IAMNOTASTALKER

Year: 2008

  • The Oldest Restaurant in Hollywood!

    Two weeks ago, while my mom and I were out stalking in Hollywood, we hit up Musso and Frank’s Grill, which has the distinction of being the oldest running restaurant in Hollywood. Opened in 1919, not only is Musso and Frank’s a top notch celeb hangout, but the restaurant has been featured in countless hit movies, including Ocean’s Eleven (pictured above).

    Musso and Frank’s was started by John Musso and Frank Toulet. Ever since its opening almost 90 years ago, the restaurant has been hugely popular with Tinseltown’s elite. Back in the day Marilyn Monroe, Raymond Burr, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Cecil B. DeMille, Raymond Chandler and Clark Gable were all Musso and Frank regulars. Since its opening the restaurant has only been remodeled once – in 1937 – and it is still extremely popular with the rich and famous. Today you might spot Robert Dinero, Al Pacino, Brad Pitt, James Woods, Johnny Depp, Keith Richards, Leonardo DiCaprio, Drew Barrymore, Sean Penn, Madonna, Harrison Ford, or Francis Ford Coppola sitting next to you in one of Musso and Frank’s plush red leather booths.

    My mom and I had an absolute blast dining at Musso and Frank’s!! The restaurant definitely projects an Old Hollywood vibe, with its large oak-paneled, red leather booths, wood beamed ceilings, and vintage style bar. Musso’s also serves up some really great food including chicken pot pie, filet minon, lamb, and cheese raviolis, but be prepared as it’s a bit on the pricey side. The price is worth it, though, as you are paying for the vintage ambiance as much as anything else.

    I literally could have sat there all day listening to the stories our waiter had to share about his 40 plus years working at Musso and Frank’s. It seemed every waiter and bartender had a story to tell about the countless famous names that have dined at the establishment over the years and I have to admit I was completely mesmerized.

    Besides being a celeb hangout, Musso and Frank’s is a frequent filming location, as well. The restaurant’s kitchen was featured as the kitchen in Disney’s Enchanted where Nathanial speaks to Queen Narissa’s reflection in a pot of soup on the stove.

    The Grill was featured not once, but TWICE in Ocean’s Eleven. Both scenes were with Brad Pitt and George Clooney. The restaurant first shows up in the scene when Danny Ocean first tells Rusty that he is thinking of robbing a Vegas casino. That scene was filmed in a booth in the Grill’s front dining room. A bit later on in the movie, Rusty and Danny have a drink at Musso and Frank’s bar and Danny says his famous monologue about needing one more person for the heist – “Ten oughta do it, don’t you think? You think we need one more? You think we need one more. All right, we’ll get one more.”

    The restaurant was also used in the movie Swingers during the parking lot fight scene. In the scene, Vince Vaughn and gang get into a fight with their rivals “House of Pain” in the parking lot behind Hollywood club the Dresden, but in reality filming actually took place in Musso and Frank’s back lot. Producers simply changed the awning over the back door of Musso and Frank’s to read “The Dresden.” Musso and Frank’s also showed up in Ed Wood as the location where Ed Wood meets Orson Wells. The restaurant has also appeared in numerous episodes of the TV show Shark.

    Stalk It: Musso and Frank’s Grill is located at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard in Downtown Hollywood. I highly recommend stalking it for the great food, amazing ambiance, and the waiters’ legendary Hollywood stories!

  • The Beverly Beat

    Thanks to my good friend Mike over at MovieShotsLA I was able to stalk Brandon and Steve’s newspaper office from the original Beverly Hills, 90210 series. On the final years of the original 90210, Brandon and Steve ran their own newspaper called “The Beverly Beat” and the location of the newspaper office had eluded me for some time.

    I had long been convinced that the Beverly Beat office was located above Louise’s Trattoria restaurant on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena (pictured above), but since I do not have the final seasons of 90210 on tape, I was never able to confirm my hunch. Then I met Mike, 90210 stalking expert, who told me that Brandon’s office was actually located at the Baine Building right on Hollywood Boulevard. So, of course, I ran right out to stalk it.

