Take 3: Red Carpet Chronicles

(Pic from textually.org)

Velvet Blood

There are a couple of distinctive sights and sounds on the red carpet. Flashing lights. Camera shutters. Photogs yelling “Over HERE! Over the shoulder! To your left!”. It’s a place unlike anywhere else, and while exciting and extraordinarily unique, turns out, what you see on TV isn’t what you get in real life.
Camera crews crammed behind stanchions fight for space and press-hungry publicists approach producers plugging their prized performers. A-list celebrities are pawned off to reporter after reporter to talk about their latest film. And while it’s a packed jungle of scoop-seeking producers and reporters, photogs fighting for good light and screaming paparazzi, it’s one of the most exciting places I’ve ever been. And, like the rest of LA, it’s one of the strangest.
People who you’ve imagined to be flawless and 5’10, have acne scars and barely break 5 feet. Women you thought average-sized are actually borderline emaciated.
I keep going back to this hyperreal thing, about how society’s inundation by images has created this world of make-believe, but I have to say being on the red carpet has only fueled my claims. I mean, everything in Hollywood seems so calculated, so precise. Everything has a purpose, and that purpose is to create a certain image. Only problem is most people seeing those images believe their eyes, ultimately believing what they are seeing is the truth. But how natural is it to pose for flashing bulbs for 10 minutes with people screaming your name. Either way, I’m still fascinated and loving it all.

A shout out to my friend Jess Krayz, who had a celebrity encounter of her own today. She chatted with Thornhill’s own Ann Murray. Props sister. We’re certainly accumulating a roster of geriatric star sightings.

Take 2: Tales From Tinsel Town

The King of the Hills


(Celebrity Encounter #1)


People drive in L.A. the way people walk in New York: with determination, and without mercy. But it’s easy to keep up if you have cojones.
Everyone warned me about the L.A. traffic, and while the break lights on my car are certainly getting a work-out, the 101 or 405 could easily be mistaken for rush hour on the 401 in Toronto. I don’t want to jinx it, but so far, my days of trekking to Mississauga Road for work seem a lot worse. Plus, there’s no threat here of black ice, snow, or freezing rain to throw drivers into fender bender frenzies. Apparently, locals freak out when it rains and the accidents accumulate at the same rate as water in the gutters.
This morning on the radio, Ryan Seacrest and the gang at KIIS were freaking out about how cold it was – a bitter 55 Fahrenheit, or 12.7 degrees Celsius (these units, I actually understand). It was pretty entertaining listening to people complain about the weather while my friends and family back in the land of ice were suffering through snow and negative temperatures. I feel for you guys…seriously ;)
I’m still feeling like I’ve been here before. I’m in a constant state of deja vu. The whole concept of L.A. is bizarre. Cultural theorists have postulated on this topic pretty much since the advent of the motion picture, but being here really confirms how truly hyperreal it is. Yesterday I was with a friend driving down Beverly Blvd and saw Brent Bolthouse’s SBE office. And just like that I said “Oh, that’s where Heidi works”, as if I know her. The experience would be like driving downtown seeing the Bank of Montreal building and saying “Oh, that’s where Uri works”, only I’ve known the kid my whole life, and have been driving those streets since I can remember. That was my very first time on that street and yet it was just so simply recognizable.
I haven’t arrived at any conclusions about how I feel about all of this, but it just makes me think about the enormous influence of the media, and how it can be so misleading. Hopefully at some point in my time here, I’ll come to some sort of answer.
Until then, I’ll be logging tapes of celebrities.

Take 1: Adventures in La La Land

More Real Than Real

I could see it from the airplane; the illustrious “Hollywood” sign. We were approaching LAX and, shockingly, I could see it. I was pretty surprised I could see the neon signs donning the roads leading up to it from the plane. What was even more bizarre was the crying baby…until I realized I was sleeping, cramped in a ball in my aisle seat on Northwest flight 327, Detroit to Los Angeles.

There is something surreal, or more accurately put, hyperreal about this place. I feel like I’ve been here a million times, so when I whipped down Sunset Blvd, the 405 and Santa Monica Blvd earlier, I felt surprisingly comfortable. Eating dinner tonight at Ketchup on Sunset was really cool. Of course, I recognized the place from when Brody and LC had dinner there a few seasons ago on The Hills.

LA is one of those places that is reproduced so consistently in the media that for people who have never even been here before it feels familiar. There is something comforting, but also slightly disconcerting about that. While I feel like I know the City of Angels, I had a reality check earlier, reminding me that I’ve been here a mere day.

I made the executive decision earlier to head to Rodeo Drive. So, being the 21st century, techno-savvy navigator that I am (or un-savvy, as you’ll find out), I plugged “Rodeo Drive” into my handy GPS. (I was in Glendale at the time). I didn’t have an exact address so I had the GPS use the “anywhere” function for Rodeo. A couple of freeways and streets later the GPS told me that I had “reached my destination”. Only the factories and graffiti surrounding me told me a different story. After driving around a bit searching for my beloved Chanel, Gucci and Prada, I realized I was completely in the wrong area, Culver City, to be accurate. Only, at the time, I didn’t have a map, so I had NO idea where I had landed. Later I found out not only had I not been in Beverly Hills, but I had been on Rodeo Drive (Rodeo, as in cowboys), not the Rodeo (accent egu) Drive, of Pretty Woman fame. I eventually decided to type “Chanel” into my now loathed GPS (important lessons learned in LA #1: GPSs don’t discriminate. Word emphasis and accents mean nothing to them. Their job is to get you to your destination as fast as possible, regardless of which neighborhoods that means trekking through). After following several GPS commands, Cavalli, Ferragamo, Fendi, and of course, Chanel, finally appeared amid Christmas-light-clad palm trees. I had arrived, and yet another moment of hyperreality ascended upon me. I’ve been here before, I thought to myself. But no, I really hadn’t. That’s the thing about LA...you never have to be here to be here.