Celebreality, Continued

If you missed #10-#6, start here first. If you enjoyed those, here’s the rest of the list, but first...

The Hottest Celeb I’ve Seen: Christy Turlington. I was never a big fan of hers until I saw her, pretty much without makeup, in a Tribeca restaurant. Then I had some trouble forming words for about 5 minutes.
Biggest Douchebag: Rod Stewart. He was wearing this ridiculous shiny silver suit and had a mediocre blond slut on each arm. If they were hotter, I would be impressed. But they were mediocre, so, tacky.
Looks Most Like He Does On TV: Ben Stein. Saw him in DC, or “Hollywood for ugly people”. I recently found out he is hardcore about intelligent design, and hates evolutionists. Don’t really know what to make of that.
Favorite Celebrity Encounters By Friends: Sara seeing Kevin Connolly on the subway (Way to save your money, Kevin Connolly. Also note how affectionately Sara is holding his shoulder, I think Sara thinks he's really hot. Also note the really creepy look of that Yankees fan on the left - that is actually Kevin Connolly's friend. He might want to stick to hanging out with Jeremy Piven.), Justin’s rendezvous with Zhang Ziyi, Min-Taik getting in the edge of a paparazzi picture of Eva Mendes, then later finding it online, and of course, Ali’s dad trying to get an autograph from “JT” on “Step by Step”.

5. The Homeless Man
I’ve mentioned it before on this blog, but I was at lunch with Shawn, Ido and Amy outside Bubby’s one day, and was surprised to see that the table next to us had 3 “ladies who lunch” and one homeless man. Even weirder, it was like the women knew the homeless man, and everyone was getting along just fine. The homeless guy was wearing a ragged gray t-shirt and gray sweatpants, was in desperate need of both a haircut and shave, and didn’t look like he had showered in months.

Then Shawn suddenly lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “Hey, that’s Harvey Keitel over there.”
Me: “Over where?”
Shawn: “At the table next to us.”
Me: “Dude, that’s 3 moms and a homeless guy.”
Shawn: “That’s Wolf from ‘Pulp Fiction’!”

I spent another 45 seconds or so struggling to comprehend, and also see the guy’s face through all the facial hair. Finally, I concluded it was Harvey Keitel, and was either (1) actually homeless, (2) incredibly disgusting, or (3) method acting for a role as a homeless guy.

A lot of people I know don’t seem to know who he is, but that’s only because they watch crappy movies. If you watch good movies, you no doubt have seen him in his illustrious film career, highlighted by his roles in The Piano, Reservoir Dogs (Mr. White) and Pulp Fiction (Wolf). He was also in National Treasure, which I refuse to watch, even though people keep insisting to me is a good movie. There’s a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence!

4. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Trachtenberg
Bonus points here because it was a 2-for-1. I went to lunch with Amy and there was an empty table an awkwardly close 2 feet from us. Soon after, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Trachtenberg sat down at that table. First, let me say that Sarah Michelle Gellar is extremely attractive in person, much more so than I would have anticipated. Michelle Trachtenberg, well, no. But she was awesome as Nona F. Mecklenberg on The Adventures of Pete & Pete, so I can’t be too critical. It was also kind of nice to see that Buffy and her sister are friends in real life.

Of course, being friends in real life means talking about things friends talk about. For women, that means relationships. Amy and I honestly weren’t trying to eavesdrop, and actually talked about other things the entire lunch, but it was impossible not to hear them, since they were practically spitting on me. (Also, they have nasally voices which are always hard to block out). Sarah Michelle Gellar was dispensing wisdom left and right, trying to explain to young Michelle how difficult relationships really are. She spoke plainly about all the effort needed to keep the romance alive in her marriage to Freddie Prinze, Jr., and how difficult that’s become since his career has become a total train wreck. (She didn’t really say that last part, I just wanted to see how that would look in print).

My favorite exchange of the lunch:
MT: “I want to call him, I think I should just call him.”
SMG: “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
MT: “Really??”
SMG: “Trust me. You don’t call him. Wait for him to call you. That way you’re in control.”
MT: “Okay, I trust you.”

Oh, Sarah Michelle. You sly fox. You play the game so well.

