A Little Celebrity

I've only had a couple celebrity run-ins since landing in LA. To be honest, I think I'm only programmed to care about celebs when they land on the pages of US Weekly or Star or InTouch or any one of the other vacant brain reads I prey upon at the airport. My first sighting, of Donna Martin, who some of you may know as Tori Spelling, happened at the park across from our complex. It was actually a defensive response, since she was oogling my five-year-old accomplice a little too adoringly. In mid-front/accusatory glare, I realized I recognized her from middle school. Only thing is in real life, Donna Martin's head is way too big for her body and her boobs are just ridiculous. They look like they're floating in water -- her head and her boobs.


A few days later while having my better sense zapped in the presence of adorable puppies for adoption, Mack's mom pointed out my second sighting... Everybody Loves Raymond's wife. She was there with her sons, admiring the puppies and looking just like she does in the show, which I've only watched because Bubba is a sit-com junkie and had control of the remote when I first got here. (As an aside, kudos to Bubba, Mack's brother, for his recent earning of a commercial pilot's license. Private pilot can be checked off my list of things to get.)

My most meaningful celebrity sighting happened two days ago at the Santa Monica Pier. Like most piers, there are a lot of quirky street performers earning one buck at a time showcasing talents most of us keep hidden. We saw a strange Indian girl dancing to no music for a video camera at one corner of the pier, fishermen casting off the end of it, a black woman singing R&B halfway down it, a Korean sculptor making amazingly detailed busts of regular people by the Mexican restaurant, and this guy.
You may recognize him as Arthur Nakane, the one-man band who appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show one February not too long ago. I didn't know him as anyone other than the guy in two different colors of socks with bad teeth at the Pier until his mic targeted us as we walked past. Look closely at the photo to see the extent of craftsmanship contained in his musical machine. PVC piping has never been more versatile, a drum stick has never been so efficient, keyboards have never been so modified, and a Rubbermaid storage container has never been such a critical component of a recording system. Arthur knows what is up. He knows.

Which is why it's too bad he's retiring this year. After finding out where we were from, what we were doing in LA, what all of our names are, and if we are musicians too, he finally did a customized rendition of Candy Girl (goes something like, Sugar, ahhh Honey Honey, You are my candy girl, and you've got me wanting you) for Mack, Laila, Shahin and Amber. Not exactly my tastes, but flattering none the less. I just hope that doesn't count as my 15 minutes of fame.

For more info on Arthur, check out this. After reading it, I think he might just be the most important, and certainly the most talented, celebrity I've met so far.

(One more aside... we finally had a dreary day in LA. It was still pretty warm and there was lots to do, but here's the drear on the pier... just to make you 27-degree readers of blog feel better...)