Vancouver – Page 2 – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 18, 2010June 17, 2010

Nick’s (Almost) Apartment from “The Crush”

Just a mile and a half away from the Forrester mansion, which appeared in the 1993 thriller The Crush and which I blogged about yesterday, is the supposed Seattle-area apartment house where Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes) tried to rent a unit after discovering that his current landlords’ 14-year old daughter Adrian (aka Alicia Silverstone) had developed a highly-inappropriate and psychotically-obsessive crush on him. I found this location, yet again, thanks to master stalker Owen, who had managed to track down one of the movie’s crew members who happened to remember the general vicinity where the apartment house was located. From there, Owen once again employed Google Street View to pinpoint the property’s exact location. And even though the building only showed up in two very brief scenes in The Crush, because of my Alicia Silverstone connection, I just had to stalk the place.

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I am very happy to report that Nick’s apartment house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in The Crush, except for one pretty glaring difference – the building is now located in a different place.

Yes, you read that right – according to this Flikr website, Nick’s apartment house was formerly located just a bit north of where it is now, adjacent to a vacant lot, and was numbered 2132 (as you can see in the above screen capture). When the neighboring Reeve house, a historic property, was moved for preservation purposes in 1999, the Crush apartment also had to be moved a few hundred feet to the south to accommodate it. The Crush building’s address number was subsequently changed to 2156 and, because it had to be built into the side of a hill, appears to be a bit lower to the ground now than it was previously. Isn’t that incredible? I mean, I’ve heard of filming locations being torn down entirely, but I’ve never heard of one being moved from one plot of land to another! I’m so, so glad that the property was preserved, though, for all of us stalkers to continue to appreciate. You can see some great interior photographs of the building’s super-cute little front unit on a former real estate listing from 2008 here. I absolutely LOVE the built-in bookshelves next to the fireplace!! So darn cute! I am a little upset, though, that the real estate agent failed to make mention of the property’s cinematic history on the listing. Hmph!

On an interesting side note – While doing research on The Crush for yesterday’s blog post, I came across some information on IMDB which stated that the flick’s screenwriter/director Alan Shapiro based his screenplay on actual events from his life that took place while he was living in a guesthouse on the property of a wealthy Beverly Hills family back in 1982. And while I don’t know how much of the movie was actually based on fact and how much was embellished for dramatic effect, apparently Shapiro touted his production as being inspired by “real-life events”. Quite a bit of the story must have been factual, though, because after the movie premiered in April of 1993, Shapiro was sued by his former landlords over the fact that he had named his lead character “Darian” – the actual name of his former landlords’ daughter. The lawsuit was eventually settled and producers agreed to dub the name “Adrian” in for “Darian” in all future airings and DVD/VHS copies of the flick.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The apartment Nick unsuccessfully tries to rent towards the end of The Crush is located at 2156 Cypress Street in Vancouver, British Columbia.

June 17, 2010November 6, 2016

“The Crush” Mansion

Another Vancouver location that I stalked while visiting the Pacific Northwest two weeks ago was the supposed Seattle-area mansion where Adrian Forrester (aka Alicia Silverstone) lived with her parents in the 1993 movie The Crush. And while I can’t say that I was a huge fan of the thriller/drama, because Alicia Silverstone grew up in the same relatively small city that I did – a suburb of San Francisco named San Mateo – The Crush has always held a special place in my heart. Especially because it was one of Alicia’s very first acting roles.

Before landing her leading role in The Crush at the age of 15, Alicia’s only other major onscreen appearance had been a bit part in the Season 5 episode of The Wonder Years titled “Road Test” (pictured above). She was still attending San Mateo High School when her Wonder Years episode aired, but by the time she was cast in The Crush she had left school permanently to pursue acting and the entire city of San Mateo was abuzz with the news of the local girl who made good. I can still remember when the movie was released and the furor it caused in my hometown. Not only did Alicia fly her two best friends out to L.A. for the big Hollywood premiere (as detailed in a huge article in our local paper that I still have a copy of somewhere), but pretty much her entire class headed over to our local movie theatre, Fashion Island Cinemas, on the day the movie opened to watch. The theatre was completely sold out and there was a big party afterwards. From what I remember, Alicia was in attendance, as well. I went to a different high school, so I was not invited to the viewing, but one of my good friends, who knew Alicia fairly well, got to attend and I can distinctly remember calling him up later that night and pretty much hanging on his every word as he described the evening to me. Oh, how I would have LOVED to have been there! But I digress.

