Seeing famous people

One of the things that's cool about living in Southern California, besides the weather, the scenery and the produce, is knowing you always have a chance to see someone famous. Not boring famous, like the people my mom let everyone know she knew -- Nobel prize winners, leading academics of all sorts. The people here are the flashy, trashy kind of famous that attracts people like moths.

Unfortunately I rarely ever see anyone famous. I'm always a few minutes too early or too late when I visit The Grove or the Malibu Mart. It's not like I'm transfixed or anything, I just like seeing famous people. I don't want to talk to them -- I really don't like talking to strangers in general. I just want to note that I've seen them.

But today when we went up for our weekly pilgrammage to Ojai to the farmer's market(they have the best flowers -- cheaper than at the Ventura farmers market)we saw Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. You'd notice him even if he weren't famous. He's about 6'4" and has a shock of "glowing" (Rob's word) white hair. The man doesn't blend into a crowd. Mary Steenburgen looked like a run-of-the-mill Ojai matron. She's tall -- my height (5'9") and thin. She's an attractive woman who looks her age, not all plastic-y and freaky the way so many do.

They had these annoyed/wary/scared expressions on their faces. I kind of understood. Back when I was younger, I used to be fairly attactive and, for some reason, men felt they could approach me or honk and yell at me. It really sucked. There you are wandering around in your own little world, entertaining yourself by observing and just enjoying a nice day and someone feels they can come up and be all in your face. Father Time has taken care of that problem for me, but for Ted Danson, the attention must be constant. Even in Ojai, where people pride themselves on their cool, there was a ripple of "That's Ted Danson" and "Where's Mary?"

The most famous person I've seen since I moved here was Ray Charles who was on a flight Lindsay and I were taking home from Ohio. He was reading braille, which is weird because you almost never see people reading braille (BTW Does anyone besides me find having braille on the key pads at ATM drive-thrus to be hysterical?). The flight was actually delayed a bit so they could load him and his band and everyone looked annoyed until word got out that it was Ray Charles, and then no one seemed to mind. And if one more person replied to my "I saw Ray Charles." with "He didn't see YOU!" I was going to smack him/her.

I saw Corbin Bernsen once at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. I heard a kid screaming, "Daddy, Daddy!" really hysterically and the mom in me immediately looked to find out what was going on. I ascertained it was Corbin Bernsen and a dark-haired kid who looked about 6 or 7. I must have given Corbin Bernsen a dirty what-are-you-doing-to-that-poor-child look because he hustled away looking worried.

We see people like Peter Strauss and Bruce McGill in Ojai from time to time. We've never seen Larry Hagman, despite his claims to the area. I see Michael Pare from Eddie and the Cruisers all the time because he lives near here and loves Tony's Pizzaria even more than I do. Bonnie Franklin also lives nearby and I saw her at the Ventura farmers market one time.

Oh yeah, we saw John Travolta when he was filming Swordfish in downtown Ventura. We took Jersey (our dearly departed cocker spaniel)there to get her discovered, and also because we could later see the movie and know we were there. He was really gracious and got out to wave at the crowd before being whisked off by limo to his house in nearby Montecito.

I'm not going to count the people we've seen at the local repertory theater -- The Rubicon -- because I don't think it counts when you see someone performing. They have to actually intersect your life randomly for them to count as your new best friend.

Like our new good buddies Mary and Ted.

Update!
I sent an item in to Defamer, a gossip web site that has a Privacywatch section where readers end in items about famous people they've seen. Yes. I'm THAT shallow. Anyway they put it in this week's editions.

I TOLD you things were looking up.