This and That – Page 58 – IAMNOTASTALKER

February 11, 2010April 20, 2010

Michael Jackson’s Former Condo

A few months back I read a fabulous book named Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story written by author J. Randy Taraborelli about the life and times of the King of Pop. I’ve mentioned the biography once before in a post I wrote back in September about the Jackson Family’s first L.A. area home. I actually stumbled upon the tome while browsing at a Barnes & Noble bookstore with my fiancé this past summer and once I picked it up, I literally could NOT put it down. I was so absorbed in the book, in fact, that hours later the Grim Cheaper practically had to drag me out of the store – only after agreeing to let me purchase a copy of it for myself, of course. 😉 Because Taraborelli and Michael were longtime friends, first meeting in 1970 at the tender ages of 14 and 11 respectively, the 765-page! book is written from a true insider’s point of view. The best part about the biography, though – well, at least in my opinion – is the fact that it doles out several addresses of places that the pop star called home during his far too brief life. One of those places is the three story condominium that MJ purchased in February of 1981 and lived in for a brief time while his family’s Hayvenhurst mansion was being remodeled. So, since my fiancé and I were in the area doing some Valley stalking two weekends ago, I just had to drag him right out to stalk the place.

Michael purchased the 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom condo, which measures 1,890 square feet, upon the suggestion of his long time lawyer John Branca, who thought it was time the 22-year old singer moved out on his own. The condo cost him $210,000 – $175,000 of which he paid in cash. According to Taraborelli, Michael’s mother, Katherine, footed the remainder of the tab, not because MJ didn’t have the extra $35,000, but because he wanted his mother to own a piece of property – or a piece of a piece of property in this case – apart from her husband Joe Jackson in case the two were ever to separate. Shortly after purchasing the condominium, Michael had a change of heart, though, and didn’t end up moving in. Taraborelli’s book quotes him as saying, “I just don’t feel it’s time for me to move away from home yet. If I moved out now, I’d die of loneliness. Most people who move out go to discos every night. They party every night. They invite friends over, and I don’t do any of those things.” Such a heartbreaking sentiment from someone who, at the time, was, professionally speaking, on top of the world. 🙁

A couple of years later, Michael took over ownership of his family’s Hayvenhurst estate and decided to completely raze the dwelling in order to rebuild a new, much more extravagant abode. Construction of the new mansion, which was Tudor in style, took a full two years to complete during which time Michael and a few of his siblings lived in the Encino condo. While there, Michael invited a journalist named Gerri Hirshey into his temporary home to conduct an interview. In the interview, which was published in the February 17, 1983 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, MJ says to Gerri of his dwelling, “Not what you expected, huh?” And even though Gerri says that he goes on to explain that it is a only a temporary living situation and he “concedes that this is an unlikely spot for a young price of pop”, he would end up owning the place for the rest of his life. And he was right – the complex, which is called the Lindbrook, does not look at all like the kind of place one would expect to find the King of Pop residing in during the height of the “Thriller” years. Which is probably exactly why he chose it. That and the fact that the building is gated. From what I can tell, the complex, which was built in 1973 and is quite large, houses 81 different units. Supposedly Ice Cube even lived there at one time. You can see interior photographs of other units in the building here, here, and here. And here is a photograph taken in 1981 of Michael outside of his condo. Supposedly this absolutely adorable video of Michael dancing with television star Emmanuel Lewis was taken in the living room of the Encino condo, but I have not actually been able to verify that. Either way, the clip is definitely worth a look. 🙂 After Michael and his family moved back into the Hayvenhurst estate, the condo remained vacant with various Jackson family members occupying it intermittently throughout the years. At the time of his death, his sister LaToya’s name was also on the deed.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Michael Jackson’s former condo, the Lindbrook, is located at 5420 Lindley Avenue in Encino. MJ lived in Unit #9. Ice Cube supposedly lived in Unit #4 of the same building.

February 10, 2010June 16, 2011

Cole’s Restaurant from “A Lot Like Love”

This past weekend I dragged my fiancé out to re-stalk Cole’s Restaurant, a location that I originally blogged about way back in May of 2008. I first learned about the old time watering hole while watching the DVD commentary for fave movie A Lot Like Love, during which one of the film’s directors mentions that the New York bar scene featured at the beginning of the flick wasn’t actually filmed on the East Coast at all, but at a historic little bar in Downtown Los Angeles named Cole’s. After doing a bit of online research I discovered that COUNTLESS movies had actually been filmed on location at the historic bar, so I, of course, immediately dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, upon arriving we were greeted by a sign announcing that the restaurant was closed for a massive renovation project. 🙁 And I have longed to stalk the place ever since. So, since we were in the area this past weekend, I begged my fiancé to make a little pit stop there and, since he was hungry at the time, he happily obliged. YAY!

Cole’s actually has a few other claims to fame besides being an oft-used filming location, including the fact that it is not only where the French Dip sandwich was first originated, but it is also the oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant in all of Los Angeles.

