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Star
Stupid in Los Angeles. We wake up in this L.A. version
of a cosmopolitan pastoral setting, in Bel Air, to
the sunshine and the rrrr-ing racket of leaf blowers and
mowers on the other side of the canyon to the north. From
the terrace, to the south, we can see the west side of Los
Angeles, the Pacific, and the planes ascending from LAX out
over it. Time to do something. But what?
We drive down to Book Soup for the inevitable New York Times and
the New York Post, and today, the New York Observer.
Back in the car – a red Ford Mustang convertible Budget Rent-a-Car – and
down Holloway Drive to Santa Monica and Kings where Hugo’s
is located.
Hugo’s is a longtime favorite restaurant resident of West
Hollywood, a famous haunt for screenwriters, filmmakers, actors
and neighborhood people. Not the heavy-duty types, but the still
earnest and industrious types; but the dedicated at present.
We sit outside. I order Pasta Mamma, always – a bowl of pasta
mixed with scrambled eggs, garlic and parmesan. Better than the
best. I don’t know what JH ordered. I’m reading Page
Six and I see an item about Gina Gershon who is also
sitting at the next table behind us, with some good-looking young
guy (early 30s) in a buzz cut, white shirt and jeans.
I’m so out of it, I didn’t know it was Gina Gershon.
JH pointed her out and rhapsodized about her in a picture called
ShowGirls. "Oh she was so sexy, such a sexy little body." Gina
Gershon. JH has gone Hollywood, at least for the duration; he keeps
saying things like: “I could live here.” Or, “I
could live here …”
Then
Gina Gershon gets up from her table, and opens up
the fence gate, goes out onto the sidewalk and over to one
of newspaper boxes lining the corner, and gets out a New
York Post (West Coast Edition Same Day). You can tell
by the sound of her voice talking that she is bright and
thoughtful, with a sense of humor. But otherwise you can
tell nothing. She could be Sheila Mae Sarasota from Olympic
Boulevard from the way she’s dressed. But of course
she’s not Sheila Mae etc.
“She seems to do a lot of lesbian scenes and of course all guys like that,” JH
added as she walks back to her table.
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The
item from Page Six of the NY Post. 8/26/03.
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She then sits
down, opens up the paper and says, obviously looking at Page
Six: “what a weird picture of me, I wonder where they
got it?”
I can’t remember what the item about her was. Some press agent
plant, the point being Here I Am.
We finished up, paid the check and went back into the parking lot
behind the place to get the car. Driving out onto Kings Road, there
she was standing solo on the street corner on this bright, hot
day. She must have finished up about the same time we did.
Her ragamuffin get-up, magenta and white print bandana tied up
around her head, dark glasses, a short peplum style jacket, an
orangy red print, over very clingy dark khaki cotton pants, revealed
nothing to the passer-by.
She was standing curbside, talking on her cell (like just about
everybody else in the world wherever you go).
I got all excited and told JH to take a picture. He was busy looking.
Take the picture, take her picture, I kept saying, like a desperate
director. The Digital wasn’t so quick on the uptake, however,
and so you’ll have to take my word for what Gina Gershon looked
like in the flesh. (Most of the time they look as ordinary as the
rest of us, and sometimes even moreso).
Now. I should add, I have never seen Gina Gershon in a picture.
Or even in print, as far as I know. Because I am out of it when
it comes to movies nowadays. I am in the minority, so no one need
worry about my inclination. I should add that I grew up on the
movies and my life is what it is today because of the movies. Its
influence on my civilized existence is all because of the movies.
And when I am in Hollywood, as I am right now, I am conscious of
that childhood wonderment within me, and I love it, even cherish
it, the way you love a great novel.
Gina Gershon. Anna Karenina. Madame Bovary. The Devil and Miss
Jones.
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