Tuesday, July 17, 2007

They get the spaces in between

"Where I come from isn't all that great
My automobile is a piece of crap
My fashion sense is a little whack
And my friends are just as screwy as me

I didn't go to boarding schools
Preppie girls never looked at me
Why should they? I ain't nobody
Got nothing in my pocket

Beverly Hills
That's where I want to be
Livin' in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills
Rolling like a celebrity
Livin' in Beverly Hills

Look at all those movie stars
They're all so beautiful and clean
When the housemaids scrub the floors
They get the spaces in between..."

Coming to you live from 90210. For the moment, I'm ensconsed in Beverly Hills, attending the TV Critics Association's annual summer press tour.

It's a fun time, but also exhausting. I've been updating my MSNBC.com Weblog, Test Pattern, multiple times daily as I attend the various TV show panels. (Checking the comments on the blog this morning, I was thrilled to read this one: "There's a discussion on TWoP on your poor sentence structure. ... Your blog could use some editing.")

NBC has presented its panels over the last two days. CBS moves in tomorrow. Also, the hotel lost my luggage for about a day.

I know, I know, how can a HOTEL lose your luggage? I'll tell you: You arrive from the airport and a nice bellhop offers to take your bags up to your room. You gratefully say yes and go to check in.

Then you never see your bags again -- oh, OK, you see them 24 hours later, after it turns out they possibly put them in an empty room that you were originally assigned to for some reason, or they might have sent them for a jaunty limo ride about Rodeo Drive, or loaned them out to Tori Spelling, or maybe they just sent them directly to the hotel lost and found. It's not quite clear.

A kind woman from The Washington Post took pity on me and loaned me a sweater for the first panel, which saved my life. The air conditioning in the ballroom where the panels are held is turned up to Arctic. (Is that poor sentence structure? I'm all paranoid now.)

I also was disappointed to find out that the mini-fridge in my room is apparently just a prop! It does store regular mini-bar juices and drinks, but it does not appear to be capable of being plugged in or generating cold in any way. I found this out after I stupidly bought milk and yogurt to keep in my room. Let me tell you know: Even a ton of ice piled in your bathroom sink will not keep milk drinkable overnight, although it may indeed require that you brush your teeth while leaning over the toilet.

But almost all was forgiven when I discovered the hotel has not one, but two Japanese channels...NHK and Japan News. I was able to get all kinds of vital info on which lines of the Shinkansen are up and running after the quake. (Do not take the Joetsu line, it's not ready! Or it wasn't yesterday!)

And I can't complain too much. It's still a pretty hilarious scenario, this spending two weeks in 90210, walking into parties and realizing Tina Fey is over one shoulder and Brian Williams directly behind you. I'm not a celebrity fanatic or even easily star-struck, but it still makes for one weird, loopy, goofy life.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Your blog could use some editing?"...heh! Kinda snarky. Isn't a blog's essential blogginess come from being unedited?

Anonymous said...

Was the nice WaPo lady Lisa deMoraes? She's a fabulous TV writer; would love to hear that she's also really nice.

Carol Elaine said...

Was it really Brian Williams, or just his giant head?

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper said...

Nope, it wasn't Lisa DeM, but I understand she is here. My sweater-wrangler was named Judy, she works for the TV Week in the Post.

Anonymous said...

waah! I'm jealous! You have NHK _and_ some other Japanese news channel?

--skybolt

Anonymous said...

You are too a starfucker! ;-) Oh editing pshaw.

Hellcat13 said...

How to keep the milk (or beer etc) cold:

Empty garbage can.
If you have OCD/germ issues, wash garbage can in tub.
Take garbage can to ice bin and fill that sucker with as much ice as you can carry.
Jam the milk (or beer etc) into the ice.
Voila! Cold milk in the a.m. (although this works much better with plastic jugs).

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper said...

Except this is Beverly Hills...the hotel-room trash cans are teensy-tiny and there are no public ice machines. They fill a tiny little bucket with ice for you at night, which is where I tried storing my yogurt, but it melts almost instantly.

Also, a glass of milk on the room-service menu? $3.50!

I went to the front desk though and they sent up a working fridge. Whew!