Cole’s, which was originally known as Cole’s P.E. Buffet, was first opened on December 8, 1908 by an entrepreneur named Harry Cole in what was once the main terminal of the Pacific Electric Building. That very same year, Cole’s main chef, a resourceful young man named Jack Garlinghouse, dipped the bread of a roast beef sandwich in Au Jus sauce in order to soften it for a customer who suffered from sore gums, and, thus, the French Dip sandwich was born. Those sandwiches, and the restaurant itself, became extremely popular with the hundreds of thousands of commuters who traveled through the Pacific Electric Building terminal each day. Twenty-five years later, in 1933, Cole’s was still such a popular spot that on the day California nixed its ban on beer, the bar served up over 19,000 gallons of the stuff to its parched customers. Yes, you read that right – 19,000 GALLONS in ONE day! That same year, Harry Cole’s son, Rawland, who was a bit of an entrepreneur himself, decided to start cashing checks out of the restaurant’s back room and wound up giving out over $1,000,000 each month (and we’re talking 1930’s money!), which was a larger amount than any U.S. bank was giving out during that same time! Cole’s has also had a longtime celebrity following, attracting such notables as Mickey Cohen who was a regular there during the 70’s and even had his own booth.

In 2007, Cole’s was purchased by a Los Angeles area development company named 213 who subsequently began a year-long, $1.6 million restoration process on the historic restaurant, during which its 40-foot long mahogany bar, porcelain penny tile mosaic flooring, and antique Tiffany glass lamps were all brought back to their original glory. The 213 company, which is headed by C.E.O. Cedd Moses, even added a “secret” bar in what was formerly Cole’s storage room. That secret bar is named “The Varnish” and it is so hidden, in fact, that I had absolutely no idea it was there until I read about it online after I got home. 🙁 For their restoration efforts of the legendary restaurant, 213 was awarded the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Preservation Award.

Cole’s specialty is, of course, its signature hand-carved, made-to-order French Dip sandwich which was originated on the premises one hundred and two years ago. There’s actually another L.A. area restaurant named Phillipe’s also laying claim to that exact same feat and the dispute between the two establishments is almost as old as the sandwich itself. But being that in 1974 the City of Los Angeles designated Cole’s a Historical Landmark Site and a State Point of Historical Interest not only due to its significant location, but also to its culinary invention, I think it’s safe to say that Cole’s has won that battle. 🙂 Cole’s French Dips can be constructed out of a variety of meats, including lamb, pastrami, turkey, and the typical roast beef. They can also be adorned with extra meat, Swiss, cheddar, goat, or blue cheeses, and an “atomic pickle spear”. I opted for a turkey French dip, sans the cheese and pickle, and I have to say it was absolutely A-MA-ZING! The meat truly was hand-carved, right-off-the-turkey-type turkey and I loved every last bite of it. What I loved more, though, was the historic aura of the place. It was incredible to be sitting there, dining on my French dip, thinking about the fact that the very sandwich I was now eating had actually been created on the premises over a century ago. Yes, I’ll take my meal with a side of history, please. 😉 I think it goes without saying that I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Cole’s and I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough!

In A Lot Like Love, Cole’s stood in for the New York bar where Oliver (aka Ashton Kutcher) and Emily (aka Amanda Peet) make a $50 bet that he won’t be a successful married businessman in six years time.

And I, of course, just had to eat lunch while sitting in the same spot where Ashton and Amanda sat in the flick. 🙂

The side booth area that is visible to the left of Ashton in the above screen capture is no longer a part of Cole’s. It was closed off during the restaurant’s recent remodel and is now a separately owned “secret” bar known as the Association. Yes, there are two secret bars located on the Cole’s premises!

The Association’s unmarked front door is pictured above.

In Jumpin’ Jack Flash – one of my all-time favorite movies EVER – Cole’s once again stood in for a New York bar, this time as the place where Terri Dolittle (aka Whoopi Goldberg) gets kidnapped by a man in a tow truck while making a telephone call from a public phone booth.

It is during this scene that Whoopi utters the infamous line “I am little black woman in a big silver box!” LOL

Towards the end of the movie, Whoopi once again runs by the restaurant on her way back to her office after escaping from the police. Cole’s is also talked about throughout the flick as the place where Whoopi and her pals hang out after work. Ironically enough, back before my very first trip to the Big Apple, I spent HOURS using Google Street View to search New York for this location. It wasn’t until years later, when I stalked Cole’s the first time after watching A Lot Like Love, that realized my mistake. I can’t believe I wasted so much time scouring New York for this location, when the whole time it was literally right in my own backyard! 😉

In Rumor Has It, Cole’s stands in for the San Francisco bar named the Fillmore Pub, where Kevin Costner and my girl Jen Aniston share a dance. Ironically enough, before I knew about Cole’s, I actually spent quite a bit of time searching the San Francisco area for this spot! Which means – you guessed it! – that I not only wasted countless hours searching for this location – not realizing it was the same place featured in Jumpin’ Jack Flash – in New York, but in San Francisco, too. LOL Man, I’m such a blonde sometimes!

The scene where Kevin and Jen kiss outside of the ladies’ room after their dance was really filmed in the bathroom area of Cole’s, as well.

The exterior of the restaurant was also used in the filming of the scene, although they changed the signage to read “Fillmore Pub”. As you can see in the above photograph (which was taken during my first Cole’s stalk) and screen capture, though, the signage used in the movie is an exact match to Cole’s real life signage. Love it!

