When a celebrity dies at your workplace

Earlier this week when Ed McMahon passed away, there was one news truck in front of the UCLA hospital early in the morning.

This afternoon a co-worker came into the lab and announced that Michael Jackson was at the UCLA hospital. Then a little while later somebody else said that traffic was getting crazy in front of the hospital because of the media and paparazzi. Then somebody else announced that he passed away. Around that time we started to hear helicopters overhead, and got multiple e-mails notifying us about street closures and heavy traffic. When I checked the online news, thousands of people were swarming in front of the hospital. It was amazing to see.

It also made traffic crazy today. Some of the streets around the hospital were closed, and I wouldn't be surprised if ER traffic was directed to another hospital. I left work at 7 p.m. hoping it had died down a bit-- and it had, but traffic was still heavier than a normal workweek evening.

Just watching the news crews and crowds at various places in L.A. on t.v. is crazy.

I feel horrible for his kids...

Update: The next day a co-worker described her ordeal trying to get home. She takes the bus and had to walk through that throng of people. She said that it took her about 15 minutes to walk through the crowd because there were people everywhere-- not just on the sidewalk, but on the street, on the steps and walls of the buildings next door and across the street, everywhere. This is a walk that normally should take 5 minutes or less. Considering the craziness of the subsequent media coverage, I don't think the Michael Jackson mania is going to calm down any time soon. I can't imagine what it is like to grow-up and live with this kind of paparazzi/media swarming every day of your life.

Everyday life...

I wouldn't have noticed if someone hadn't pointed her out--Catherine Keener, an actress in 'Being John Malkovich' and '40 Year Old Virgin', was at the park while our lab had its picnic.

One of my co-workers got pictures with her in the background. Truthfully, she looked very 'hippy' and the picture my co-worker got was very clear and not at all flattering. Once she noticed that we noticed her, she quickly vamoosed from the park.

It's too bad that she didn't stay and enjoy her friends' picnic. We wouldn't have bothered her if she had stayed... but maybe she's skittish because she has had bad experiences with paparazzi.

Anyways, it just made the picnic more fun and let us talk about the 'famous' people we've all seen.

Just last week some of my friends saw the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) during a Saturday morning run (which I skipped) and they all shook his hand. Being star-struck, one of my friends told the Governor that he was doing a good job--to which Schwarzenegger gave him a sort of funny look. Afterwards, my friend beat himself up about it since he is a school teacher! And education is just one of the many services that is losing funding during this horrible California budget debacle.

Yah, California is sort of imploding on itself right now. But we can still see movie stars at the park or on a early morning run. I guess that's our consolation prize (wah wah wah wahhhhhh).

Very Pretty

I saw Halle Berry at the theater last week. I went to see Oleanna at the Mark Taper Forum (where my sister works) and Halle Berry was there to see the play (starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles). She knew several other people in the audience and waved 'hi' to them. And she is just as beautiful looking casually as she is in the movies.

As for the play, the content was interesting but the execution left a little to be desired. I realize that the dialogue in this play is probably difficult to read and act out, however, the play was really slow in the beginning and the acting was annoying to watch at times. On the plus side, the set was nice to look at-- lots of pretty woodwork. To be fair, this was a preview show so I'm sure they'll work out some of the kinks by opening night.