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So, when fellow stalker Owen mentioned that he had managed to track down several of the locations featured in The Crush, I just HAD to stalk all of them – in honor of my hometown. 🙂 And the locale that I was most excited about stalking, of course, was the ginormous mansion where the Forrester family lived in the flick. Owen found the residence thanks to one of the movie’s location assistants, who happened to remember the name of the street where it was located. From there Owen used Google Street View to determine its exact location. YAY! Thank you, Owen! In real life, the Crush mansion, which is known as “The Disher House”, was constructed in 1912 by British architect Paul Phipps. The home, which is absolutely beautiful in person, was originally built for a financier named J.B. Johnson, but is named after the Disher family, who lived there from 1916 through 1972. You can read more about the mansion in the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Guidebook for their 2003 Open Vancouver Heritage House Tour here. And you can take a peek at some close-up photographs of the home here.

I am very happy to report that the Disher house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in The Crush, but unfortunately there is quite a bit foliage in the front yard that limits the view of the property from the street. Both the interior and the exterior of the residence were used in the flick.

Sadly, the apartment that Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes) rented does not exist in real life. Producers had it built on top of the home’s real life garage exclusively for the filming and it was subsequently removed after the filming had wrapped.

The Forrester’s neighbor’s pool, which shows up a couple of times in The Crush, is located in the backyard of the home that is directly east of the Crush mansion. Apparently, the pool was the site of a deleted scene during which Adrian and Nick take a midnight dip. That scene is later referred by Adrian when she is being examined by an officer at the police station after falsely accusing Nick of rape.

UPDATE – The Crush mansion is for sale! You can check out some interior photographs of it here.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Adrian Forrester’s house from The Crush is located at 1526 Angus Drive in Vancouver, British Columbia.

June 16, 2010June 15, 2010

The Cullen House from “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”

Another location that I stalked while in Vancouver two weeks ago was the residence where the Cullen family – including Edward (aka Robert Pattinson), Alice (aka Ashley Greene), Jasper (aka Jackson Rathbone), Carlisle (aka Peter Facinelli), Esme (aka Elizabeth Reaser), Emmett (aka Kellan Lutz), and Rosalie (aka Nikki Reed) – lived in the 2009 movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And even though I am not at all a fan of the Twilight series, nor have I yet to even see the New Moon installment, I was absolutely dying to stalk the home where filming took place ever since first seeing it in a real estate listing when it went on the market this past November. From what I saw in the listing, the modern-style abode was nothing short of spectacular, so when fellow stalker Kerry mentioned that she knew the property’s location, I practically salivated and begged her to take me there. And I have to say that, in person, the home definitely did NOT disappoint! The Cullen house is absolutely breathtaking and I would give anything to live in something even remotely as beautiful. And while I would have loved to have taken a peek at the interior of the property, unfortunately, due to the many inquiries about the home from various Twi-hards the world over, the real estate agent is currently only offering tours to serious buyers.

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Oddly enough, the exterior of the West Vancouver-area home never actually appeared in New Moon. For the lone exterior shot featured in the flick (pictured above), producers used footage of the Hoke house in Portland, Oregon – the very same residence which stood in for the Cullen abode in the original Twilight movie. When it was decided that the Twilight sequel would be shot entirely on location in Canada – where filming is much less expensive than in the U.S. – location scouts had to track down a home which had somewhat similar interiors to the residence that was used in the original flick.

They found that home in West Vancouver and fans of the movie followed – in droves. Apparently the residence has become quite the tourist attraction ever since New Moon was filmed there beginning on April 15th of last year. The house was the setting for two scenes in the movie – the scene involving Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party and the scene in which the Cullen family is put to a vote to decide Bella’s fate. Those relatively short segments took a whopping four days to film. The same home will also be standing in for the interior of the Cullen residence in the upcoming The Twilight Saga: Eclipse movie.