In Forrest Gump, Cole’s yet again stood in for a New York watering hole. It was used as the spot where Forrest and Lieutenant Dan spend New Year’s Eve of 1971. Sadly, though, not much of the bar is visible in that scene.

On a side note – Located directly across the street from Cole’s is a little place named J &J Sandwich Shop, which is the restaurant which stood in for the Night Owl Cafe in fave movie L.A. Confidential.

And located directly above Cole’s is the ninth floor window from which Bud White (aka Russell Crowe) hung D.A. Ellis Loew (aka Ron Rifkin) in the same movie.

Cole’s has also appeared in an episode of The X-Files, in numerous episodes of both Mad Men and NYPD Blue, and it flashed by very briefly in the 1991 movie Guilty By Suspicion. And, according to legend, the Terminal Bar from 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was in actuality just a set, was based on Cole’s.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Cole’s is located at 118 East Sixth Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit their website here.

January 23, 2010January 23, 2010

Welcome to the Very First Iamnotastalker and MovieShotsLA Filming Locations Contest!

Update: Well, that was fast! Fellow stalker Billy is the winner of our first ever contest! Even though he has never seen an episode of SATC, he figured out the answer to our challenge in record time! I really thought this was going to be a stumper, but I guess not! Jenna’s apartment building from 13 Going On 30 appeared in the Season 6 episode of Sex and the City entitled “The Perfect Present”. In the episode, the girls walk by Jenna’s building while on their way to Jennifer Coolidge’s purse party. Billy also figured out our bonus question – Jenna’s apartment building was also used as the residence of Paul and Jamie on the series Mad About You. Congratulations, Billy! Mike and I will be hosting locations contests every month from now, so be on the lookout! 🙂

Our friends over at On Location Tours in New York City recently made the kind offer to donate a gift certificate good towards their popular Sex and the City Hot Spots Tour or Gossip Girl Sites Tour to be used as a prize if I ever wanted to host a contest. Well, let me tell you, I got EXTREMELY excited after hearing this and immediately called up Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to see if he wanted to host a movie locations contest with me, which he, of course, did. So, without further ado, welcome to the first ever Iamnotastalker and MovieShotsLA Filming Locations Contest! 🙂

So, what does the challenge entail, you ask? Well, a few weeks ago, while thumbing through fave book Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, I noticed a photograph (pictured above) of Carrie and the girls standing in front of a building located at 51 Fifth Avenue, the very same building where Jenna Rink lived in fave movie 13 Going On 30. (For those of you who own the book, the photograph is located on page 39.) I cannot for the life of me figure out which episode of Sex and the City that particular still was taken from though. So, your mission, should you choose to accept it: Find the episode of Sex and the City that featured 13 Going On 30 building.

As a bonus – If you can figure out what hit 90’s television series also used the 51 Fifth Avenue building as the dwelling of its two main characters, Mike and I will throw in a copy of fave stalking book New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide by Richard Alleman, as well. 😉

Good luck, fellow stalkers!

And a big THANK YOU to On Location Tours for sponsoring our first ever contest event! 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Send your guesses to Lindsay@iamnotastalker.com before February 6, 2010. The On Location Tours gift certificate never expires, so you need not live in the New York area to enter – or win – the contest. 🙂

January 22, 2010January 22, 2010

Stalking the WB – For the Third Time!

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, this past October, my good friends from Switzerland came to visit my family for a few weeks. While they were here, I decided to take them on a Hollywood studio tour. The only problem was I couldn’t decide exactly which Hollywood studio tour to take them on. So, I got Mike, from MovieShotsLA, on the phone and the two of us had a very in-depth discussion about it, carefully weighing all of our options. Not kidding – you should have heard the two of us. 🙂 Anyway, we quickly narrowed down our choices to either the Paramount Studio Tour or the Warner Brothers VIP Studio Tour. And even though I was leaning towards Paramount, Mike convinced me that because the WB Tour covers the overall studio experience, it would be the best choice for those stalkers who had yet to visit a movie studio. Paramount is geared more towards us die-hard stalkers, in my opinion, which is probably why I like it the best. 🙂 So, with our tour location finally decided upon, the four of us headed out bright and early the following morning to stalk the WB. This was actually my third time stalking the lot and it really is true what they say – no two tours are alike. I already want to go back for a fourth time. 🙂 Sadly, though, our tour guide left quite a bit to be desired on this particular venture. We still had a blast while there, don’t get me wrong – it’s pretty hard not to have fun on the WB lot – but, for whatever reason, our guide was a grump pretty much the whole way through. She also seemed to have a pretty high opinion of herself, which didn’t help my opinion of her. 😉

She even got a bit testy with me at one point, after bringing us to the Central Park portion of the lot and asking if anyone knew what television show it had been featured in. I, of course, raised my hand and said “It’s where Phoebe runs weird on Friends!” to which she snapped, “Well, you must have been on the tour before, which is the only reason you’d know that!” I wanted to explain that I had actually known the answer to that question while on my first WB tour, but I was afraid she’d pretty much bite my head off if I did! So, since it was obvious she didn’t appreciate stalkers, I kept my mouth shut for the remainder of the tour. The other disappointing aspect of the day was that Hennesy Street, which is one of the WB’s New York areas, Midwest Street, aka Anytown USA, and the Jungle area were all closed off to tour groups due to filming. 🙁 The Witches of Eastwick was actually the production being filmed on Midwest Street and we were very briefly allowed to venture over to the outskirts of that area to take a peek at what was going on, but unfortunately no photographs were allowed. Anyway, aside from Debbie Downer and the fact that numerous areas of lot were closed off, we had a great time on the tour. 🙂

The tour began the way it always does, with our guide driving us via golf cart through the very same studio gate that Carrie Bradshaw drove through in the Season Three episode of Sex and the City entitled “Escape from New York”. LOVE IT! 🙂

Our first stop was the old ER hospital set which has all but been dismantled. 🙁 So sad! While the hospital entrance and L Train track will be left up to be used by future productions . . .

