I was out to dinner with a friend the other day and when she left me alone at the table to go to the ladies room, I check my iPhone. There was a message from my mom with a link to a short video and all she said is, “I remember this. Can’t wait ’till it happens to you.”

I watched the video, twice, (with no sound because I was in a restaurant) and it looked to be to just be a commercial for Google Chrome.

I wrote her ‘I don’t get it.” She said, “Did you Listen to it? How can you Not get it? You did that to me all the time, every time you were grounded…”

That night I listened to it with sound and cracked up as I do indeed remember writing these lyrics nearly verbatim and repeating them several time in my youth. Did you?

Nice my mom can look back now and laugh.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, and all the moms out there!

Flash mob -a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.

While on a cross-country adventure through American cities big and small, Trek Thunder Kelly set out to find The Good in America. During his journey, while video sites like YouTube were making Flash Mobs go viral and receive international attention, Trek conceptualized the idea of Help Mobs, flashmobs that rather than ‘seemingly pointless acts’ aimed at doing good in local communities. Via social media and word of mouth he did these in the places he visited.

Back home in California, Trek said he wanted to grow the Help Mob idea, get his friends involved and ideally, make Help Mobs a trend that spreads.

A fan of group philanthropic activities since my dad made doing so an annual family activity we looked forward to growing up, I volunteered to be his partner in crime to get it going. Barely more than a week later, on a beautiful, sunny Saturday in L.A., we managed to get a dozen of our friends to join us in a warehouse downtown at the L.A. Food Bank that delivers 1.1 million pounds of food packaged by volunteers to needy families, seniors and children in LA.

Even in the third and final hour of manual labor by our crew of artists, writers and entertainment industry execs not exactly used to getting their hands dirty, as we definitely did (despite the less than sexy latex gloves we were required to wear), all of us were smiling – and actually having fun.

I ‘borrowed’ this blog’s title from my friend Carter -as well as his skilled technique of expediently marking and repackaging hundreds of cases of canned shrimp. After it was over another one of our mobsters said, “It was a lot of fun. I felt like I was an in ’80s music video! It feels good to give back, have fun, and just be a part of something.”

We plan to keep doing Help Mobs the first weekend of each month, from packaging food in a warehouse, to giving it out on the streets, to planting trees. If you want to get involved or have a cause that could use a Help Mob, write us on our Facebook page Help-Mob L.A.

If you’re not in LA, try being the ringleader who brings friends and friends of friends together to start a Help Mob in your community.

Besides the obvious of giving back, it’s an alternative to getting a group of friends together outside the social norms of say, a night out drinking, it ‘feels good to do good’ – and doesn’t come with a hangover. Although, the brunch or cocktails following the Help Mobs might

Thanks again to everyone who came out to our first Help Mob, until the next one…

I love a gel manicure – glossy polish on your own nails that doesn’t chip for weeks and you don’t have to wait for it to dry. 

But, like many other woman, I questioned whether they were harmful to my health (or the youthfulness of my hands) after the deluge of articles stating the effects of the LED lights used to dry the polish are comparable to placing your hands in a  tanning bed!

My next trip to the salon (If you’re in LA, Lanny’s Nails is my hands-down favorite), I brought 30SPF sunscreen to slather on my hands pre-polish. The bottle of sunscreen was greeted with a shaking of the head and instead I was presented with these stylish finger-less gloves.

I doubt the harmful rays will penetrate these guys in the few short minutes my hands are exposed to them.

Bottom line: If you’re gonna gel, make sure you wear protection.

Marilyn Manson once said, “Music is the strongest form of magic.”

Given that, last night, I had a chance encounter with one of my favorite magicians.

Mr. Hudson has been part of the soundtrack of my life the last three years, since I stumbled across him singing “Young Forever” with Jay-Z on Saturday Night Live in 2010.

Check out the performance, introduced by my other favorite, the incomparable Betty White…

Captivated by his amazing vocals (and he’s not too hard on the eyes), I looked up what other music he’d done and found he had also collaborated with Kanye West (on “Supernova“) and Kanye had even produced his latest album Straight No Chaser. But, when I searched for it on itunes I was sad to learn it was only available via itunes in the UK!