The 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 5,117 square-foot abode, which was completely remodeled in 2001 and is currently for sale for a whopping $2,998,000, features 20 foot ceilings, a media room, slate and concrete flooring, a pool, a spa, a koi pond, a chef’s kitchen with granite countertops and cherry wood cabinets, and a 1/2 acre of wooded, creekside land. Ironically enough, the home’s real estate listing touts its numerous picture windows which allow for “bright sunfilled exposure” throughout – something I don’t think the Cullen family would have appreciated very much. 😉 You can view the home’s real estate listing here.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for not only finding this location, but for taking me to stalk it, as well! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Cullen house from The Twilight Saga: New Moon is located at 118 Stevens Drive in West Vancouver, British Columbia. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.

June 11, 2010June 16, 2011

The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from “Love Happens”

My fifth and final Love Happens location – which I found thanks to fellow stalker Owen, as was the case with all of the other Love Happens locations I stalked while in Canada two weeks ago – is the Hyatt Regency Vancouver hotel, where Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) hosted his week-long “A-OKAY!” grief workshop seminar in the 2009 romantic comedy. The Hyatt was one of Love Happens’ focal locations and appeared in countless scenes, including the scene in which florist Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston), who hand-delivers floral arrangements to the hotel on a daily basis, first meets Burke. It is definitely not love at first sight, though, because, in one of the movie’s lighter moments, Eloise pretends to be deaf in order to avoid speaking with him. LOL

I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to go upstairs to take a photograph of the exact spot where Burke first caught Eloise writing the word “Quidnunc” with a pink pen on the hotel’s wall, which is located just outside of Room 1731 on the Hyatt Regency Vancouver’s 17th floor, but, sadly, a room key is required to gain access to each of the different floors. I explained to the concierge on duty that I was a film locations buff (using the word “stalker” in cases like this typically doesn’t help my cause – ha!) and that I really wanted to snap a quick photograph of “Eloise’s wall” and asked if there was any way she would allow me to take a brief trip up to the 17th floor, but she very adamantly said “No”. I told her that she could accompany me to make sure I didn’t cause any mischief while up there, but she again declined. HMPH! Such a bummer as seeing that wall in person was pretty much the only reason I wanted to stalk the hotel in the first place. 🙁 Ironically enough, the first Hyatt employee that I spoke with about the filming had absolutely NO IDEA WHATSOEVER that any sort of motion picture had been shot on the premises. After a few minutes of speaking with her she finally said, “Wait, so Love Happens was filmed here? In this hotel? Honestly?” I mean, HELLO! How do you not know something like that? It’s not like she was a new employee, either – she was actually working at the hotel at the time the movie was being filmed!! I really don’t understand people sometimes. Sigh!

I did get to stalk most of the other areas of the hotel that appeared in Love Happens, though, including the main lobby, which at the time of filming featured a Seattle’s Best Coffee bar near the main entrance. But I am VERY happy to report that Starbucks (my old staple) has now moved into that same space. YAY! 🙂

Also featured was the hotel’s check-in desk area;

the elevator bay located just off of the main lobby;

and the Gallery Lounge bar, which you can just barely see in the above photograph. According to the movie’s productions notes, the Vancouver Marriot Pinnacle Downtown hotel was also used in the filming of Love Happens, but I am unsure of exactly which scene it appeared in.

On a side note – no, you are not seeing things – that is actually an autographed photo of Michael Buble pictured above. Yes, a photograph of MB that was actually autographed . . . TO ME!!!!!!!!!!! The photo was gifted to me yesterday by fellow stalker Owen for my birthday and, as you can imagine, I literally just about PASSED OUT upon opening it!!!! I’m not joking when I say that my mouth was hanging open for a good five minutes. You’d think I would have screamed upon first laying eyes on it, but I was actually dead silent. It doesn’t happen often, but Owen managed to render me absolutely speechless! How did he get the autograph, you ask? (And believe me, that was the first question playing on my mind when I finally came to after opening it!) As fate would have it, Owen’s brother Paul has a good friend who is a regular on Saturday Night Live. When Owen found out that MB would be performing on the show WAY BACK in January of this year, he called in a massively huge favor and asked Paul’s friend if he would get an autograph for me. Paul’s friend came through BIG TIME and the result is the photograph you see above. What can I say except it’s, hands down, the BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT I’ve ever received! I told my friend Nat about it yesterday and she said, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to return what I got you, ‘cause there is no way it can compare to that! Tell Owen ’Thanks a lot!’” 🙂 My dad actually had surgery yesterday – yes, on my birthday – and when I opened Owen’s present in the morning before heading out to the hospital, I knew it was a good omen, especially being that my dad loves MB just as much as I do. Sure enough, the surgery went really well and, at the time of this writing, my dad has been out of pain for about ten hours. The doctors remain very hopeful that the surgery solved his problem, which, after two full years of him being in and out of the hospital on a regular basis and one VERY unsuccessful trip to the Mayo Clinic, would be simply amazing. So, truth be told, I received TWO of the best gifts of my life yesterday! And even though I spent the majority of the day in the hospital, I have to say it was, hands down, one of my best birthdays ever. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location . . . and, ahem, for the AMAZING birthday present! Big THANK YOU to Paul, too! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hyatt Regency Vancouver from Love Happens is located at 655 Burrard Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. Burke first caught Eloise writing on the wall just outside of Room 1731 on the hotel’s 17th floor. You can visit the Hyatt Regency Vancouver website here.

