November 08, 2004 - 11:15 AM

My Top 5 Celebrity Sightings

I am so backlogged on this season's tv shows right now. I've been taping my shows and am just now finishing week 3 of the season, which means I'm still at the beginning of October schedule-wise. I've been catching some shows as they air and have already made a few cuts from my tv-watching diet. Casualties include Kevin Hill (we hardly knew ye), Dr. Vegas (we didn't care about ye), and Desperate Housewives (we just don't get ye), with Veronica Mars being on the bubble (but only because it's up against Scrubs on Tuesday nights, and we only have one VCR and we're not always home to watch one while the other is being taped).

In slogging through the videotapes, I came across an episode of The Jury, a show that had a short run during the summer on Fox. From the creative minds behind Homicide: Life on the Streets, it was an ok show, but it didn't quite connect with the audience. I only watched 2 episodes and taped most of the others (although Fox shifted the show around the schedule and I didn't catch on to their devious schemes for a few weeks).

As I watched this particular episode, I was distracted by two things: 1)most of the people on the jury were familiars from Homicide and Oz and 2)this actress, playing one of the jurors looked extremely familiar. Several times, I paused the tape on her and dredged the depths of my mind to pinpoint why her face was triggering things. It was more than just the usual "Hey It's That Guy" recognition with her...I KNEW her from somewhere. Through the haziness, I got the feeling that I knew her from some educational system or function, and I hedged my bets that it was from Amherst. Jumping on the computer, I traced her information, first through TV Tome, then to IMDB, and then via Google to her personal website.

And I was right. Jenna attended Amherst when I was there (a search through the alumni database of the Amherst College website confirms that she was class of '98). I'm not sure if I had a class with her, or did some extra-curricular crap with her, or just saw her around campus and thought she was cute. But I definitely remembered her. Although, perhaps not totally, because apparently, she was in those Visa commercials with Tiki and Ronde Barber where she's not sure if they are who they say they are, and I didn't get the same anvil of recognition when I saw those ads as I did when I watched The Jury.

Side query: was all that expended effort in tracking down this girl a sign of unhealthy obsession? Should she be required to sign a restraining order against me?

Anywho, Jenna appears to be based out of NYC since she's made the rounds of a bunch of the shows that are based there (Law and Order SVU, NYPD Blue, Oz, The Jury, Without a Trace). She's probably gearing up for an appearance on CSI: NY any day now.

This makes another "famous" person that I know/knew from my regular, everday life. And this got me to thinking (well, this, and an email from Y telling me that the P Diddy birthday party was happening right next door to her) about my top 5 "famous people sightings" of all time. Now, I'm not talking about the famous people I've come in contact with while working, because that's work, and it's not a big hoo-hah to have to deal with your Britney Spears and your Jessica Simpsons and your Michael Jacksons when you're working at a big recording studio. And I'm not talking about seeing a person outside of the dressing room in an informal meet-and-greet after their concert (I have the photographic and signatorial evidence of this happening with Diana Krall).

No, I'm talking about the sitting down in a restaurant with your cousins and spotting David Duchovny at a table 30 yards away with a pregnant Tea Leoni, and seeing D.B. Sweeney walk up to them as he's leaving to say "hey".

That, by the way, is number 3 on my list.

Number 5: A couple weeks ago, I'm at the Apple Store in the Glendale Galleria, buying some software for one of the producers on the show, and as I'm paying the cashier, I sense a guy standing behind me. I reach forward with my money and glance behind me, and the cold, dead stare of Clarence Boddicker greets me. You know, the imperious father of Robert Sean Leonard in Dead Poets' Society...or the dictatorial father of Eric Forman on That 70's Show. Kurtwood Smith. Dude's got a big head on a skinny little body, let me tell you. Looks just as cranky in person as he does on film. I don't know what he was buying since, as soon as I was done, I hightailed it outta there before he could criticize me for being a slacker.