    The Baine Building was built in the Spanish Revival style by businessman Harry M. Baine and designed by architecture firm Gogerty & Weyl in 1926. Harry M. Baine, a prominent businessman and Los Angeles County Supervisor, was also the man responsible for the creation of the annual Hollywood Christmas Parade. During Christmastime in 1928, hoping to promote his business and drive sales, Baine renamed Hollywood Boulevard “Santa Claus Lane” and hired real reindeer to pull sleighs down the street. And thus a tradition was born.

    The Baine Building is a beautiful building in Hollywood that I highly recommend stalking. I wonder if the builiding will make an appearance on the new 90210 series. The building was also replicated in Disneyland’s California Adventure Park, so you can also stalk it there. 🙂 lol You can read this interesting article about the Disney replication.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Baine Building is located at 6605 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, just a few blocks from the Hollywood & Highland Center. Just a half a block away at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard is Musso and Frank’s Grill, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood and a great place to grab a bite to eat! 🙂

  • If You Two Ever Have Kids and One of Them Accidentally Sets Fire to the Living Room Rug . . .

    My family and I were supposed to take the red eye home from Hawaii on Wednesday night, but en route to the airport we decided to turn in our tickets and stay a few more days. LOL It was a totally spur of the moment thing and SO MUCH FUN! I can’t even believe we’re still here. Anyway – I didn’t do any Kona stalking today, so thank goodness I have some locations in my stalking reserves that I can blog about. 🙂

    Two weeks ago when I dragged my mom out for some Hollywood stalking, we hit up the Hollywood United Methodist Church. I had just discovered this fab website on Back to the Future filming locations and was floored to find out that the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance scenes were filmed at the church, so I just had to stalk it. Hollywood Methodist is pretty much closed to the public on weekdays, but we knocked on the office doors and the facility manager, Stephen, was nice enough to take us on a little filming tour.

    The first place we stalked was the church gym, where the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance was filmed and where Marty’s parents finally get together and Marty rocks out to Johnny B. Goode onstage. Currently the gym is being used for rehearsals of Les Miserables, which is playing at the Hollywood Bowl this upcoming weekend.

    The same gym was also used for the talent competition scene in That Thing You Do. It’s the location where the One-ders play their hit song “That Thing You Do” for the very first time. It’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use the United Methodist gym for both of these movies, as when you step inside the gym you definitely feel like you are stepping back in time to the 50s.

    The scene from Back to the Future when Marty says goodbye to his parents and the year 1955 and says the famous line “If you two ever have kids, and one of the accidentally sets fire to the living room rug, go easy on him” also takes place at the church, in a stairwell leading off from the gym. When BTTF was filmed, the doors leading to the outside were double doors, whereas now there is just a single door. Otherwise the stairway looks exactly the same as it did during filming and I absolutely LOVED being there. 🙂

    Besides Back to the Future and That Thing You Do, the church has also been featured in Jarhead, Domino, Anger Management, Big Mama’s House, Beautiful, A Civil Action, Super Mario Bros., Star 80, Imitation of Life, General Hospital, Murder She Wrote, Golden Girls, Jake and the Fatman, and The A-Team, among many others. The church kitchen and an anteroom were used extensively in the movie Sister Act, but the exterior of Whoopi’s church was not United Methodist. That church is actually in San Francisco. The Season 7 episode of CSI entitled “Double Cross”, where a woman is found dead inside a church in a false crucifixion pose was filmed inside of Hollywood Methodist.

    Hollywood United Methodist Church, which was modeled loosely after Westminster Abbey in England, opened its doors on March 16, 1930. The church was made a historic-cultural monument in 1981 by the City of Los Angeles. United Methodist has long been supportive of those afflicted with the AIDS disease. While other churches turned their backs on those living with the disease, Hollywood Methodist became a safe haven to those afflicted. In 1993, on World AIDS Day, congregation members placed two large AIDS ribbons on the church tower, where they still stand today. The exterior of Hollywood Methodist often appears in television and film establishing shots of the Los Angeles area and no doubt you will notice it popping up time and time again on your favorite shows. The church is absolutely beautiful and the facilities manager Stephen could not have been nicer to us. I highly recommend stalking there if you find yourself in the area. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Hollywood United Methodist Church is located at 6817 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood, about half a block away from the Hollywood & Highland Center.

