Name Dropping Like It's Hot!

Ya know, watching the Oscars was so fun, I mean, isn't Ellen just the best...that selfie?! Common!  Isn't it funny how you watch something and then you think that the people in it are sort of your friends and you kind of miss them after it's over.  It was like that selfie was stuffed full of all my dumb friends (and Lupitia's brother) who are all out having this super awesome night and I had to stay home and do Algebra...more likely they were just driving down by Utah Lake but they wanted me to think they were having a super awesome time so they were all really-hard-laughing when Bradley took the picture so I'd feel left out...well I did.

It's funny to think of Celebrities as normal people.  They don't fly or anything, they poop just like the rest of us (Meryl) and yet, they transcend.  Somehow and ridiculously they transcend.

So, in an effort to knock them down to size...or perhaps to elevate me to their level, I now present my list of celebrity interactions.  All of them true but in no particular order only that of my remembering them:

• I saw Victor Garber shopping in a Mall in LA.
• I sat on a the floor of a stage Cate Blanchett was performing on. (It shouldn't count but I was on the floor looking at her feet which were two feet away! Pun given and intended.)
• I saw Frances McDormand in the lobby of that same play.
• Also Either Joel or Ethan Coen, which ever one is married to Frances McDormand.
• I helped Angela Lansbury pick out pillows at Pier 1.
• I saw Sean Hayes buying a pretzel in a mall in LA and I got in line behind him and did the only thing a person can do when so extremely close...I sniffed his neck.
• I met Jane Krakowski and her mother at a party in NYC.
• I sang a song at Lance Bass' birthday party...he didn't seem super impressed.
• Ryan Gosling told me I was F@#$%ing amazing after seeing me in a play I was in...he did seem super impressed.
• I've done improv with both- Kirby Hayborn and Will Swenson...who is now married to Audra McDonald who I saw in concert once.
• I'm in a Book Club with Lisa Valentine Clark who was listed as one of the '100 Coolest Mormon Women Alive Today' and is currently on the cover of Utah Valley Magazine...also, our book club is closed.
• I was once at a party with Chloe Sevengy, TR Knight, Ellen Green, Mamie Gummer, Barbara Cook, Zachary Quinto, Guy from ugly Betty, Andrea Martin, Sean Hayes, Kristin Chenoweth, the guy who played Will's boyfriend on Will and Grace for a little bit, Steven Schwartz (wrote Wicked) Stephanie Seymour, Cheyenne Jackson, Kelli O'hara, Mo Rocca, Lee Pace, John Stamos, Brooke Shields,Tori Spellings mom, Ace Young, Alfred Molina, and Alan Cumming... I know this because instead of doing anything else at the party I walked around with my phone and made a horribly spelled list so I would never forget never talking to these people.
• I saw Tina Faye's back.
• I once met Sean Hayes and told him that I sniffed his neck in a mall in LA.
• I ripped my pants in front of Mariah Carey, who looked me up and down and then said to her two huge bodyguards, "Oh no." then crossed the street.
• I said hello to Kate Winslet at an Anthropologie in NYC.
• I started a fitting room for Amy Poehler at an Anthropologie in NYC.
• I went on a date with the girl from Major Dad...only one.
• Heath Ledger once gave my wife a knowing head nod right in front of me.
• I got hamburgers with Kathy Griffin. 
• Ryan Gosling came back to see my play a second time and again told me I was great using multiple expletives.
• I chased after Ty Burrell only to catch up to him and then address his daughter by name even though we'd never met.
• I met Sean Hayes a third time and gave him a copy of the New York Times review of a play I was in where they stated, "Livingston gave a good Sean Hayes-ian performance."

Needless to say, they are all chumps, all these people passing in and out of my life and has one...even one called me back?!!!

No.

Whatever...


Sean if you're reading this, just leave your phone number in the comments section on Facebook and I call you as soon as I can.


Oh yeah,

• Sean Hayes asked me in front of my wife if I was straight.

My Complex Relationship with Celebrities

With the Grammy’s last week and the Academy Awards coming up in two weeks, it would appear this is the season for award shows and Hollywood mucky mucks to congratulate each other on being awesome and attractive and so rich that they actually sneeze money.

By and large, I try not to learn too much about the personal lives of our nation’s most abundant commodity – our celebrities. Why, you yourself have most likely observed as well that the more you learn about somebody famous, the more you are disappointed to hear about their political agendas, or their social calendar, or their propensity for flicking children and small animals in the ear and other personal choices. Or they’re Mel Gibson, the action star of your youth who now seems to have more vices than offspring and he just kind of makes you sad.

So rather than invade their privacy, I prefer to just let their body of work speak for who they are. This is why I believe I would enjoy a road trip with Tina Fey or Bono (both of whom I conclude to be extraordinarily creative in their respective trades), and why I won’t go to dinner with John Malkovich or Christopher Walken (both of whom I conclude would kill me before dessert arrived). (Walken with a gun, Malkovich with a fork to my forehead.) 

My friend Kacy and I were recently discussing the complexity of our relationships with celebs. You want to just admire them for their talent, but you can’t help but wonder, “Would we be best friends if we knew each other?” And you kind of want to say “Of course!” But the more you learn, the more your eyes get big and your eyebrows raise, until finally, your eyes are huge and your eyebrows are so high you look like Groucho Marx. (Who I don’t know well enough to decide if we would have been friends.)

So, which celebrities do you think you’d be best friends with? And what makes you think so?