Funny Strange....

Ten Low-Key Los Angeles Celebrity Watching Locations

I'm posting this list because this is a question I hear all the time, and people seem to want something they can print out and bring with them when they visit.  And hey, who am I to say no?  I have the info.  If you already live here and don't care about this kind of thing, maybe you should go back and revisit some other hilarious lists, like the ever-popular Bad Halloween Candy post from 2006. 

You’re planning a trip to Los Angeles—maybe for the weather (almost always nice), the food (plentiful and delicious), or the shopping (don’t even get me started).   Thinking it might be nice to see some celebrities in their natural habitats, but don’t know where to go?  Don’t bother with the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Mann’s Chinese Theater, or Star Tours, unless what you want is to see other tourists.   Not that those places aren’t fun—they are!   But they’re not the place to see Toby Maguire, if that’s what you’re after.

Here’s the deal—if you’re planning a trip to Los Angeles, you want to maximize your time hanging out in places where celebrities actually go.

First, though, a few rough guidelines:

1.    Hide the camera.  You want to actually see the celebrities, not have them run away from you.  Having a camera around your neck will make them think you’re a paparazzo (or worse, a TOURIST!), which is the quickest method to get them to walk (or run) the other way.

2.    Don’t acknowledge them.  There is a little game we like to play in Los Angeles and New York—it’s called “ignore the celebrity.”  You are too cool to talk to them, anyway!  If you catch Mel Gibson’s eye, feel free to smile and nod, but definitely don’t ask for an autograph.  That is the surest way to get booted out of a place like The Ivy. 

3.    Dress casually.  Most of these places are “errand running” or “casual eating,” so if you’re wearing your finest attire, you’re probably going to stick out like a sore thumb.  Also, you might be doing a lot of waiting and/ or walking, and you don’t want to have on uncomfortable shoes.

Now that we’ve done the rules, here’s the list of the best places in Los Angeles to see celebrities in their natural habitats.  Hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times!

1.    Your first stop should really be Robertson Boulevard, especially the 100 – 200 blocks (North and South).  In a few short blocks, you can find stores like Kitson, Lisa Kline, Madison, Tory Burch, Ghost, Intermix, and Diavolina, and restaurants like The Ivy, Newsroom Café, and Michael Richard Patisserie.  Oh, and about 100 paparazzi, and whoever they’re chasing at the moment.  Spotted here (a mere sampling, not a complete list):  Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Tori Spelling, Paris Hilton, Halle Berry, Lauren Conrad, Jessica Alba and many, many more.  Make a day of it!  If you must take celebrity photos, Robertson is probably the best place to do it, since they’re already being snapped by the paparazzi.  What’s one more camera phone?

Slightly further up the road in West Hollywood (a key city for celeb-spotting), you’ll find eateries King’s Road Café and Toast, the next two on the list.

2.    King’s Road Café, at 8361 Beverly Blvd (right down the street from the Beverly Center).  Excellent chopped chicken salad, frittatas, and coffee.  Spotted:  Famke Janssen, Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Alba, Salma Hayek, Brody Jenner, Jeremy Piven, John Mayer.

3.    Toast Café, at 8221 W Third St. is also an excellent brunch choice, and is absolutely crawling with celebrities, especially at lunchtime on weekdays. Great salad and sandwiches, and they also make a really good cupcake (though don’t expect to catch any starlets eating one).  Spotted:  Eva Longoria and Tony Parker, Nicky Hilton, Katie Holmes, Kelis & Nas.

4.    The Chateau Marmont, at 8221 Sunset Blvd, is probably the place where you’re most guaranteed to see at least one celebrity.  Hang out on the patio (be sure to order something so you don’t look like you’re just there for the stars).  Spotted:  everyone!

5.    Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, at Sunset/ Fairfax Plaza.  Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton made a name for himself sitting at this very location every day, and although he works from an undisclosed location now, he can still be seen here occasionally, as well as everyone else who’s “trying to avoid the paparazzi.”  Spotted: Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, Carmen Electra, Vanessa Hudgens, too many others to list.

  The quiet town of Santa Monica is also a good place to spot celebrities doing their thing. 

6.    Whole Foods.  If you need groceries while you’re in Los Angeles, you might want to get them at the Whole Foods on Wilshire and 18th in Santa Monica.  They have a great selection, and you can maybe also see Meg Ryan, Benjamin Bratt and Talisa Soto, and the guy from Napoleon Dynamite.  I’m just saying.

7.    The Viceroy Hotel, at 1819 Ocean Avenue, has a pool in the back where you can order a club sandwich and hang out.  They also have a good bar and some amazing architecture and interior design.  Remember the Viceroy from Christopher’s trip to Los Angeles on the Sopranos?  Spotted:  Kardashian family, Owen Wilson, Katherine McPhee, Orlando Bloom, Mila Kunis. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention Brentwood, where celebrities can also be seen doing “Stars Are Just Like Us!” things like shopping and getting coffee. 

