I want to make this review as “non-braggy” as possible, so I’m gonna refrain from giving a list of famous people of whom I’ve been within 100 feet, but just to warn you all, to give examples, I’m still probably going to have to drop a few names.

A picture I took of Naomi Watts and Heath Ledger, back when they were still dating in 2003. Hopefully he didn’t break her nose like he did Jake Gyllenhaal’s.

So, I’m sure you’ve all heard me give examples or tell stories about “When I was in California”, and I’m sure you probably cringe every time I mention it. I actually do when I find myself saying that phrase. The problem is that for people that I haven’t talked to in a while, it makes good conversation, and is probably the most intersting thing I’ve done since senior year of high school. People (who haven’t heard it before) like to hear my “glamorous” stories about the time where I stood in a crowd of hundreds on Hollywood Boulevard, watching dozens of people take pictures of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston making kissy faces at each other at the premiere of her “instant classic” film “Along Came Polly”. Honestly, I was bored. Everyone around me is trying to get a glimpse across the street to the dimly lit figures about as big as if I hold my index finger an arm’s length away from my face and close one eye, and I’m there wondering what the big deal is. I suppose it’s good for “bragging” rights, as anyone who’s seen my “You can kind of make out the back of his crew cut” pictures of the event knows. Yeah, I took some pictures…. yeah, my lense doesn’t zoom…. It was my first time around at an event like that (it actually was the first night I had gone into the hollywood area) and I just happened to have my camera on me. But I was the tourist, and those other people lived there, so I’d hope that grants me a pardon. You’d think that after living in the area for more than I had at least, that the other onlookers would get tired of staring at people for no purpose other than that. Maybe there were a lot of other tourists in the group. I don’t know.

Moving on… working at the tv show that I worked at, I had daily run-ins with notable people… mostly b-list celebrities, and while I was excited going in to see what they looked like close up, most of the time it wasn’t a big deal or I was totally let down. The “beautiful people” as we’re led to believe, usually are no more or less attractive than any moderately attractive person you’d see in everyday life, and in fact, many times are less so. Elisha Cuthbert and Eliza Dushku are the biggest examples of this. Elisha Cuthbert (as well as Avril Levigne) is so remarkably short that you wouldn’t even recognize her if they walked past you. Eliza Dushku just wasn’t very attractive at all in person. Kelly Clarkson looks nothing at all like she does on TV or movies, or album covers without being very heavily made up.

The bottom line is that watching things like red carpet coverage where we learn to worship the idols of TV and film, we de-humanize them, and in that humanizing instance where they’re getting gas at the pump next to us you realize that they’re just above- average-looking people with a good amount of money, and unless they’re total coked out divas, or fried has-been rappers, they’re usually really normal and humble.

Meeting/Seeing celebrities gets two stars as the only real positive that can come of it is being able to tell other people and hope that they actually care (and don’t perceive you as unjustly gloating your “fortune”). Expectations usually will not be met because the media have set such a high standard, making people larger than life with us supposed to care about every little detail of their private lives. In the end, they’re just moderately attractive people who like to play dress-up, or dance around like idiots…. Rob Schneider, I’m looking in your direction on this last one.