Destination: Australia All Over

Inspiration: Secret Actor texted me (he’s hot and a legend as the Aussies say!): Have someone go down under

Actualization: So this is my Best of the Rest part 2 for those of you who go down under to Australia!

UP IN THE AIR Director, Jason Reitman: Enjoy Australia. The zoo in Sydney is beautiful and if they’re playing right now, you owe it to yourself to check out an Aussie rules football game.

Dexter’s Julie Benz: Go to the Great Barrier Reef… You have to see it!!! And the Sydney zoo is a lot of fun:) and there is a great flea market in Sydney on the weekends with lots of cool stuff…. And go to an outdoor movie!!

Jesse Lutz and Cameron Diaz: Culture: Moonlight Cinema is amazing if the weather is great, google it and you can see whats on. Its amazing watching old films under the stars overlooking the harbour

Actor/Producer Jake Hoffman: I’ve never been, but my brother went and went bungee jumping! I dare you!!!!!!!!

Desperate Housewive’s Sharon Lawrence: Here ya go. Have some one teach you to play the diggery do and make sure to video the lesson. That’s so Aussie and something you should only try under professional supervision. We brought a magnificent one home from our Fijian/Sydney honeymoon and cant play it at all!

H&S Grey Gooser, Danielle Lew: Drink VB (short for Victoria Bitter – it’s the local beer that’s made in the state)

Comedian Jon Lovitz: I’ve never been there but I hear Perth is beautiful!!!

Musician Jaron Lowenstein: Find something so beautiful either externally or discovered within that makes you cry. I don’t have tangible suggestions because those don’t mean anything to me except that they can be conduits to emotion. Find something beautiful about yourself that you didn’t know before. And tell me what it is. Have a wonderful inspired trip.J

Publicist Liz Keen: Eat a “pie” at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels – Sydney

Actor, Robert Ri’Chard: Go to the Whitsundays if possible on a 2-3day sailboat tour. U’ll get hit on by the 26yr old Firstmates during the night. They’ll take you to the most photographed beach in the world. Prettiest beach on the planet. Make sure you go topless (it’s what all the Sports Illustrated Supermodels do) It’s quite liberating. Port Douglas: Take the Quiksilver II Boat Tour to Great Barrier and see an amazing underwater experience

Jeff Probst: Find a local to teach you how to play the didgeridoo then buy one and ship it home.  They’re great fun to have around the house and definitely a conversation piece and they are indigenous to Australia.

I actually took Probst’s advice partially and had the most amazing experience learning about the didgeridoo and the history of the aboriginals in Australia. (I didn’t ship it home!) You can see for yourself here - http://www.indijnarts.com.au/

Kathy Najimy: You are spectacular!  Happy Birthday doll and have a splendid time in Australia!! We love Melbourne- where are you staying?  There is a theatre/performing arts festival there you will love!
oxoxo Kathy Ann

Realization: I still am dreaming of my time in Australia and cannot wait to go back!

Destination: Streets of Brisbane, Australia

Inspiration: James Franco: “Brisbane. The beach or the hippy place where you can see whales. Forget the name”

Actualization: It’s not whale season, you say? Who cares? Tell me to see whales and I’ll show you whales. James Franco moment turns Mission Pineapple Express in Brisbane. As you read the below, note some fav quotes from the movie and how they paralleled our trip. Except we don’t have pot to use as an excuse.

Janae and I realize we aren’t finding real whale watching as James suggested. Instead, we are going to have to have to get creative. I say let’s go on a scavenger hunt in Brisbane and find hippies and whales!

Janae says yes, but that we’re going to do it Pineapple Express style. Of course this saves our day. I pulled my favorite quotes from the movie as they corresponded with our adventure.

Dale Denton: I’m here to save my best friend… I’ve got an idea! Rub your wrists against my belt buckle!
[Saul does. It looks like humping]
Dale Denton: I’m gonna save you, man!
Saul: [Grinds against Dale] Yeah! Yeah!
Dale Denton: Let me save you!

Janae is a true friend and photographs the search. She’s been my Aussie BFFF:

Saul: BFFF?
Dale Denton: Best F**kin’ Friends Forever, man!
Saul: Holy cock!
Red: Thug life!

We start with the police station.. This policewoman prints out maps for me and then these police guys point me towards tourism.

Dale Denton: [after explaining everything that's happened] Do you believe me?
Police Liaison Officer: I don’t know. Give me a minute. It was a woman or a man cop?
Dale Denton: It was a policewoman. It was a woman.
Police Liaison Officer: Oh, I think I know who that bitch was.
Dale Denton: Yes, I will identify that bi*ch!

