Shooting Stars

by Jennifer Buhl

  Midday, Bradley lights a joint. Now, here’s my deal with pot. I’m all for medical marijuana, but I hate smoking. Don’t like the feeling at all, and only get high right before bed on occasion so I can calm my nerves and go to sleep. But this time, for some reason, I say, “Sure, I’ll take a hit.”

  A couple puffs, I’m out. I crawl to the back of Bradley’s SUV, then to the way-back and lie down. He, on the other hand, is jazzed: “Let’s blow this doorstep and go get something!” We both know Cameron’s not coming out, but I can’t move and no way can I drive. Bradley has little choice but to take off for a troll with my worthless weight lying in the back.

  Cam lives behind Chateau Marmont off Sunset and Crescent Heights. It doesn’t take us long to hit a trolling route. We head west on Sunset, then go south down Doheney, pass the lunch spot La Conversation (patio check—no one), and swing down a little side street where Cameron’s gym is. Oh what luck, her silver Prius is parked outside.

  J.R. rings about this time. “Ahhhh…any action?”

  “Yeah, J.R. We’re on her at the gym.”

  “Ahhhh…Great…Ahhhh…Stick with it.”

  We can’t expect to keep her exclusive in the middle of West Hollywood, and over the next hour, a few more paps roll in. Bradley has cajoled me out of the car, and I sit in a stupor on the sidewalk holding my camera and long lens. When Cameron comes out about an hour later, we shoot her with her head up, waving and smiling.

  Bradley and I get on the follow. The other paps, apparently satisfied, let her go. Cam’s driving slowly and doesn’t seem bothered we’re following. When she pulls into an underground parking deck in Beverly Hills, Bradley instructs me to get out of the car and shoot while he parks.

  “By myself? Are we allowed to shoot here? Will you shoot with me?”

  “You’ll be fine. I’ll shoot from the car,” he says with a smile.

  I’m getting screwed, I know, but follow orders, slide out with my short-and-flash which I’d switched to when we pulled into the deck, and amble toward Cameron.

  “Watch the lift,” Bradley instructs out his window. He means the elevator.

  When I get to Cameron, I do not raise my camera. Instead I stare at her and wait for her cue.

  “You’re on private property. You can’t shoot here,” she says matter-of-factly.

  I’m still a little stoned. Hmmm, now what? I’m standing in a dark parking deck with zero confidence (which I know she picks up on), sorely aware that if I try to bring my camera to my face, she’ll just turn the other way. She’s fully in control.

  So, I don’t try to shoot. Instead, I’ve got it, I’ll follow her again. Into the elevator.

  What the hell am I doing? I glance at Bradley who is thirty feet away snuggly in his car—he smiles and waves me on.

  Cameron gets in the elevator.

  I get in the elevator.

  My camera’s down. I’m looking at the ground.

  It’s just me and her.

  The door closes.

  Just me and her.

  Silence.

  No one pushes a button. The elevator doesn’t move.

  “You need to get off,” she says.

  I don’t say anything and refuse to move my eyeballs from the floor. But I can feel her stare. She’s looking at me like I’m a fever blister.

  I’m really normal, Cameron. I bet we could be friends.

  Silence.

  “This is really weird,” she says.

  I have an MBA, Cameron. I’m smart. I’m not like them. I’m one of you. You’d like me.

  She’s right. This is really weird.

  Cam is a very experienced celebrity—she knows pap protocol. And, as I can now attest, this is most definitely not it.

  I’m super glad I smoked pot earlier.

  “I’m just gonna see where you’re going,” I finally whisper, still staring at the floor.

  Forever-long pause.

  “Humf. Fine. I’ll get off then.”

  She pushes the button, the door opens, and she walks out. The door closes, and I’m left alone.

  Eventually I push the button, the door reopens, and Cameron, standing there, moves aside so I can pass. I never look up. When I make it to Bradley’s car, he’s curled up on the floor and can’t talk for laughing so hard.

  I whack him on the back of his head. “Get up! Let’s go.”