Whining to my British friend I shared an office with at OK! Magazine at the time that I couldn’t access UK itunes, he reminded me that I was going to London the following week. Indeed, on my birthday a few days later I was in London and made the record shop one of my first stops, where I got both Straight No Chaser and Tale of Two Cities, an album he released in 2007.

My sister and I popped the pair of CDs in our computers as soon as we made it back to the hotel and they became the soundtrack for our trip through Europe -and in regular rotation on my ipod as I walked the city streets during my frequent trips to NYC and the music I flip on to clear my head and fall asleep to most nights ever since.

I’ve checked every now and again to see if he’s ever performing stateside without any success, but last night…I was out having cocktails and ran into my neighbor who lives upstairs in our split-level house. He asked, “What music were you playing when you came home at 2am last night?” Just after I said, “Mr. Hudson,” I looked up at the bar and said, “Um, is that Mr. Hudson?!”

Indeed, it was. After a friend initiated conversation, like a broken dam I uncharacteristically fanned out and couldn’t stop the babbled words of admiration for his music from tumbling from my lips.

Thankfully, obviously un-jaded (and not as well-know as he should be in LA), he seemed to welcome the praise, even saying when he became a musician at 15, he could never have imagined his music would make it around the world to effect someone like me in LA.

David Bowie and Mr. Hudson are my favorite musicians. A legend…And perhaps one in the making. Have now met them both and meeting the people behind the voices and lyrics that have been the background for so many memories in my life was just as cool as one could hope it to be. #grateful

Here’s “Supernova” featuring Mr. Hudson with Kanye…

This was my ninth Sundance in ten years.

Whether the films, the talent in those films, the economy or the weather,

no two Sundance experiences are ever the same.

And, despite the long days filled with lots of work, little sleep and often too little to eat and too much to drink, it’s the one ‘event’ all year that many friends and I still look forward to going back and doing again.

Veteran Sundancers and longtime friends Jamie McCarthy and Dimitrios Kambouris enjoy calm before the storm cocktails with Amber and I

My first seven Sundances I went as a reporter.

Last year I straddled editorial and PR, hired to be a brand’s ‘celebrity blogger,’ but then also pitching for press hits.

This is the first Sundance I went as a full-fledged publicist, kind of.

Although I always have fun at Sundance, I always find a reason to go – rather than just for the parties and free stuff a la Paris Hilton.

This year I set out to bring Rally.org, a social fundraising platform (that I equate as a Kickstarter for causes) to Sundance as a way to inject some good into the gluttonous landscape of my favorite playground for PR and introduce the entertainment world to a fun vehicle to fundraise, for a cause big or small or even a message-based indie film.

To make the product fit the festival, I found Rally a home at Rock & Reilly’s, the (soon-to-be-permanent) Park City outpost of my favorite LA Irish pub, where with Sunshine Sachs doing the event programming and Relevant doing the production, I knew was a sure win.

To engage people, we got a beautifully wrapped and branded  photo booth (because everyone loves a photo booth) to take photos for people to email to themselves with messaging about pre-selected causes Rally was rallying for, like Malaria No More and The Redford Foundation, and links to the respective Rally page.

Keri Russell took a break to Rally for Feeding America during Austenland dinner

And, building on something I saw Kevin Bacon try to do several years ago, I suggested a reverse swag drive!

While Sundance founder Robert Redford has often voiced his disdain for the gifting that has become as synonymous to Sundance as the films, I decided to turn it into something good, encouraging people to donate their swag to a Swag from Sundance Drive to benefit Jon Bon Jovi’s Soul Foundation’s Sandy Relief Fund. Soul Foundation, which was already doing a rally on Rally, agreed to donate everything received to Sandy victims and auction and turn to cash the things they didn’t ‘need.’