I’m a little embarrassed by my tennies and dress attire at the tourism spot:

Budlofsky: [Matheson is smoking weed] No, I can’t. My wife can always tell. She can smell it on my sweater.
Matheson: [laughs] You want my vest? It smell good.
Budlofsky: It’s not my style.
Matheson: You ain’t got no style, muthaf**ka.

We get hungry and get smoothies midsearch.

Saul: Enjoy your last meal.
[throws bills at Dale]
Saul: Here, super size it, bitch.
[throws change]

We find the whales as directed by the museum worker, AKA Seth Rogen as shown below! He tries to talk to me about where I can find more hippies. I don’t understand where and how I’ll get to the hippies because again Aussies don’t know how to describe walking or driving directions.

Saul: Let’s roll, man! I’m done with the woods! Let’s go! C’mon, man, let’s get the f**k outta here!
Dale Denton: [sarcastically] Okay… Uhh let’s go… No… It’s not working… the battery’s dead.
Saul: Wait…! What do you mean, it’s dead?
Dale Denton: [laughing] What do I mean? I mean the battery’s dead. The battery’s dead!
Saul: No, no! What do you mean, the battery’s dead?
Dale Denton: How can I explain this to you differently? The battery is dead. It ceased to live. It’s deceased now. The car needs a battery to start, Saul.
Saul: [frustrated sigh] How did this happen?
Dale Denton: Well we clearly fell asleep with the battery on and-…
Saul: Aw, man… Talk radio?
Dale Denton: Yes, talk radio.
Saul: So boring, man! The car just committed suicide.

We find SAUL!!!! (aka. James Franco lookalike in a café in hippy town!) He has no clue what we are talking about when we mention Pineapple Express.

Saul: How about in the park, when I said you were my friend… you didn’t say anything back.
Dale Denton: Well, that’s easy. It’s because we’re not friends. You are my drug dealer. The only reason I know you is because I like the drugs you sell. If you didn’t sell drugs, I would have no idea who you are, and I wouldn’t be here right now. I would be fantastic!
Saul: Oh.
Dale Denton: I’m sorry, that sounded really mean… just to hear that, that sounded really mean.
Saul: No, I see. The monkey’s out of the bottle now!
Dale Denton: What? That’s not even… a figure of speech.
Saul: Pandora can’t go back into the box – he only comes out.

I get us lost as we go back to get the photo with the whales. We eventually find it though:

Saul: Man, why’d we have to go to the woods?
Dale Denton: Well you didn’t come up with any ideas!
Saul: Yeah, I came up with two! Nowhere and Quizno’s

Time for dinner. Let’s find a good spot to eat. Our feet hurt and we think about hitchhiking.

Saul: Hey, look: it’s like my thumb is my cock.
Dale Denton: That’s not gonna get us a ride, man..

When I get hungry and premenstrual, I lose focus on the moment and want to punch Janae. She wants to punch me too. We both hold it in:

Red: Why don’t you follow his lead and just chill out, man?
Dale Denton: I’m chill. I’m chill as a cucumber, man.
Red: You don’t seem chill.
Dale Denton: I’m more chill than you.
Red: You’re more chill than me?
Dale Denton: Yeah.
Red: Look what I’m wearing. Kimono, dog. What’re you wearing?
Dale Denton: A suit.
Red: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know what’s up with you, but I don’t know if I like you.
Dale Denton: Well, I don’t know if I like you either, man.
Red: Well, that’s your loss ’cause I’m a great friend.

Janae, like Red, is even more upset because Max isn’t around. At least I have a moment…

Red: [before saving Saul] I can’t do this. I’m sorry, man. I can’t do this. I’m infected. My shit’s all f**ked up. I need medical attention.
Dale Denton: What do you mean you can’t – I thought we just got all pumped up! What was that all about?
Red: Dude, Ted is a f**king murderer! I can’t f**k with him! I got a wife, man! She’s gonna be out of jail soon. I wanna f**k her! I wanna have sex with her! I am not gonna wake up murdered tomorrow.
Dale Denton: Oh, no! Come on, this could be your moment of redemption!
Red: F**k that. This’ll be your moment.

We find the perfect restaurant. The dude at the counter sucks in a deep breath while crinkling his eyes and opening his mouth with teeth together. BIG PET PEEVE OF MINE and says, “Sorry. We don’t serve food for another hour.”