  Being a Celebrity, for Dummies

  Part 1

  Dear Celebrities,

  I feel it’s about time we discussed your habits. ’Cause the way I see it, after only five months of working in this business, if you really don’t want to be photographed, you mostly don’t have to be. (Now, your gut probably already tells you this, but to validate: most celebrities you see in weekly tabloids are there by choice. You do not need to feel sorry for them. They want to be photographed.)

  But for the celebrity who just doesn’t get it, or for the up-and-coming celebrity, here are a few tips for avoiding the paparazzi:

  (Note: Reverse these tactics to attract the paparazzi.)

  1. Do not eat, hang, shop, go to the doctor, drive, live, or basically be in the Beverly Hills or West Hollywood shopping areas, defined as the City in the Glossary of Paparazzi Terms. Ninety percent of paparazzi hang out in this two-mile radius of town. There is also a healthy smattering of us in the heart of Santa Monica and near the Country Mart in Malibu, so you may want to avoid those areas too. If you are spotted in town, you should give it up. (In my opinion.) That’s the game. (Unless we followed you there. Then you may have some grounds not to.)

  If you don’t “want it,” then move to or shop in a different part of town. There are a plethora of fantastic neighborhoods in L.A. with much cooler shopping than Rodeo Drive, Barneys, and Maxfield. (Olsen twins, are you listening?)

  2. Don’t be a person of habit. Don’t go to the same coffee shop each day (ahem, Patrick Dempsey), the same yoga class each Monday (Reese Witherspoon), or the same Beverly Hills restaurant each weekend (hundreds of you). There’s great variety in this city. Mix it up.

  3. When you go out of town, use it to your advantage. You should know by now that there are paps stationed full-time at LAX—usually at the American gate. Also, some agencies have airline insiders and sort through passenger manifests so they can catch you on other carriers. Ideally, you will take a private jet. If you must go in and out of LAX, try particularly hard to keep your return a secret by arriving late at night or very early in the morning. If you alert us at the airport that you’re home, expect a doorstep the next day. If you come through incognito, enjoy your L.A. freedom. (No one wants to work on someone who “might” be home.) This “out-of-town advantage” can buy you days, weeks, or more (until you’re spotted, of course—so keep out of Beverly Hills. See No. 1).

  4. If we manage to get a camera near your face and you know we’re there, keep your eyes half-shut the entire time. You don’t see this often, but it’s a classic trick and friggin’ funny. Mags may buy an ugly picture of you, but they will not buy one of you with your eyes shut. If that’s too hard, then take a lesson from Leonardo DiCaprio: always wear a low-billed hat or sunglasses, and keep your chin curled under even if you don’t know we’re there. If you do know we’re there, walk with your hand casually sweeping your forehead. This way, you will not look belligerent in the few places that your hand and half of face print. (Look up some pictures of Jen Aniston—she has the hand sweep down to a science.)

  5. Regarding your home: where you buy a house and the layout of the neighborhood is of utmost importance.

  Ideally, your neighborhood will have at least two exits. And even if it’s less convenient, you need to use both of them. This makes us either have to sit flagrantly on your house (in which case if you are the slightest bit aware, you will see us immediately and can simply employ other tactics, as in No. 4 above) or have to use double the manpower (i.e., we sit farther away from your home, one at each exit), which is much less lucrative for us. We still may work you but not
nearly as often.

  It is also crucial that we are not able to tell if you are home. One little garage door can change your life. A variety of cars (and a mixture of real and dealer plates) is another trick.9 If the one car that you always drive is sitting in your driveway for all to see, then we’re gonna sit on you. It’s like dangling a banana in front of a monkey. How could we not? We don’t even have to get to your house early because you are an all-day doorstep target. At any time during the day, if we drive by and see your car, we might decide to sit and wait.

  Frankly, it’s best we don’t even see your house from the street. You could live in a private subdivision with a gate guard, or your house could lie far from the road and be shrouded in shrubbery. If we can’t see your house, we can’t get clues that might tell us if you’re home or in town. If we are never able to tell if you’re home, we are more likely to pass you up. Another option is to buy a home on a busy road or one we’ll have trouble parking on (a “permit only” street, for example).

