As the stars are out in Ypsi this weekend, I thought that I should start an open thread for people to rant about their ugly encounters, brag about their sexual conquests, and everything in between. So, if you have a story, no matter how mundane, here’s the place to share it. And here, to get the ball rolling, is a text message that was sent to me by a reader who was drinking at the Elbow Room last night.
… I am currently sitting at the elbow room and juliette lewis (sp?) is running around with her girfriends, arguing about what song to sing at mo fo karaoke. Also, jimmy fallon was here last night. Looks like you need to start production on other ‘keep celebrities out of ypsi’ posters…
I’m tempted to stick my head out this evening and take a look around, but I’m terrified that Drew Barrymore might try to seduce me, or that Juliette Lewis might try to convert me to Scientology. So, I’m tying myself to a chair, and watching old monster movies.
Best of luck to all of you who are going out tonight, looking to rub elbows with the small, thin and unapproachable. I hope it brings meaning to your otherwise miserable lives.
26 Comments
i once met chuck woolery [from love connection], and his head was enormous.
i really thought he was going to eat me.
I just saw one too, stood shoulder to shoulder…but I am not telling anyone. Sure it’s fun, but why make it harder on these actors? It makes us look silly and it’s unfair to them and unfair to the businesses that they are patronizing. If you keep texting each other then people will start following them etc. The actors will stop going out to the local businesses, and it will look bad for this area. They like areas where the locals are friendly and respect their privacy, that is when then party with the people. Not when you all get goo-goo eyed.
Let them have fun and spend their money.
Seems to me that you just really want to meet Drew Barrymore Mark.
Yet another excuse to never leave my basement.
You just told us NOOTCK.
What? Yah! Actually, Robert Downey Jr. is at my place right now … he’s giving a foot massage to Winona Ryder who’s wearing my wife’s old wedding dress … she keeps screaming, “Monster Bride!” and laughing hysterically. She’s awesome. Now she’s screaming “Wheeeeere’s thefucks Zouuuuliette?! Moster bride wants Zouuuliette!” Aaah haah. Awesome funny.
Gotta go, the pizza delivery guy’s here … nevermind … it’s just Drew Carey pretending to be a Domino’s pizza guy, he’s fuckin’ hilarious. He’s pretending to be Tom Monaghan and George Bush at the same time. Super awesome funny.
Wait, Robert wants to say something..a,djrqwe
Hey ripshispanties oooooooowwwwh! fuck shit head t6he bomd!!!!
Okay, that was Robert. Grabbed the keyboard. He’s crazy awesome.
Oh shit. Gotta go, my wife’s beating the crap outta winona … hey! John Mayer just walked in! Maybe he’ll play some songs.
Hey Mark, you blog an awful lot about the things that happen in Ypsi’s nightlife, but from the sounds of it… (minus the occasional over-hyped Corner Brewery happening) you mostly sit at home with the family. Respectable? Absolutely. A good place to form over-read and over-hyped opinions of the Ypsi nightlife? Hell no. Keep celebrities out of Ypsi? Yet you want local businesses to thrive? OK buddy. Then YOU (or those readers too hip to sit a a bar with -GASP- Multi-platinum recording artists and Academy Award nominated actresses… (yeah. Eve and Ellen Paige were there too.) bring enough attention to those struggling downtown watering holes that they’re at/over capacity on a Thursday and being talked up in US Weekly.
that said, you’re GREAT at talking local politics, and you’re clearly quite intelligent… it would stand to reason that you might blog about things you’re informed on, rather than whatever this garbage is. Next time, perhaps you could base your writing on something richer than a drunken text message coupled with some irrational fear of celebrities.
Headline: Greedy Preachers and Spotlight Zealots Support Celebrity-Infested Nightlife, Selling Out.
Thou shalt respect celebrity, be reverent, obeisant, prostrate. Quash iconoclasm. Celebrity is a fine institution. Give the people what they want. Wag finger.
Feh.
