had absolutely no idea who this man was, other than he had cash and a manservant and liked to woo. But I politely declined. I’m not that kind of girl. So instead I went back to the house where we were staying and party all night and make a Lean Cuisine for the guy who played Luke on The OC.
When I got back to LA, I googled Sam and found out that he’s kind of a mogul in LA – hotelier, restaurateur, film financier, etc. Do the clubs Hyde and Area sound familiar? How about the Viceroy hotel? Yeah. That’s Sam.
And then, last night on Entourage, there he was, larger than life on my TV. Sam being Sam.
So whenever I rattle off one of these random, bizarre LA stories, I kinda don’t believe it ever happened. It feels much more like the crazy dream I had last night than the actual events that took place in my life. But as my pal Aaron reminded me, here I am in Wichita receiving gifts from MTV Canada and interviewing Heidi and Spencer, so I guess you can take the girl out of LA, but you can’t take the LA out of the girl.
The End.
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