Monday, April 30, 2007

Happy Birthday to you...

I've fallen into bad old habits in the past month or so, and I should really be practicing more self-control. I'm really only hurting myself.


On another note, today is my twin nieces' birthdays, the big 3... They are absolutely, unquestionably the two most adorable children on this planet. No contest. Don't believe me? How about now...



SEE!?!





Thursday, April 26, 2007

Rat Race

My mouth is sooo sore.
Ah the rat race.
Last night was extremely stressful. My boss asked if I had any time to enjoy myself, and I think I found a polite way of saying "not really". Yeah, it was fun walking around trying to convince the celebrities to come partake in the Dance Heads fun, walking my clients down the red carpet and being denied interview with all but 4 media outlets (but I DID get Access Hollywood, so that's a pat on the back - bet you can see me in the background if you watch tonight).
Part of me wants to name drop, but who cares? It's just the rat race.
Yet, I felt like if I had balls, they would have been huge last night. It made me feel a little high and mighty approaching these celebrities and actually having them listen and be receptive. I got some good 'celebs' to partake, got some celeb arms around my shoulders like we're old buddies, I made them laugh, I made them feel good and have fun, I got to get feisty with some. Isn't it strange, that sense of pride, or accomplishment, or validation, or essentially confidence I get from that sort of situation; being able to treat celebrities like they're an average Joe; being able to walk right up, make them laugh and then convince them to do something, without them realizing that I've convinced them of anything...? I don't like that I get confidence from a situation like that, because why should they be able to have that effect on me? I don't even know them; why does a stranger have that sort of power over me? And yet, at the same time it's as though I have some sort of power over them, which I'm thinking is why it also feels good, at the same time as feeling bad.
Anyway, rambling, blah blah blah.
The one name I WILL drop, because I talked to him for a long time and he was pretty damn chill, funny, interesting, and genuine, is Andy Milonakis. I approached him - well, intercepted actually, he was walking towards me looking for a lighter - to do Dance Heads and we got to talking. We talked about a movie series that, of course, I can't remember the name of now, but it sounds very interesting and my intern has seen it, so I'll just ask her. Blah, rambling again, we talked for about 15 minutes and then I brought it back to the Dance Heads topic and he said he'd make a video with me if I "found him fire". So I did and we went over to do it. Then he ran into a celeb friend and ditched me like a passed out prom date. But whatever, I'm a fan of the chick he did it with and talked to her a bit, so that's cool. They have history, I didn't.

Anyway..... that was the night. Well, other stuff too, but Eeyore doesn't feel like going into it right now. Today is Josh and my year 'anniversary'. I put it in quotes because, from what date do you actually start counting? We made a special day a month ago on the day we met, and today is the day we actually declared, "you are my girlfriend"/"you are my boyfriend." And we said it just like that. No we didn't, I'm kidding. Ha. Boy what a mood I'm in today. Exhausted. Yet not too much to type apparently. I think I'm procrastinating because I don't have any motivation to work.

Bye.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Kickin it back to the old school, cuz I'm an old fool, who's so cool

So I'm going to a movie premiere tonight for one of our clients. Actually, I'm only going to the premiere party, not the actual premiere, and I'll be working some of that time (but playing for some of it also). I'm allowed to bring a guest, so Josh will be playing (at the open bar) for ALL of it. But the best part: the movie is "Kickin' It Old Skool". Yeah, you heard right, Jamie Kennedy's new movie. This should be ridiculous. On top of all that, the premiere night is 80s themed, so I have to dress in eighties style, yet still look professional for it. Funny thing is, I'm wearing exactly what I wore to last week's Dance Right, and I should glide by the other costumes just fine. It better be a good time because I'm on salary and I don't get paid overtime for these 15 hour work days (again, hopefully I'll be playing most of that extra time). And why in the world I have to arrive an hour and a half before the party starts is beyond me. There are 3 of us staffing the event and there isn't even any real objective for us being there, besides: try to find media to come partake in our client's product. Furthermore, when I asked what media outlets are being allowed inside the party, the response was basically 'I don't know... if any". But if the booze is free, call me a satisfied employee!

Our client is interesting; hard as hell to pitch to media, but funny if you’re actually partaking in the product. It’s called Dance Heads. It basically a karaoke for dancing, but that doesn’t even really explain it. This is how it works: two people sit in front of a green screen with green smocks draped over them so that the only thing that isn’t green on the mini-set is their heads. Across from them is a TV monitor, like during karaoke. On the monitor are the bodies of professional dancers. You pick a song and the video starts. Your heads are superimposed onto the professional dancers' bodies, but they’re not proportional, they’re big like bobble heads. As the music plays and you watch the video of your head on a dancer’s body, you move your head along to the screen and then they burn it onto a DVD for you to take home with you. See, it sounds lame because you’re just sitting there, moving your head, but if you or a friends are partaking in it, it’s pretty humorous to watch. People can rent Dance Heads for big parties, events, fairs, whatever.

