My sister was in a swanky NY resto last week and saw a (relatively minor) tv star who was simultaneously raising a big stink with the m'd about finding him a table private and secluded enough while swanning around the restaurant making sure *everyone* saw him.

Heh. In the same place, a friend of the family gave some woman shit about smoking at the bar about six months ago, and was told later by the m'd (who knows friend well) that it was Uma Thurman.

Prince on SNL reminded me why I love him. Not that the songs were so awesome, but he totally has a sense of humor about himself -- first, they did the Prince Show sketch, with Fred Armisen as Prince, and Maya Rudolph as Beyonce, and then as the end of his second song, he gave a fully Mary Catherine Gallagher "superstar!". Hee.

I had dinner with many of the Bayareaistas, at Shiok. Good food, and verry good company.

Trudy, your stance on this strikes me as so cynical it's almost wrapping back around to naive. Publicists' jobs are to make their charges desirable to the public. No doubt some of them feed the paparazzi to do so.

Well, as long as we're calling names I'll say you're naive if you refuse to see you're being played. If you enjoy it go ahead. If you think Tom Cruise's "how did you know you'd be here" "your publicist told us" is some rare occurrence in the big fat spin machine good for you.

However the idea that the paparazzi are always invited to fly over and take pictures of celebrities at home or to stake out their supermarket--why the fuck should someone have to send their assistant out to buy Midol? How is that the celebrity's fault?

It's not always, its often. And even when its not an explicit invite people play the game on purpose and the game isn't always fun. Sometimes I'm sure it IS too much pudding but when you buy a bunch of pudding and then eat too much of it you can't blame the pudding. It's not a mystery why Clooney or McAdams don't get this attention right now, they've pushed the pudding bowl away.

Fact is, the paparazzi know there's a market for stalkeresque pictures, whether they're set up or not. They're not patsies in a great puppet show manned by celebrities and publicists. They're agents too.

Uh huh. They're not the patsies in this little game.

Chocolate chip cookies?

mmmmm....

....what....I need to say more than that?

Shiok.

also ...mmm...

on SNL why was Prince not ON Prince Show?

also ...mmm...

We are going to have to go back with you and Matt, very soon, beth, especially since they were out of crab.

no cookies. went with hot chocolate instead.

Yeah, that was why I watched that bit, which I always found totally unfunny. But I don't think I'm surprised he didn't go there.

The State of the Galaxy bit was funny. That guy does good GWB.