Thursday night while I was waiting for a meeting at the bar at the Four Seasons hotel in L.A. to begin, I had a beer and did some star watching. I wasn’t planning on star watching and maybe it doesn’t always happen like this there, but it was three nights before the Oscars so I got a mini-preview.
First, Jeremy Piven was at the bar. He walked by me at one point and I said hi and told him I was still upset that they cancelled his show Cupid which ran for only 15 episodes more than a decade ago. He laughed and thanked me, but I’m sure he’s happy he was freed up to work on Serendipity, Old School and Entourage.
Then Queen Latifah walked by. Wow. She looked like she had no makeup on and was easily the prettiest woman in the hotel.
There was one table full of women that looked like they might have been the cast of the Fake Housewives of Santa Monica. They were all older than me, except for the parts of them which were newly-added. They didn’t make a big deal out of anyone, but when Sean Penn walked by they all noticed and whipped out their phones to text all of their friends.
I saw a few more people that were turning heads and being fawned over, but I didn’t know their names so I didn’t tweet about them. One of them I am now sure was Paula Deen, the southern chef who is famous for making the world’s deadliest bacon and egg burger using two Krispy Kreme donuts as a bun.
The last celebrity I didn’t know yet stood right in front of me for several minutes. People told her what an amazing actress she is and what a great singer her mother is. They were paying her more attention to her than to any of the other stars.
I had no idea who she was until I was in LAX headed home the next day and saw her on the cover of Ebony. Then I watched the Oscars last night and there was no way to avoid learning who Gabourey Sidibe is, the star of Precious.
In case you are wondering, my meeting there went well. Sadly, Ryan stayed behind to continue training a customer we’re launching soon in the ways of Crowd Fusion. He would have loved to meet Jeremy Piven.
In the future I will tell our L.A. customers we can only do day training so we can stalk celebs by night!
Brian Alvey 