While not necessarily a box office smash (need to get the word out earlier next year), the drive was a critical success, garnering press on CNN, both on-air and online, praise by Brooks Barnes in the New York Times and even a donation from The Wall Street Journal’s generous Marshall Heyman.

Rally.org CEO Tom Serres with WSJ's Marshall Heyman

Making philanthropy part of the fun at Sundance turned into a welcome trend.

On football Sunday Scooter Braun, mega-manager to stars like Justin Bieber, Psy, The Wanted and Carly Rae Jespen, guest bartended (wearing a OnePiece Onesie!) to raise funds for his brother’s charity Pencils of Promise, which builds schools in countries that can’t afford them.  While the San Francisco 49ers were winning the game against the New England Patriots, Asher Roth manned the turntables at R&R and a combination of generous tips, including $5K from the great guys at Rock & Reilly’s and Scooter matching funds, raised $21K for PoP – enough to fund the building of an entire school!

Scooter tweeted Justin Bieber this photo of himself taking a break with San Francisco Giants pitcher Brian Wilson.

Since the iPhone and Instagram make it so easy to post a picture with a pretty filter fast, and my Canon PowerShot never found it’s way outside my bag, this is the first year in many I don’t have a Facebook album to reflect on post-Sundance.

Even People Magazine prevalently played up their Instagram this year.

It used to be when you had something really great you wanted to pitch the magazine, you sent a photo you thought would be a fit for their readers and prayed. Sometimes it would make it in the pages of the magazine. Other times they would tell you they’re going to put it online at People.com, which with millions of views daily is amazing. This year I was told, “We put a photo on our Instragram.”

And I was thankful, after a beat, because any People platform is a good one. This is the world we live in people. #PeopleMag

Elizabeth Olsen also loved herself some Reilly. Elizabeth came to Rock & Reilly’s on our last day, along with rumored beau Boyd Holbrook and co-star Dakota Fanning for the Fresh Faces of Sundance brunch celebrating their Sundance film “Very Good Girls,” which was written and directed by Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s mom Naomi Foner!

Mixing things up again, I did a quick B-Roll interview with Elizabeth before I left for the airport. The film is about two best friends who crush on the same guy. When I asked if she’d ever been in a similar situation in her real-life, she confessed she had. During recess when she was about 10-years-old and held hands with a boy a friend may have liked.

Now a grown woman of 23, she says she stays fresh at Sundance with lots of moisturizer – and we both were loving the Fresh Sugar Lip Therapy. I got one in nearly every color for doing the interview at the Fresh brunch – and was happy to be paid in tinted lip balm (with SPF!) as I really am an avid user.

Ok, will finish this long and potentially rambling post with a series of photos capturing other highlights, memories and notable details from the whirlwind that was my Sundance 2013.

Rock & Reilly’s Park City!

LA’s little Irish Pub with a really big personality rolled into Park City during Sundance to tease people with their soon-to-open ski town location.

It’s since gone dark for a few weeks while they get it ready to open as a permanent place to be on Main Street, providing another reason to make it to Park City to ski when it’s not Sundance. Not that I’ve ever had a chance to ski during Sundance. Consider ski trip to Park City added to the bucket list.

Reilly’s had stars sign over an image of Reilly which will be covered in plexiglass and preserved to remember the first week. Jane Seymour’s signature under the eye really stood out, (and I sneaked my signature in the shamrock), but real-life couple Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman’s scrawl (in People Instragram above) was my favorite – and made it worth chasing Megan till she signed!

An Act Ate My Hat

Ran into a very dapper-looking Simon Hammerstein on Main Street who I haven’t seen since the early days of his bar The Box in NYC. He’s since opened The Act in Las Vegas and brought the show to  Park City for the CAA party.  A particularly interesting ‘act’ used its teeth to remove my hat from my head.  It was recovered on a nearby table.

A Staple of My Sundance was Ate by an Animal

For the first time in a decade, there wasn’t a café for credentialed talent and industry to congregate over free food. Sad face. Instead, what has been the MySpace Café and Yahoo! Café in the past this year was the ‘restaurant’ Animal (that in LA is a block from my house), offering more of a dining experience for those with adventurous palettes. So instead, Brownie Brittle became a trend for breakfast, current company included.

