The Scarvelis Dump

I’ve had an interesting trend in my adult life that began in the mid-‘90s. One day I was feeling sick and nauseated  so I left work at lunchtime to go home and get some rest (I would have stayed, but my boss at the time exploded on me and told me to go home because he was sick of listening to me complain…). As I was napping, somebody knocked on my door. Back then I lived in the very fist apartment on the ground floor of an old four-story Tudor building on Edgewater Drive in Lakewood, Ohio. If I opened the blinds in my living room and strained my neck to the left, I could actually see Lake Erie between the two high-rise condos across the street. So much for a lake view, but whatever. Anyhow, whoever was knocking on my door was persistent, so I figured I needed to answer. When I opened the door, I found a very familiar looking person standing out in the hall, “Are you the manager?” he asked. “No, there’s no on-site manager, I’m a tenant.” He told me that somebody had put a parking violation sticker on his car window (I didn’t tell him I was the one who called the management office the previous evening to complain about unauthorized cars in the building parking lot) and wanted to know what the problem was. I asked him if he had paid his monthly parking fee, and he told me that he was only living in the building on a temporary basis and all of his arrangements should have been made by The Great Lakes Theater Festival. He said “Thanks, anyway,” and proceeded on his way. I immediately called my friend Luanne because she did all of the graphic design for Playhouse Square here in Cleveland (the place where much of The Great Lakes Theater Festival takes place). I asked her, “Is Steven Weber in any of the upcoming shows this year?” She answered, “Yes. He’s in Death of a Salesman.” Thus, my first real brush with fame (a few years earlier I saw Debra Winger and Leonard Maltin at the Cleveland International Film Festival opening event, but that’s about it). Steven Weber lived in the building for a few months and was very friendly in passing. After he moved out, his New York Times continued to be delivered to the building’s address for a week or so. I still have an issue with his name on the mailing label just to prove to folks that I’m not fibbing about the whole thing.

Well, that definitely got the ball rolling for me and celebrity sightings. I even touched some of them!!!

1999: I was with our creative team in New York City doing post-production for some bank TV spots. Unfortunately, the producer had found a great deal on hotel rooms at the old St. Moritz on Central Park South. The place was a complete hellhole. There was a bunch of scaffolding on the side of the building and a sign that said the hotel would be closing in a couple of weeks for a multi-year, complete renovation. It re-opened several years later as the Ritz-Carlton Central Park (I bet if the guests knew what a nightmarish dump it used to be as the old St. Moritz, they wouldn’t stay there). One night we were walking home from dinner and I told the group that we should walk through the Plaza Hotel lobby just to see it. We did, and we saw Robert F. Kennedy and his entourage. My entourage was dressed in stone washed jeans and flannel shirts (except for me, of course) and we high-tailed it out of there pronto before somebody called the cops. That whole trip was a mess. On the way there, we got drunk on the plane and I left the owner of my company’s brand new Apple laptop on the plane, along with a $40,000 check for the production company we were working with. We flew into Islip on Long Island to save money and the art director ended up peeing his pants in the car on the way to the hotel (we had our driver stop at a 7-11 to buy beer to drink in the car, and then got caught in a terrific traffic jam on the way into the city).

2001: We were on a TV shoot in Toronto and stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel in the Yorkville area. We ended up driving to Toronto as we had to take several large props with us for the production. On the first night, after dinner and drinking, I realized that I had left my fan in the back of the copywriter’s minivan. Those of you who know me know I can’t sleep a single wink without that fan on high, right next to my head. Sometimes I even put it on the mattress next to me instead of the night table, just so it’s closer. (We’re not just talking about any electric fan, here. I must sleep with a Honeywell [actually manufactured by Kaz] HT-804 Super Turbo Table Fan. I always have a brand new spare just in case the one I’m using breaks. I even bought a 220V step down transformer so that I could take my HT-804 on my trip to Europe with me a few months ago) Well, after some begging, we had the valet bring the car up from the underground garage. As we were standing there, a very long limousine pulled up under the canopy. Somebody said, “Who’s this? Madonna?” Well, it wasn’t Madonna. The driver got out and opened the back passenger door and Mr. Las Vegas himself, Wayne Newton popped out. He even looked over at us and nodded. Then a bunch of other people got out and they all were whisked up to their rooms (which pissed me off big-time, since I hadn’t been whisked anywhere and they gave me all kinds of grief over my credit card when I checked into that hotel earlier in the day). It was pretty late, so maybe he was tired or something, but Wayne didn’t look too good. Actually, it looked like somebody was pulling really, really hard at the back of his scalp. I thought his eyeballs were going to pop out and roll down the sidewalk right there and then. And his hair was jet black (almost blue) and it was all teased up like Kim Jong-il. What is it with these celebrities and dictators and their poofy hairdos? Who knows? When it was time to leave the hotel later in the week, our minivan had a flat tire, which screwed-up the whole schedule.

2002: Once again, we were back in Toronto working on some more TV spots. This time we had to stay at the Park Hyatt across from the completely booked Four Seasons in Yorkville. On the day we arrived (we drove again since the copywriter on this shoot was very pregnant and not allowed to fly). As soon as we arrived, the ladies (the pregnant copywriter and an account executive I worked on the account with) went to get massages at the hotel spa. When they were finished, they called all excited because they sat directly across from Mary-Kate Olsen in the spa waiting room (when they called her into the spa, they referred to “Mary-Kate Zimmermann”—a cover-name). I happened to see Mary-Kate wandering to and from the hotel (followed by some muscle-headed bodyguard) on a couple of occasions, and it was just plain shocking. She looked like she weighed 14 lbs. I remember saying to my colleagues, “I think she might be anorexic.” Well, it turns out she was and I’m glad that she got help and is doing much better now.