Number 4: Back in Boston, when I was at Berklee, I saw Moxy Fruvous at the Paradise Rock Club. The day after the show, I was setting up for a weekly recording session in one of the studios, which required me to grab a drum kit from the ensemble department. As I entered the office, I did a double-take, as The King of Spain himself, Dave Matheson, was standing at the counter, inquiring about finding a group with which to jam. Apparently, he thought that at Berklee, kids just spontaneously jumped into the practice rooms together at all hours of the day in order to get freestylin' funky, layin' down some jazz grooves and afro-cuban beats and electric guitar solos all willy nilly and he wanted a piece of that action. Unfortunately, he came during regular school hours, which meant everyone was in class, so he had no one to play with. I mentioned to him that I saw him the previous night with Moxy and told him that they rocked.

Number 3: The David Duchovny thing.

Number 2: This one kinda sorta squeaks in here, even though it breaks the rules previously stated about the after-concert thing. Because it was so totally unplanned and unexpected. I was up in Toronto for Lilith Fair in '97, hanging out with some friends from the Tara MacLean mailing list. Tara was on the Nettwerk label, and our grassroots support of her and Nettwerk was much appreciated by her manager, Dave. At this show, I had hooked up some really good seats in the front section, but I found out when I got there that my seat, along with those around it, had been torn out so that they could set up cameras to film the show (footage of this show was what made it to the Lilith Fair DVD). The concert people had set the displaced ticketholders with seats further out, which didn't bother me too much since I was more content to check out the side-stages outside of the main staging area. At the end of the show, the nomad seatholders were gathered in front of the stage and all given free T-Shirts as a bit of compensation. The problem for me was that this gesture of goodwill took so long to happen that all of the audience had left by the time we got the shirts, including my friends and the cars they had brought me in.

I knew that two of my friends had been hanging out with Tara's manager, and so I desperately asked some of the security guards to radio around to see if they were still with him. I became more and more frightened that I would be stuck at the Molson Amphitheatre for the night when one of the Nettwerk organizers heard my plight and offered to bring me backstage to look for my friends and Dave. I got back there and wandered around a bit before finally seeing the two girls non-chalantly seated at a table. Relieved, I sat down with them and showed 'em my swag. Dave strolled up and gave us all Sarah McLachlan t-shirts for free, and then we saw HER walk by. Sarah went up to an older couple and hugged them happily; we deduced that they were her parents. As they talked, we three nervously discussed if we should say hi; I'm not sure which of us finally decided to walk up to her, but I know it wasn't me.

I don't remember too much, but I do remember Sarah seeing my t-shirt, which was a fan-designed, fan-made tshirt from the Sarah McLachlan mailing list, and going "Oh, you're a fumbler?" (which is the nickname the people on the list go by). I proudly said yes, and then told her that Lois from Texas says hi (Lois being one of the fumblers that Sarah knew personally), and Sarah said to say hi back. And that was that. She was very smiley and gracious and sweet. I wish we had had a camera for that experience.

And finally, Number 1: Harvard Square. Soph and I have just come from the Brattle Theater after seeing 2 Studio Ghibli films, one of which was Grave of the Fireflies, a movie so sad that if you watch it, you better make sure that you have nothing planned for the next week because you'll be crying so much, you won't HAVE the strength to do anything else. Seriously, it's fucking heart-wrenching. We stand at the bus-stop on Mass Ave, right on the corner of the Harvard Campus, waiting to pick up the bus back down to Boston.

A girl walks in front of us with a guy. A cute girl. A brunette. My eyes follow her, and it slowly registers. She looks a lot like Natalie Portman. I'm not sure if it is her, but I do recall reading some snippet of rumor somewhere that she was going to Harvard (this was back when her going there was a secret). I nudge my sister and point her out, saying "I think that was Natalie Portman." By this time, she's walked around the corner and out of our sight. Gosh, if she isn't just as super beautiful in person as she is on the big screen. For those few seconds, I'm head-over-heels. When we get back to our apartment, I search the 'net and thread it together that she is indeed at Harvard, and that, in all probability, that was her.

And I almost touched her. *sigh* Here come the restraining orders right now.

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