Shooting Stars (14 page)

Backpacking along the Mediterranean beaches in Mount Olympos on my travels before moving to L.A., I met a blond, blue-eyed Turkish girl named Elif. When she realized that I was traveling alone, she insisted I join her group on the sand. We swam in the warm sea out to a boat and to a couple of jumping rocks. A few weeks later, back in Istanbul, Elif brought me into her home where I stayed for a week and became like family. I left a chunk of my heart in Turkey that summer, and I'll keep going back for it until I die.

Like Donna, Elif is a small-statured, pretty girl you don't want to cross. Between textile jobs in Turkey, she had decided to come spend the late spring/early summer season with me in Los Angeles, but after several weeks of searching for employment—everyone wanted to see a work visa—Elif was thinking of going back home, something I really didn't want. We'd already grown very close and she was like a sister to me.

One Saturday afternoon about a month after she had arrived, Elif took a break from job searching to ride along with me. I was working Kirstie Alley.

Kirstie lives in an easy-to-watch Los Feliz home but isn't worked frequently because she never leaves. (If Kirstie weren't rich, I'm convinced she'd be a cat lady. She has a cage full of monkeys in her front yard. Seriously.) But, if you put in the time and Kirstie does come out, you can be guaranteed a sale—sadly, because the tabloids want to see how fat she is. (For the record, Kirstie isn't that fat. She may be overweight for Hollywood, but all in all, she's a very attractive woman.)

Kirstie is, however, the slowest celebrity driver I've ever encountered. She goes about 20 miles per hour on every road and turns her signal on a quarter mile in advance. This is fabulous for following. Plus, since Kirstie is rarely worked, she's not on the ball with noticing paps.

'
Appy days
! (This “Simonism” is now part of my vernacular.) Kirstie actually left her home today and met friends for lunch at the Alcove, a restaurant up the street from my apartment. She even sat on the patio where I could stay in my car on Hillhurst Ave. and get pictures of her eating, a definite score. Next, she went to Pinkberry for some yogurt. Then she queued outside Los Feliz cinemas for an afternoon movie. This was a paparazzi dream day.

I parallel parked opposite the theater on Vermont Avenue, and Elif and I sat in my truck to wait for the movie to let out. When it did, I followed Kirstie down the street, positioning my vehicle in front of her at an angle, quickly slamming it into park with my hazards on, shooting through my driver's side tint until she got out of range, and then moving in front of her again and repeating. With a card full of frames, I was no longer carefully hiding, but even so, Kirstie didn't notice me. As she neared her car, I called out “Hello” with my camera to my face. I thought she might wave and smile. And boy she did wave—she gave me a big fat bird.

When it was all over, Elif looked at me with stars in her eyes. “You didn't tell me this is what paparazzi was like!”

And voila, my little illegal alien and I figured out her job: shooting video.

* * *

Over the next month, I began to hone my video protégé. At least once a week, we would work Britney Spears, where each day outside Brit's home on Mulholland and Coldwater, dozens of paparazzi vehicles would park to wait on her. Testosterone leaked out of them like engine oil.

Britney was valuable short-and-flash gangbang practice for me, and she was Elif's favorite sit due to guaranteed action. Initially, in typical fashion no pap would acknowledge us. But when they realized we weren't going
away, tolerance began to overcome disdain, and a few even seemed to enjoy our presence. For the first time, paps other than CXNers—Britney paps nonetheless, the most parochial around—were beginning to talk to me. I quickly learned the driving rules and protocol specific to Britney; and since Britney paps, like Britney herself, reward consistency, the chases became easier because someone would usually let our car in on the follow, and we had made enough “friends” to get caught back up if we lost it.

Elif turned out to be just what I needed. Donna was riding with Brian most of the time now, and I was more or less partner-less these days, which was tough for my confidence and morale. I needed a coach, or at least a cheerleader, or I would start to doubt myself. My little Turk, a gift from above, was by nature and culture fiercely protective of me, her friend. Just like Donna, Elif believed in me and that empowered me to keep at it every day, even when I failed or got knocked down.