I have to get another tooth filled before this ‘event’. Luckily it’s not nearly as bad as my last one, during which they might as well have removed the entire tooth. All the meanwhile these wisdoms just keeping pushing through. Can’t I just keep them?

Friday, April 20, 2007

Say it ain't so, Alec!

So I'm really sad about this whole Alec Baldwin-threatening-phone-call-to-his-daughter situation. Okay, that sounds so dramatic. Why would I be "really sad" about it? I'm just a little disenchanted because Alec Baldwin is one of my all time favorite actors!! Before this incident, he could do no wrong in my eyes. Well, I guess he could... and he did.

If anyone is not familiar (if you listen to morning radio at all you wouldn't have missed it), Alec left a really hateful and threatening message on his 11 year-old daughter's cell phone (although he calls her 12 at first - he doesn't even know her age!). He called her a thoughtless pig and threatened to "straighten her ass out". He said, "you better be ready on Friday the 20th because I'm flying out there for ONE DAY to straighten your ass out and then I'm turning around and flying back home." It's a long message, probably a minute or so of straight bashing, all because the daughter didn't call him back. So sad. I mean disenchanting.

What's worse is that mother Kim Basinger made the recording public, as if Alec's messages to his daughter are any of our business (but hey, now that it's out there, of course I'm gonna blog about it!). But really, that's their business and they need to figure out a way to solve it on their own. He also said something like, "you would NEVER do this to your mother!" So there is obviously some parent rivalry going on there. Kim saw her opportunity to really get the upper hand, not only in her daughter's eyes, but in the public's eyes too, and she took it. Bitch. Just kidding.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

GRINDHOUSE

I should have blogged about this earlier since I saw it over a week ago and loved it. If you haven't seen Grindhouse yet, you MUST, tonight! It was just so good. First of all, the seventies style was just a fabulous cherry on top. I won't ruin any little true-to-form moments of seventies movie theatre goodness, so go see for yourself. Also, the fake previews in the beginning and in between the movies: awesome. PLUS, we saw it at the Mann Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which is so cool inside and I haven't been there since I was about 5 years old seeing Disney movies, so that added to the whole experience.

As for the movies themselves: "Planet Terror" was absolutely fantastic. I'm not going to lie, I love the premise of zombie movies - the whole end of the world, nowhere to turn thing, there's something so intriguing and chilling about it. Yeah, I can be dark. "Planet Terror" kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time and Josh definitely felt me nearly jump on top of him more than a couple times. And of course, as with all good scary movies, I get myself all psyched up to go see it and then regret it afterwards because I'm a big wuss and I have nightmares and feel like someone/thing is about to start chasing me every time I go out to my car at night. Well I didn't regret this one, but I definitely had a nightmare about it that very night; in it, I woke up asking Josh if he's sure the movie was fake only to find out that it was real and we were living it! Ahhh!

Now, surprisingly, "Death Proof" had it's ups and downs. Of course, I figured the Tarantino flick would be a sure thing. But it actually started out pretty slowly. The first half of it you're sitting there thinking, 'when are we going to get some action', but Kurt Russell's character makes up for some of that. His character really gets good towards the end, when the story takes a turn and gets really climactic. But even before that, around halfway through, the movie really picks up with suspense (when the action starts). Again, I was completely on the edge of my seat, during that second half; it's a sweet redemption for the first half.

SO GO SEE IT!!!

Riding the Bus with Rosie

So right now I am watching The View, as a follow up to yesterday's research, to witness the coverage I scored for our client. And you know what? She may be outspoken, obnoxious, and have a bad wrap, but dammit, Rosie O'Donnell is pretty effing FUNNY! When the out of touch middle age Jewish woman says something that is trying to sound wise but really just conveys the fact that she's, well, out of touch, Rosie has no problem making a completely smarmy and sarcastic comment, as if to say, 'yeah, I can't believe I work with these people either'. And it's FUNNY! Obnoxious, yes, but I'll say, the woman ain't half bad.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Riding the Bus with The Soup

Does anyone out there love E! Entertainment's "The Soup" as much as I do? Well there's a particular ongoing joke that Joel McHale makes on that show, that cracks me up each time. Even better, are the times that I think about the joke & the corresponding movie clips during the middle of my day. I just had one of those moments that made my laugh out loud. I'm doing research on ABC's "The View", fishing around it's website. Well, immediately when that picture of Rosie O'Donnell invaded my screen, the image of her playing a retarded - pardon me - mentally disabled person, in the made-for-TV movie "Riding the Bus with My Sister" popped into my mind and I couldn't help myself; I just started laughing aloud in my office. That movie clip Joel shows, that brief moment of goodness, brings joy to my day no matter what. Ahhh...

