I saw the real Erin Brockovich this morning, and remarkably, she looked nothing like the real Julia Roberts.

Erin, that's what I call her, passed me on her way down The Stairs this morning. She smelled like raspberries and hairspray. I tried not to make it obvious to everyone else on the staircase that I noticed her, because you just don't do that in LA, notice people. You may as well just tackle them if you're going to notice them. It's all the same.

A few years ago I saw Cindy Crawford when she was eight months pregnant with her first child. Cindy was ordering haggis from the deli at Canter's Restaurant on Fairfax, a few blocks from my apartment. Although at the time I was new to LA, I'd been thoroughly discouraged by many indigenous species to resist any urge to notice, or worse, stare at a celebrity.

Not only did I stare at Cindy, but I also made distinctly high-pitched gasping noises betraying my disbelief at witnessing a supermodel ordering food. Of course, Cindy wasn't just any super model. She was Cindy, and she was pregnant and very, very hungry. It was like catching the Pope in the middle of shooting up.

The years have taught me wisdom, however, and now I'm much better at ignoring celebrities in public, who are really just normal people trying to live normal lives, I know, I know.

That's why they drive inconspicuous foreign sports cars at high speeds while drunk on malt liquor, taking down telephone poles and innocent children by accident. That's why they have an agent, a manager, a psychiatrist, and several illegal servants, all of whom are paid to kiss their privately-trained ass.

That's why they have personal websites with built-in audiences who obviously don't care about design or content. That's why they overuse exclamation marks and italic text to really — no, I mean, really! — get their point across.

That's why I say, ha ha, yes! 50,000 Monkeys can be wrong!