Danielle Belton Online

Now with more drama for your mama

Friday, September 16, 2005

Waiting for Vince


Comics (left to right) Sebastian Maniscalco, Bret Ernst, Ahmed Ahmed and John Caparulo

Last night I didn't get any sleep at all because I was at the after party to the comedy show. Want to know what happened? Read on, my friends.

BAR STORY: Waiting for Godot


So tired, tired of waiting. Tired of waiting for you ....

The Scene: 5:15 p.m., the Fox Theater, the gravely back alley near the tour buses.

I was tired. I was exhausted yet I was stalking. Skulking even, chatting up the back security guard. I didn’t know why I was doing it. Searching for my one press contact at the Fox Theater. Using every avenue, every trick in my reporter book in hopes to actually meet actor Vince Vaughn.

It just isn’t every day a celebrity with that much heat floats into town. Star of “Old School,” “Swingers,” “Dodgeball” and the summer hit “Wedding Crashers.” The same guy the paparazzi wants to hook a Brad Pitt free Jennifer Aniston with.

Everyone wants a piece of Vince nowadays. I just wanted a handshake. I’d interviewed him over the phone and for once I was determined to actually meet the person.

It was strange. I didn’t want to meet Jewel or Cyndi Lauper or most of the singers I’d interviewed, but I wanted to meet the 6’5” actor and introduce myself. So there I was in the back alley with the security detail three hours before the show looking for my friend and the Fox Theater’s “Miss Everything” Ashley Bretz.

Ashley had already met Vince and the four comics, Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco, John Caparulo and Ahmed Ahmed. She’d been driving them around all day. At 5 p.m. she wasn’t at the Fox, she was at her house getting ready for tonight.

“What can I get for you, honey. Tell me quick,” she said as I imagined her searching for the perfect outfit that would allow for high fashion and high comfort at the same time.
My concern was over my tickets. I didn’t know if they’d be there. I’d been playing phone tag with the show’s organizer John Pisani for days, but the Ash assured me they’d be there. She’d make sure of it. I was secure.

So, with that knowledge in tact, I began to leave only to see a limo pull up. Still on the phone with Ash, I decided there was no way I was leaving without seeing who was in that limo so I followed it around until it parked at the Fox. I waited a few moments, then got in my car and drove around only to see a t-shirt and shorts clad Vaughn chatting on a cell phone in front of the dry cleaners next to the Fox.

“Oh, there’s Vince now,” I said. “He’s in the dry cleaners parking lot on a cell phone.”

“He’s at the Crystal Palace. They took them there.”

“But I’m looking at him right now,” I said. “He’s at the dry cleaners next to the Fox. He’s in shorts and a T-shirt.”

“He’s at the Crystal Palace,” repeated Ash who I think at this point was so hurried she wasn’t quite listening to me.

He was THERE. In the LOT. On this CELL PHONE.

Part of me wanted to say hi then, but I just drove on past. I’m a professional after all, we should be introduced like civilized people. Besides. The man was on the phone. I hate being interrupted when I’m on the phone.

The Scene: 7:30 p.m., the Fox Theater, “Where’s Jen?”

Hating to go to shows alone, my companion this time around was our internet content editor and my friend Jennifer Baldwin.

Jen is always up for anything. She sweated out Chris Isaac with me at the Fox when the air conditioning broke. We’ve gone to the Street Faire together. We saw Cher together. She’s been my bar hopping companion. She knows the words to songs but not the names.

Great girl.

But still, I never lost my focus. My eyes were on the prize.

When he strutted across that stage around 8:30 p.m like a country western-lovin’ Dean Martin four blondes sitting in front of me screamed, “Vince you’re so hot!”

There was a lot of that.

There was also a lot of “I love yous” to which he’d always reply - “I love you more, baby. I love you more.”

There was also some rudeness. A few shouted Brad Pitt slam that Vince handled with class. Said Pitt was a great guy, moved on.

Rumors were flying all night that Jennifer Aniston was there. People said they saw her security detail, but no one actually saw Aniston, she being like the last unicorn of paparazzo’s dreams of late. Who doesn’t want to see Aniston? If she was there I didn’t blame her for hiding. Even though Bakersfield’s hardly a paparazzi town, as there were none at the show, gossip travels quickly.

They’re just friends, we’ve been told over and over. OK. Fine. I’ll bite. I’ll tow that line. Sounds like fun.