  • Whitney Houston’s Drug Bust

    Back in January of 2000, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown had a little scuffle with the authorities at Keahole Kona International Airport. So, since I just happen to be in Kona, I had to do a little airport stalking. 🙂 It seems Ms. Houston was departing from Kona after a vacation on the Big Island, when security noticed a total of 15.2 grams of marijuana – located in two small baggies and in three half-smoked marijuana cigarettes – in her carry on luggage. After being confronted by authorities, Whitney simply walked off, leaving behing her carry-on bag, and boarded her United flight headed to San Francisco. LOL The security agents called the police, but by the time they arrived Whitney’s plane had already taken off.

    The Kona Airport is not your typical airport. It the smallest airport I have ever seen, and I hope it always stays that way. It is basically just little more than a carport, with no interior area whatsoever. It is adorable, I absolutely love it!! The airport doesn’t even have tarmacs – when your plane lands in Kona, they simply wheel a little staircase out to the runway for people to deplane.

    Authorities never did press charges against Ms. Houston, but she did enter a drug rehabilitation facility later that year.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Kona Airport is located right on Highway 11, off Kaiminani Drive. Whitney ran into problems at the United Security Checkpoint, located behind me in the above photograph.

  • Brangelina – At It Again!

    The new Hello Magazine just hit the shelves with pics of Brangelina’s newborn twin babies. The cover of Hello looks to be an almost exact replica of the famous People Magazine cover photograph taken of Brad and Angie with newborn baby Shiloh back in June of 2006.

    So I just had to do a little post of a pic my boyfriend and I took on Halloween of 2006, when we dressed up like Brangelina. 🙂 LOL For Halloween that year, not only did we dress up like B + A, but we carried around three dolls – a Maddox doll, a Zahara doll, and a Shiloh doll. Before we went out on Halloween night, I made my dad take this pic of my boyfriend and me laying on my bed with our Shiloh doll. LOL!

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: The Hello Magazine with pics of Brangelina’s twins hit newstands on Monday. Images of the twins are also being published in this week’s People Magazine.

  • More Dog!

    Finally I am back online – with another Dog post. I swear, I was about ready to throw my stupid computer off the lanai I was so annoyed with the internet problems. LOL With getting bumped off the internet constantly, I literally think I have spent about three hours trying to complete this post. UGH! Anyway, this past weekend I did a little more Dog stalking. 🙂 During the entire episode about Dog’s wedding, Dog spent most of his time hunting a fugitive – actually he hunted him right up until the ceremony and was late to his own wedding!! At the beginning of that episode, Dog hunted down the fugitive’s girlfriend outside of the Blockbuster Video in Kailua Kona. I have rented many a movie at that Blockbuster, so I knew exactly where it was when I watched the episode. So, of course, I dragged my boyfriend and parents over there to snap some pics. Dog spent several minutes speaking with the fugitive’s girlfriend sitting on the wall in front of Blockbuster. She later runs off down Palani Road with Dog and crew chasing after her.

    After stalking Blockbuster, I headed across the parking lot to Starbucks to grab an iced latte. While there I asked the barista if she had watched the Dog episode while it was being filmed in the parking lot. She said that she had not watched it, but that Leiland’s wife used to work in the very Starbucks I was standing in. 🙂 Apparently she worked there many years ago, long before she met and married Leiland. How cool is that! Apparently she still stops into that Starbucks pretty often, but I did not have a sighting.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Both Blockbuster and Starbucks are located in the Kona Coast Shopping Center, which can be found at 74-5588 Palani Road in Kailua Kona. If you find yourself at Kona Coast Shopping Center, be sure to hit up Jean’s Warehouse for some super cute clothes!! I got two really cute dresses there for $7 TOTAL – I am not kidding!

  • Blogging Hawaiian Style

    It seems even the internet over here is on Hawaiian time, as it only works when it wants to. LOL I can hardly get online to write this short post before it kicks me off. 🙁 I will keep trying to do a regular post throughout the day.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

  • Here Comes the Dog!