. . . the area behind the large brown double doors which used to contain the ambulance bay and waiting room set, is now just empty space, as you can sort of see in the above photograph.

The way it used to look is pictured above. You can see more photographs of the old ER set on my two previous WB Tour posts which can be viewed here and here. According to our tour guide, ER’s Jumbo Mart Diner set is going to be left intact to serve as the studio’s tribute to the longest running medical drama ever to air on television.

Our next stop was the Nate’s Bar & Grill set from ER, which is also being left intact to be used by future productions. Nate’s Bar & Grill is what’s called a “practical set” in studio terminology because both its interior and its exterior can be used for filming.

Unlike the facade pictured above which has no interior area.

As you can see in the above photograph, Nate’s Bar & Grill lacks a ceiling, which is actually typical of movie sets. The ceilings of sets are always left open so that lights and other production equipment can be hung above the area being filmed. That’s often how I can tell if something was filmed in a studio or on location somewhere – if a ceiling is shown onscreen, that’s pretty much a dead giveaway that the production was filmed at a real life location. 😉

Located just outside of Nate’s is a very realistic looking subway set, which was extremely cool to see being that we had just returned from our New York trip a few days beforehand. 🙂

Our next stop was the the Embassy Courtyard, an area which was used in the 1999 made-for-TV movie Annie, in the television series Without a Trace, Hotel, and, as you can see in the above screen captures, Chuck .

We also visited New York Street, which is not to be confused with Hennesy Street, the lot’s other Manhattan-like area. New York Street has been used in the movies The Big Sleep, Blade Runner, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and The Last Samurai, for which the entire area was dressed to look like 1870s Japan.

Located on New York Street is the movie theatre facade pictured above, which was featured in the “New York and Queens” episode of The Drew Carey Show in which Drew and the gang challenge Mimi and her friends to a Rocky Horror Picture Show/Priscilla Queen of the Desert dance-off.

That very same area was also featured in the Season One episode of The Mentalist entitled “A Dozen Red Roses”.

We also briefly visited the Warner Village area of the lot, where we saw “New Christine’s” apartment building from the series The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Our next stop was the soundstage used in the filming of the television show Chuck, a series which I have never before seen. But I was extremely excited to see the set nonetheless because it was modeled after the very same apartment building featured in the movie ‘Til There Was You – an apartment building which I have not only stalked, but also blogged about. 🙂 I cannot tell you how cool it was to be seeing that set in person, as it looks very much the same as its real life counterpart. Love it! And while our tour guide did let us know that the Chuck set was based on a real life apartment building, she mistakenly told our group that said building was located in Los Feliz, which is actually incorrect. The building, which is named El Cabrillo, is actually located in Hollywood. I didn’t dare correct her, though, since she had already made it pretty clear that she didn’t care to hear any information I had to share. 😉 We also got to venture inside the characters’ individual apartments, which really are located directly off the building’s courtyard area. Unfortunately no photographs were allowed inside of the Chuck soundstages, but you can see what the set looks like in the above screen captures. When I asked our tour guide why the area was off-limits to cameras she said it was to prevent spoilers, i.e. if a crewmember accidentally left something on set that gave away a future plot point and then a tour group came in and took pictures of the set and then those pictures somehow wound up on the internet ;), fans might figure out the future plot development and stop watching the show. Which I think is pretty silly reasoning, but c’est la vie.

No WB VIP Tour would be complete without a visit to the car museum, where we got to see several vehicles from The Dark Knight, including the Batmobile;

the Bat-Pod motorcycle;

and the Stealth Launch Batmobile; all of which my best friend, Robin, the only guy in the group, loved seeing. 🙂

Also on display was the Ducati 996 motorcycle from The Matrix Reloaded;

the “Shaguar” from Austin Powers in Goldmember;

Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino from the movie of the same name;

the Nerd Herd car from Chuck;

the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard;

several vehicles from AI, including the Hovercopter;

the Ford Angila from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets;

and a 1969 Lincoln Continental from The Matrix, along with a wax figure of “Agent Smith”.

The best part of the tour for me, though, had to be when we got to see the Central Perk set from Friends. Granted, I’ve seen the set twice before on the two other WB Tours I’ve attended, but this time we were actually allowed to venture ONTO the set, walk around, touch things, and even sit on the furniture! YAY! Let me tell you, I just about DIED I was so excited! (Those are my friends Doina and Stephanie sitting on the Friends couch with me in the above photograph.)

And I just HAD to take pictures of absolutely EVERYTHING!

