May 05, 2004 - 3:33 PM

3 Stars, 2 Cars, 1 Happy Me

What happens when you see three lower-tier TV stars in one week? Is there some sort of equivalency rating system where a Soleil Moon Frye plus a Kyle Secor sighting is equal to one, I dunno, Pierce Brosnan?

Monday of last week, a friend who had just finished her internship at the studio and taken her last exam invited me out to Dimples, a bar in Burbank that heralds the fact that it is the first Karaoke bar in America. We were celebrating her impending graduation from College with a few drinks and possibly a few songs. As we drank at the bar, watching the various patrons take their turns at the mic, she pestered me to choose something to sing from the 500 page catalog. She herself chose a Whitney Houston trifle while I, deliberating between Chris Isaak's "Baby Did a Bad Thing" and Petula Clark's "Downtown", decided on the perkier of the two. Now all I had to do was wait my turn, and what better way to do so than by knocking back a few shots of Scotch to steel my nerves and fuzzy my logical "no, don't do it!" mental centers.

Unfortunately (yes!), the MC, who kept a clipboard with the names and requests, opted to streamline things, skipping over us and going with the more entertaining choices, including a rousing rendition of "Baby Got Back." One performance she didn't skip over, though, was a painfully flavorful piece of 80's synth-pop-rock that I didn't know (but which I'm sure my cousins' Tony or Matt would have recognized instantly). Two guys performing as the Duo-liciously named "Sexual Chocolate" had already dueted on 2 songs that night, but one of them got up for this third song, this time with Lex Luthor. Seriously. The Chocolate member of the pairing teamed up with Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex on the WB show Smallville, to cavort about on stage in silly hats and serenade us with silly lyrics.

Two points should be made: Lex was with a party of friends, and one of the friends was a girl with whom he appeared to be quite friendly (in a tasteful PDA kind of way), so all that homo-erotic tension between him and Clark Kent on the show probably really is just part of the acting; and, beneath that straw hat which he wore so gaily on stage, one could see the growing stubble coloring inside his hairline, belying the usual smooth-shavedness he wears for his character.

Then on Tuesday, as reported in my last entry, cousin Matt and I were at Largo to see Sam Phillips. While in line outside before the doors opened, Matt pointed out someone else waiting in the queue.

"Did you see him?" he asked.

"Who?"

"I thought you saw him, he walked right past you. The guy from Ally McBeal."

"Which one?" I wondered as I flipped through my rolodex of tv stars.

"The one who had the, you know, the fetish." Matt weakly offered.

"Peter McNichol?" I responded while thinking to myself "Didn't they all have some sort of weird fetish on that show?"

"No, not him, I don't think...the other one, who had the..." Matt trailed off.

"Oh, the guy who liked the wattles?" I excitedly replied, making the universal sign for wattleage by flicking my finger underneath my chin at non-existant chicken-neck skin. "The Fish. Greg Germann."

"Yeah, I guess...I never watched the show" Matt shrugged.

Obviously feeling the scorn and shame for knowing the name of the actor, I countered by pointing out that Matt knows plenty of bit-part character actors' names himself, including Peter McNichol (hello Dragonslayer and Ghostbusters 2). Matt just laughed this off until he slipped, allowing me to zing him but good.

For he admitted freely to knowing of Greg Germann from his turn on the show Ned & Stacey. While I do know as well as he who the "stars" of that show were (Thomas Haden Church [what was with that day-glo orange tan on Tombstone?] and Debra Messing [aka. the terribly unfunny screeching faux-Lucille Ball]), I wasn't so armed with useless information as to be able to identify who the supporting cast of the show was. Ha HA! I ribbed Matt mercilessly for 36 seconds on that revelation.