    Today I dragged my parents and my boyfriend out to the HIlton Waikoloa Resort and Spa to do some more Dog, the Bounty Hunter stalking. Ever since we arrived in Hawaii, I have been itching to stalk the hotel where Dog and Beth got married on May 20, 2006. The wedding celebration aired on August 15, 2006, and of course my mom and I watched every second of it. While watching, I immediately recognized the location of Dog and Beth’s wedding as the Hilton Waikoloa Hotel, as it is a place I have visited numerous times during my childhood vacations in Hawaii.

    Dog and Beth got married directly off the main lobby of the hotel. Just past the main lobby there is a huge staircase which leads down to an ocean-fed, four acre, man-made lagoon. It is that staircase that Beth used as the aisle which she walked down to meet her groom.

    Dog arrived at the ceremony via a raft which was pulled towards the landing at the bottom of the staircase by two men in canoes. The entire wedding ceremony took place at that landing at the foot of the lobby staircase. All of that I knew from watching the wedding episode back in 2006.

    What I wasn’t sure of, however, was the location of the couple’s wedding reception. While at the hotel today, I asked TWO different concierges for the location of “Dog and Beth’s wedding reception” and BOTH of them took out a hotel schedule and asked me if the reception was taking place today!! LOL I was like “No, no, I am talking about the Bounty Hunter’s wedding reception.” Neither one of the concierges had any idea where the wedding reception took place – I guess Hawaiians aren’t much into the whole stalking thing. LOL Anyway, one of the concierges called a manager who finally steered me toward the Water’s Edge Ballroom, where the reception took place.

    Lucky for me, the Water’s Edge Ballroom happened to be unlocked and I was able to go inside to snap some pics. The inside of the Ballroom looks exactly as it did when Dog and Beth’s reception took place, minus the decorations, of course. My mom and I were totally floored to see the reception area in person and if you are a fan, I highly recommend doing some stalking at the Hilton Waikoloa Hotel.

    The Hilton Waikoloa Resort, which was first opened in the late 80s as a Hyatt Hotel, cost more than $350 million to construct and stretches over 62 acres. The hotel is ginormous and absolutely unbelievable – you truly have to see it to believe it. There are over 1200 guest rooms, three pools, three hot tubs, 24 conference rooms, nine restaurants, a full size Disneyland-style monorail, winding canals with boat service for guests, a huge drawbridge over one of the pools, a waterslide, over $7 million dollars worth of art on display, a man-made lagoon with kayaks and pedal boats for rent, and a on-site dolphin pool. While definitely a cool place to visit, I wouldn’t recommend staying there. Most people come to Hawaii to relax and if that is your goal, the Hilton Waikoloa is not the place for you. It’s more Disneyland than Hawaii, but still a fun place to stalk nevertheless.

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: Hilton Waikoloa Village is located at 425 Waikoloa Beach Drive in the town of Kohala on the Big Island of Hawaii. Hilton rooms will run you between $199 and $589 per night. If you stalk the Hilton, be sure to hit up nearby Kings Shops for some GREAT shopping. The Honolua Wahine shop is one of my faves!

  • The Great Quake of ’08!

    Yesterday morning at around 11:42am a fairly large earthquake hit the LA area. I received a text message from a friend, who forgot that I am currently on vacation in Hawaii, asking if I felt the quake. My first thought was ” OMG! My Marilyn Merlot bottle!” LOL The bottle of Marilyn wine that my dad gave me a few weeks back is on display on the top shelf of the baker’s rack in my kitchen (not a smart place to put it being that I live in California!) and I was super worried that the bottle did not survive the big quake. 🙁 One of our good friends rushed right over to our place to check on Marilyn and I am happy to report that she remained intact during the earthquake!!! Our friend said she was literally teetering on the shelf in my kitchen and one more aftershock would have done her in, so thank goodness she was rescued in time. 🙂 That Marilyn – she takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’!