It was even coined ‘breakfast of champions,’ on Twitter by Current TV editor Jo Piazza.

My one proper meal of the festival came on the last night, and it was worth waiting for.

I was with good friends for good food prepared by magnificent celeb chef Marcel Vignernon at Chef Dance, conveniently located next door to Rock & Reilly’s.

Courtney Love LOVES Her Johnny Was

I saw photos on this private little thing called the internet of Courtney Love trying on gems from Johnny Was, the hot apparel company that was gifting talent who visited them in their exclusive room at the Miami Lounge. Excited she was in town, I investigated and learned she had indeed been by and was the lucky recipient of Johnny Was bracelets, silk scarves and lace dresses.

Then I heard rumblings she was swagging over at hospitality suite staple The Kari Feinstein Style Lounge. It was verified with photos such as this:

So, eager to have Courtney be an example of a #DoGood rockstar, I reached out to her publicist Steven Honig and asked if Courtney would be interested in coming by and donating any of her swag to our reverse swag drive benefiting Bon Jovi’s Soul Foundation’s San Relief efforts.

He told me, “Thanks but she’s not going to be doing gift lounges.”

Hmm….

I understand getting so attached to Johnny Was you simply don’t want to part with it, I know love my Johnny Was pieces, but couldn’t he have just said sorry, she’s too in love with her Johnny Was to donate it?

The Constant

So much changes, yet the one that’s remained the same for several years running is Tao. For better or worse, most Sundance nights end (late) among a sea of familiar and friendly faces at the Park City satellite of Tao. The morning after the fourth and last night of Tao there was a chain email among my friends thankful that Tao would not be open during our last night in town. But, that’s only because we may have had too much of a good thing….Until next year

I’ve been interviewing celebrities, at their homes, on sets, at parties, in airplanes…for the better part of the last decade and although I appreciate (almost) each opportunity, it had been a long time since (to even my surprise) an interview had gotten me as excited as my At Home Interview with novelist Jackie Collins.

I always enjoy interviewing writers, because although my career has veered away from ‘writing,’ instead spending more time as a journalist and these days (gasp) a publicist, I still think of myself as a writer, who may one day finish at least one of the seven books I’ve started. Each time I interview a writer, I wait with baited breath for them to impart the words of wisdom that will light the fire in me to follow through.

When I asked Jackie her advice for an aspiring writer she said, “Write…Don’t talk about it, write. They all say, ‘Oh, I want to write a book’ and when you say, ‘Then why don’t you?’ They say, (in whiny voice), ‘Ohhhh, I’m so busy’ and I say, ‘I’m so busy too, but the thing is, you have to write, and if you write one page per day, you’d have a book at the end of the year.”

She added, “Also, write about what you know. Don’t write about Hollywood if you’ve never been there and you’ve just read the magazines. Write about what you know. If you work in Bloomingdale’s, write about what goes on there, because plenty goes on there.”

The interview ran this week in Australia’s New Idea Magazine:

Here are few gems from our interview that couldn’t fit in two pages…

Jackie’s been penning steamy novels for decades. When I told her my mom first gave me one of her books when I was about 12, she said proudly, “Well, then I taught you everything you know about sex.” So, what does she think of 50 Shades of Grey?

“The difference with my books is my heroines kick-ass,” she said, “But, at the same point, I’m really happy she’s had so much success with 50 Shades of Grey because it brings people into the bookstores and keeps people reading and we want to keep people reading. So, good for her! It’s not my kind of heroine, but good for her.”

More on writing…

Where do you write?

“Everywhere! Because I write in longhand, I can write anywhere. I write at this desk (in the study), I’ve got another desk in back, I have another desk upstairs, I’m a bit of a desk freak. I have 1, 2, 3, 5, 6…I have six desks. Sometimes if I’m doing several projects I’ll keep one project on one desk, another on another one. It’s great.”

