CelebriGum Third Anniversary

Inventory Reduction Emergency

When I started CelebriGum nearly three years ago, it was a small-time mom-and-pop (okay, just pop) operation.  

Then growth, success, complication.  In 2011 I moved CelebriGum's offices from the cramped West 53rd Street quarters to a gleaming new skyscraper, One CelebriGum Plaza.  By 2013, I employed a staff of over 200 people to help me run the CelebriGum empire.  

I'll admit that sometimes I miss the old days.  Things were simple then; I just took photos of celebrities with old gum and put them on the website.  Now most of my day is spent going to meetings and dealing with questions, problems, and outright crises. 

Recently I got a call from my Photo Archive Manager, Mitch, on Sub-Level X.  "Mr. Steve, we got a problem.  The archive is getting too full."

"But Mitch, the photos are just computer files stored on hard drives in our server farm, in our blast-proof bunker carved out of bedrock hundreds of feet below street level.  The pictures don't actually take up physical space."

"Well, all I know is everything's beeping and the Command Room main display is flashing 'Low Memory.  Too Many Photos of Celebrities With Old Gum'.  Mr. Steve, you got over 63 million high-resolution mediocre unpublished photos stored down here in the system.  I'm worried she's gonna blow."

"Okay, Mitch, I guess you're right.  Would it help if I took, say, seven photos out of inventory and posted them?"

"Yeah, Mr. Steve, that should do it."

So, in the interest of averting a disastrous underground computer explosion that could damage the delicate bedrock, here are some choice photos that have accumulated in the files.  Some are old, some are new.

Seth Rogen

Will Arnett

Tony Hale

Amanda Seyfried

Joel McHale

Robbie Robertson

Denzel Washington

Crisis averted, for now.  But who knows what lies ahead?

Farewell to the Summer 2013 Interns

It's only the end of July, but sadly the summer term Late Show interns are already finishing up.  We're about to go on vacation for two weeks, and when we come back the fall interns will arrive.

Once again we had a fine group, including two young women who often found themselves stationed near the gum window.  And once again they stepped in when I was off somewhere actually earning my salary.

Lisa Wiznitzer got a few very nice shots:

 Aisha Tyler

Cate Blanchett

Thanks, Lisa!

Hey, look, no safety bars on the window.  Don't think I've ever seen that before.  

Jackee Flanagan managed to grab a couple shots of her initial-mate Jamie Foxx under difficult conditions, through the closed window:

I wasn't able to get a photo of Jackie at the window with the gum, so I had to improvise this.

Thanks, Jackee!

No bars on the window, no gum shot of Jackee... and what about that mysterious portent?

Posers!

Any celebrity can give a quick wave to the paparazzi while dashing into the theater, but there's a special place in Celebrity Heaven reserved for those who take the time to stop and pose for photos with fans.  

Michael Cera 

Darius Rucker

Will Smith

Alison Brie

 And from the files, examples we've seen before: 

Jamie Foxx

Will Ferrell

I don't really understand the celebrity photo obsession, but hey, whatever makes you happy.

Oh, very funny.  Someone added this photo to make an ironic point about celebrity photo obsessions.  Which one of you jerks was it?

Ha ha, I get it now.  I added the previous photo.  Real cute, Steve.  Jerk.

"Friends" Reunion!

The recent appearance of Lisa Kudrow on the Late Show made me think, hey, how about a "Friends" reunion entry of CelebriGum?  I'm pretty sure I've got all the main characters…

"Phoebe Buffay" (Lisa Kudrow)

"Professor Nussbaum" (Dana Carvey)

"Sally Trestlewick" (Lucy Liu)

"Gary the Handyman" (Regis Philbin)

"Duchess Arabella" (Amanda Peet)

"Father O'Herlihy" (Ken Jeong)

"Cousin Mitch" (Bud Selig)

I never saw "Friends."

Hugh Jackman

One of the summer's most-anticipated films has spawned one of the summer's least-anticipated spin-offs!

Hugh Jackman is back as the legendary mutant in the brief but action-packed blockstabilizer, "Wolverine vs. Personal Assistant"!

The post-production special effects crew is still working on adding the claws. 

Cate Blanchett

 What a remarkable woman!  Cate appeared on the Late Show on Monday, July 22nd…

…just hours after giving birth to the Royal Baby, her infant son who's 3rd in line to the throne!  That's professionalism!

I don't know how she did it.  Even if the Concorde were still flying, that would be cutting it awfully close, and for someone in her condition to --

-- hold on, my phone's ringing --

****************

What an honor.  I've just been called "an insufferable Yank bonehead" by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Anyway, mazel tov to Her Majesty and the rest of the family, including whoever the hell it was that just gave birth.

Liev Schreiber

Liev visited the Late Show to promote his new Showtime drama series, "Ray Donovan."

His character Ray is a "fixer" for a powerful Los Angeles law firm.  Ray makes the problems of the city's powerful celebrities, superstar athletes, and business moguls disappear…

(cue music)

…thanks to his brilliantly choreographed dance numbers.

Apparently you can get away with that avant-garde stuff on premium cable.

(music stops)

Good luck with the show, Liev, you dancin' fool.

Jeff Daniels

It's very hot in New York.  Everyone's lethargic.  I don't have the physical or mental energy to write a clever entry, so instead I'm going to shoddily construct one for Emmy minee Jeff Daniels using phrases borrowed from old entries.

"Exciting: big time celebrity" "plays a" "respected newsman" "looking crisp and natty in the heat" "strides triumphantly down the sidewalk" 

(For those interested in cross-checking, those phrases are from the following entries: John Travolta, Nathan Lane, Tom Brokaw, Bill O'Reilly, Martha Stewart)

"drawn ever deeper into a labyrinth of sinister intrigue" "unexpected detour" "choice excepts from spring 1922 issues of "The American Hatter""

(phrases from the Nathan Lane and Steve Martin entries)

So apparently I've blundered into offering more excerpts from spring 1922 issues of "The American Hatter."  Very well.

Maybe it's the heat, but I don't understand my own website anymore.