Living in Hollywood is not like living in any other place on earth. Case and point, my trip to the gym this morning.
WAIT......FIRST, you have to know that this city SHUTS DOWN for film crews. I'm not kidding. Streets will shut down, your favorite store will be closed, or you can't get to your laundry room because a commercial is being filmed right outside your door. (This is a true story, and it includes a chimpanzee in a polo shirt kicking a can down the alley.)
ANYWAY, I dragged my lazy butt to the gym this morning and got started on the stair climber. About 3 minutes into my workout, a camera crew (which is typically a huge mass of people) made their way over to where I was and started setting up shop. Two women from Biggest Loser, clearly forced into wearing hideous T-shirts to make them look fatter, climbed onto the stair climbers RIGHT NEXT to me. Oh, HEEEEELLLL NO! I'm not about to have my raggedy, bulgy-ness featured on prime time, thank you very much. So I took my annoyed self to the far reaches of the gym, and got on a treadmill. About 5 minutes later, the crew moved over to the row of treadmills in front of me. Surprise, surprise.....I was still in the line of vision. I'm a background character, but a sweaty, nasty looking one all the same. NOT HAPPY. NOT AT ALL.
As a side note to Hollywood meets 24 fitness.....I see celebrities there fairly often. Most aren't the ones you would all know. Lots of freaks from VH1, and reality shows......but celebrities nonetheless. Just today, I saw "Buddha", one of the guys from VH1's "I Love New York". When will I run into Morris Chestnut? Funny you ask......I've been wondering the same thing.
I can literally be out running around, and end up in front of a camera. I had procrastinated one of my 8 mile runs, so I was making it up late one night. I was trying to stay on well lit streets, which means heavy traffic where I get to breathe lots of poisonous gases. I was jogging by a camera crew for the Jimmy Kimmel show, and these guys actually chased after me. They filmed a little blurb with me, but I never actually made it on the show. I'm somewhere on the editing room floor.
Oh, and about that chimpanzee..... really. In a polo shirt. Out my kitchen window. Seriously.