Ken: [to Ted and Dale] You, suck my balls. Two times!

We find our dinner spot, fill our tummy’s and review the day of finding Saul, Dale, whales and FOOD. Thank god! We bond again.

Dale Denton: [talking about his girlfriend] I go visit her in high school and all the guys she goes to school with are, like, strong and handsome and really, like, funny and do good impressions of Jeff Goldblum and shit like that. And, like, I just feel like a fat, dumb f**kin’ stinky-ass turd when I’m there.
Saul: What?
Dale Denton: It sucks for my ego.
Saul: F**k Jeff Goldblum, man!

Realization: We all have our moments!

Saul: You lied to me.
Red: I did. I lied big time to you.
Saul: Dale said that that you didn’t even have herpes, and I said that you did.
Red: Honestly, like, from now on, just, like, from everything that we’ve gone through, from, like, seeing this f**kin’ asshole’s nuts smashed with my Daewoo, I want to be a better friend to you. I really do.
Saul: I f**kin’ love you, dog. I f**kin’ love you.
Red: I wanna be inside you, homes.
Saul: No more lies, Red.
Red: This is my moment.
Saul: This is your moment.

Your moment:
Pineapple Express
James Franco
Brisbane
Brisbane Whale Watching
Brisbane Whale Museum

Other fun quotes:

Mr. Edwards: Clark’s a great guy, man. He’s totally gonna take care of Angie, man. He’s great; he’s a wonderful lab partner, so… It’s gonna be cool, he’ll keep one eye on her.
Dale Denton: Why don’t you go f**k yourself, you weird little prick?
Mr. Edwards: I’m a teacher, okay? You can’t talk to me like that, guy.
Dale Denton: I’m not a student, so I can say whatever the f**k I want, you chimp-f**king little bastard.

Angie Anderson: F**k you, Dale. I lost my virginity when I was fourteen, okay? How many women have you even slept with?
Dale Denton: Like two and a half.
Angie Anderson: Two and a half? What is a half, your hand? That doesn’t count!
Robert: Angie, you’re a fucking idiot. I say that with love

Saul: This is like if that Blue Oyster shit met that Afghan Kush I had, and they had a baby. And then, meanwhile, that crazy Northern Light stuff I had and the Super Red Espresso Snowflake met and had a baby. And by some miracle, those two babies met and f**ked, this would the shit that they birthed.
Dale Denton: [smells the marijuana] Wow. This is the product of baby f**king.

Matheson: [Saul has smashed a coffee pot in Matheson's face, leaving huge scars] I look like the Hamburglar.

I’d like to preface this excerpt that this was a night of Hammer and Ham…

Ben Schwerin, my well-traveled friend, always seems to send me to people who end up staying in my life no matter what country they are in, so when Ben said I should meet his friend Max Markson from Sydney I knew I had to get to it. Lucky for me Max happened to be in Melbourne with MC Hammer at the same time I was there for my quick stint. Max invited me and my new Melbourne socialite friends to come to Hammertime for XBOX360 after our dinner at Giusseppies. Giusseppies is a favorite of Jamie, DJ Prequel, and Max. Eating dinner with these young bachelors who grew up together was a trip for Jen, Janae and yours truly. The adorable Max (secret boyfriend to Janae) who couldn’t say a sentence without a grin slipping out by the end. When he said, “guys my day couldn’t have been worse….” somehow that grin still came out and you knew he just made fun out of life. Jamie, the hot one, who smiled and women drooled.  Jamie chose our dinner spot, made us reservations, and then had to go home…

Jamie couldn’t continue on because of an experience with one of the who was going to be at Hammer. He took her to a bar and left her there! Ha. We all know a Jamie and you just always want to keep him around.

DJ Prequel was the ham! He did every impression. We spent half the night naming countries and he would impersonate how women from that country would take a man to bed. It was like an instructional video. Russia-”You. There. Get on all fours. Take me now.”

While the boys continued to ham it up, I saw a shiny large object and like a three year old bolted to find out what it did. There in the middle of the restaurant was some sort of meat chopper. I was fascinated. Jonathan, the slicer, explained the $30,000 berkel and how it was used to cut hams. He showed me how he took the rump of the ham and put it on the teeth of the slicer and prepared the ham for diners. I don’t eat meat but I liked watching it cut to the bone.

Ham to hammer. Nothing makes me happier than hearing the reminiscent “2 legit. 2 legit to quit.” And “you’ve got to pray. Prayyy. Prayy. You’ve got to pray just to make it today!”

