Sam Trammell – IAMNOTASTALKER

September 13, 2011September 13, 2011

The Surfrider Foundation’s 6th Annual Celebrity Expression Session

This past Saturday, the fabulous Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, invited me and the Grim Cheaper out to Malibu to do a little stalking of one of her very favorite celebrity events – the Surfrider Foundation’s 6th Annual Celebrity Expression Session, an hour-long free surf contest which was taking place at First Point at Malibu Lagoon State Beach. Much to the GC’s chagrin, I accepted the invitation which is how the two of us found ourselves heading out to the ‘Bu bright and early Saturday morning. Although, as you can see in the above photograph, the word “bright” is somewhat misleading being that the skies were quite grey when we arrived on the scene. The day turned out to be one of the best of my entire life, though, and, in what can only be described as an amazing act of divine intervention, we were not only invited to visit and tour the residence used as the Cohen House on fave show The O.C. (on which the sets from the series were very closely based), but we also spent about five hours at the property! I promise to blog about that INCREDIBLE experience in the very near future, but, for now, on with the Surfrider event!

Joining me, Pinky, and the GC in our morning beach-capade were our good friends, fellow stalkers Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, and Scotty, or as Pinky likes to call us, the Motley Crew. Despite the fact that it started raining heavily while we were waiting for the celebrity surfers to arrive, we had an absolute blast hanging out together. As I have said on numerous occasions, when it comes to these types of events, which involve hours upon hours upon hours of waiting around, it is all about the journey. And I can think of no one else I would rather share that journey with than Pinky’s Motley Crew.

The first celebrity to arrive on the scene was Eric Avery from the band Jane’s Addiction.

Also in attendance was Jesse Spencer from House (SO cute! Sigh!);

Chad Lowe;

Eric Balfour from The O.C.;

Tate Donovan, also from The O.C. and also my girl Jen Aniston’s former main squeeze;

John Slattery, from Mad Men, Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City;

Brian Geraghty from The Hurt Locker;

Ross Thomas from Soul Surfer;

and Krysten Ritter – ALL of whom were so incredibly nice and friendly it was almost unbelievable! I felt like we all truly had a special little moment with each of them. Pinky and I got to chat with Chad Lowe about how much we both enjoyed his brother Rob’s autobiography; we joked with John Slattery about his – ahem – shower requests on Sex and the City; Ross Thomas took off his hat and sunglasses in order to provide us with a better photograph; Tate Donovan almost fell over when Scotty quoted several lines to him from Space Camp . . .

. . . and, as you can see above, Krysten and Pinky even spent some time hanging out together in the surf. Amazing, amazing day!

And Mikey managed to snap this super cute pic of me getting his prop “Victor Lang for Mayor” t-shirt from Desperate Housewives signed.

Our main reason for being there, though, was, of course, to see Pinky’s sweetheart, Sam Trammell, who plays Sam Merlotte on the hit series True Blood.

Sam spotted Pinky immediately and, of course, came right over to her to say hi. I cannot even imagine if one of my favorite celebrities knew me by name and regularly came up to me at events to say hi! I would absolutely DIE! Heck, if ANY celebrity knew me by name and came up to me to say hi, I would die!!! The kicker was when Pinky told Sam that she had finally found a job, he congratulated her and asked where she was working. The fact that he knew – and remembered – that she had been unemployed the last time they spoke was enough to make me gasp. SO INCREDIBLY COOL! That is Sam autographing some photos for Pinky in the above picture – all of which he signed with “much love” or “xoxoxo”. SIGH!

The entire event was extremely low-key and relaxed and all of the celebrities conducted their media interviews right there in the sand.

The surf contest got started at noon and I cannot tell you how much fun it was to watch them all suit up and head out. (As you can see in the photograph on the top left above, Baywatch star David Chokachi was also in attendance, but since I had already gotten a picture with him at the Pedal on the Pier 100 Mile-a-Thon in June, I did not want to bother him for another.)

Before hitting the water, the group posed for a few publicity shots and, thankfully, the GC got right in there among the press photographers and started snapping away. I’ve taught him well, folks.

Because the GC has gotten seriously into photography as of late, this was one celebrity event that he actually did not mind being dragged to and he managed to snap some pretty fabulous action shots while there.