Nothing pays better than selling out. But I have yet to meet a person who sold out and was happier for it.
So, you really believe me when I say I want to keep the celebrities out of Ypsi? Are you people really that – well – dumb? My point, back when all of this started, was just that we shouldn’t put too much faith in Hollywood to solve our problems, economic or otherwise. I still stand by that, even through there’s some word of a studio perhaps putting down roots here. If that happens, it’ll be great.
And, I’m afraid that you also missed the point of this post. You see, I’m “not” going out celebrity hunting. I’m giving them their space. I hope they’re happy. Since people in the audience want a place to talk about it, though, I created a thread… Like it or not, that’s what people here are talking about, and it would be foolish not to recognize that.
But, don’t worry, I’ll get back to local politics in a while. There’s something that tons of people have been bugging me to write about concerning a certain someone’s unwillingness to share video that he shot of City Council. So don’t worry – No One of the Cool Kids – you’ll get your chance to talk about Ypsi politics soon enough.
Sigh.
Everybody but you got the joke, dumb?.
If a celebrity falls in a bar, and no one is there to witness it, does it make a sound?
I feel I have a special understanding of what celebrities want based on my not knowing them at all.
I say they want some of us to fawn, some of us to spit on them, and karaoke.
If we give them what they want, they will bless us with fertile cattle and military victories.
For Ypsilanti’s future — everyone to the Elbow Room!
An old Zen Buddhist saying: “If you meet the Britney on the road, kill her.” Metaphorically, of course.
Lao Tzu on fame (from S. Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching):
44
Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which is more valuable?
Success of failure: which is more destructive?
If you look to others for fulfillment,
you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money,
you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
I never said I wanted to talk about politics…have fun, but if you are trying to be humorous, sorry it went over my head. You guys are touchy!
As a theatre geekess, I envy that they get to do what they love for a nice living. It’s just that yesterday I watched this “star” nicely talk to a few people but at the same time she was looked nervous and tired. I saw her as a person that is in a strange city in order to do her work and get paid. I would love to have made it like them, but all I could think about is how very weird it must be having strangers come up to you and say…”a you really you…what is your name? Why are you here?” –which is a direct quote of what I overheard someone saying to her yesterday. Or having people text each other and following you around.
Have fun, but like I said,in the meantime, the “stars” are spending their money here…good for us all.
Hey, lay off Mark. Everyone knows he’s good party buds with ETHAN HAWKE. They even agreed to name their kids after the same fruit! Or was that just another joke nobody else got???
If you ignore celebrities, the wither and die. It’s a fact of life. As much as they detest the attention, they’d sooner die than not have it. I guess you could say it’s a Catch-22.
And I love that Zen Buddhist saying, Dirtgrain. I want to have a t-shirt made.
“do you really believe me… “
Whew, thanks for the clarification. I was afraid you were still tied to that chair.
Joke or not, spreading around the slogan “Keep celebrities out of Ypsi” just doesn’t strike this reader as good form on the part of a person whose opinion actually influences people in and around the town. Sorry if those posts sounded pissed, I’m actually a fan of your blog, sir. But this particular entry came across as a bit too NIMBY for my tastes.
Also, I am one of the cool kids. So much so that I want to end this comment with a winking smiley, but no. Too cool.
I think some are missing the point- whether or we like it, its funny to think of celebrities dancing around the Elbow Room, or for anywhere in Ypsi for that matter. Further, Keep Celebrities Out of Ypsi was a creative way to poke fun at all the brew ha ha surrounding the filming of the movie. And how is having big name celebrities frequenting bars around town NOT news? It may not be the most substantial news covered on this page, but I do believe there was a post the other day featuring a large cat rectum… Let the people of Ypsi have a little fun with all that is going on right now, it doesn’t happen often and there is a ton of absudity to be celebrated!
Gilber Gottfried, Pauly Shore and I shared a fifth of Wild Irish Rose in an alley off Michigan Ave last night.