Today, the chase begins as usual, except that Britney isn't in one of her everyday cars; rather, a large bus pulls out of her subdivision. Rodeo2 knows to follow. We get on the 101 at Laurel Canyon, and then take Interstate 5 South. The half of the procession that isn't from Rodeo2, me included, all get on our Nextels to try to figure out where we are going. About an hour south of L.A., word gets around: Britney will perform her first concert in nearly three years at the House of Blues in San Diego.

Three police cars spot our convoy, and they make it their business to escort us southbound. At one point, when the bus exits the freeway and then gets back on for no apparent reason, the cops block the reentry ramp for about five minutes. But Britney doesn't want to lose us either, and we easily catch back up to her bus just going the speed limit. (The cops ditch us after that, apparently clueing in that Brit is a star who does not want their “protection.”)

San Diego's city center is full of one-way streets, and once there, paps circle every way possible trying to keep up with the prey. We need to stay close. Only a lucky few will be near enough to get a shot when the bus stops.

When it does, however, Britney is blocked by her security and ushered inside so fast that no one gets anything. Left on the steps of the House of Blues must be forty of us, half of whom I've never seen before. Frenzy ensues. The ravens, so full of adrenaline, start “grumbling and cawing” at each other, and soon potted plants and signposts near the entrance start toppling over in the chaos. Security moves in and ushers us down the street to a less noxious perch.

But despite the ruckus, there is a different tone to our group. Something about being out of town is bringing us, fierce competitors, together. There is laughter, banter, and camaraderie—like we are on vacation. It is in this melee that Wayne Watermelon turns to me and says something human, something like, “Man, that was crazy,”and the way he says it implies I am human too—even a comrade in arms to him. For a moment, I am speechless.

To put our relationship into perspective, my last encounter with Watermelon, while working on Kate Hudson, didn't go so well. He and his partner jumped her with their short-and-flashes. My partner and I, much more decently, “gave her distance” with our longs, the appropriate lens choice for the circumstance. Watermelon
savaging
her, as Simon calls it, resulted in Kate refusing to get out of her car, which resulted in me calling him a dumb %$#@*, which resulted in a barrage of insults from him, and which I returned in kind. Then, he threatened me with bodily harm, and I kicked his red and black car with the heel of my cowboy boot and ran away as fast as I could. It was a horrible day.

But for some reason, today, Wayne Watermelon wants a change. And I am game for anything that will make my life easier. San Diego marks the beginning of an alliance for us and, surprisingly, a real friendship. From here on out, Watermelon and I are buds.

J.R. attempts to get Elif and me tickets over the phone so we can get in and shoot Britney, but the concert is sold out. On a whim, I walk up to the ticket counter. Two tickets have just been returned, and I buy them on the spot.

After dinner with Toby and Mario from Rodeo2, we head to the
concert. I stuff my point-and-shoot in my bra, and since security only checks our purses, Elif and I enter without a problem. The venue is small and probably holds three hundred people max. The first floor is standing room only. The upper gallery has a few rows of seats and another small standing area. We walk upstairs and greet fifteen of our “friends,” mostly Rodeo-ers who knew about the concert in advance (we assume from Britney herself) and purchased tickets. It seems we've found the best position.

The concert starts at 9 p.m., and twenty seconds into the first song, “Baby One More Time,” the games begin. At least twenty security guards are posted throughout the venue, and they descend on us quickly. Camera-clutching paps are booted out one after the other. I last a long five minutes, a credit to being female I suppose, and when I do get the boot, security tells me that I can come back in if I ditch the camera. They don't know I'm a pap. So out and back I go, camera again shoved in my bra.

When I return, some guy who is sitting behind a post and perfectly angled out of security's eye is chatting up Elif. The guy appears to be an obsessed Britney fan (as he thinks we are too, of course) and is happy to lend a hand. I switch my camera to video mode, hand it over, and the guy records a full two of the five songs performed by Britney. He never gets busted.

After twenty minutes, the concert is over. Britney also played “Toxic,” a fantastic song in my opinion. And, man can she can dance. At $75 a ticket, I'd pay to see her again even if I weren't a pap.