My favorite being the one pictured above, which reminds me of the movie poster for The Endless Summer. So cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking and Happy Voting – don’t forget to vote for me to be the new face of About Me!

Stalk It: Malibu Lagoon State Beach, aka Surfrider Beach, is located at 23200 Pacific Coast Highway, just north of the Malibu Pier, in Malibu. You can visit the Surfrider Foundation’s official website here.

June 29, 2011March 11, 2018

The Envelope Emmy Week “Geek TV” Event

Another Envelope Emmy Week event that Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, told me about was the “Geek TV Roundtable”, which featured a panel discussion with actors Jayma Mays (aka Emma Pillsbury from Glee), Johnny Galecki (aka Leonard Hofstadter from The Big Bang Theory), Michael C. Hall (aka Dexter Morgan from fave show Dexter), Sam Trammell (aka Sam Merlotte from True Blood), and Joel McHale (aka Jeff Winger from Community and the host of fave show The Soup). Well, let me tell you, I absolutely LOVE me some Joel McHale, so when I saw his name on the list I just about had a heart attack right there on the spot and immediately signed up to attend. Because so many big-time celebs would be appearing at this particular event, I knew that getting a photograph with any of them would be extremely difficult, so I made the sign pictured above, which read “I

Almost all of my new stalking friends were in attendance for the event, including Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, Anushika and Scotty, who both write for the Mike the Fanboy website, and Duggan. (Anushika, Pinky, and Scotty are pictured above). The only person missing from our little group was CB, who was attending the Super 8 premiere in Westwood that night. And I have to say that we all had an ABSOLUTE BLAST hanging out together. Yes, getting photographs taken with celebrities is extremely fun, but so is the hanging-out-and-waiting part, as long as you are doing so with a great group of fellow stalkers. And Pinky and Mikey have some AMAZING friends!!! I feel so incredibly lucky to have met them and that they have embraced me as they have and allowed me to tag along with them on so many of their celebrity adventures. Love you guys!

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Now I should mention here that this particular event took place at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live, directly next to the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles, on Wednesday, June 8th, which just so happened to be smack-dab in the middle of the weeklong E3 Expo, the LARGEST annual convention held in L.A. So to say that Downtown was swarming with people would be a gross understatement. Not only that, but at 4:15 p.m., just around the time that the GC and I were arriving in the area, there was an explosion in a trash can on Broadway and 4th Street, just a few blocks from the theatre, which resulted in the police SHUTTING DOWN a huge portion of the central part of Downtown FOR HOURS. Between the convention, the explosion, and the normal, everyday urban madness of L.A., Downtown on that particular evening was a complete and total sh*tstorm! The Grim Cheaper and I were stuck in our car in the same exact spot for over an hour and it was at that point that I just broke down in tears due to sheer frustration. I don’t think I have ever been that frustrated in my entire life! Sadly, the explosion and subsequent street closures also made it so that most of the actors were late in arriving to the theatre, which greatly lessened our chances of getting pictures and autographs as they were all immediately rushed inside as soon as they got there. UGH! Actor Sam Trammell was the first to arrive (he miraculously showed up about an hour before the event was due to begin) and he was absolutely SWARMED by people as soon as he stepped out of his car.

I had the GC take the above photograph so that my fellow stalkers could get a sense of what trying to get an autograph or picture at one of these events is like. Sam Trammell is buried somewhere in the middle of that huge, chaotic mess of thirty-some-odd people pictured above. Needless to say, getting an autograph or photo requires quite a bit of effort, determination, and maneuvering!

Now Pinky is easily Sam Trammell’s biggest fan and not only has she met him on several occasions, but the actor even knows her by name! So incredibly cool! Sam immediately walked right up to Pinky to say hello and to pose for a picture with her, and Pinky also gave him two blue blankets she had knitted for Sam and his girlfriend as they are currently expecting twin boys.