I love pop culture. I hate it, but I love it. My major in college was American Studies. For a guy without cable, I still know quite a lot. So, it’s not that I detest Hollywood and “Hollywood types.” What’s also true, however, is that I think we as a culture pay far too much attention to our actors and their lives. I think the same thing about sports. People, by and large, are paying attention to the wrong stuff, in my opinion. We’re on the brink of collapse, and people are more interested in Britney Spears than CEO pay, our agricultural infrastructure, the activities of our oil companies, etc. That’s fucked up. But I try not to hate people for it. “Fuck,” I say to myself, “They’re just trying to get a little joy out of life by living vicariously through these fictional characters.” The folks in Greece had the Gods on Mt. Olympus and we have people like Drew Barrymore.
And, speaking of the Barrymores, I’ve appreciated their stuff for years – way before Drew decided to film here in Ypsi. Just to do a search on the site and you’ll see. I’ve written before about her grandfather. He was a tremendous actor. If I did have a chance to speak with her, I would probably bore the hell out of her, asking about her family.
So, it’s not NIMBY. I happen to like it in my backyard. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t think that it’s going to change anything. As I’ve said before, these productions come and go. Today it’s Ypsi. Tomorrow it might be Saginaw. In a month, all we’ll be left with are the stories and the herpes scars.
Alright, point taken. Upon originally reading the post it seemed you were saying that you hate that celebrities are around but still want to hear peoples’ tabloid like accounts. And no, I don’t think that Hollywood is going to magically transform Ypsi/Michigan’s economy either… but it can’t hurt the local bars to sell a beer or two to 100 gawkers.
Gotta go, running late to dinner at Aubree’s with Lindsay Lohan.
In 2001 I met Olympic sprinting champ Michael Johnson in a bar in Scottsdale, AZ. We sat at his table all night long. He then walked out on us and his tab. Over 700 dollars. It hurt. Management made us pay it.
I understand this didn’t happen in Ypsi, but how many times do your get plowed by an olympic champion. That being said, I just moved to Ypsi and have never been to the Elbow Room. I’m 30 and am a little terrified about the stares I may get drinking in a punk bar. Something says my Polo won’t fit in. Meh..
Out here in the ol’ LA, I get to see a lot of celebrities. Certainly, many more than when I was in Michigan (Hey, is that Jeff Daniels! Hey, Jeff Daniels is buying some toothpaste at Kroger! WOW!). And, weirdly, I kinda feel like I fit in better regarding celebrities here than most folks in Middle America (warning: reductive stereotypes follow).
When Jason Stratham was buying tickets in front of us at the movie theater, he wasn’t an action star—he was a short guy who couldn’t figure out how many tickets he needed and was holding up the line. When that guy who plays Ryan on The Office was trying to wedge his new Mercedes into the exit, he was another dickfor driver. Celebrities are everywhere here, and it’s not an EVENT to see them, which means that it’s a bit more like catching someone you went to high school with out of the corner of your eye—you’re pretty sure it’s them, but you don’t really have to go and say hi or wave or anything.
Our new intern is having a completely different LA experience—she’s rooming with one of the girls on the Hills, she’s trying to come up with a way to meet Edward Norton and Shia LeBeouf before she leaves, and she was positively glowing after she went to the Ivy with her housemate and one of her friends and they got stopped to do paparazzi shots.
She’s from State College, Pennsylvania and is absolutely creaming her jeans about this stuff, which I just don’t get. I’m not knocking it per se, as she didn’t understand why I was so happy about meeting Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks (though I didn’t pester him or have him sign anything). But I associate what I see as star-fucking and name-dropping from her with more of the idea of it being an EVENT to meet these people because they’re famous and beautiful rather than anything about who they are or what they’ve done.
I guess I had just hoped that Ypsi was so full of jaded fucks that the Barrymore mob partying there wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows, especially since the Elbow’s all sold out now anyway (right? That’s what I hear… The last time I was in there it was all clean and painted and “artsy” and wrong. The scuzz factor had dropped precipitously).