The paps convene outside. Toby was kicked out early, as well as all the other Rodeo-ers, and Mario is desperate for shots. Coming back empty-handed to Channing, Rodeo2's owner, is not an option for him. In this case, there is more at stake for Rodeo2 than just picture or video sales.
Rodeo2.com
, the agency's website, prides itself on being the “Britney insider,” and this one-off concert is big news in her world. There were no “official” press photogs at the event, so pap photos are all there is to tell the story. Since other agencies won't sell to Rodeo2—it being a
competitor—the only way Channing can get material for the site is from his paps, or others, on the street.

Right off, Mario and Toby approach us to see what we've gotten. Although CXN would like to have our video, and would expect it, video is a new venture for the agency and it hasn't sold one of Donna or Elif's submissions in five months. Since I am on full commission, and Elif needs money, we are interested in talking.

At about one in the morning, Channing calls me. He offers me $9,000 for the video. I agree (of course!) and make arrangements to drop by my chip at his house when I get back to town. He'll greet me with a check.

Ten minutes later, he calls back and changes the deal to $3,000. I work him up to $3,500 but have little leverage. Evidently someone else also has video of the concert—not nearly the quality of ours, we find out later, but good enough to ruin the exclusive.

Channing's home office is situated in Brentwood, an expensive neighborhood on the Westside that's chock-full of celebrities. At 4 a.m., Elif and I knock on his door. We wait only a moment before he opens it. Channing is wearing a tailored shirt and does not appear sleepy in the slightest. He shakes our hands and sits with us on the front stoop where he apparently does all his business; no one is ever allowed in the house.

An attractive man in his early forties, Channing is polite but not charming, calculating but not conniving. In a refined French accent, he asks me to come work for him. He says he'll pay me ten grand a month. I tell him that I'm already making that. (The reality, though, is I've gotten only one paycheck so far. Which, in fact, was for over $10,000, but it was also for my first four months of work. But Bartlet told me the money would keep coming—“Your payments have kicked in now,” he said, meaning that the three-to four-month lag in the initial collections from the magazines has been waited out.
Finally
, I breathed ever so slightly easier about my building debts.) Mostly though, I don't want to work for Channing because he requires bimonthly negotiations: each of his paps comes to his home every two weeks, stands on the front stoop, and makes an appeal for their salary based on what they brought forth during the period. I bargained
my way through Southeast Asia always feeling like I was getting ripped off. I prefer to get paid an exact percentage of my sales, and CXN gives me 60 percent directly deposited into my bank account. That's my speed. But for one night—and $3,500—the Southeast Asia way is amenable. Channing writes me a check, and I hand over my memory chip.

* * *

We drive home down Sunset from west to east. There is no traffic and we clip through intelligently sensored lights that change quickly to green. The early morning light tints blue on the still sights of the city.

In L.A. at this time of year, the sun begins its defeat of the night at the miserable hour of 5 a.m. Though I wish it happened later, there's something satisfying in seeing the light win every day: the wakening reveals a beautiful city. It's not an in-your-face beauty, like that of Istanbul or San Francisco; rather, unlike its celebrities, L.A.'s looks sneak up on you. Think of a woman whom a man may at first dismiss as plain, even ugly—
What does everyone see in her?
—but whose splendor, like an avalanche of snow, builds and breaks and descends, suffocating him before he knows to run. In one day, he goes from feeling nothing for her to being in love with her. Suddenly, he craves this woman like his morning caffeine: he must have his fix. Her every imperfection—a gawky figure, pimples, too large of a nose—is now a beauty mark in his eyes.

This is the beauty of the City of Angels. Like the way Il Sole—where Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox eat—nudges into a decrepit strip mall and now flanks the priciest boutiques in town. Or the way the windows in Red Rocks cover an entire side of the bar and reveal their out-of-place hippie clientele to the surgically enhanced West Hollywood pedestrians. You can see the beauty in places like the ordinary Starbucks on the corner of La Brea and Sunset, where the extraordinary Spice Girl Mel B gets her lattes, and down the street from there at the stucco Rite Aid building where the spectacular Kate Bosworth shops for a humble tube of toothpaste.