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At one point a flustered event publicist -- frazzled at least partially by the photographers' relentlessly barked orders for her to get out of the way, to bring this or that celebrity back for a picture, to move some ugly space heaters that were going to ruin every shot -- came to our area to implore us to watch our language. "No cursing!" she said. "Talent has complained!"

I'd already become exceedingly sick of the photographers' constant bitching and moaning myself. (I should note that most of the other photographers seemed to know Rosie by name and didn't like her any better than I did, dressing her down with relish; the language that "talent" had complained about was most likely the steady stream of invectives levelled at Rosie by her colleagues through the course of the night.)

Somewhere in the middle of all this mess, a bunch of very famous people filed through on their way to the awards ceremony. Sharon Stone, escorted by makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin, floated by in a fetching black-gossamer skirt. When the photographers asked her if they could take her picture alone (though it was more of a demand than a request), she demurred flirtatiously: "I have a date!" Paula Cole, draped in pale sequinned chiffon, graciously gave the photographers as much time as they wanted. When Christy Turlington strode right past them, they practically razzed her: How dare she? But the bigger question was, Why on earth would she care to oblige?

By the end of the evening, I'd had more than enough of their complaints and their Katzenjammer Kids antics. One guy, who'd been fairly jocular with me early in the evening, later tried to shove me and some fellow journalists aside, saying, "I need to take pictures! They're not going to answer your stupid questions!" He apparently hadn't noticed that plenty of the glitterati -- including Richie Sambora, Gwen Stefani and Ileana Douglas -- actually had taken the time to answer questions.

In fact, I wasn't prepared for how gracious most of these celebrities were, stopping for pictures when they couldn't possibly have felt like it, looking up when a particular photographer called their name, turning around and doubling back a few steps so that somebody could get a few extra shots. I wasn't completely surprised: I recognize that a certain amount of accommodation comes with the territory of being famous, and that performers who don't want to play the game only end up hurting themselves.

But their decent manners only made me more embarrassed for the alleged professionals around me. After an evening of listening to their bellyaching -- How could the event publicists allow Jennifer Lopez to just walk right by without stopping? Who was in charge here? Why were there no good places to stand? -- I could barely separate the valid complaints (and of course, there were some) from the unreasonable ones.

After the last big name had filed into the armory, I split: Since journalists weren't allowed at the awards ceremony anyway, my only option was to go back to the press area a few blocks away and watch the show on video screens with my colleagues, and at that moment, I needed to be as far away from some of them as possible. Just as I was hightailing it out of there, and as the camera people and photographers were starting to pack up their gear, I heard one of them sum up the event with characteristic eloquence. "Whadda pigfuck!" he said. At that moment, there was only one thing that could have heightened the evening's aura of glamour for me: seeing him on the receiving end.
salon.com | Dec. 8, 1999

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