By Kelly Kazek
kelly@athensnews-courier.com
April 04, 2009 07:29 pm
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Y’all will never guess!
I have hobnobbed with the rich and famous. Well, not hobnobbed so much as gawked at the rich and famous.
Well, not gawked at the rich and famous so much as gawked at their locked gates and eight-foot tall hedges but there’s no need to get technical.
What I’m trying to say is: People, I’ve been to Hollywood!
Yep, my daughter’s high school dance team competed at a national competition in Anaheim, Calif., last weekend (won the whole thing, by the way) and, since my house was mortgaged to the rafters and my credit card was on life support and in need of prayers, me and some of the mamas said: Why not? Let’s break out the big bucks and hit Rodeo Drive, by which we meant pay 50 bucks for a tour and walk around and take pictures of things we couldn’t afford to buy.
Oh, and by the way, they do not hold bronco busting there. It is not Roe-dee-oh Drive. They call it Roe-day-oh Drive so you will know you won’t find any horse manure there but you will find lots of snooty people who look like they’ve smelled horse manure whenever tourists walk past.
Even though they, in fact, work as sales clerks, they want you to know they work as sales clerks on Roe-day-oh Drive and therefore their lives are vastly more fulfilling than yours. After all, the clerk at Jimmy Choo may have touched Jennifer Aniston’s heel and can you say that?
I walked into Louis Vuitton and marked myself as a tourist right away because I wasn’t sure if my $30 jeans and Kohl’s blouse would do the trick. I looked around at all the luggage and handbags — not one of which had a price tag — chose a small and, dare I say it, inexpensive looking keychain and asked, “How much?”
No one actually gasped but you could almost see the clerk choking one back. People apparently don’t ask on Roe-day-oh Drive.
“Three-seventy-five,” she said.
I wanted to ask, “Cents?” but one of the other moms hustled me on out of there before I could mark Alabama as totally fashion backward.
Any-hoo, our happy little van full of tourists also took a drive around Beverly Hills 90210. Did you know it’s an actual city and not just a place they name a bunch of TV shows after?
Sure is. People actually live there.
At least I think they do. We didn’t see people, just lots of perfection.
We saw Tom and Katie’s driveway and hedges. They were nice. We saw the gate to the Playboy mansion and the roof of the house where Britney lived before she went off her nut. We got to see a few homes’ exteriors in their entirety, like Dr. Phil’s, Peter Falk’s and Lucille Ball’s (Lucy Arnaz lives there now, our driver said).
We also passed the house where the Osbournes reality show was filmed, when Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly and Jack showed the world their sick, er, special family bond. Our tour guide told us they bought another home for an upcoming show and Christina Aguilera lives in their old home. I wouldn’t have wanted to see those carpet cleaning bills.
The day after we got back from California, I saw Sharon and Ozzy give an interview about their new show and the interviewer asked why they moved from Beverly Hills. Sharon said, basically, she was sick of all those tour buses driving past.
Well.
Maybe the Beverly Hills city council could start a Do Not Tour List, sort of like the Feds’ Do Not Call List, and the buses could detour to some other home, like Weird Al Yankovic’s or something.
Sharon probably really didn’t like the tour buses because Ozzy kept wobbling out in front of them in his underwear muttering about going bat hunting and she had to keep chasing him down.
I’m just sayin.’
By the way, y’all, I’m starting a Louis Vuitton keychain fund. Send donations my way.
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