8.    The Brentwood Country Mart, at 225 26th Street, is a group of family-friendly stores where moms like Jennifer Garner, Brooke Shields, Marcia Cross, Kate Beckinsale, and Naomi Watts can often be seen.  Incidentally, the BCW also has a rotisserie chicken place called “Reddi Chic” that makes the best chicken and fries basket in the area. 

9.    Didn’t get enough celebs at the Brentwood Country Mart?  Head up San Vicente to Bundy and sit at the Starbucks for awhile.  Spotted:  Diane Keaton, Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Naomi Watts, Jim Belushi, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, Fergie.

If it’s Old Hollywood you’re after, head up the road a bit to Malibu, where you can almost always find a celebrity or two in one of the following places:

10.    Malibu Country Mart, at 3835 Cross Creek Road, known as the “center of Malibu,” has hosted everyone from Steven Spielberg to Mel Gibson, Ali McGraw to Pamela Anderson, Courtney Cox and David Arquette to the entire Baldwin Family.  If that’s not enough, they even have a Ben & Jerry’s.

Do This: The O.J. Simpson Murder Mystery Tour

Not even a joke—someone stopped me on the street in Santa Monica the other day (maybe it was two weeks ago, before I got the Zombie Death Flu(, specifically to ask me if I could tell them how to get to Brentwood, so they could see “the O.J. Simpson house.”  Maybe there is renewed interest in this because O.J. Simpson's NEW girlfriend (the one who looks creepily like Nicole Brown Simpson) is now in the hospital, after being beaten within an inch of her life (O.J. says she fell, but I'm going to let you draw your own conclusions).  Of course, I'm not even going to comment on the Darwinian aspect of being the girl who looks like the dead wife of a guy who probably killed her, and who goes ahead and moves in with him anyway.  That is another story, and THIS story is about you and your trip to Brentwood.

I don’t know why I have this much information floating around in my head about this subject, but I did make it a point to tell them several interesting trivial things and their locations, which I will share with you now. If you already live in L.A.and/ or you don’t care about this, maybe now is the time to go back and read another in my hilarious collection of blog posts, like this one, about story songs.

I guess if you were going to start a tour called “The O.J. Simpson Murder Tour,” you’d have to start it by flying into LAX, renting a car, and driving on up the 405 freeway going north, where you would turn off on Wilshire going west, then turn right on Barrington, where you might then want to park your car in one of the copious overpriced lots, then have Pinkberry. You might also want to try hanging out at the Starbucks on the corner of Barrington and San Vicente, because this is a good place to see people like Ben Affleck and the guy from Napoleon Dynamite.

Be sure to schedule your flight to get in during the morning or at night, though, or you're going to have to do this first:

 







There’s not really a lot left that was originally there in 1994 when the double-murders occurred, but you can certainly take a couple of hours, drive around up there, and get a sense of the place, and perhaps try to imagine yourself in a white Bronco, running from the law with a knife in your car and a duffel bag full of bloody black clothes (was that out loud?) The original Nicole Brown Simpson condo used to be at 875 S. Bundy, which is around the intersection of Bundy and Dorothy (South of Montana). The address is now 879 S. Bundy, and here is a picture of the gate.

 

 

First, though, you would want to go and have dinner at the Peet’s Coffee, which is what they turned Mezzaluna into. Apparently after the murder and the trial Mezzaluna got LESS popular, so they turned it into a coffee place.

Then you’d walk down the street to Bundy and turn left, where you’d only be able to see the gate of 879 S. Bundy, because I’m sure the people who own that place are used to people coming over all the time to see if there’s still blood in the walkway. Since the place underwent a complete remodel before it was sold, I doubt it, but it’s always fun to visit the scene of something notorious, I suppose. 

Next you’ll need to get into your car so you can take the famous O.J. Simpson drive up San Vicente, right on Gretna Green (ah, you’re remembering the trial transcript now, aren’t you?), on up to Rockingham. The lot is at 360 N. Rockingham, and here is an interesting “before and after” of the house as it was, and what it looks like now (someone tore it down in 1997).

Do This Tour # 1: A Gay Vegetarian Tour of Los Angeles

I know, the heading sounds funny, but this is a real thing. In case you don’t know this amusing trivial fact about me, my dad was in the military when I was growing up, so I I’ve had the good fortune of traveling all over the United States and Europe and have lived in a bunch of different places. One consequence of this is that I know alot of cities pretty well, so if you’re going to a major metropolitan area, I can probably tell you a few cool places to eat, or to see art, or to get a cupcake, or whatever your thing happens to be. Seriously, this kind of thing happens about once a week, only last week it happened twice. So, I’ve decided to start archiving these tour suggestions right here on Funny Strange in a category called "Do This", so you can print them out and take them with you when you go places. Because you know, no one likes to be wandering around a new city with nothing but a map and a fanny pack full of money. Actually, that might be the first thing to do on a tour called “Get Mugged,” now that I think about it.

