TMZ At The Grove
One strategy of the Time-Warner funded, $8 -million-dollars-a-year-invested-in-bottom-feeding scum suck known as TMZ is to keep barely-professional people at places like The Grove, 3rd St Promenade, Sunset Plaza, Robertson, and Rodeo Drive just hanging around, waiting to shoot anyone remotely famous, often trying to provoke a reaction to be filmed so the TMZeros can make fun of them for responding… half as funny as Howard Stern stunts and twice an unaware of how stupid and demeaning the effort is.
So when I see stories about Gene Simmons being asked about “his public persona about monogamy,” first reported on TMZ, my first thought is this “innocent couple” is some idiot from TMZ and his girlfriend.
Whether this person was actually in the employ of TMZ or not, this is the atmosphere of sleeze that TMZ has brought to an otherwise pleasant place. And Simmons’ reaction – assuming he thought this idiot was a TMZer – makes 100% sense to me.
One last note – I was explaining to my wife that no homeless hang out at The Grove because it is private property and their security staff is therefore allowed to keep the homeless out. Isn’t it time that Hollywood’s publicity community gets together and asks the management of The Grove to take a similar position on these idiot half-ass paparazzi? I’m sure the excuse is that they use home video cameras, so security doesn’t know. But I recognize these fools every time I walk through the place. They aren’t subtle. Moreover, if they post a few signs and inform TMZ of their intent, they should also be able to legally seize videotape made while harassing customers.
The only real civil right involved is the right to civility.
I don’t know, DP and others get very high and mighty about TMZ, but I watch the TV version RELIGIOUSLY (as in, every single night)…
And Harvey Levin seems like such a good-time guy, like the most fun supergay boss of all time, and just watching the show you feel like you’re buds with Max the Surfer and The Dumb Chick Who Looks Like Margot Kidder and the Cute Glasses Girl and The Jerry Ferrara Guy and The John Cusack Smarmy Prick and The Sour Chick who Sits Closest to Harvey and Hates Max…
Just seems utterly benign and silly– at least in TV form.
Question about Harvey Levin though:
Does he REALLY need to keep the day job on PEOPLE’S COURT? Dude’s got to be a BILLIONAIRE, but there he is, functioning as Doug Llewelyn, on the modern-day version of The Court. I catch that every once in a while in the afternoon and assume it HAS to be from five or six years ago — but nope, end credits dated 2009, and Harvey still doing “man on the street” interviews after the verdict.
Levin doesn’t own TMZ and TMZ is not a money maker at this time… though I am sure he makes very,very good money orchestrating the circus.
TMZ is benign like you hope a tumor is, but are too afraid to do the biopsy to check as you lose 4 pounds a week.
Levin doesn’t own TMZ? I guess I should’ve “done the research” (TM Tom Cruise), but is that fact widely known? And has that always been the case. Maybe it’s just some huge misperception, but I’ve always had it in my head (as have a lot of people) that TMZ was Harvey’s brain child from the jump and he made a fortune off it.
More on topic, it really is noticeable just HOW much of their footage (just on the nightly TV show) is taken at the Grove (with LAX running neck and neck for L.A. footage). Especially at the holidays with so many families and the place being so damn crowded, does seem a little odd they let the papparazzi run amok running up on people there.
Funny, I’ve been to the Grove roughly a zillion times, and never see anybody “big” there; I think my two biggest Grove celebrity sightings are… Amanda Bynes and Andy Dick. Mostly TMZ seems to catch second-tier R&B singers there, so I wonder why it’s even worth the effort to dispatch an entire crew to stake out the place on the off chance you’ll catch Keith Sweat coming out of the Pacific.
Dave isn’t it possible that the only reason these “famous” people are going to the Grove at all is to be seen. This is Sally Field going to the mall in SoapDish. It’s an outdoor mall adjacent to an overpriced “farmer’s market” they can go anywhere in town. I think most regular people go there because it’s one of the few malls not in the hood that don’t charge out the ass for parking.
Not really, TFresca. It’s not George Clooney getting hassled at The Grove. It’s Supporting Actor Jones and, indeed, Gene Simmons.
I’m not sure where you live, but in this community, actors are mostly human beings who are, as US Magazine coined, “Are just like us.” They go to The Grove, they go to movies, they shop at Whole Foods, and they even go to the Farmer’s Market to get anything from Starbucks to donuts.
On Robertson, the Paris Hilton crowd is often having the maitre d tip off the papps to show up after lunch at The Ivy. But it’s not that way at The Grove.
And Lex… TMZ was created by and Harvey Levin was hired by AOL and Time-Warner. He may have some percentage of it after it achieves some financial figure. But as I say, it’s lost money every year so far. There aren’t a lot of people who couldn’t do what he’s done with $8m a year to spend and no moral compass… unless he is the one under fire… then he gets very thin skinned.
Again again… it’s not papps as you would be used to seeing them. These are guys who look a lot like you hanging out, waiting for Cheryl Hines or Richard Kind to walk out of the Apple Store. Then the TV show people spin it into a “story” of some kind.
I am guessing these guys make less than $100 a day to spend their time doing this and are than paid a $500 bonus or something when they get something on the show. They aren’t the pros. But 1000 monkeys on 1000 typewriters…
Wait. You mean Richard Kind exiting the Apple Store isn’t news?… I’m confused.
I was at the Grove earlier in the week, just before Christmas, and there were three stalkerazzi types running around. I had seen one celebrity on the day – Ethan Suplee – but they clearly had one in their sights and were all a’twitter about getting their pictures.
My father-in-law asked who they were stalking and none of them knew the person’s actual name, but said that they “weren’t very famous.”
But then, they got on their little cell phones and fucking RAN across the main drag to snap photos of…Ethan Suplee.
It really was like watching lions go after a zebra as Suplee was just kind of wandering along with his girlfriend and suddenly, these three guys appear out of nowhere and start taking a zillion snaps.
I mean, I’m sure this isn’t the first time it’s happened to Suplee, but it did seem like a lot of effort for somebody who most likely won’t be on the cover of US Weekly in the next couple of weeks.
And this isn’t a dig at Suplee – think he’s talented as all fuck and really funny. Just, he’s not the first person you think of as stalkerazzi bait and I kind of wonder if you get alarmed when, suddenly, three cameras are snapping you out of nowhere.
Another reason to avoid the Grove. And anybody who seriously watches TMZ…ugh.
Yeah, I can’t imagine popping a beer and kicking back and watching fucking TMZ. It seems like a show for housewives and janitors.