What’s your daily routine?

I’ll stagger out of bed about 7am, go straight to my desk and write a sentence or two, because that’s the secret of getting started.

• I have getting-to-the-desk block, not writer’s block. Once I’ve started then I’ll write all day, until about 4pm. I’m a TV addict, so I’ll get a nice cup of tea and catch up on some programs, then I usually go out to dinner.

Do you have any kind of diet or exercise schedule you stick to?

“No, I’m terrible. I’m a chocoholic, total chocoholic. My philosophy is ‘eat what you want.’ Not just eat what you want, but, eat what you love. Don’t waste it on something you think is good for you, I would sooner have a hot chocolate fudge sundae for dinner than dinner, if I feel like it. Yesterday all I had was some smoked salmon and chocolate! It’s the worst diet in the world, but it suits me.”

Suits her it does. At 75, Jackie’s a bachelorette, still gorgeous from even inches away, hardly has a wrinkle (even though she hasn’t had any work done!) and has the sparkle and stamina a woman half her age is lucky to possess.  So is she lonely and pining for a man? Hardly!

“You know, I have a guy for every occasion,” she says, “It’s so useful. I was married all my life and then I was engaged for six years. I don’t like to live with anybody anymore. I found it’s really useful to have guys who like to go to the movies, guys who like to go to dinner, guys you want to stay home with, guys who like TV shows. I have a lot of gay friends too, and a huge family. So, I don’t feel the necessity to date anybody in particular. I had an incredible husband, an incredible fiancé and I’m never going to match them, so I’m much more into casual dating. I’m like an affluent bachelor, don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

It sounds like the new American Dream…
I think it is, yeah. It really works. It’s kind of empowering.

But I do think she has a not so veiled crush on Hawaii Five 0’s Alex O’Laughlin…She says, “I think he would be the perfect Flynn (a dashing character in The Power Trip). There’s something about him that’s incredibly sexy, and also smart, and I love that combination.”

Alex O plays prominently on Jackie’s Pinterest, which brings  me to her Pinterest boards. Specifically, the one she’s aptly coined ‘Smokin’ Hot!’ On this board, Alex shares the accolade with hotties like Robert Downey Jr., Rob Pattison, Ian Somerhalder and Zac Efron, but the one who she says has been re-posted the most – LL Cool J! “I love Pinterest,” she confessed, adding that she’s also on Twitter – and sometimes even dreams in Tweets!

How does she find the time and energy for it all?

She says she doesn’t find the time, and often wishes for an extra six hours in the day, but said, “I think it’s attitude more than anything. I’m always surrounded by family of all different ages and my friends are all different ages, like I’m really good friends with Kathy Griffin. She’s fantastic with her 14-year-old boyfriend. I mean 14 years younger boyfriend! He’s divine actually. So, I have friends of all different ages, I’m a popular culture junkie and I just keep my finger on the pulse and every day is an adventure. Getting older, if I think about how old I am, I think, ‘Holy shit, that’s not possible.’ But then, it is possible, and you think of the alternative and you think, good, great.”

Great indeed. I’ve decided I would now like to make a career out of being Jackie Collins apprentice. I wonder if she’d have me. In a decade or two when she needs someone to type what she says for her autobiography? Help jog her memory for poignant moments an interviewer from her past remembers?

In the meantime, I treasure the tokens of the day imparted to me by the gracious and humble host. She signed a book for my mom, a long-time Jackie Collins fan (and I didn’t tell her what to write) and even threw in an audio book when I told her they were my mom’s favored medium these days.

For me, she said, “You said you like coffee?” and gave me this lovely coffee cup.

Thank you Jackie. When I drink my coffee each morning I remind myself, “Just start writing one line.” Sometimes it’s all that I get for the day, sometimes more. Either way, I know what I need to do and now it’s up to me, but I’m re-inspired thanks to you.

Jackie’s TWENTY NINTH book, The Power Trip will be released in the US/Canada on Feb 12. I got an advance copy (since it was already released in Oz) and it’s scrumptiously delicious.