  And best-case scenario, have more than one home (or stay at your boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s often) and switch it up. You’ll be hard to keep up with or we’ll have to put two paps in two locations—again, generally more effort than you’re worth.

  Bottom line, if it takes too much time or too much manpower to get a shot of you, we will give up. But, beware: you could become…BORRRRIIING.

  Good luck!

  Jennifer

  9. In Cali, when you buy a new car, you leave the dealership with “paper” or “dealer” plates (or “without plates,” we might also say), and your real ones are mailed to you in a few months. These dealer plates depict the dealership logo and do not have identifying numbers on them as they do in some states. Thus, if you have a new-looking car (which may even be as old as two or three years), you will generally not be pulled over for driving with dealer plates. Paps use dealer plates for two reasons: one, to be less identifiable; and two, to avoid getting ticketed at red-light camera intersections.

  Chapter 8

  Backpacking along the Mediterranean beaches in Mount Olympos on my travels before moving to L.A., I met a blond, blue-eyed Turkish girl named Elif. When she realized that I was traveling alone, she insisted I join her group on the sand. We swam in the warm sea out to a boat and to a couple of jumping rocks. A few weeks later, back in Istanbul, Elif brought me into her home where I stayed for a week and became like family. I left a chunk of my heart in Turkey that summer, and I’ll keep going back for it until I die.

  Like Donna, Elif is a small-statured, pretty girl you don’t want to cross. Between textile jobs in Turkey, she had decided to come spend the late spring/early summer season with me in Los Angeles, but after several weeks of searching for employment—everyone wanted to see a work visa—Elif was thinking of going back home, something I really didn’t want. We’d already grown very close and she was like a sister to me.

  One Saturday afternoon about a month after she had arrived, Elif took a break from job searching to ride along with me. I was working Kirstie Alley.

  Kirstie lives in an easy-to-watch Los Feliz home but isn’t worked frequently because she never leaves. (If Kirstie weren’t rich, I’m convinced she’d be a cat lady. She has a cage full of monkeys in her front yard. Seriously.) But, if you put in the time and Kirstie does come out, you can be guaranteed a sale—sadly, because the tabloids want to see how fat she is. (For the record, Kirstie isn’t that fat. She may be overweight for Hollywood, but all in all, she’s a very attractive woman.)

  Kirstie is, however, the slowest celebrity driver I’ve ever encountered. She goes about 20 miles per hour on every road and turns her signal on a quarter mile in advance. This is fabulous for following. Plus, since Kirstie is rarely worked, she’s not on the ball with noticing paps.

  ’Appy days! (This “Simonism” is now part of my vernacular.) Kirstie actually left her home today and met friends for lunch at the Alcove, a restaurant up the street from my apartment. She even sat on the patio where I could stay in my car on Hillhurst Ave. and get pictures of her eating, a definite score. Next, she went to Pinkberry for some yogurt. Then she queued outside Los Feliz cinemas for an afternoon movie. This was a paparazzi dream day.

  I parallel parked opposite the theater on Vermont Avenue, and Elif and I sat in my truck to wait for the movie to let out. When it did, I followed Kirstie down the street, positioning my vehicle in front of her at an angle, quickly slamming it into park with my hazards on, shooting through my driver’s side tint until she got out of range, and then moving in front of her again and repeating. With a card full of frames, I was no longer carefully hiding, but even so, Kirstie didn’t notice me. As she neared her car, I called out “Hello” with my camera to my face. I thought she might wave and smile. And boy she did wave—she gave me a big fat bird.

  When it was all over, Elif looked at me with stars in her eyes. “You didn’t tell me this is what paparazzi was like!”

  And voila, my little illegal alien and I figured out her job: shooting video.

  * * *

  Over the next month, I began to hone my video protégé. At least once a week, we would work Britney Spears, where each day outside Brit’s home on Mulholland and Coldwater, dozens of paparazzi vehicles would park to wait on her. Testosterone leaked out of them like engine oil.

