Further Adventures from the 'Gossip Girl' Set

Last Thursday, I engaged in a whirlwind of activity that started with meeting Julie Chen and ended with a trip to The Soup. But my pop-culture odyssey did not end there. Less than a day later, I found myself standing on the set of Gossip Girl in New York City, a nifty twist of fate that completed my trilogy of TV experiences. Yes, this past weekend I headed to New York for a wedding, and as luck would have it, my favorite teen soap was being filmed on the same street as my friend’s apartment (where I was staying on Friday night). It was almost too much for me to deal with: Gossip Girl, Big Brother, and Joel McHale in less than twenty-four hours? My dreams had come true!
So in proper stalker fashion, my friends and I all went out to dinner and then moseyed on down the block to the set where we drunkenly snapped dumb photos and kept a leery eye out for any errant cast members. The results of our quest after the jump…

Now, as some of you may remember, my friend Meeshie took some lovely pictures of the Gossip Girl set last week. Her camera, however, is horrendous; so I felt it very important that I take some photos with my own piece of equipment. Sadly, the ol’ Cyber-Shot didn’t fare so well in the sharpness department; so you’ll just have to deal with some graininess / blur.

Here’s where the magic happened: Ludlow Street. Note the lighting rig in the foreground.

Overhead lighting!

Production actually closed down a few blocks to traffic. So what else to do but poke each other with umbrellas in the middle of the street. Did I mention that we were drunk?

Unbeknownst to my friends, a renegade taxi wound up on the street. The horror!

The Nate Archibald stand-in.

A blonde stand-in. I at first assumed it was the fake Serena van der Woodsen, but I soon discovered it was actually Jenny Humphrey.

The actual filming set-up. When I was a PA, I used to know what this was called. Home base? Base camp? Something like that.

Meeshie’s boyfriend. He climbed a random ladder, incurring the wrath of a prickly production assistant. Fisticuffs were almost had.

And that’s pretty much it. After about twenty minutes of gawking at the stand-ins, we decided that our buzzes were fading, and it simply wasn’t worth it to wait around anymore. Besides, the filming was supposed to go on until 4 AM; so we resolved to come back later. Amazingly, we actually did come back at like 2 in the morning when we were very, very drunk, but alas, filming was complete. We missed the good stuff. That’s okay though. I’m sure there’ll be plenty more opportunities, and if nothing else, I taught Meeshie the proper Gossip Girl vernacular (I informed her that it was “xoxo, Gossip Girl,” not “Gossip Girl, xoxo” as she had been writing on all the captions of her photos). Now, in grand Gossip Girl tradition, excuse me while I go drink some Vitamin Water and call someone on my Verizon Wireless phone.
YOU KNOW YOU LOVE ME,
Gossip Bad Photo Taker