(Is that messed up of me? Not as messed up as Jonathan's obsession with midget fighting, playing basketball, or... getting freaky - ewwww!!)

Monday, April 16, 2007

The mess he leaves behind

I can barely wrap my mind around the hirrific story that is unfolding right now: the massacre on the Virginia Tech campus. Fox News says the death count is up to 32, ESPN.com says 29, AOL, CNN, & MSNBC all say 22. And allegedly all from one man's doing. The haven't released the dead gunman's name yet, but that's what I'm most interested in at this point; his story. What is so fucked up in this person's head? If he's dead we may never know; all this would have happened and for no reason, not even a vague explanation of the man's psychosis or anything. It's just so sad.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Early Bird wakes up before the hour that bars in New York close and then falls back asleep for too long, thus arriving late to work

So today I had to wake up at 4:30am to staff a two and a half hour Radio Media Tour (RMT, for those of you not in my line of work) for our client. Unfortunately we have to work on Eastern Time if we want to catch interviews on the east coast morning radio shows. I tried to be asleep by 10pm last night but apparently my body doesn't function that way. When it was all finished, around 8am, I went back to bed for a little nap... come 10:45 I wake up realizing I'm about to be two and a half hours late to work. So actually, I guess I was just leveling the playing field.

The RMT gives 15 different morning radio shows across the country a phone interview with the host of our client's American Idol recap/aftermath show. (I'm hesitant to actually give names of the host or the show; aren't people not supposed to make that stuff publicly available in their non-work related blog? Can't have anything working against me, ya know?). So because of this show I work with and these 15 interviews I have to prepare for, I am required to watch American Idol. I've never watched before, I've maybe seen 3 episodes total ever (including last night, which is probably the only one I've seen in its entirety). Of course, I know all about the controversies and gossip, simply due to listening to morning radio and checking TMZ occasionally for my job. But after last night I can understand how America is addicted. Some of these people are so much better than the others and by the end of the show I was saying, "I want Jordan to win, definitely. She's the best singer by far, and I can't believe this Haley chick and Sanjaya weren't eliminated earlier." And I couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth. I'm pretty sure that Josh couldn't either, by the way he was laughing at me.

So this is what working in the entertainment industry does to me: The only things I have to blog about these days are celebrities and pop shows. Eek.

I'm taking notes on a "How to Blog Better" webinar right now for my agency and realizing that I am far from strategically savvy in blogging; apparently they're supposed to be interactive, not just one way... hey, who knew? So on that note, does anyone out there watch or have any opinions on American Idol? Actually, nix that, I don't really care about this topic... and this is all about me, right? (jk, jk, jk)

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The Life of a Celebrity

Okay, this is just so sad... I came across a new celebrity indulging website (okay, found it on a friend's MySpace page, and it happens to be a Buzznet site - what up KRON!). It's JustJared.com and more or less, another Perez Hilton type. Now, I know that the A-list, and even B-list celebrities are bombarded by paparazzi and pretty much never have a quiet or private moment when out in public. Yet still, I am astounded every now and again at certain pictures that really make me realize just how out of control this intrusion of cameras and screaming fans is. This sequence of photos did it for me this time:
(but DAMN does he have a sweet corvette!!)

http://justjared.buzznet.com/2007/04/11/katie-holmes-tom-cruise-corvette/

Obviously someone at the restaurant tipped off the paparazzi that "Tomcat" (I'm sure that at one time or another I've sworn never to use that term) would be dining on their fine cuisine that evening. And it's so sad to see that from the second they pull into the parking lot people are shoving cameras in their faces and there's a line of fans waiting for autographs - I mean, there's a picture of Tom Cruise signing a "Top Gun" poster!! This just strikes me as ridiculous, for what seems like many reasons, yet none that I can name at all.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM, BITCHES!!

Normally I’m bitter about the fact that I am required to show up at work earlier than anyone else. Why does the gal one minute notch above me on the totem pole get to come in almost an hour later than me? And my bosses – why do they come in at 11:30am, if at all?! (because they own the company, that’s why) Well today I wasn’t complaining. We had a sudden interview request for one of our clients this morning and guess who was the only one around to handle… I’m on my way to staff an interview with Fox News’ “The Big Story" with John Gibson. Yeah, I know, Fox News = shitty right wing and totally skewed news source. But they’re a big outlet, and after all, I know my Dad will be watching! Finally, he can relate to me about my job. And it looked good to my bosses for my taking-care-of-business image.