Oh the joys of Europe. I could be half a world away from Los Angeles, and yet I still somehow manage to have celebrity stories to tell. This latest one comes from the Czech Republic, which I visited about a week ago. As avid readers of this blog know, I was “on holiday” with my family last week, and one of the cities we stayed in was the ever beautiful Prague. The city was great, and I was especially thrilled one afternoon when I returned to my hotel and found several paparazzi lurking around the exterior like sharks coming to feed. What could this be? Was there a celebrity in our midst? I could only hope so! The whole sordid tale after the jump…
So here’s the deal. After a rigorous morning of touring with the fam, my mom and I went off to a nearby museum while Dad retired to the hotel for an afternoon nap. The museum was kind of a dud (it was some museum for the decorative arts), but it did afford a very nice view of the adjoining square where some sort of rally or concert was going on. I couldn’t really tell. All I could see was a giant wall of old speakers and a crowd of people all cheering and waving signs. Since the museum was behind the speakers, I couldn’t really see who was performing, but I did notice several cameras documenting the whole thing. My curiosity was definitely high, but for some reason, I decided that this little event was either some dumb student protest or a mini concert for Czech tweens. Don’t ask me how I came to these conclusions. They were based on nothing. But for some reason, I simply wrote off the entire thing.
Later, as my mom and I left the museum, we had to walk by the square to get to the hotel. I could have simply craned my neck a few inches and seen what all the hullabaloo was about, but oddly, I decided not to. Normally, my fame-stalking instincts would have had me shoving people out of the way to get a good view, but I guess being in the presence of a parent, I felt like I had to engage in some sort of respectable behavior.
Well, my mom and I trekked the two blocks to our hotel, and as we turned the corner, there were the paps. I felt my life force returning to me. “Ooh, there must be a celebrity staying in our hotel,” I told my mom. When she asked how I knew, I pointed out the paparazzi lingering about. She wasn’t totally convinced that they weren’t just tourists with big cameras, but I reminded her that having lived in Los Angeles for seven years, I could now spot the paparazzi like this (visualize me snapping my fingers).
Knowing that there was imminent fame nearby, I got very excited. I asked the doorman who the photographers were there to see, and even though I knew he would never say, I thought I’d give it a whirl. Well, this led to immediately awkwardness. He didn’t quite understand me and asked to repeat the question. My mom tried to elaborate by saying, “Is there a movie star here?” but that didn’t help matters. The doorman just looked at us blankly. At this point, I just wanted to enter the lobby and pretend this conversation had never happened, but as we all know, awkward interactions are nothing if not regrettably drawn out.
Well, my mom clarified for the door man that there were photographers lingering about, and he replied with something that sounded like “Fannyules.” This caused both my mom and I to stop in our tracks and go “Huh?” The doorman smiled and said again, “Fannyules.” We were still puzzled; so mom asked, “Who is here that they want to take pictures of?” The doorman merely shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know what else I can say. Fannyules.” Yes, this was pretty much getting as awkward and terrible as it could get.
Suddenly, I realized what the guy was saying: “Fans of yours.” It was a joke — kind of his way of answering the question without giving anything away. Of course, the comedy had been completely destroyed by the communication barrier / our collective deafness, but that was okay. I wasn’t going to let this secretive doorman get in the way of my celebrity sleuthing. Surely there was a movie in town, and one of the stars was staying here. I immediately zipped down to the business center, and after checking email and whatnot, I did some Google searches and discovered that G.I. Joe was filming in Prague at that very moment. Could it be that some of the movie’s stars were staying in the hotel? Channing Tatum? Sienna Miller? Either way, I felt kind of deflated. They would have been okay sightings, but I really don’t care about either celeb. Sigh.
Well, after about twenty minutes on the computer, I returned to the lobby (the business center was one floor below), and what did I find? Flashing lights! That’s right, the paparazzi were going to town. Through the glass doors of the lobby, I could see the paps snapping photos left and right. What fortuitous timing. Without hesitation, I marched up to the doors and looked outside to see who was causing this frenzy, but for some reason, I couldn’t see anyone. Meanwhile, next to me, there was a tall girl standing around looking bored. I had actually seen her several times over the past day or two, and yes, an occasional elevator ride had been shared. She looked like a model, and the few times I had heard her speak, she sounded French.
Well, since she was standing right there, and we had sort of had a knack for always running into each other in the hotel, I made some stupid comment like “Wow, it’s crazy out there.” I think I caught her by surprise because she sort of stuttered and then asked, “You want to go out?”
“No, no. I was just seeing what was going on,” I replied. She smiled pleasantly, and then I took another look out the door. This time, however, I saw the man that was causing all the frenzy. It was none other than Lenny Kravitz!
This was very awesome for me as I really like Lenny Kravitz. Plus, he’s about ten times cooler than I will ever be; so just being in his presence made me quite excited. It’s like a sidekick encountering a Master. I would have gawked longer and maybe even taken a photo, but being a fellow guest at the hotel, I felt like that would somehow be bad — like it was my duty to not act like those BARBARIANS outside the lobby doors. So after getting a good glimpse, I pulled back and told the girl.
“It’s Lenny Kravitz out there. Pretty cool,” I said. And then I walked away. This was dumb on many different levels. First, it was a stupid comment. It definitely did to match my “Cool Los Angeles” persona I attempt to maintain when out of the city. Second, I had successfully started a conversation with a model. Why I walked away from it is beyond me, but I’ll chalk it up to general star-struckness from Lenny. But most importantly, I didn’t even put two-and-two together when I was talking to this girl. You know: rockstar + tall model in close proximity. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out. That’s right, upon further Google image searching, I’ve now discovered that I had totally just babbled about Lenny Kravitz to LENNY KRAVITZ’S FRENCH MODEL GIRLFRIEND.
Smooth. Very smooth.
To think, if I had just been on top of my game, I could have played it cool, befriended the girl, and then of course she would introduce me to Lenny Kravitz, and then we would all go out in Prague and have a great time, and we’d all be best friends and hang out in Tribeca and Soho and go to cool parties. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE BEST. I COULD HAVE BEEN SUCH A WONDERFUL SIDEKICK. Alas.
Well, just to bring it all back together, upon looking at paparazzi photos from that day, the little concert in the square turned out to be a Levi’s commercial starring Lenny Kravitz. So if you ever see it, know that during any given shot, my mom and I may be lurking in the background…
Here are some photos (courtesy of I’m Not Obsessed):