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Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I HIGHLY recommend taking the WB VIP Studio Tour! Even with a craptastic tour guide, it’s still a fabulous adventure to have in L.A.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Warner Brothers Studios is located at 3400 Riverside Drive in Burbank. Tours run every 30 minutes Monday through Friday from 8:20 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Advance reservations are recommended. Tickets cost $45 per person. You can learn more about the tour here .

January 20, 2010June 16, 2011

SpeedZone from “Guess Who”

This past New Year’s, my fiancé’s entire family – including his two school-age nephews – came to town to watch the Rose Parade. Before their arrival, he scoured the internet to find some fun places in the L.A. area to take the kids after the festivities were over. One of the ideas he came up with was to spend a few hours at SpeedZone in the City of Industry – an amusement park of sorts which features an array of kid-friendly fun such as go-kart racing, miniature golf, and a large arcade. I have to admit that I wasn’t actually too keen on the idea at first . . . until my fiancé told me that the place was an oft-used filming location, that is. And then I was 100 percent on board with the venue and even tried to convince everyone that we should skip the whole parade and just head straight there instead! 🙂

SpeedZone is best known for its four go kart courses, for which it recently won the LA Magazine “Best of Los Angeles 2009” – Best Go Kart Track award. Those four tracks include the Top Eliminator Dragster, where racers drive authentic 300 horsepower NHRA dragsters on a mini-track reaching speeds of 70 miles per hour in less than 3.5 seconds;

the Slick Trax – an ultra-slick polished surface course which encourages spinning and can accommodate up to 15 different drivers at the same time;

the Grand Prix – a long, single licensed-driver course based on Formula 1 and Indy Car tracks which features tight turns and a speed timer; and the Turbo Track (which I unfortunately did not get a picture of) – a course which can accommodate up to twenty drivers at a time racing in high-torque one- and two-seater cars. Not into go karts? Well, that’s OK, too, because SpeedZone also features an arcade which boasts over 100 games including numerous video games, air hockey tables, and, my personal favorite, skee ball machines. There are also two 18-hole golf-courses on the premises and a cafe which serves up pizza, sandwiches, burgers, and cocktails. Yes, you read that right, the SpeedZone Cafe has a full bar, because adults enjoy go kart racing, too, you know. 😉

While hanging out at SpeedZone, I raced on both the Top Eliminator Dragster course and the Grand Prix course and the Grand Prix was by far my favorite. I had an ABSOLUTE blast racing and actually thought I was burning up the course the whole way through . . .

. . . until I got to the end and noticed my pitiful time! Yes, the 75.249 time is mine. As you can see, two of the other racers noted on the board pictured above completed the race in almost half the amount of time it took me! LOL What can I say, I am cursed with having the opposite of a lead foot. But I had an absolute blast being there and cannot wait to go back . . . and hopefully improve my time! 🙂

SpeedZone’s most memorable cinematic appearance was in the 2005 comedy Guess Who in the scene in which overprotective father Percy Jones (aka Bernie Mac) challenges his future son-in-law Simon Green (aka Ashton Kutcher) to a little drag race on the Grand Prix track. The two get into a bit of a scuffle during the race and wind up veering off the track, through a large hedge, and straight into oncoming traffic.

Contrary to what was shown in Guess Who, though, SpeedZone does not allow two people to race on the Grand Prix track at the same time. And don’t go looking for the archway pictured above, which Bernie and Ashton drive under in the movie, either, because I could not find it anywhere, which leads me to believe that it was either a prop brought in for the filming or that it used to be a real feature of the track that was removed sometime after filming took place.

SpeedZone also stood in for Zany Town, the Chuck E. Cheese style arcade featured in the ultra-depressing Season One episode of CSI: Miami entitled “Broken”. The episode was actually filmed almost in its entirety on the SpeedZone premises.

The park’s golf area was also used in “Broken”, as the “Sir Golf-A-Lot” miniature golf course, where H and the gang finally apprehended the bad guy at the end of the episode.

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SpeedZone has also been featured in the reality shows Blind Date, Amish in the City, Average Joe, Who Wants To Marry My Dad, and Dismissed, on the game show Jeopardy, and it is set to appear in an upcoming episode of the new Melrose Place. While I was stalking SpeedZone, I just had to ask one of the employees which celebrities had visited the theme park over the years and I just about died when he told me that Jennifer Aniston had been there! Love it! I was even wearing my Team Aniston sweatshirt at the time. 🙂 Courteney Cox and David Arquette have also raced cars at the park.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: SpeedZone is located at 17871 Castleton Street in the City of Industry. You can visit their website here. Guess Who was filmed on the Grand Prix track and CSI: Miami was filmed in the Electric Alley arcade and on the Speedway miniature golf course.

