2005 MTV Movie Awards

This weekend I got a chance to fly to LA to see and participate in the MTV Movie awards. How the hell did I pull that off? I have cool friends that get lucky and get casted as seat fillers! I was a seat filler. A What? A seat filler! (echo anyone?)

My friend scored tickets to be at the awards as seat fillers…basically when someone arrives late, leaves for a drink, heads to the bathroom, leaves early, etc they want someone in their seat so the place always looks full. Well lucky luck LUCKY us; we were put into the “main group” of seat fillers and we were used to rotate throughout the “celebrity pit”. Before the show started we were seated 2nd row, corner with the Foo Fighters, P. Ditty’s old butler and Quentin Tarantino!

We arrived in LA at our hotel around 3am LA time; woke up by 8am and we were off to see the sights. Back at the hotel by noon to get ready, and at the theater by 3pm…waiting in the hot LA sun for two and a half hours with a few hundred people. We were filed in and some people were picked from the group to sit together in a temporary spot…mostly older, excessively trendy people; we were picked! These people were the “key” seat fillers and the first ones to head into the “celebrity pit”. With in 5 minutes I was bumped from my seat and my friend stayed.

If you watch the awards on Thursday you might see my friend because she sat 2nd row with the Foo fighters the whole show! I got bumped around a few times and had some awesome seats for the performances. If you see me, I will be shocked, but it’s possible…

I’ll make my life simple…

Stars I was inches from:
– Anthony Michael Hall
– Seann William Scott
– Johnny Knoxville
– Foo Fighters
– P. Ditty’s old butler

Stars I was 5-10 feet from:
– Jon Header (Napoleon Dynamite)
– Aaron Ruell (Kip)
– Efren Ramirez (Pedro Sanchez)
– Eminem
– Lindsay Lohan
– Andy Dick
– Jessica Simpson
– Nick Lachey
– Michael Chiklis
– Eva Mendes
– Quentin Tarantino
– Dax from MTV’s Punk’d

Stars I was 20 feet from:
– Hillary Duff
– Samuel L. Jackson

Stars I saw:
– Tom Cruise
– Katie Holmes
– Paul Gleason (I)
– Molly Ringwald
– Ally Sheedy
– Jessica Biel
– Jessica Alba
– Nicole Kidman
– and a ton others…

I got the call on Thursday morning around 10 am and made up my mind before 11am that I was going…within a few hours plane tickets, hotel and rental car were set up. I was in LA for less then 48 hours and I had a great time. My camera battery went dead as we made it into Beverly Hills, but I got a few pictures. I saw Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, Hollywood hills, Blvd, Roxbury Street, Marina Del Ray, Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica beach…it was packed full of adventure. At the awards you could not have a camara nor cell phone so there was nothing I could do. I did see people taking pictures and I saw security harass a friend of a celebrity until he knew he was really with a celebrity…so I would have been beat up! Hopefully I can visit the West Coast again and spend a little more time out there. Random pictures are at my Flickr site.

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
– Miriam Beard