‘Cause You Know You Love Celebrities

I’m on my way to Book Soup  on Sunset Boulevard to see a reading by an author named Malina Saval.  She is an cool woman.  My movie agent, who is also her movie agent, invited me. He represents many fiction writers.

Yup, I’m that Hollywood.  I can drop names.  I can talk about my movie agent.  Doesn’t mean I’ll ever have a movie option.  Doesn’t mean I can make rent this month…but I like saying it.  It gives me Hollyhood street cred.

Anyway, I’m headed to the reading…and there is chaos across the street from the bookstore. Red carpet, paparazzo, the whole deal.  I’m early, and I love a scene, so I go stand on the edge of the parking lot by a security guard and film with my fancy new website camera (thank you mom!)

The guy next to me is visiting from Vermont.  Turns out he’s headed to the reading too.  He is the father of  Malina’s best friend. We are both checking out the celebrity action.  Real Hollywoodites would not be caught dead doing that kind of thing.  He’s got Vermont as an excuse, and I have this website!

But let’s be honest… I’d do it even without the website. *

So this was the scene:

Now for the video…and please note the pretty-boy tool waiting patiently for her. He’s my favorite part.

At the time, I thought he might be a publicist or assistant or junior agent.  I felt bad for him, having to wait around while everyone slobbered over this chick (I didn’t find out who she was until a few days later either – paparazzi call this ID’ing the Star…I got a lot of inside info on Paparazzi, and one day I’ll tell you why…and that, in Hollywood lingo, is a teaser). Then I saw this guy in US Weekly with her and realized that he and Duff are actually in a relationship.  His name is Mike Cormie and he’s a hockey player.

From USmagazine.com, April 24th, 2009:

Hilary Duff has a fan in her boyfriend, Mike Comrie.

“It’s always fun watching her work,” he told Usmagazine.com Thursday.

He adds that they make an effort to cheer each other on — Duff is a staple at Comrie’s hockey games — whenever they get the chance.

“We have fun,” the NHL star told Us. “We both live such different lives, but it’s always fun to support each other and spend time when we get to.”

With Comrie playing in Canada and Duff shooting across the country, the couple has few moments together in the same city.

“If it’s worth it, you make it work,” Comrie said.

Seconds Duff: “It’s natural for us, which I think is great. I think that we both have busy jobs, and we’re both very focused people, so that helps, too. Since we are apart so much, its not like one person is at home waiting for the other.”

After the interlude by the car, Duff headed for the red carpet.  I said to the Vermont guy:  “Let’s get closer.”   He was so cool, he didn’t give it a second thought.  We raced up to the press line like we had a mission.  The security guard you saw in the video (also cool) pretended he didn’t see us run right past him

I pushed through the paparazzi (”paps”) and got these pictures:

Then this publicity chick wearing way too much makeup and holding a clipboard came up to me:

CHICK: Who are you?  This is for press only.

ME: I’m press.

CHICK: Oh yeah?  Who are you with?

ME: Entertainment Weekly.

CHICK: Um, and where is your press pass?

ME: (stumbling over my words ‘cause Improv was never my strong point) I…uh….left it in the car.

CHICK: Well, you can’t be here without it.

ME: Ha Ha.  Just kidding!  I’m going to a reading across the street!  I’m not press at all!  Ha ha!

CHICK: (not amused) I know.

ME: Bye!  (Me and Vermont guy run across the street laughing.  I’m an idiot, I know.)

I know, through my extensive sources (teaser) that I could sell these pictures to the paparazzi for a lot of cash.  And I could use the money.  But, as much as I am a publicity whore who loves attention (buy my book, High Before Homeroom, Simon & Schuster, Summer 2010) I would never stoop that low.  On second thought, ask me again when August rent is due.

Then I went to the reading. Malina Saval wrote this amazing nonfiction book called The Secret Lives of Boys:

It is honest and funny and heartbreaking. She interviews all these teenage boys, and I don’t know how she does it, but she gets them to tell the truth about the world in a way teenagers rarely do.

One of her subjects was actually at the reading.  His pseudonym in the book is Apollo, and I met him before the reading started.  There were a lot of Hollywood types there.  I was sitting next to my movie agent, and everyone wanted to talk to him,  having whole conversations with him and ignoring me like I was a hooker he picked up on the street…’cause so many people take their whores to books signings.  It was like I was invisible…and that’s Hollywood (at least an element of it) in a nutshell.

So I excused myself.  Apollo was sitting alone in the front row, so I went up and introduced myself.  He was really cool.  He told me he was in Malina’s book, and had written a novel himself, kind of a sci-fi speculative piece. He gave me his number but I lost it.

If you read this, Apollo, will you email me?  I want to read your book. I’ll put a chapter on this website for everyone to read.

After Malina read one of her interviews, which was totally absorbing and reminded me how old I am (I didn’t get half the references), she introduced Apollo to the crowd. She said that Apollo was the subject of the interview she had just read.

I was shocked. He introduced himself to me by his real name.  The Apollo from the book and the kid I met at the reading were very different.  The book kid was talkative, pretentious, full of himself, ironic, sharp-tongued.  The kid I met was much more shy and introspective.

Apollo was fourteen when Malina interviewed him.  He’s eighteen now.  When he got up in front of the crowd, I could tell he was shy and embarrassed by the attention, but also honored by the recognition.   He admitted to the crowd that, since the interview, he had grown up and changed a great deal.  I was on a lot of meth then, he added.

It wasn’t an apology.  He was just stating fact.

I understand Apollo.  I changed a lot from fourteen to eighteen.  I tried on many personalities in those years.

I think I’m a prep.  Nah, that isn’t working. I can’t breathe in this sweater vest, and the plaid skirt itches the fuck out of me.  Maybe I’ll paint my fingernails black and wear an anarchy sign and hang with the goth kids for a while.  Why are the goth kids so negative?  I’m not hardcore enough…they see straight through me.  How about the theatre geeks? The fat girls and stage manager future dykes of america and closeted gay boys. They get me, I think. That’s where I belong. Then again…

I did coffee shop intellectual.  I read bad, angsty poetry at open mike nights (I miss Medina’s in the Paseo).  I did hippie chick.  I did deep loner who read Jack Kerouac and scrawled in notebooks.  That one lasted about four seconds.

So, reader, what did you try?  Tell me so I won’t feel so alone.  Write in my comments section.  You can use a fake name if you want.

But the thing about Apollo…at fourteen, he had self-awareness and insight I find awe-worthy.  While I was stumbling through life trying to figure out who the hell I was, Apollo actually had opinions about things.  Yeah, he grew up in LA where there was great shit going on, and I grew up in Oklahoma where the only shit  was coming out the asses of farm animals (so bad, I know)… still.  Fourteen-year-old Maya is jealous and admiring of fourteen year-old Apollo.

Yeah, some of his fourteen year old self probably embarrasses him now, but I think he had real guts.  He still does.  He must have felt naked as we listened, with rapt attention, to his younger self.

I wonder what he will do with the rest of his life.  I figure it will be something fucking amazing.

Email me, Apollo.