January 18, 2010March 18, 2010

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Because I am spending the three day weekend in Palm Springs with my family, I will be taking today off from blogging. But I’ll be back tomorrow with a whole new post. In the meantime, I’d like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I hope you are all enjoying a very nice three days off! 🙂

January 7, 2010January 7, 2010

The Kenaston Residence

Even though I have always been one hundred percent on Team Aniston – I even have the sweatshirt to prove it 😉 – while visiting Palm Springs during Halloween weekend a few months back I became a bit obsessed with stalking the home where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie posed for their famous “Domestic Bliss” photo spread which appeared in the July 2005 issue of W Magazine. It all started a few days before Halloween when I came across the following People Magazine article while doing some cyberstalking of the Palm Springs area, trying to come up with a list of desert locations to stalk. The article mentioned that Brangelina’s controversial photoshoot – controversial because it occurred on March 25, 2005, the very same day that Jennifer Aniston filed for divorce from Brad – had taken place at a private residence located in Rancho Mirage. And that was it for me! The next few hours were spent trying to track down the exact location of the property where my least favorite celebrity couple had posed for their 60-page spread. Being that I can’t stand either Brad or Angelina, I have no valid explanation as to why I became so darn determined to find the house. All I can say is that when I get on a kick, I get on a kick and there’s absolutely no stopping me. So, I was completely overjoyed when I was finally able to pinpoint the location of the house, which is known as the Kenaston Residence in real life, and I made my fiancé stop there during our drive over to Palm Springs, before we even had a chance to check into our hotel. Not kidding. 🙂

The Kenaston Residence was built in 1957 by mid-century modernist architect E. Stewart Williams for a Palm Springs resident named Roderick W. Kenaston. Stewart Williams is perhaps best known for building Frank Sinatra’s desert hideaway with the piano shaped swimming pool, which I stalked a couple of years ago and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway’s Mountaintop Station, which I have also stalked but have yet to blog about. In 2003, after several different ownerships and re-models, a Los Angeles area art director and his wife purchased the Kenaston Residence and spent two years restoring it back to its original grandeur. Sadly, out of the five Rancho Mirage area homes built by Stewart Williams, the Kenaston Residence is the only property that still looks the same today as it did when it was built. The remaining homes have all either been altered or completely destroyed. 🙁

The U-shaped Kenaston Residence, which was built around a large square shaped swimming pool, features four bedrooms, 3.5 baths, over 5,000 square feet of living space, a media room, 50 palm trees!, a six car garage, an interior/exterior rock wall, a “floating fireplace”, floor to ceiling glass walls, mountain views, concrete floors, and a 17 foot long living room planter. The house was built on a half acre of land and Williams even had the remarkable foresight to situate the home facing North, so as to avoid the extreme desert temperatures. Besides the Brangelina shoot, the Kenaston Residence has also been the site of photoshoots for Madonna, James Blunt, the band Coldplay and has been featured in Italian Elle, Luxury Living, The London Independent, and on Bravo Television. In 2007, the home was sold to new owners for $2,350,000. I swear, if I owned a house like that, I don’t think I would ever be able to let it go. Especially since, according to the previous owner, it earned at least $50,000 in photoshoot rental fees each year! Cha-ching! 🙂 You can see interior photographs of the home from its 2007 real estate website here.

Brad and Angie’s “Domestic Bliss” photo spread, which featured the couple and several children acting out scenes of an unhappy family life in the 60s, made use of the entire Kenaston Residence, both inside and out. According to this article, because Pitt, who actually co-created and co-directed the shoot with photographer Stephen Klein, was “tired of celebrity portraiture and always up for an artistic ‘jam sesh’”(UGH, gag me!), he came up with the unique idea of basing the spread on “unidentifiable malaise” in a marriage. Speaking about what I can only assume was his union with my girl Jen, he said, “You don’t know what’s wrong because the marriage is everything you signed up for.” You honestly don’t know what’s wrong, Brad? Um, I think your wandering eye might have had something to do with it!! The duo’s photo shoot took two full days to complete, during which time Angelina, who had brought along her then-only son Maddox, and Brad stayed in separate rooms at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel in Palm Springs. So, I guess I am going to have to stalk the Le Parker in the near future, too. Oh honey, I feel a trip to Palm Springs coming on! 😉

The property is actually quite unassuming and non-descript from the street. One could easily drive right by, without realizing the rich architectural history that lies just beyond the home’s walnut wood walls.

Amazingly enough, even though there is a large concrete wall surrounding the back of the property, much of the Kenaston Residence can still be seen from the street. And because the surrounding wall is only about four feet tall, you can easily see into the backyard area, where the cover photo from Brangelina’s W Magazine issue was shot, as well. Love it!

Interestingly enough, photographer Steven Klein’s inspiration for the “Domestic Bliss” photo spread came from the photographs of legendary architectural photographer Julius Shulman. One of the poses from the issue was almost a direct copy of a very famous photograph Shulman took of Case Study House #21, aka the Bailey House (pictured above). I found this little bit of trivia out while doing some research on the Kenaston Residence and became absolutely fascinated by it, as I am a huge fan of Julius Shulman, who sadly passed away in July of this past year. Those of you who read my blog regularly will remember the post I wrote about the tour of Case Study House #22 (aka The Stahl House) that I took in March of last year and Julius Shulman’s iconic photograph which led me to stalk the house in the first place.

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You can see the entire 60-page “Domestic Bliss” portfolio here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Kenaston Residence is located at 39-767 Desert Sun Drive in Rancho Mirage. To get an overall view of the house, I would also recommend venturing west on Mashie Drive and south onto Keenan Drive. The Case Study House #21, upon which one of the Brangelina pictures was based, is located at 9036 Wonderland Park Avenue in Los Angeles.