Another celebrity would join us for a concert, this time on Saturday night. Matt and I ventured to McCabe's in Santa Monica to experience an evening with Susan Werner. While I think the show may have been a little too jazz-oriented for Matt's taste, I fully enjoyed myself as I always do at a Susan show (hell, that's no surprise considering that I've seen her over 30 times in the 10 years that I've been a fan...and, no, I'm not a stalker...see? nowhere in the restraining order does it say the word "stalker"). Also having a good ol' time in the audience was Camryn Manheim of the TV show The Practice, who Matt spotted with his keen eye. She's been a regular at Susan's shows around L.A. for as long as I've been seeing her out here, and apparently, she and Susan have become friends.

Susan's new album that she's pimping, called "I Can't Be New", features all original compositions written in the style of the Great American Songbook, ie. the tunes that Cole Porter and George and Ira Gershwin wrote back in the 20's and 30's that became Standards. Since she was doing mostly songs from this album, she toned down her usual rollicking folksy performance to present a more intimate affair. Still, there was her trademark wit and humor present in the songs and the banter which I find so winning. She even surprised me by pulling out a new cover that I'd never heard. I consider Susie to be a master at the art of covering songs, never content on just copying the song exactly, but instead reinventing it in her own personal way as she has done with the Beatles' "Help", The Byrds/Pete Seeger's "Turn Turn Turn", Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me", and many more (she even turned the Jobim classic "The Girl from Ipanema" into a mid-west bossa called "The Boy from East Dubuque"). Saturday night, she went with Bob Marley's "Waiting in Vain", done quietly, beautifully. Mmmmm.

That's 3 TV stars (two of them from David Kelley shows, I now realize) in one week. Interesting. I don't know if they hold a candle to two other celebrity type sightings I've had recently. One was about a month ago, as I was driving to school. Actually, it was two days in a row. As I pulled up to a stoplight, I looked to my left and noticed in the parking lot of the Best Western a big UPS style delivery truck, only it was painted black with a BPRD logo on the side. The rear doors had the slogan "Hellboy is Real!" plastered across them. Yes the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense were out in full force that Thursday and Friday, finding mystical demons and evil sorcerers to defeat. Coincidentally enough, the live-action movie that documents their exploits, "Hellboy" came out that weekend. I should've stopped by and asked the team how they thought their work was portrayed in the movie, and how much input they had into representing their lives accurately on the big screen.

But the most stupendous sighting I've had in L.A. occurred a few months ago. I was driving south on the 405 to my cousin Tony's place. Traffic was slow since it was a Saturday afternoon, and I let my gaze wander across the lanes to the Carpool lane. And my jaw dropped. For there, in all it's tubular glory, was the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. There was the driver up front in that lowered cockpit, and raised up behind him like on a charter bus, were the passengers (it looked like maybe 6 people could fit up there). It was beautiful, a shiny, clean missile of brown and yellow.

What makes the experience even more astonishing (I know, what could be more amazing than driving alongside the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile...well, yeah, actually being INSIDE it would be like riding in Apollo's chariot) was what happened next. Wishing to share my abundant good fortune with someone, I dialed Nick on the cell phone and blurted out to him "I'm on the 405 headed to Tony's, and you'll never guess what is driving next to me in the carpool lane!"

Nick paused with an "uhhmmm..." and then, I swear to God, responded "The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile?"

I was stunned to the point of peeing my pants. "How the fuck did you know? That's fucking insane?! Oh my fucking god!" I shouted as I looked around, trying to see if Nick was actually in traffic with me, or perhaps hiding in the backseat of my car.

"No, I just thought 'what would be the coolest thing that Paulkim could see on the road that would make him so excited', and I thought of the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile."

That's when you know that you've got a best friend. When he knows that you would get super-hyped about the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile and call him about it. Either a best friend, or else you guys have gotta get lives. Separate lives.

Now Listening To : Sam Phillips- A Boot and a Shoe (I saw her again at Borders in Westwood for a Gilmore Girls promotion. very nice woman)
Random Thought : My tonsils are swollen. I am sick. And it's 96 degrees outside. That's just wrong.

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