Pinky has long been telling me what a super-nice guy Sam is and, wow, was she ever right! Sam has got to be one of the nicest celebs I have ever encountered! Even though he was, as you saw above, absolutely swarmed by people, he stuck around to sign autographs and take pictures with absolutely everyone who wanted them, even me! Yay! Smile

The next to arrive was Michael C. Hall from Dexter. As I have mentioned quite a few times before on this blog, I absolutely LOVE me some Dexter, but I have to say that I love me some Joel McHale more. So before we arrived at the event I laid out some ground rules for the GC. I told him that he must at all times keep his eye on the prize and that prize was a picture with Joel. My number two goal for the evening was to get a picture with Michael C. Hall. If I somehow managed to get photos with any of the other stars, well that would just be icing on the cake. I had to lay out these ground rules because oftentimes at these events several celebrities will show up at the same time and I did not want the GC to get distracted and not be in a position to take my picture with Joel. It was really funny because all throughout the night the GC would point to me from across the way and say, “Eye on the prize, Lin! Eye on the prize!” LOL Because Michael C. Hall showed up just a few minutes before the event was to begin, he was rushed straight inside and was not able to sign any autographs or pose for any pictures. UGH!

Next to show up was Johnny Galecki and he was also rushed straight into the theatre as he arrived a few minutes after the panel was set to begin. He apologized to us stalkers for not being able to sign, but promised to “make it up to us” on his way out. Nice! Security informed us that Johnny was the last celeb to arrive, which meant that Joel McHale had driven himself and therefore entered through a different door. Sigh! How cute is that! It did make me feel like a bit of a tool, though, as I had stood out on that sidewalk holding up my sign for a good two hours. LOL

Even though we all had tickets to the event, we decided not to go inside as we figured we would have a better chance of getting pictures and autographs if we caught the actors as they left the venue. Thankfully we were right. Smile The roundtable panel was fairly short, just about 45 minutes, and after it ended all of the actors, except for Jayma Mays, walked outside together, which, as you can imagine, caused sheer and utter chaos! I had my eye on the prize, though, and as soon as that back door opened I held up my sign for Joel to see, which he did! He immediately started laughing and walked right outside, right through the crowd, and right up to me! Sigh!

Joel thanked me for coming and posed for the above photo and, let me tell you, I just about died of happiness right then and there. It wasn’t until Joel had already gone back inside, to take pictures with some of the audience members, that I realized the picture did not come out! UGH!

And while Pinky had managed to snap a super cute picture of us from farther away, I was still pretty bummed that the one the GC took did not come out. Here I had kept my eye on the prize, made a sign even, and my photo turned out horribly! What kind of luck is that? I really need to learn to trust in the universe, though, because that little mishap turned out to be a blessing in disguise. But more on that later.

Michael C. Hall was absolutely swarmed as soon as he came outside, but he stuck around for a REALLY long time to sign autographs and snap pictures with people. I, sadly, had the same issue with my Michael picture that I had with the one of Joel. According to our wedding photographer, Rob Greer, whom I sent the photograph to, the problem is called Lens Flare and it is extremely difficult to fix, even for professional re-touchers. Such a shame! Ah well, I will just have to stalk him again sometime! Smile

I was also lucky enough to get a pic with Johnny Galecki, which I was floored about! Johnny is super-nice, but is so unlike his Big Bang character, Leonard Hofstadter, it is almost unbelievable! He is NOT AT ALL dorky, awkward, or shy. Quite the contrary, in fact! He seemed to be extremely self-assured and out-going. The guy is obviously an AMAZING actor! As I mentioned above, Jayma Mays was the only one of the group to exit out of a different door and we never caught even a glimpse of her, which I was not all that disappointed about because I have heard from several people that she is not the most fan-friendly celeb. What is it with these Glee actors???

After everyone in our group got pictures with and autographs from Johnny Galecki, Michael C. Hall, and Sam Trammell, Duggan, Scotty, Pinky, the GC, and I headed inside the theatre where Joel McHale was talking to some of the event coordinators. When Joel spotted me, I explained to him that our photograph had not come out and he immediately smiled and said, “Well, then let’s get this right!” and posed for the above pic with me. He also thanked me profusely for being a fan, for coming out to see him, and for making the sign. Sigh!