  Britney was valuable short-and-flash gangbang practice for me, and she was Elif’s favorite sit due to guaranteed action. Initially, in typical fashion no pap would acknowledge us. But when they realized we weren’t going away, tolerance began to overcome disdain, and a few even seemed to enjoy our presence. For the first time, paps other than CXNers—Britney paps nonetheless, the most parochial around—were beginning to talk to me. I quickly learned the driving rules and protocol specific to Britney; and since Britney paps, like Britney herself, reward consistency, the chases became easier because someone would usually let our car in on the follow, and we had made enough “friends” to get caught back up if we lost it.

  Elif turned out to be just what I needed. Donna was riding with Brian most of the time now, and I was more or less partner-less these days, which was tough for my confidence and morale. I needed a coach, or at least a cheerleader, or I would start to doubt myself. My little Turk, a gift from above, was by nature and culture fiercely protective of me, her friend. Just like Donna, Elif believed in me and that empowered me to keep at it every day, even when I failed or got knocked down.

  Today, the chase begins as usual, except that Britney isn’t in one of her everyday cars; rather, a large bus pulls out of her subdivision. Rodeo2 knows to follow. We get on the 101 at Laurel Canyon, and then take Interstate 5 South. The half of the procession that isn’t from Rodeo2, me included, all get on our Nextels to try to figure out where we are going. About an hour south of L.A., word gets around: Britney will perform her first concert in nearly three years at the House of Blues in San Diego.

  Three police cars spot our convoy, and they make it their business to escort us southbound. At one point, when the bus exits the freeway and then gets back on for no apparent reason, the cops block the reentry ramp for about five minutes. But Britney doesn’t want to lose us either, and we easily catch back up to her bus just going the speed limit. (The cops ditch us after that, apparently clueing in that Brit is a star who does not want their “protection.”)

  San Diego’s city center is full of one-way streets, and once there, paps circle every way possible trying to keep up with the prey. We need to stay close. Only a lucky few will be near enough to get a shot when the bus stops.

  When it does, however, Britney is blocked by her security and ushered inside so fast that no one gets anything. Left on the steps of the House of Blues must be forty of us, half of whom I’ve never seen before. Frenzy ensues. The ravens, so full of adrenaline, start “grumbling and cawing” at each other, and soon potted plants and signposts near the entrance start toppling over in the chaos. Security moves in and ushers us down the street to a less noxious per
ch.

  But despite the ruckus, there is a different tone to our group. Something about being out of town is bringing us, fierce competitors, together. There is laughter, banter, and camaraderie—like we are on vacation. It is in this melee that Wayne Watermelon turns to me and says something human, something like, “Man, that was crazy,”and the way he says it implies I am human too—even a comrade in arms to him. For a moment, I am speechless.

  To put our relationship into perspective, my last encounter with Watermelon, while working on Kate Hudson, didn’t go so well. He and his partner jumped her with their short-and-flashes. My partner and I, much more decently, “gave her distance” with our longs, the appropriate lens choice for the circumstance. Watermelon savaging her, as Simon calls it, resulted in Kate refusing to get out of her car, which resulted in me calling him a dumb %$#@*, which resulted in a barrage of insults from him, and which I returned in kind. Then, he threatened me with bodily harm, and I kicked his red and black car with the heel of my cowboy boot and ran away as fast as I could. It was a horrible day.

  But for some reason, today, Wayne Watermelon wants a change. And I am game for anything that will make my life easier. San Diego marks the beginning of an alliance for us and, surprisingly, a real friendship. From here on out, Watermelon and I are buds.

  J.R. attempts to get Elif and me tickets over the phone so we can get in and shoot Britney, but the concert is sold out. On a whim, I walk up to the ticket counter. Two tickets have just been returned, and I buy them on the spot.

  After dinner with Toby and Mario from Rodeo2, we head to the concert. I stuff my point-and-shoot in my bra, and since security only checks our purses, Elif and I enter without a problem. The venue is small and probably holds three hundred people max. The first floor is standing room only. The upper gallery has a few rows of seats and another small standing area. We walk upstairs and greet fifteen of our “friends,” mostly Rodeo-ers who knew about the concert in advance (we assume from Britney herself) and purchased tickets. It seems we’ve found the best position.