January 4, 2010January 3, 2010

Vertical Wine Bistro

Even though I am not usually a going-out-on-New-Year’s-Eve type of girl, this year I wanted nothing more than to ring in 2010 with a glass of champagne at my very favorite restaurant, POP Champagne Bar in Pasadena. But being that I am not now, nor never have been, a night person – I can’t tell you the last time I’ve actually stayed up past midnight on New Year’s Eve – my fiancé and I decided to head over to POP early in the evening, at around 5 p.m., so that we could grab an early drink and be back home, comfy mumfy in our pajamas, by 6:30. Yes, I am that much of a dork! 😉 So, you can imagine my disappointment when we arrived at POP only to discover a note taped to the front door announcing that the champagne bar would be opening later than usual – at 7 p.m. – that particular night. 🙁 Such a bummer! But, as fate would have it, as we headed back to our apartment, my head hung low, we stumbled upon a little place called Vertical Wine Bistro, which just so happens to be owned by movie producer Gale Anne Hurd, the mastermind behind such Hollywood blockbusters as Armageddon, Aliens, The Abyss, and the Terminator movies, and I immediately grabbed my fiancé’s hand and dragged him right inside! I figured if I wasn’t going to be able to spend my New Year’s Eve at POP, I was at least going to get a blog post out of the evening! 😉

Longtime Pasadena resident Gale Anne Hurd opened Vertical Wine Bistro back in October of 2006 after deciding that Old Town Pasadena was in desperate need of an upscale and sleek, but laidback wine bar where someone like herself could hang out. She named the bistro in honor of a type of wine tasting known as “vertical” in which patrons sample different vintages of one type of wine from a single winery. (In case you’re wondering, horizontal tasting, consequently, consists of sampling wines of the same vintage from a variety of different wineries.) Vertical Wine Bistro features an eclectic menu and an extensive wine list with over 400 different wines by the bottle and almost 100 by the glass varieties. And even though I’ve known about the restaurant and it’s celebrity connection since it’s opening three years ago, for some reason, until this past New Year’s Eve, I’d never ventured inside. But I have to say that the place was definitely worth the wait! Vertical is a very cool, very “New-Yorky” style bar, with a simply amazing menu!! My fiancé and I chose to share the crab cake appetizer on New Year’s and just about died it was so good! Our crab cake was flanked by a fennel cream and chanterelle mushroom sauce and it was so good, I honestly could have been given just a bowl of that and been happy! I’m telling you, this stalker is all about chanterelle mushrooms from here on out. 🙂

I honestly can’t recommend stalking Vertical Wine Bistro enough! And, who knows, you might even spot a celeb while doing so! Besides Gale and her screenwriter husband Jonathan Hensleigh, other celebrities who have been spotted at the restaurant include former Bachelor Jason Mesnick and then-girlfriend Molly Malaney and Today Show stars Al Roker, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry.

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On a side note – I really have to apologize for the craptastic photographs featured in this post. Because I hadn’t planned on stalking anything on New Year’s Eve, I left my purse (and the camera I keep inside of it) at home. Thankfully, my fiancé had his iPhone on him, so we were able to take the pictures posted above, but unfortunately they aren’t of the best quality, which just proves what I’ve been saying for years – if you live in L.A., NEVER, EVER leave your camera at home! 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Vertical Wine Bistro is located upstairs at 70 North Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit their website here.

January 1, 2010January 2, 2010

Happy 2010!

Just a quick note to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very Happy New Year’s 2010! I will be taking today off to celebrate with family and watch the Rose Parade, but I’ll be back on Monday with a whole new post. 🙂 Here’s wishing everyone a very safe and very happy New Year’s!

December 15, 2009December 15, 2009

Chelsea Lately’s “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”

Those of you who are regular visitors to my site will remember that, back in May, my good friend Blaze Foster was hired to be part of a “Detective Lately” skit on the Chelsea Lately show. His scene was originally scheduled to be filmed on May 8th and I, of course, tagged along with him to the set, where I got to meet Chelsea’s assistant Chuy Bravo and “Staff Homosexual” Guy Branum. YAY! As fate would have it, though, Chelsea and crew ended up running out of time that day and Blaze’s segment was shelved. And while Blaze was devastated over not being able to shoot his scene, I actually considered the whole thing to be a blessing in disguise – as they so often are! – as I had a feeling he would be invited back to do it all over again – with me tagging along! Which is pretty much exactly what happened! 🙂 Blaze ended up filming his Detective Lately segment just a few weeks later on May 27th, and I, again, accompanied him to the studio. I have yet to blog about my experiences that day, though, as I wanted to wait until the segment aired on TV, which FINALLY happened this past Thursday night – a full SIX MONTHS after it was actually taped! So, without further ado, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Blaze’s segment, aka “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”!