Because Joel often jokingly signs autographs “Ryan Seacrest”, I told him that I really should have put Ryan’s name on my sign and Joel immediately yelled out, “Anybody have a pen I can borrow?” He then set about crossing out his name and writing in Ryan’s on the sign. Pinky and Scotty were nice enough to snap the above pics of me and Joel while he was writing on the sign. (Thanks, guys!!!!) Joel also posed for pics with Scotty, Pinky, and Duggan. Sigh! What an incredibly nice guy! Easily one of the NICEST celebs I have ever met! Love, love love him!!!!! And this experience was a definite reminder that I really need to trust in the universe more. I was so incredibly bummed when my original photograph with Joel did not come out, but look at it what that camera fail ended up leading to! An even better, more personal experience with one of my favorite stars! It is definitely true what they say, every cloud has a silver lining. And now whenever I get discouraged over something in life not turning out the way I had expected, I will remember this moment and the silver lining that this particular cloud brought me.

My Joel McHale-altered sign is pictured above. Smile All in all it was a FABULOUS night and a FABULOUS fan experience. One of my best yet!

AND, after the event was over, Sam even tweeted a thank you to Pinky for the blankets! How awesome is that???? LOVE IT!!!!

Big THANK YOU to Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, for inviting me to this event! You can read Mikey’s write up of the evening here. And you can read Pinky Lovejoy’s write-up here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Unfortunately, there is no stalking location for this one.

May 9, 2011May 8, 2011

The Piru United Methodist Church

Before the Grim Cheaper and I embarked on our Heritage Valley stalking trip three weekends ago, I did some cyber-stalking of the area and came across this page on fellow stalker Gary’s Seeing Stars website which detailed the Piru United Methodist Church’s appearance in the Season 1 episode of True Blood titled “Sparks Fly Out”. Now I have never seen even one episode of the vampire series, but while I was looking through the screen captures Gary had posted on his site, I realized that the very same church had also been featured in the Season 7 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Farewell Letter”. So, because I do love me some Desperate Housewives, I immediately added the place to my Piru Stalking List and dragged the GC right on over there while we were in the area.

The Piru United Methodist Church, which was designed in the Carpenter-Gothic-style, was originally built in 1888 by David Caleb Cook, the man who founded the town of Piru. When Cook first moved to the Santa Clara Valley in 1887, after migrating from Illinois due to health reasons, he purchased a 12,000-acre plot of land, which was then known as Rancho Temescal, and began to set up a community there. In 1888, he built a railroad depot, a school, a fruit packing house, and the United Methodist Church. Cook’s father had been a Methodist minister and Cook himself had made his fortune publishing religious books, so his faith was extremely important to him. And while it does seem that the parish is still in operation today, it was sadly closed when we showed up to stalk it, so we were not able to venture inside.

I did sure love the sign out front, though. Winking smile

And, amazingly enough, as you can see in the historic photograph pictured above, despite having a different steeple, the structure still looks almost exactly the same today as it did when it was first built over 123 years ago!

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Thanks to the church’s small-town, U.S.A.-feel, it is used quite regularly for filming. In the Season 7 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Farewell Letter”, it stood in for the supposed-Las-Colinas, Texas-area parochial school where Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria) confronted her former teacher, Sister Marta (aka Jill Larson), for not believing her when she told her she was being abused as a child. While there, Gabrielle also gave a few high school students this sage piece of advice, “Now girls, if it were up to me, I’d say avoid math and science. They cause serious frown lines.” When her husband, Carlos (aka Ricardo Chavira), suggests that she is just kidding, Gabrielle says, “No! Young girls today need to know the dangers of long division.” LOL

In the Season 1 episode of True Blood titled “Sparks Fly Out”, the United Methodist Church stood in for the supposed-Bon-Temps, Louisiana-area church where Bill Compton (aka Stephen Moyer) spoke to a group of Civil War enthusiasts, including Sookie Stackhouse (aka Anna Paquin) and Sam Merlotte (aka Sam Trammell), about his life as a vampire.

The church also popped up in the 2000 comedy Space Cowboys as the supposed-Oklahoma-City-area parish where Tank Sullivan (aka James Garner) was a minister.

In the Season 2 episode of Justified titled “The Spoil”, the church was the site of the town hall meeting during which the citizens of Harlan, Kentucky, including U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (aka Timothy Olyphant), discussed the pros and cons of allowing Black Pike Coal Company to mine in their area.

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location!

Stalk It: The Piru United Methodist Church, from the “Farewell Letter”episode of Desperate Housewives, is located at 3875 Center Street in Piru.