    In other Marilyn news, while walking around Downtown Kona the other morning, we stumbled upon Hula Bean Coffee Shop. I was immediately drawn to the place – not only because I am addicted to coffee, but because the logo on the sign out front was somewhat familiar. At first I couldn’t place the image, but then I realized, the logo is almost exactly like one of the famous nude photographs of Marilyn that were taken by photographer Tom Kelley in 1949.

    I, of course, had to go inside to sample some of the Hula Bean Coffee and to ask the owner about their logo. He said the logo was actually based on the pin-up girls from the World War II era. To me, though, it looks like an exact replication of Marilyn’s pose. There are many conflicting stories of how the Marilyn Monroe nude photographs came to be, but what I was able to discern from the various different accounts is that in 1949 Marilyn was down and out on her luck and her money. An already established model with the Blue Book Modeling Agency, Marilyn was scheduled to pose for some calendar photographs with photographer Tom Kelley. He offered her $50 to pose nude during the session, and the broke starlet, whose car had actually just been impounded, agreed. The pictures sat in a drawer for a few years until they were released in 1952, causing quite a scandal as by that time Marilyn was a bonafide moviestar. Marilyn, who always loved any sort of media attention, immediately fessed up to posing for the photographs and when a reporter asked if she had anything on during the shoot, she replied “The radio, of course.” 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
    Stalk It: Hula Bean Coffee is located at 75-5719 Alii Drive in Kona, Hawaii. I highly recommend stalking it as it serves up some great coffee. I am a Starbucks girl myself and can rarely find a coffee house that compares, but Hula Bean was really good!

  • Lindsay, The Celebrity Hunter

    Yesterday, our first full day in Kona, I did a little Dog, the Bounty Hunter stalking. My mom gets a bit obsessed with celebs, just like me – at least I know where I get it from 🙂 – and one of her biggest obsessions right now is Mr. Duane Chapman, aka Dog, the Bounty Hunter. She is so obsessed with that show, in fact, that she even convinced my boyfriend and I to dress up like Dog and Beth last Halloween. 🙂

    Anyway, while Dog’s main Da Kine Bail Bonds office is located on the island of Oahu, his son Leiland, who also stars on the hit reality show, has an office on the Big Island of Hawaii and it is that office that I set out to stalk yesterday. I had attempted a bit of cyber-stalking before I left on my vacation but did not have much luck in locating Leiland’s office. The address is not listed anywhere online, not even on Da Kine’s official website. I tried calling Da Kine’s phone number to ask for the address, but it was just an answering machine and did not give a location. Thank goodness my mom has a few stalker tricks up her sleeve, because she was able to find the bail bonds office pretty much right after we arrived in Hawaii. 🙂

    My mom had a pretty good hunch from watching the Dog episode when Dog and Beth got married, which was filmed entirely on the Big Island, that Leiland’s office was located in a town about 15 minutes north of Kona called Kealakekua (Yes, it’s the same Kealakekua from the song My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii). My mom came to this conclusion because every time they showed Leiland’s office on that episode, the weather was overcast and rainy. The town of Kealakekua is always on the rainy side, so she was convinced Leiland’s office was located there. My mom may be a better stalker than I am, as I have yet to use weather as a stalking clue. 🙂

    So sure enough, yesterday my parents and I headed out to Kealakekua and stopped in at our favorite restaurant there, the Aloha Cafe. We asked our waitress if she happened to know where Da Kine Bail Bonds was located and she told us it was only two blocks away from where we were sitting! So I immediately dragged my parents down the street to stalk it. Sadly, the office was closed and Leiland was not there. I had figured as much, though, as the show is being filmed in Colorado this season. It was still very cool to be there, though and my dad even managed to snap a good pic of his office through the front window. 🙂

    Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

    Stalk It: DaKine Bail Bonds’ Big Island office is located in the Kainaliu Center which can be found at 79-7430 Mamalahoa Highway #2C in Kealakekua, Hawaii. If you stalk Leiland’s office be sure to stop into the Aloha Cafe, at 79-7382 Mamalahoa Highway, for some GREAT food. Dog’s main office in Hawaii, where most of the filming of Dog, the Bounty Hunter takes place, can be found at 1381 Queen Emma Street in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu.