I'm not a real celebrity hound, which is possibly why the 'Brushes With Greatness' label just has four entries in over seven years of blogging. That said, when TIFF is on, and I find myself shopping in the Yorkville area*, I admittedly am keeping an extra eye out to see if any famous faces are out and about. Well, not an extra eye…it's not like I have a third one hidden in the small of my back or something. That'd be a weird revelation to just suddenly drop on everyone at this point in my life.
* = it's not nearly as high-rent as 'shopping in Yorkville' usually entails. I got a new Packers t-shirt from the Nike Store, since the team clearly needed a change in luck following that shitshow of a game against the 49ers. And it worked! The new shirt is 1-0 thanks to Jay Cutler's buffoonery last Thursday night. This is the first new bit of Packers gear I've bought in years, so hopefully Green Bay's recent Super Bowl victory meant that my family's NFL apparel curse has been broken.
The issue was that once I got into celebrity-spotting mode, I couldn't snap out, and thus there were a lot of false alarms over that 90-minute trip to the greater Bay/Bloor area. To wit…
* "Rachel McAdams" leaving a Starbucks. Needless to say, this caused the mother of all double takes on my part, but it wasn't her. The young lady looked maybe 60% like Ms. McAdams, so while it was an honest mistake on my part, my greater mistake was not striking up a conversation anyway. "Excuse me Miss, has anyone ever told you that you look like Rachel McAdams?" Who wouldn't be flattered by that? It's certainly much better than my usual pickup line, which is "CALL THE PARAMEDICS!" (I say it after I've casually leaned my elbow against the wall to chat the girl up and then slipped and hit my head on the ground.)
* "Nestor Carbonell" in the Chapters bookstore. Again, it wasn't him, which was a bummer since I know exactly what I'd say if I ever crossed paths with Carbonell. Wouldn't be about Lost, wouldn't be about the Dark Knight movies, it'd be "Man, it's too bad they canceled 'The Tick,' that show was terrific." To which Nestor would be all, "Totally bro, that gig was tubular!" Then we'd fist-bump. I'm not sure why I presume Nestor Carbonell talks like a surfer, but there you have it.
* "Ed Roberston from Barenaked Ladies" in front of the theatre. Actually, this one isn't a close call. I'm 95 percent sure this actually was him. I just didn't react because…well, it's Ed Robertson. Also, this isn't really a TIFF celeb sighting since Robertson is one of those low-grade Canadian celebrities you'd expect to see around Toronto on a daily basis. Like, Jann Arden riding a streetcar or Gordon Lightfoot buying a bag of topsoil at Canadian Tire, or Cynthia Dale in a heated argument with a homeless dude.
Anyway, these non-existent run-ins were completely trumped by my parents, who apparently encounter more celebrities on a daily basis than the staff of TMZ. Fresh off running into the Edge during a vacation in Ireland, they just got back from a European cruise that featured none other than Willie Aames as the cruise director. Willie Aames! Buddy Lembeck from 'Charles In Charge' himself! Talk about a brush with true greatness. Actually, Buddy Lembeck in charge of a cruise ship sounds like a CIC plot itself. He'd end up running it aground but it'd be on a Hawaiian beach, so he, Charles and the Powells would end up partying by the end of the episode. Lemmmmmbeck! *shakes fist*
* = it's not nearly as high-rent as 'shopping in Yorkville' usually entails. I got a new Packers t-shirt from the Nike Store, since the team clearly needed a change in luck following that shitshow of a game against the 49ers. And it worked! The new shirt is 1-0 thanks to Jay Cutler's buffoonery last Thursday night. This is the first new bit of Packers gear I've bought in years, so hopefully Green Bay's recent Super Bowl victory meant that my family's NFL apparel curse has been broken.
The issue was that once I got into celebrity-spotting mode, I couldn't snap out, and thus there were a lot of false alarms over that 90-minute trip to the greater Bay/Bloor area. To wit…
* "Rachel McAdams" leaving a Starbucks. Needless to say, this caused the mother of all double takes on my part, but it wasn't her. The young lady looked maybe 60% like Ms. McAdams, so while it was an honest mistake on my part, my greater mistake was not striking up a conversation anyway. "Excuse me Miss, has anyone ever told you that you look like Rachel McAdams?" Who wouldn't be flattered by that? It's certainly much better than my usual pickup line, which is "CALL THE PARAMEDICS!" (I say it after I've casually leaned my elbow against the wall to chat the girl up and then slipped and hit my head on the ground.)
* "Nestor Carbonell" in the Chapters bookstore. Again, it wasn't him, which was a bummer since I know exactly what I'd say if I ever crossed paths with Carbonell. Wouldn't be about Lost, wouldn't be about the Dark Knight movies, it'd be "Man, it's too bad they canceled 'The Tick,' that show was terrific." To which Nestor would be all, "Totally bro, that gig was tubular!" Then we'd fist-bump. I'm not sure why I presume Nestor Carbonell talks like a surfer, but there you have it.
* "Ed Roberston from Barenaked Ladies" in front of the theatre. Actually, this one isn't a close call. I'm 95 percent sure this actually was him. I just didn't react because…well, it's Ed Robertson. Also, this isn't really a TIFF celeb sighting since Robertson is one of those low-grade Canadian celebrities you'd expect to see around Toronto on a daily basis. Like, Jann Arden riding a streetcar or Gordon Lightfoot buying a bag of topsoil at Canadian Tire, or Cynthia Dale in a heated argument with a homeless dude.
Anyway, these non-existent run-ins were completely trumped by my parents, who apparently encounter more celebrities on a daily basis than the staff of TMZ. Fresh off running into the Edge during a vacation in Ireland, they just got back from a European cruise that featured none other than Willie Aames as the cruise director. Willie Aames! Buddy Lembeck from 'Charles In Charge' himself! Talk about a brush with true greatness. Actually, Buddy Lembeck in charge of a cruise ship sounds like a CIC plot itself. He'd end up running it aground but it'd be on a Hawaiian beach, so he, Charles and the Powells would end up partying by the end of the episode. Lemmmmmbeck! *shakes fist*
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