They’re just friends, people. They filmed a movie together. Besides, he’d have to give up the hundreds of hot, drunk women of Bakersfield who came to the show just to scream “I love you, Vince” over and over. How can he give up that?

I know the four other comics don’t want to give that up. Bret Ernst is drinking a beer on stage. That’s how he’s living.

The Scene: 11:29 p.m., The After-party, Buck Owens Crystal Palace

For me, now I’m officially off the clock. Everything after this point is about my desire to shake a man’s hand. The Crystal Palace is the designated party stop and I, along with about a hundred other folks, want to be there.

But it’s late. The band is tired and no one knows if anyone is going to show.

I was hanging out with teacher and local actress Jenna Widelock and there was a girl in the bathroom waiting “for Vince.”

When all the comics did arrive without him it became obvious that he was sitting out the fun this evening, leaving Vaughn groupies to bargain with his crew over the next move.

“What do I have to do to get on that bus,” one girl asked.

She was drunk. Maniscalco, who she was begging to laughed and pointed to his friend’s hand-held digital organizer.

“You need one of those,” he said.

The band was ordered to get back on stage and they played a few more songs before the Palace decided even they’d had enough.

It was now up to Joe, a local promoter, to keep the partying going.

“Let’s go to RJ’s!”

Joe was chatting me up. Mostly about events they were hosting and how we needed to do lunch at Luigi’s. We needed to know each other better. We needed to be friends. He was a little drunk, but I agreed, lunch would be good. But RJ’s?

“What’s RJ’s?” Sebastian asked me.

“It’s horrible,” I said.

Of course we all went anyway.

After midnight, RJ’s bar, Ahmed is my new best friend

All night people kept introducing me to Ahmed even though I’d introduced myself to him at the show when he was signing CDs of his stand up. But at this point Ahmed had decided we were friends.

“You’re a great writer. That story you wrote was fantastic,” he said.

“You’re a great comic. You were so funny,” I said.

And that was the extent of the conversation over and over again.

The comics danced and drank and danced and drank and Ahmed gave me his phone number. But no Vince. No handshake. Not even a sighting of Jennifer Aniston’s alleged security detail.

Bummers.

The Scene: 1 a.m., RJ’s in Rosedale after the Vince Vaughn Wild West Comedy Show

Comic Ahmed Ahmed is drunkenly giving me his phone number. I don’t know why.

Here I am. It’s past 1 a.m. on a Thursday night. He’s already bought me a screwdriver and asked me to do a shot with him and he’s bought half the bar drinks shouting, “I got this! I got all this!” in reference to fellow comic Bret Ernst earlier schtick about Italians and a stereotype that involves the need to buy everyone drinks.

But Ahmed’s asking me to follow him to a less crowded spot so he can give me the number. Somehow between the Vince Vaughn Wild West Comedy Show, the after-party at the Crystal Palace and the after-after-party at RJ’s we’ve created an insta-bond.

Or at least he has.

“Take down my cell number! This is the number to the bat phone!”

He literally has no reason to give me his number. We had a great chat. I told him he was funny. He told me I was a great writer. We bonded over liquor and his urge to throttle a man at RJ’s who’s butt kept touching his. We had our arms around each other, but in a warm, friendly, reporter and drunk subject way.

“You’ve got to stay in touch!”

I smile. I program the number in my cell phone and I know he means nothing of this. He will not even remember most of this evening in the morning. He is high on life and liquor right now. He just had a great show and a short pretty brunette is giving him a heavy amount of attention. A matter of fact, half the girls in RJ’s are giving him and fellow comics Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco and John Caparulo some major love.

In some cases, too much love.

As Maniscalco danced with a drunk girl he was busy looking at his phone text messaging someone. I smiled at Maniscalco as I waved good-bye. He smiled and rolled his eyes. To the girl, I was invisible.

She was in thrall, clinging to the closest thing to Vince Vaughn she was going to get.

And I was heading out the door with Ahmed Ahmed’s phone number.

And that was the closest I was going to get.

fin.

3 Comments:

  • At 4:19 PM, Blogger Nick Belardes said…

    I wasn't going to comment on here since you didn't shake hands with Vince Vaugh...

    But I guess I will.

     
  • At 1:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Pathetic.

     
  • At 1:27 PM, Blogger Danielle Belton said…

    What's pathetic? The girl in the bathroom or my stalking of Vince because I was collecting a check the whole time I was doing that?

    A check, baby, is never pathetic.

    I get paid to stalk people and write about it. It's a hard life, but someone has to do it.

     

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