On our first visit to the Chelsea Lately set, Blaze and I spent most of our time in the show’s main green room. On our second visit, though, we were seated in the studio’s alternate green room, which I could NOT have been more excited about, as that meant that I actually got to see BOTH of the Chelsea Lately green rooms in person!!!! I mean, just how lucky can one girl get? 🙂

Chelsea’s second green room looks very much like her first and I, of course, had to take photographs of EVERYTHING, including the door, which had Twilight actor Peter Facinelli’s name written on it as he was the last actor to hang out there pre-show,

the modern-style couches and coffee tables, which hold several entertainment magazines for actors to peruse while they wait to go on camera,

the ubiquitous make-up chair,

and a large television set. I was actually most excited about the TV because an episode of Chelsea was being taped when we arrived at the studio and, thanks to a live feed, we were able to watch it as it was being filmed. LOVE IT! The guest that day was former Blossom star Mayim Bialik, but unfortunately we didn’t spot her at all while we were on the set. 🙁

Pretty much immediately after that day’s episode was finished being taped, Blaze was called into the studio. I, unfortunately, was not allowed to watch the filming and had to stay behind in the green room. Thankfully, though, the green room was situated just a few feet away from the Detective Lately set and I could hear almost everything as it happened. 🙂 Blaze was informed prior to the taping that the original mystery idea he had pitched – “Why Isn’t My Agent Getting Me Any Auditions?” – had been changed to “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” LOL LOL LOL, in which Blaze would be hiring Chelsea to investigate his acting teacher to see if she was defrauding him. No script had been written for the segment and, although I am fairly certain that Chelsea and the writers had created a brief outline of what they wanted to occur during the scene, for the most part the whole thing was improvised. Blaze’s only instruction prior to filming was to play things straight and not to try to be funny. Because Chelsea is the star of the show, they didn’t want Blaze pulling focus away from her. Which strikes me as absolutely HILARIOUS because if anyone is going to steal the spotlight in a scene, it’s Blaze! I’ve been in acting class with the guy for over a year now and, let me tell you, pulling focus is just something he does. Blaze is very flamboyant, very hyper, very funny, and attention is just drawn to him naturally. So, they really couldn’t have picked a worse man for the job in this particular case!!!! I can’t tell you the number of times I heard the producer tell him to “Stop being funny!” during the filming. 🙂 I also heard the direction “Blaze, stop laughing!” on quite a few occasions. 🙂 Blaze said that Chelsea was absolutely HILARIOUS during the scene and that he had a very hard time keeping a straight face while filming with her.

The entire segment only took about 90 minutes to shoot. Because I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t be able to meet Chelsea while there, I was really hoping that Blaze would be able to pose for a photo with her after the taping had been completed. Amazingly enough, though, outside of the actual filming of the scene, Blaze had absolutely no interaction with Chelsea whatsoever! When he was initially brought onto the set, Chelsea was not yet there. The first time Blaze actually saw her was when she walked into the detective office at the top of the scene, after the cameras had already started rolling. She also left the set before filming had been completed. As soon as producers thought they had gotten enough footage of Chelsea, she was rushed off the stage and Blaze didn’t even get a chance to say thank you or shake her hand. After she left, Blaze had to stay behind to shoot some brief close-ups of him saying “Yes” and “No” to Chelsea’s empty chair. LOL Such a bummer, as I had so wanted a photograph of the two of them. 🙁 Randomly enough, though, Chelsea did poke her head into the green room to say “Hi” to me as she walked by on her way off the set. 🙂 It was a very quick exchange, but I was SUPER excited nonetheless.

Blaze’s skit, which you can watch above, was absolutely hilarious. I was really impressed with the amount of screen time he got, too. The only thing I was really disappointed about was the fact that my favorite line ended up on the cutting room floor. 🙁 At one point during the scene Chelsea asks Blaze, “What do you think, you’re some sort of Tony Danza?” to which Blaze says nothing. In reality, though, when Chelsea asked Blaze that question during the filming, he responded with, “Who’s Tony Danza?”, to which she said, “You know GOD DAMN WELL who Tony Danza is!” LOL LOL LOL I literally could not stop laughing when I heard her say that during the filming and was extremely impressed at how well she and Blaze played off of each other while improvising. I am not a person who thinks well on her feet, so I am always in awe of people who have the ability to be funny off the cuff like that. That’s why I was completely shocked when I saw the finished product and realized it was lacking Blaze and Chelsea’s little Tony Danza exchange. 🙁 I am guessing the reasoning behind the cut had to do with the fact that producers wanted Chelsea to be the one delivering the funny lines, so even though her line trumped Blaze’s, they just decided to cut out the entire segment. Such a bummer. Otherwise though, “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” skit was great! And, for those who are wondering, everything Blaze said in the scene was true – he is 24 years old, he really did play a bad guy in The Brave One, and he also played a drug dealer in a commercial starring Carmen Electra.

On a side note – When my fiancé I watched “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” this past Thursday night, one of the first things out of his mouth was, “How did Chelsea come up with the idea of making Blaze’s hair stick straight up like that?” Well, I just about fell off my chair laughing at his question because, in actuality, the There’s Something About Mary style ‘do just happened to be how Blaze was wearing his hair at that time. The guy is nothing if not flamboyant! 🙂 I can only imagine what Chelsea was thinking when she walked onto the set and saw Blaze – and his hair – for the first time. I’m surprised she didn’t bow down right then and there and start thanking God for bringing in an actor who had so much, er, material for her to work with. 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Chelsea Lately is filmed at the Digital Media Center, which is located at 12312 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can get tickets to watch a live taping here. If you don’t live in the area, you can still catch Chelsea weeknights at 11 p.m. on E! And you can watch Blaze’s skit, “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”, here.