This is how you use the Internet.<\/p>\n
Growing up in Connecticut, the only star I ever saw was Bette Davis.\u00c2\u00a0 She was signing her book in Klein’s, the book store cum audio shop cum record store on the main drag in Westport.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s hard for Felice to fathom.\u00c2\u00a0 That stars weren’t a regular part of my upbringing.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when you live in L.A., you bump into famous people constantly.<\/p>\n
Maybe you’re looking for energy bars in your local Whole Foods, and that guy blocking your way turns out to be Elliott Gould.\u00c2\u00a0 True story, about a year and a half ago in the emporium on National, far from where you’d ever expect to see someone famous, never mind the coolest guy in the coolest movie of 1970, "M.A.S.H."<\/p>\n
More famous locations yield a higher percentage of hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Stumbling into the Troubadour bar one night in the seventies, I found myself right next to Alice Cooper and Keith Moon.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t even realize it until after I’d gotten my drink and sat down.\u00c2\u00a0 Alice showed off his new choppers, Keith grinned.<\/p>\n
Yes, when you first arrive in L.A., you talk to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Figuring you’re having the experience of a lifetime, you don’t want to let it pass by.\u00c2\u00a0 So, you’re eating Chinese food and you end up in a conversation with Sherman Hemsley.\u00c2\u00a0 Not Mr. Chow’s, but some dive on Beverly, that your sister’s school chum told you about.\u00c2\u00a0 And he doesn’t want to talk the "Jeffersons", he wants to know you.\u00c2\u00a0 Or so you think.\u00c2\u00a0 You even start to believe you’re friends.<\/p>\n
But as time passes by, you give the celebrities room.\u00c2\u00a0 Would you like to be interrupted in the grocery store?\u00c2\u00a0 Or while you’re getting your hair cut?\u00c2\u00a0 Still, unlike New York, where all the action takes place behind closed doors, in L.A., our celebrities are roaming the streets, available to TMZ cameras.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you catch the video of Diana Ross tanking up at Taco Bell<\/a>? What stunned me was her ride, a Chrysler 300.\u00c2\u00a0 Because that’s how you separate the rich from the poor in L.A., their cars.\u00c2\u00a0 Your standard issue black Mercedes will suffice, if you’re trying to fly below the radar, but stars tend to want to be noticed.\u00c2\u00a0 So, in the seventies they drove Jensens, newfangled Stutzes, even chopped Cadillac Sevilles, with an entire row of seats and doors removed.<\/p>\n But safety regulations put the kibosh on the exoticmobiles.\u00c2\u00a0 And they made enough Ferrari 328s that it almost doesn’t pay to crane your neck for a look, it’s usually some nobody behind the wheel, trying to pull girls with his ancient, now affordable ride.<\/p>\n Yes, the freeways are full of Hondas and Toyotas.\u00c2\u00a0 At this point, imports are rampant all over the country, but California was first.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only the German automobiles, but the Japanese.\u00c2\u00a0 Californians wanted efficiency and affordability, they wanted cars that didn’t break, they looked to the Far East.<\/p>\n So driving is not that exciting anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Although I did see Randy Newman in his BMW at a light in Century City.\u00c2\u00a0 Peeking to see if it was really him, he turned to me and threw up his arms in mock fright.\u00c2\u00a0 But I haven’t seen a celeb on the highway since.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I even saw Muhammad Ali in the back of a limo the night after one of his famous fights, he showed me the Black Power fist through the smoked glass, but that was years ago.<\/p>\n And Sunday we’re sitting in traffic on the 101, taking the back way to the beach.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out there was an accident, but it doesn’t take a fender bender to stop traffic in L.A., there’s just too damn many cars.\u00c2\u00a0 But when we could finally go and not stop, we were in the fast lane, Felice behind the wheel, my driving duties being reserved for the trip back.\u00c2\u00a0 And staring into space, looking across the freeway in Tarzana at the Sit’n Sleep where we bought that mattress, I see this antique yellow car come screaming by.\u00c2\u00a0 In the second to fast lane.\u00c2\u00a0 Although usually in L.A. it’s reversed, the quicker lanes being to the right, slowpokes needing to show they’re boss usually holding up traffic on the left.<\/p>\n I’m frightened for the driver.\u00c2\u00a0 This looks like something out of "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies".\u00c2\u00a0 Going in the wrong direction, away from frolicking by the seaside, this antique machine must have been moving about seventy.\u00c2\u00a0 One bad bump and the driver behind the wheel…<\/p>\n IT’S JAY LENO!<\/p>\n Unmistakably, his white hair blowing back, holding on for dear life, like a patron at an amusement park, riding the roller coaster against his will.<\/p>\n And when we get to Malibu, I tell a few people and get little reaction.<\/p>\n Maybe it was the crowd.<\/p>\n