June 10, 2010June 16, 2011

The “Love Happens” Houses

Two other Vancouver-area locations that fellow stalker Owen managed to track down from the ultra-depressing 2009 romantic comedy Love Happens were the residences belonging to Eloise Chandler’s mom (aka Frances Conway) and Burke Ryan’s former in-laws (aka Martin Sheen and Deirdre Blades). Both homes are located about ten miles southeast of Vancouver in the Queens Park area of the city of New Westminster, British Columbia. And, as I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, even though I didn’t particularly like Love Happens, because it starred my girl Jen, I just had to stalk both locations.

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Eloise’s mom’s house only appears in one very brief scene in Love Happens, in which Eloise (aka Jennifer Aniston) stops by her mom’s residence in order to pick up the keys to a telephone truck she is borrowing from her mom’s neighbor, Bob. Why is she borrowing a telephone truck, you ask? Without giving too much away, I’ll just say it’s so that she and Burke (aka Aaron Eckhart) can “attend” a sold out Road Wave concert in a rather unconventional way.

I am very happy to report that Eloise’s mom’s house looks much the same in person as it did in Love Happens.

And I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home also appeared in the movie.

Located a little over a mile away from Eloise’s mom’s residence is the V.A. Brachat House, where Burke’s in-laws lived in Love Happens. The absolutely adorabe little house, which was built in 1940, popped up in two different scenes in the movie.

And, as was the case with Eloise’s mom’s residence, I believe that the real life interior of the V.A. Brachat house also appeared in the flick.

I am very happy to report that this house also looks much the same in person as it did in Love Happens.

I was most excited to see that the lightpost on which Rocky, the parrot, waited for Silver at the end of Love Happens was actually there in real life, too. So darn cool!

Missing in real life, of course, is the “Semper Fi” plaque and sword that ex-Marine Silver had posted above his front door in the movie.

Burke’s in-law’s house also appeared in the Season 3 episode of the television series Supernatural titled “A Very Supernatural Christmas”. I found this information thanks to the Supernatural Locations Website, a fabulous site dedicated to finding each and every locale ever featured on the show. So darn cool!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Eloise’s mom’s house from Love Happens is located at 202 7 Avenue East in New Westminster, British Columbia, ten miles outside of Vancouver. Burke’s in-law’s house is located at 115 Queens Avenue, also in New Westminster.

June 9, 2010June 16, 2011

The Water Street Cafe from “Love Happens”

Just down the street from the former Tabu Boutique, the storefront that masqueraded as Eloise’s Garden in the 2009 movie Love Happens which I blogged about yesterday, is Water Street Cafe, the upscale restaurant where Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston) and Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) ate dinner during their extremely awkward first date at the beginning of the flick. I found this locale once again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who somehow managed to track down almost every single location featured in the movie. Unfortunately, though, because our time in Vancouver was limited (we were only in town for less than 24 hours as we wanted to spend a full two days in Seattle), while we were able to stalk the exterior of the Water Street Cafe, we weren’t able to grab a bite to eat there. As so often happens on vacation, there were just far too many locations on my To-Stalk list and not enough hours in the day to see them all. 🙁

In Love Happens, Eloise and Burke eat at a window-side table overlooking Cambie Street.