"Do This" Tour # 1:  Gay Vegetarians Visit Los Angeles

Here’s some stuff you can do if you’re gay and vegetarian but don’t know your way around Los Angeles, assuming some of the stuff you might want to do includes going to a spa, eating at a restaurant, and dancing your gay head off at a club on Santa Monica Blvd.

This tour was recently road-tested and given a thumbs up by real San Francisco gays.    Assuming you want your first stop after the airport to be a spa, for a good spa experience, I would say it's Burke Williams all the way.  The massages are, like, $95 for an hour, but the ambiance is totally amazing-- cucumber water, a fireplace, and unlimited access to hang out there as long as you want, using the steam room and the sauna with real hot coals (which are authentic as well as being extremely hot-- see what I did there?).

There's a Burke Williams in West Hollywood (people who live and hang out there call it WeHo), and one in Santa Monica. I have only been to the Santa Monica one, which I have found to be quite lovely every time I've been.  Here's the info for the WeHo one:    http://www.burkewilliamsspa.com/home.htm/.   You want the one on Sunset Blvd.

If you have time after the spa, it's at least worth a few minutes to stop into the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Sunset Plaza, where you can usually spot a few celebrities.  We've seen Lindsay Lohan, Dave Navarro, and Rachel Bilson here recently, and this is where Perez Hilton used to do his blog (he might still go there-- I'm not 100% on this).

For a hotel, I will recommend a few around the area of the Beverly Center, which gives you access to WeHo/ Hollywood, and is easy to find from the airport (you just follow La Cienega alllllll the way from the plane to the hotel).  Also, if you stay around there,  you can go to restaurants and clubs and drink, and not have to cab very far.  One good one near there is the Sofitel.  There's also a Le Meridian over there, or I have some recommendations in Beverly Hills that you might like.  Maybe $300/ night is your average for one of those.  Definitely don't just book something random in L.A.  Get a recommendation!!!

Re:  food.  Is there a better place to get veggie/ vegan food than LA?   The answer is no, there is not.  Here are just a few good examples:

http://www.realfood.com/
http://www.veganglory.com/

Two other places that I like to eat in West Hollywood (but which are not necessarily vegetarian) are Toast, where they make a great egg scramble frittata thing, and King's Road, where I personally like the chicken salad.  Both of these places are very "scene-y," meaning they're the place where you go to lunch if you're, say, Famke Janssen, Josh Harnett, Scarlett Johanssen, or Mischa Barton.  Expect a fair amount of people staring at each other, trying to determine "is that.....?" and then of course being too cool to actually acknowledge them.  It's fun, though, if that's what you're into.

I'm not even going to try to recommend gay clubs, but I heard my friends had a good time at The Factory.

An important note on traffic in Los Angeles:

The key with LA is that you don't want to waste all of your time driving around and/ or getting stuck in traffic, so you need to strategically locate your destinations logistically.  Get out a map of LA, and try to plan things around one destination, like Santa Monica or West Hollywood . Do NOT go there thinking “I’m going to totally see the Santa Monica Pier, then I’m going to see my friend in Eagle Rock, THEN we’re going to see someone else in Manhattan Beach.” No, you are not doing that.  Because while these things may LOOK like they’re not that far away from each other on a map, you’re not factoring in the impenetrable wall of traffic that you have to get through in between each of these places. Keep in mind that the freeway system only works the way it’s supposed to in Los Angeles in between 3:14 and 3:16 am on Sundays. Every other time, there are about ten times as many cars as there should be, and the result is this:





Not a joke.  Not an exaggeration.   This is the actual reason why people from the west side don't go east after, say, 2pm.



That said, If you find that you’re staying on the Westside and someone invites you to do something really fun in, say, North Hollywood, I would recommend AT LEAST checking the SigAlert website, which tells you how fast each freeway is moving.  SigAlerts, by the way, are named after Lloyd C. "Sig" Simon, and you can read more about that here.  It's also fun to scroll your cursor around the map, just to see where the freeway is going ZERO MILES PER HOUR.   If the little dot is diamond-shaped, it means someone overturned an oil tanker or an entire truckfull of chickens, and that no one within that red diamond is going anywhere for a long, long time.  Try to avoid going that way.   Also, I am a big advocate for taking Sepulveda for eastside- westside access, though Stephan disagrees with me on this point.  Sepulveda never lets ME down, is all I'm saying.

That's it for "Gay and Vegetarian in Los Angeles."  Feel free to email me recommendations for new tours/ cities.   I'm fairly confident that no matter where you want to go, I can find some cool stuff to do.