April 26, 2011April 25, 2011

Dwight’s Bar from “Burlesque”

One Burlesque filming location that I had been trying to track down for what seems like forever now was Dwight’s Bar, which was featured in the movie’s opening scene as the supposed small-town, Iowa-area watering hole where Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) worked. Even though the bar only appeared in one very brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it establishing shot, I was absolutely obsessed with stalking the place. For whatever reason, though, I just could not seem to find it. Then, like magic, just a couple of weeks ago fellow stalker Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, added the location to his Burlesque filming locations page and I just about died of excitement. The place was, of course, immediately added to the top of my To-Stalk list and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there this past weekend.

As it turns out, Dwight’s Bar is actually a vacant storefront located in Piru, California, a small town (according to Wikipedia its population was only 1,196 as of a 2000 census!) situated about 50 miles north of Los Angeles in the Santa Clara River Valley. Piru (pronounced Pie-Roo) was originally founded in 1887 by a wealthy religious book publisher named David C. Cook. Thanks to its Anytown, U.S.A.-look and proximity to L.A., Piru is an oft-used filming locale and has appeared in hundreds upon hundreds of productions over the years, including Melrose Place, Charmed, Murder, She Wrote, Desert Fury, A Star is Born, Enough, The Dukes of Hazzard, The California Kid, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Torque, Van Helsing, Happy, Texas, Reno 911!, and Race to Witch Mountain. Piru’s historic downtown area, which consists of a tiny, one-and-a-half-block stretch of small brick buildings and which is the area of town most often seen onscreen, was reconstructed after being largely destroyed during the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Since that time, many of the downtown storefronts have remained vacant, which only adds to the appeal of the place for location scouts as the area can be dressed to fit any sort of production.

Which was exactly what happened with Burlesque. For the opening scene of the movie, Downtown Piru was dressed to look like a small farming town in rural Iowa where Ali lives. And even though its appearance onscreen was brief, I cannot tell you how cool it was to see this location in person!

Amazingly enough, according to the DVD commentary with Burlesque director/writer Steve Antin, the interior of Dwight’s Bar, where Ali sang “Something’s Got A Hold On Me”, was actually a set created inside of a soundstage at Sony Studios in Culver City and was not built inside of the vacant Piru storefront as I had originally believed.

Because I had spent so many hours searching for Dwight’s Bar, I immediately recognized the place when it popped up recently in the Season 7 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Farewell Letter”, in the scene in which Gaby (aka Eva Longoria) and Carlos Solis (aka Ricardo Chavira) return to Gaby’s hometown of Las Colinas, Texas. In the episode, the two pull up in a taxi directly in front of the storefront that was used in Burlesque.

Later on in that same episode, Gaby and Carlos venture out to a restaurant where Gaby is fawned over as the local girl who made good.

In real life, that restaurant is known as the Railway Café and it has appeared in quite a few movies over the years, including 1984’s Rhinestone.

The actual interior of the Railway Café also appeared in the episode.

Sadly though, the place was closed when we showed up to stalk it, so I was only able to snap a few pictures of the interior through the front windows.

The Railway Café can also be seen in the background of Alicia Keys’ “Un-thinkable (I’m Ready)” music video, which starred cutie actor Chad Michael Murray.

Un-thinkable (I’m Ready) video–Piru

You can watch that video by clicking above.

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And, thanks to the Seeing Stars website, I learned that just across the street from Dwight’s Bar is Poncho’s Place, the eatery which stood in for the supposed Bon Temps, Louisiana-area Crawdad’s Family Style Restaurant where Sam Merlotte (aka Sam Trammell) took Sookie Stackhouse (aka Anna Paquin) for a slice of pie in the Season 1 episode of True Blood titled “Sparks Fly Out”.

And even though I have never seen even one episode of True Blood, since we were right there I just had to stalk it.

The real life interior of Poncho’s Place also appeared in the episode.

Although, as you can see in the above photographs, it was decorated rather differently for the filming.

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dwight’s Bar from Burlesque is located at 3951 East Center Street in Piru. Poncho’s Place, aka Crawdad’s Restaurant from the “Sparks Fly Out” episode of True Blood, is located just across the street at 3944 Center Street in Piru. And the Railway Café from the “Farewell Letter” episode of Desperate Housewives is located half a block down the road at 3989 Center Street in Piru.