After finishing their meal, the two walk out of the restaurant’s main entrance on Water Street . . .

. . . and around the corner onto Cambie Street, where Burke confesses to Eloise that he hasn’t been on a date in over three years.

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The Water Street Cafe was first opened in 1988 by Domenique Sabatino. I’m quite bummed that we didn’t get a chance to eat there as the restaurant’s Italian-inspired menu looks pretty amazing, especially the Stuffed Pancetta Wrapped Chicken entree – a spinach stuffed chicken breast that is wrapped in pancetta and topped with brie. OH MY LORD does that sounds good!! 🙂 Especially since my dad is once again in the hospital and I’ve been existing solely on hospital cafeteria food for the past six days. Yeech!

Water Street Cafe is located directly across the street from the world-famous Vancouver Steam Clock, a large glass, antique-looking clock that is powered entirely via a combination of balance weights and steam. The clock was first built in 1977 by horologist Raymond Saunders and has been whistling and shooting out steam at fifteen minute intervals ever since. There are only six other working steam clocks in the entire world and the one in Gastown has been called Vancouver’s most photographed attraction. According to the Love Happens production notes, producers had to time the filming of the scene shot outside of the Water Street Cafe in accordance with the every-quarter-hour whistle of the clock. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Water Street Cafe from Love Happens is located at 300 Water Street in the Gastown area of Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the Water Street Cafe website here. The Vancouver Steam Clock is located across the street at 305 Water Street.

June 8, 2010June 16, 2011

Eloise’s Garden from “Love Happens”

Another location that I was dying to stalk while in Canada last weekend was the storefront which stood in for Eloise’s Garden, the flower shop owned by Eloise Chandler (aka Jennifer Aniston), in the 2009 romantic dramedy Love Happens. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Owen, who has amassed quite an extensive collection of Pacific Northwest stalking sites over the past few years. And, even though I didn’t particularly love Love Happens, a largely depressing flick which centers around a young widower/self help guru named Burke Ryan (aka Aaron Eckhart) who finds a second chance at love while hosting a grief seminar in Seattle, because it starred my girl Jen, I just had to stalk all of the locations featured in it. And, again, I really have to apologize for the photographs which appear in this post – apparently I had my new camera on the wrong setting during my entire Canadian vacation, which caused all of the photographs I took to come out slightly blurry. Ugh!

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Even though Love Happens is set in Seattle, Washington, the vast majority of the movie was actually filmed about 150 miles north of the Emerald City in Vancouver, British Columbia. As a matter of fact, only one week out of the entire nine week production schedule was spent in Seattle. The remaining eight weeks were spent on location in Canada. And, amazingly enough, Jennifer Aniston never actually set foot in the State of Washington during the entire filming – all of her scenes were lensed north of the border in Vancouver. Producers ended up finding the perfect space to house Eloise’s Garden, the supposed Pioneer Square-area flower shop that served as one of the movie’s central locations, at a lingerie store named Tabu Boutique in the Gastown section of Downtown Vancouver. Both the interior and the exterior of Tabu were used in the filming of Love Happens and producers even went so far as to completely dismantle the inside of the lingerie store in order to create Eloise’s colorful floral shop.

Sadly, though, Tabu Boutique closed its doors in May of this year and the space it once occupied is currently vacant, so we were unable to stalk the interior. I took the above photographs through the store’s front window, but, oh, how I would have loved to have actually gone inside to take a closer look at the premises and to speak to the Tabu employees about the filming. Fellow stalker Kerry and I both agreed that this was one of the more disappointing stalks of our trip. 🙁 Especially since, according to some information that I found online, there were several photographs of the filming of Love Happens and its leading lady Jennifer Aniston featured on display when the store was still open.

As you can see in the above screen captures, the interior of Eloise’s Garden appears to be much larger than the size of the actual former Tabu space. So much larger, in fact, that I was convinced a set had been used for the filming of the interior scenes. But we spoke to some employees of a neighboring store who told us that the inside of Tabu did indeed stand in for the interior of Eloise’s Garden. The movie’s production notes further corroborate that fact. You can see photographs of what the interior of Tabu used to look like here and you can see some photographs of the shop as it was dressed for the filming here. Of the florist set, Love Happens producer Scott Stuber said, it was the “best-smelling set on which we’ve all worked”. 🙂

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The former Tabu Boutique, aka Eloise’s Garden from Love Happens, is located at 51 Powell Street in the Gastown area of Vancouver, Canada.