We boogied down and then Max Markson invited us back to the Park Hyatt where Hammer sang us lyrics from his upcoming album, Britney Spears partied in the private glass room next to us, and the Pussycat Dolls sang along to their song that came on at the hotel.

Three hams in one night and this was ready for bed and a new adventure. Off to Byron Bay.

Joel Madden quote: “And she should go to an aussie rules football game. I would tell her to see the melbourne cup but its already passed. That’s the thing to see.”

At first I thought Joel’s email had a typo but in fact it is called, “Aussie rules football”. DEFINITION: A variant of football played between two teams of 18 players, plus four interchange players, outdoors on large oval-shaped grass fields (often modified cricket fields), with a ball in the shape of a prolate spheroid.

I kind of happened upon Joel’s moment yesterday which made it even more fun. That morning I searched for a game to attend and realized the football season for 09 was up. Went for my now routine run for the day and happened upon a trifecta of sport’s arenas and decided it was time to get creative for a moment.

Jen and I walked around the entire MRC stadium where they hold cricket, football and rugby matches. We took pictures imitating the statues of the great sport’s heroes of Melbourne. I chatted up security and ground’s crew trying to persuade my way in.  Finally at GATE 3 my Angie Charm worked as I got a secret grin from the security there. I explained that I needed to take a picture while I visualized a football game down in the arena. As he opened up the rope and tried to keep up his serious guard air, he said, “Okay I’ll take you down for photos.” I know he loved every minute of watching Jen and I run around taking photos in different seats and posing around the field. We even got Jonathan to be photographer for a few.

Jen found this quote on the wall as we walked out – “Moments that made us”. This captured the essence of today:)

Since Jay Leno has never been to Sydney, my Jay Leno moment was to see the “Jay” of Australia-Rove. As a former intern for David Letterman and Conan O’Brian this moment was one that hit close to home. I love a cute comedy genius-and Rove was that and more. Quick, witty, and personable. We laughed our way through his show.

And bonus two of the guests were Benji and Joel Madden here from L.A. I later got an email forwarded from my friend Jean where Joel said: “She should attend Rove the late night show here.” Love that he was part of my moment!

Novelist Ben Elton and an adorable Aussie duo-Hamish and Andy filled out the guest list….and then…

Hammertime! As we heard the nostalgic, raspy voice, out jumped the dancing machine MC Hammer breaking it down on stage.

After the show, the night continued with dinner on the beach…halfway though dinner, I ran out to the water to dip my feet in the Aussie ocean for the first time. I found my first jellyfish washed up on the sand; it kinda looked like a melting ball of ice or pile of used condoms.

My friend Janae (here too from LA) and our new Aussie friends introduced us to Melbourne nightlife and we ended the night with some Hungry Jack in the gorgeous estate of one of the guy’s parents. Apparently in Australia, it’s not uncommon for the kids to live at home post college even if they can afford to be on their own. They say Melbourne in Australia is like the LA of the US and Sydney the New York! Despite the fact that I have few Melbourne moments and was told it was overrated, I have enjoyed every bit of the last 24 hours.

Thank you Tracy St Pierre for the rove tickets!

Milo quote: Australia was an incredibly short trip. I was there for 2 and a half days and spent most of it in hotel rooms doing press for the show. I did get out for a 6 mile run around sydney harbor at 6am one morning (woulda been the afternoon back home so I was awake).

I am indebted to Milo for this moment. It’s been far too long since this gal has had a run like that and my favorite part of my Europe trip was the running in every city exploring every day. Because of the bday celebration, there was no way I was running without fuel. I chose to go to Bill’s for breakfast first and had the most amazing ricotta pancakes which ended up almost coming back up on my run but were so worth it – made sense at least 3 people had recommended them and Bill’s.

Running along that harbor post brunch produced that amazing feeling when the sun is beating, the waves are hitting the wall along the path, face is so red from exhaustion and Rocky music seems to be playing all around. I am so glad I had my Milo moment on day 2 because I am going to run every day. Anyone who comes to Sydney MUST run along that water, under the bridge, and up the opera housestairs.

Sydney MOMENT MUSTS:
-Bill’s in Surrey Hills – Corn Fritters and Riccotta Pancakes – by Markus at Soho, Liz at H&S, Jesse and Cameron!
-Run along the Syndey Harbor aka Circular Quay – Milo Ventimiglia

Leave it to brother JJ to find out that today the news is warning Aussies about the kangaroo plague. Perhaps more Kangaroo moments than I bargained for…