Well, that will never be published or read.

Watching Jodie Foster’s acceptance speech for the Cecil B Demille award at the Golden Globes tonight, where she was funny and touching, open and raw, albeit a bit confusing, made me remember my impromptu interview with her several years ago.

It was Sept, 2005, fashion week in NYC, and OK! Magazine had just launched its US edition. I was at Another Magazine’s small dinner party at the intimate National Arts Club celebrating cover girl Jodie Foster, and being a bold, intrepid 20-something reporter, during after dinner cocktails I waltzed up to the screen legend and introduced myself. I asked her if I could ask her a couple of questions, figuring the worst she could say was no – and to my shocked delight, she said yes!

Not only that, but after the second question she suggested we go into the hallway so we could hear better. There, she let me rattle off questions for about 15 minutes that would fill two pages of the following week’s OK! Magazine. Almost.

When her publicist was contacted to get photo approval for a picture we wanted to run with the interview, her publicist at the time told us to kill the interview. Being in OK! apparently wasn’t in their press plans for Jodie. Being a new publication trying to gain favor with publicists, we complied, and my interview never saw the light of day.

Although OK! readers weren’t privy to the interview Jodi was propitious enough to take time out to give me, I was inspired by the amazing presence Jodie has, and as one who never relished just walking up to talent, gracious for the kindness and respect she showed me.

I’m glad that tonight she was shown kindness and respect with the award at the Golden Globes – and dewy eyes of people she touched throughout the room.

I’ve been truly fortunate to make a living doing things I love and constantly finding ways to evolve and expand what I do to keep my ADD type A personality from getting bored. Last year I was given the opportunity to read a script and mark it up with products I thought would fit the story. Then I chased up the products – helped facilitate them being shipped to Singapore – and now are slated to make their film debut in Java Heat co-starring Kellan Lutz and Mickey Rourke!

I don’t think the placements for the delicioso Peligroso Tequila (meaning dangerous) or Karma Champagne could have been any more fitting – can’t wait to see the final result! Trailer below!

Did you know that you can see the Hollywood sign from a window at LAX, 25 miles away?

Well, you’d have to specifically be looking out the window in the shiny new Virgin America Loft in Terminal 3 of LAX and playing with their over-sized binoculars, as I was today while waiting for a flight to NYC.

The Virgin America Loft at LAX opened a few days ago, on 12/12/12, and like the experience itself, it’s a level above everything else, a flight (of stairs) up from the gates, and a perfect escape while you’re waiting for your plane to board.

I was running later than planned for my flight (as is generally the case) but once I arrived, fully flustered, to the lounge, it was only a few moments before their signature mood lighting, modern and up-lifting décor and friendly staff melted away the tension and allowed me to leave any anxieties (work scramble before the holiday) at the door.

Not that bringing work in wasn’t an available option (they have outlets and free wi-fi in the loft), but instead I sat and watched the runway like I did when I was a kid, peered through the windows of the plane as it was being cleaned (with the handy binoculars) and, calling upon all my willpower (it’s day five of a five-day alcohol detox) resisted the urge for a Lofty Libation like a “Virgintini” and “Mile-High Margarita” and contented myself with a tall refreshing glass of cucumber water.

Grabbing a bag of Pop Chips on my way out, I boarded my plane feeling like I was starting vacation…And now I’m blogging about it at 35,000 feet en route to NYC while catching up on music videos on their in-flight entertainment system. It’s really the only time I see videos anymore.

If you’re going to find yourself flying Virgin America through LAX anytime soon, a day pass to the Loft is a luxury I recommend you indulge in – and after the cost of Wifi in the airport + coffee and a snack, it pays for itself anyway. Or, you can try buying them in compliments via Twitter. It sometimes works. Follow them and lavish praise on the unparalleled airline @VirginAmerica and maybe they first time will be on them.

Happy Holidays!

So many people grumble about getting older when they celebrate another birthday (can’t deny I’ve been guilty of this myself), but this quote I’ve always liked is particularly poignant now…