June 7, 2010June 15, 2010

The Former BaBalu Lounge – Where Michael Buble Got His Start

Another Michael Buble location that I found thanks to the book Michael Buble: The Biography, by Juliet Peel was BaBalu Lounge, the Downtown Vancouver nightclub where the cutie crooner performed regularly for two years before becoming famous. And, let me tell you, once I heard about it, I became pretty hell-bent on the idea of grabbing a drink at the very spot where MB had honed his craft all those years ago. As I quickly found out, though, the BaBalu Lounge is sadly no longer. Apparently, the now-defunct club used to be located on the bottom floor of the Nelson-at-Granville Comfort Inn Hotel, but in 2001, a fire broke out on the top floor of the building and completely gutted the entire property, including Michael’s former singing spot. The building was eventually purchased by a real estate development company who renovated the entire property and a new restaurant named Doolin’s Irish Pub subsequently opened in the former BaBalu space. Such a bummer! But even though BaBalu is no longer, I just had to stalk the hallowed ground where it once stood.

Especially since the club had played such an important role on Michael’s road to fame. In 2001, the singer even named his second independently produced album “BaBalu” (pictured above) in honor of the lounge where he had sung every Sunday and Monday night for over two years beginning in 1997. Of MB’s premiere album, titled “First Dance”, biographer Juliet Peel states, “It made no impact whatsoever on the world at the time, but this, and the other two independent albums Michael brought out before he hit the big time, are now collectors’ items. Whole internet chains have been established trying to track them down (for a Buble fan, finding one of these records is equivalent to stumbling across a signed first edition of an early J.K. Rowling.)” You’re telling me, Juliet! What I wouldn’t give to own one of those albums!

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Michael’s love of music was originally cultivated thanks to his beloved maternal grandfather, Mitch Santaga. Mitch, who made his living as a plumber, not only first introduced Michael to the Standards, the songs that he would one day become famous for singing, but he also traded free plumbing services to local band-leaders in exchange for them allowing MB a chance to sing during their shows. After he became famous, Michael, whom Mitch had long-before dubbed “Sunshine”, said, “Isn’t that hilarious? He’d put in, like, a hot-water dispenser or something so that they would let me get up and sing.” Love it! In 1997, Michael landed his first regular paying gig at BaBalu Lounge, where he performed along with the Smokin’ Section band, for over two years. He credits his years there as a major learning experience, saying of the patrons, “They came to meet a woman or get wasted, but I learned my craft. It taught me how not to reek of desperation, how to step back and try to be charismatic and let them fall in love with me.” And fall in love with him they did. Michael quickly garnered a very loyal local fan base of mostly women :), who would come to watch him sing every single time he set foot onstage. After two shorts years at BaBalu, MB moved to Toronto with then-girlfriend Debbie Timuss. In a fortuitous twist of fate, shortly after that move, Michael performed at a corporate event where a man named Michael Sweeney was sitting in the audience. After the show, Sweeney introduced himself to Michael, who in turn gave him one of his self-produced albums. Sweeney passed along that CD to his close friend, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who immediately hired the singer to perform at his daughter’s upcoming wedding. One of the guests at that wedding turned out to be none other than music-producing legend David Foster, who is perhaps better known by his nickname – “the hit-maker”. Foster was immediately taken with the with the Canadian crooner and had him move out to L.A. so that they could work together the very next week. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

Unfortunately, because it was raining when we arrived at Doolin’s Irish Pub, I opted to stay in the car and take pictures through the window instead of getting out to stalk the inside of the place. From what I’ve read, though, it seems like a very cool place to hang out.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Doolin’s Irish Pub, the site of the former BaBalu Nightclub, is located at 654 Nelson Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the Doolin’s website here.