3. Jim Cramer
If you don’t know the story, read about it here.

2. Foxy Brown
A few years ago, I went on a recruiting dinner (yes, improbably, people were trying to recruit me) at Mr. Chow, which if you don’t already know, is a comically ridiculous upscale Chinese restaurant with branches in Los Angeles, New York, London, etc. You don’t get menus there – the waiters just bring you whatever they feel like, and the restaurant charges whatever it feels like. As a lifetime eater of Chinese food, I feel qualified to say that the food was only marginally better than what you would get in a good Chinatown for $16. Our meal (which did include a few rounds of vodka shots) was well over $200 per person. Of course, you’re there for the scene, not the food. And while celebrities of every ilk flock there, Mr. Chow has reached stratospheric levels of popularity with the hip hop community. On our way to the dinner, I was treated to breathless excitement from 40-year old investment bankers.

“Last time I was here, I saw Ludacris!”
“That’s nothing, my last time there I saw Nelly!”
“Please, I went last week and DIDDY came in.” A awed hush fell over the car. That’s because Diddy is really the only hip-hop personality that 40-year old investment bankers can recognize on sight. They love to tell stories of times they saw rappers (even bankers want street cred), but almost always someone else has to explain to them who they’re seeing. Not Diddy, though. When it comes to middle-aged bankers, he needs no introduction.

So as we’re eating, we notice two black guys come in and start talking to the maître d’. The table gets excited – surely a rapper is on the way! About 10 minutes later, those two men come back with another guy and a woman, and the foursome is seated at the table next to us. I recognize the woman faster than I do some of my own friends – it’s Foxy Brown. A hip-hop star right next to us. The bankers are all excited and our table is abuzz. With just one small teensy minor inconsequential caveat.

They can’t figure out which person is the famous rapper.

But they’re excited nonetheless! I suppose there are few thrills in life that compare to seeing a group of people, one of whom you infer must be famous because you’re in a very expensive restaurant and all the people you’re looking at are wearing Phat Farm. After I sufficiently swallowed my laughter, I (and another guy who knew who Foxy Brown was) explained to the rest of the table that the woman was the famous rapper, not the guy she was sitting next to. Then people spent a few minutes debating if she was hot, and eventually our table made some dorky conversation with Foxy Brown that my mind seems to have blocked out.

I learned later that Foxy Brown probably doesn’t think the prices are egregious at Mr. Chow, not because she’s so rich, but because she’s a master of the old dine-and-dash.

As a final note, Lizzie Grubman (unattractive publicist to the stars) was also in the restaurant that night. She’s not really famous in the traditional sense, but you might know her if you (1) have no life and read Page Six all the time, (2) have no life and saw her MTV publicist reality show "PoweR Girls", or (3) are familiar with when she got wasted in the Hamptons and ran over 16 people in an SUV. I accidentally kinda bumped into her ass on the way out, causing her to spill some of her drink on herself. She thought it was some other guy, though, and started yelling at him. Good times.

1. The Chuckster
By a wide margin, my favorite celebrity sighting ever is Charles Barkley, who I saw in the Bellagio in 2006. He was in a designer suit, and he was pissed off. He looked about as angry as the Chuckster can look, and was storming through the hallway very, very quickly. Everyone says his real height is less than 6’5”, but with that look on his face, he sure seemed a lot bigger than 6’5”. I assume he must have just lost millions of dollars. My love for the Chuckster, combined with seeing him in his natural element (losing a ton of money in Vegas) would alone have made it a top-3 celebrity sighting for me. But what really put it over the top was that as he stormed down the hallway, he was being chased by two of the hottest, most scantily clad women I’ve ever seen. I started laughing out loud as I watched the two women chasing Barkley, struggling to stay balanced on their 4-inch heels. I should stress again, though – they were not just run-of-the-mill Vegas sluts. These women were extraordinary. Victoria's Secret model-esque, but minus whatever modicum of class a Victoria’s Secret model possesses.

A valet pulled Barkley’s Hummer up to a special side exit, and Barkley burst through the door, the ladies right on his heels. I could see Barkley mulling over just how he intended to blow off some steam after his night of gambling losses. Then he looked up, and saw the two sluts he had no doubt been with the last several hours. The two women hopped into the car, and it's hard to say for sure, but I think I saw Barkley's anger dissipate, and he smiled ever so faintly.

I love Chuck. He is my hero.