2003: This time we were shooting and posting TV spots in Vancouver, British Columbia. Vancouver is a very strange place and I don’t really care for it. Lots of homeless people, drug addicts and panhandlers. Really, really good sushi, though—that’s my favorite memory of the two weeks we spent there, holed-up at the Sutton Place hotel. My second favorite memory of that trip is seeing Gerald McRaney (Major Dad) at the hotel bar. We looked for Delta Burke, but he must have been traveling solo. Also, it seems like just about everybody we casted for the spots had several X-Files acting credits (I never watched the show, though, so I have to just assume that I met some people who had been on TV).

2004: Okay, I finally hit the mother-lode. We were posting some hospital TV spots in Los Angeles (Santa Monica, to be precise). The creative team had flown in a week earlier, and I came in on the following Saturday to help finish-up and handle the unruly client. When I arrived at LAX, I called my friend Brian to see if he wanted to join me for lunch. Brian, who used to work as an IT person at the agency I was working for, had moved to L.A. about a year earlier to pursue his dream of becoming a Hollywood producer. We met around Noon at Houston’s in Santa Monica and as we were catching-up, his phone rang. When he finished with the call he said, “What are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?” It turns out he was on the list for the red carpet portion of that year’s MTV Movie Awards and the friend who was supposed to accompany him had just bailed. Well, two hours later and we were front-and-center between two Culver City soundstages, waiting for the stars to appear (that year they did the castle theme with the torches and everything). We ended up being in the perfect spot for meeting celebrities—front row, right across from the last of a long line of press boxes where the celebs would talk to reporters. The first person to come over and say hello and shake our hands was Paris Hilton (muuuuuuch more stunning in person—that was the year she wore an orange dress with her flowing locks of blonde hair). We also ended up meeting: Quentin Tarantino (very nice, but a much larger fellow than I imagined—especially his head); Scarlett Johannson (very sweet, looked like a shy little girl); Vin Diesel (very cool guy); Queen Latifah (“Hey, baby!”); Mark Ruffalo (we complemented him on Eternal Sunshine, he was very gracious); Carmen Electra (Va-va-voom!). There were so many more, I can’t even remember. The Wayans Brothers were nice, I remember them now…I wrote all the names down afterward, but I can’t find it for some reason. Some of the stars were mean and arrogant. Matthew Perry and Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t even look at us or give us the time of day. When Jim Caviezel passed, I touched his shoulder and he shot daggers at me. And what’s up with Snoop Dog—he was completely surrounded by his posse. Kobe Bryant didn’t seem too nice, either, but it was during that whole rape thing, so I imagine he was laying low.

A few hours later, as we were driving out of the studio, a friend of mine from Cleveland called and said that Ronald Reagan had died. Believe it or not, later that week he was laid out at a funeral home just a few blocks away from our hotel in Santa Monica! (They wouldn’t let us in to pay respects, though). Then, believe it or not, we went over to Monica Potter’s house for poolside drinks, which was a lot of fun (she is the first cousin of the copywriter on the project we were working on).

And there was even more to come. One night near the end of our trip we went Dan Tana’s in West Hollywood. I got up to go to the restroom and as I crossed the main reception area of the restaurant, I saw Leif Garrett (he had a huge scab on his forehead and was wearing a blue bandana). I went up to him, gave him a little fist-bump on the arm and said, “Hey, how are you?” He looked confused at first, but then just smiled and walked away. Later, when we were on the curb waiting for our car, a brown VW Beetle convertible pulled up and out spilled Tyne Daley (she had pink frizzy hair and was wearing a big moo-moo and Birkenstocks). I approached her to get a touch and you should have seen the look on her face. She looked at me like I had a butcher knife in my hand and a turd growing out of my head or something. Talk about not being fan-friendly. She must have major issues. Whatever.

2005: I was in New York again for post production of some TV spots we had shot back in Cleveland. This time the agency team and client were staying at the Tribeca Grand. One night we all saw Fisher Stevens in the hotel lobby bar. On our last day in New York, we were having breakfast in the lobby restaurant and Melina Kanakaredes was sitting at the table next to us, loudly complaining to some other woman about her lousy agent and how she wasn’t getting any good work. I hope she doesn’t act like that on the set. No wonder nobody wants to hire her.

Also, in 1997 I watched Mike Wallace chase the chairman of the PR firm I worked for down Euclid Avenue and the footage eventually ended up on 60 Minutes. Oh, and in the early ‘90s I met Paula Zaun at a restaurant in Cleveland. I told her she had nice teeth, to which she responded, “Well, that’s a first…” I have a photo of me and Paula somewhere, I can’t find it, though.

I really need to get organized.

WEEKEND UPDATE

This past Saturday I got up late and Kate, Eran, Lissa and Brent for lunch. We had mediocre sushi, but good conversation. Then we went wedding dress shopping with Kate (boy, that sure was a first for me—what a great peek behind the curtain for a guy—It’s CRAZY!). Late in the afternoon we went for margaritas and then I went home and watched CNN and thought about how depressing (more like terrifying) this election is.

On Sunday I got up late and went to the new Apple store that just opened the day before, which was cool. I also ran errands, called my dad and had a good conversation and went home around 6:00 p.m. I was watching Mystery Diagnosis on TLC when the remnants of Hurricane Ike knocked out my cable and internet. I ended up watching a DVD of American Splendor, followed by disk 2 of my Citizen Kane DVD set, “The American Experience: The Battle Over Citizen Kane.”