June 4, 2010June 6, 2010

Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame Plaque on the Vancouver Starwalk

One of the other items on my must-stalk-while-in-Canada list was Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame plaque which is located on Canada’s version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame – the Granville Street Starwalk in Downtown Vancouver. I guess you could say that my trip up to the Pacific Northwest was a full-on Michael Buble Stalking Vacation. 🙂 Ironically enough, when fellow stalker Kerry, her husband Jim, the Grim Cheaper, and I first crossed over into British Columbia this past Friday night, we were given a bit of a hard time by the border guards. Actually, “hard time” is the wrong choice of words here. Let’s just say that we were definitely questioned. Upon finding out that I had never before visited the Pacific Province, our entire group was asked to get out of the car to answer some additional queries in the Border Services Agency’s main office. It was at that point that I realized that there was no way in heck I could give a truthful answer to their question of why I was visiting Canada. Can you imagine if I had stood there and said that I had traveled to their country for the sole purpose of stalking Michael Buble locations??? They probably would have had me arrested on the spot! 😉 But I digress. Anyway, before my trip up north, I purchased Michael Buble: The Biography by Juliet Peel and, while I can’t say that the book was a particularly great read, it did alert me to some fabulous stalking sites, including Michael’s star on Vancouver’s Granville Street Starwalk.

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The British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame was founded on July 4, 1994 in order to recognize those British Columbians who had made significant contributions in six different disciplines in the entertainment industry, including music, television, theatre, film, radio, and variety. Over 180 different artists are currently honored with brass plaques embedded in the sidewalk along Canada’s so-called “Starwalk” – a two block section of Granville Street in Downtown Vancouver’s Theatre District. About twenty new plaques, which are each the size and shape of a 12-inch phonograph record, are added each year. Michael Buble, who originally hails from the Canadian city of Burnaby, was inducted into the BC Hall of Fame on April 19th, 2009, along with nine other honorees including theatre actress Wendy Gorling, radio personality Fanny Kiefer, and music producer Terry McBride. Past inductees include jazz musician Diane Krall, “King of Swing” Dal Richards, and singers Sarah McLachlan and Bryan Adams. Each Hall of Fame member also has a photograph of themselves on display in the Starwall area of the nearby Orpheum Theatre’s main lobby. Unfortunately, though, I did not know about the Orpheum gallery until doing research for today’s post, so I was not able to stalk MB’s picture. Such a bummer! 🙁

Although the Hollywood Walk of Fame provides tourist maps which denote each particular star’s exact location, the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, sadly, does not. And, oddly enough, I could not find much information about the place online before I left on my trip, so I had no idea where exactly on Granville Street Michael Buble’s plaque was located. Since the Starwalk only stretches for two short blocks, though, I figured we could just walk the entire thing and track down his star once we got there, which is exactly what we set out to do. But being that there were almost two hundred plaques to search, that got old rather quickly, so I popped into a Granville Street bookstore and asked the man at the counter if he could point me in the direction of Michael Buble’s star. His answer – “I didn’t even know he had one.” LOL Thankfully, though, while I was in the bookstore, Kerry and my fiancé managed to find MB’s star and I have to say that I was rather giddy with excitement upon seeing it. It was definitely worth the trouble it took to find it! Note to the British Columbia Hall of Fame – you really ought to provide maps which pinpoint the exact location of each honoree’s plaque. I mean, honestly, do I have to think of everything? Sheesh! 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame plaque can be found just outside of the Mavi Jeans store, which is located at 850 Granville Street in Vancouver, Canada. You can read more about the Starwalk on the official British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame website here.

June 3, 2010April 30, 2013

Killarney Market from Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” Video

Now don’t laugh, but the primary reason behind the Grim Cheaper’s and my trip up to the Pacific Northwest this past weekend was so that I could stalk the spot where Michael Buble filmed the music video for his hit song “Haven’t Met You Yet” – Killarney Market in Vancouver, British Columbia. Sure, we also wanted to sightsee, spend some time in Seattle and Canada, and visit with our good friends Kerry and Jim who live in the area, but, all kidding aside, the main purpose of our trip was to stalk that grocery store. Yes, we traveled over 1,000 miles to see a supermarket! You see, ever since I first watched the “Haven’t Met You Yet” video back in early October of last year, I promised myself that I would one day get up to Vancouver to see the Michael Buble grocery store in person. That day came much sooner than expected, though, thanks to my fiancé’s boss, who recently presented us with Virgin America gift certificates as an early wedding present. Well, let me tell you, my first thought upon seeing those certificates was, ‘We’re going to Canada, Baby!’ And, sure enough, we did! Thanks to fellow stalker Kerry, who completely organized the trip and drove about four hours out of her way to pick us up at the airport, not only did I get to stalk the Michael Buble grocery store, but a slew of other Pacific Northwest locations, as well, which I will be blogging about over the next few weeks. Anyway, upon landing at the Sea-Tac International Airport at around 5 p.m. this past Friday evening, Kerry, her husband Jim, the Grim Cheaper, and I headed north to Vancouver, British Columbia. And bright and early the following morning we hit up Killarney Market to finally do some “Haven’t Met You Yet” stalking. YAY!

I should explain here that there are quite a few reasons why I wanted to stalk Killarney Market so badly, the most obvious of which being that I absolutely LOVE Michael Buble. More than that, though, I also absolutely ADORE the “Haven’t Met You Yet” video, which centers around Michael doing some shopping at a local grocery store. While in the freezer section picking out some microwavable TV dinners, he spots his dream girl (who is played by MB’s real life fiancé Luisana Lopilato) standing just a few feet away from him. He approaches her and the two sing and dance their way through the store, eventually winding up in the parking lot, marching band in tow. The video ends with Michael standing in the check-out aisle, belting out his song, eyes closed, before realizing that the whole scenario had been imagined. As he leaves the grocery store, slightly embarrassed, the girl he had envisioned in his daydream brushes past him. MB stops for a moment to stare after her and then continues on his way. “Haven’t Met You Yet” is an incredibly fun-spirited romp that makes one want to get out of their seat and dance, which is a big part of why I loved it so much. But the fact that it was filmed in a grocery store made the video even more special to me, as my father managed supermarkets throughout my entire childhood. To me, the video felt a little bit like home. 🙂

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I am very happy to report that Killarney Market looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in Michael’s video – minus the ticker tape and marching band, of course. 😉 I am also very happy to report that the Killarney employees could NOT have been nicer to us and literally almost fell over when they heard that we had traveled all the way from Southern California to see their store. They were happy to answer all of my silly questions about the filming, which took place over the course of two nights in September of 2009, and they let me take all of the photographs of the place that I wanted. YAY! And while the employees that I spoke with weren’t exactly sure of how the grocery store premise of the video came to be, they did tell me that Killarney’s Market was specifically chosen as the “Haven’t Met You Yet” location because it reminded MB of a store he had shopped at as a child. So cool! (Note – my parents just gifted me with a new, hi-tech camera and I haven’t yet figured out exactly how to use it, so, sadly, my pictures of the market didn’t come out as well as they should have.)

One of the employees even showed me a picture on his blackberry that he had taken with Michael during the filming. So, I, of course, had to snap a photograph of it. 🙂 I can’t tell you what I wouldn’t do to have my picture taken with MB like that!!! Sigh!

Another of the employees ended up taking us on a little mini-tour of the specific locations used in the video, which I thought was just about the coolest thing ever!!!! 🙂 The areas of the store which appeared in “Haven’t Met You Yet” include the freezer section (Aisle 6), which was both where Michael first spotted Luisana;

and where the two danced atop the freezer cases;

the meat counter adjacent to Aisle 1, where the butcher got jiggy with it;

Aisle 7, where the mattress floated down the aisle;

Aisle 4, where the marching band played;

the front of the store where the grand finale began;

the front parking lot where the grand finale ended;

Check-out counter Number 3, where MB got caught day-dreaming;

the side entrance of the store, where he walked by Luisana at the end of the video;

and the shelf where Michael sat throughout the video, which is located in the middle of Aisle 1. Apparently, the managers of Killarney’s weren’t too excited about the prospect of MB sitting on one of their shelves during the filming as they were worried it might collapse, so producers ended up having the shelf reinforced and tying metal wires to the singer to guard against him falling. I so love that Michael’s shelf was left a bit lower than the adjacent shelves, as it appeared in the video.

I cannot tell you what a thrill it was for me to finally be able to stalk the “Haven’t Met You Yet” grocery store! It was definitely the highlight of my entire trip! You can watch the video by clicking above and you can see some FABULOUS behind-the-scenes pictures of the filming of the video on the Killarney Market Facebook page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Killarney Market from Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” music video is located at 2611 49th Avenue East in Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the market’s official Facebook page here.