Culver City P.O.: Emmys 2009

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Emmys 2009

It is no secret that Tim and I love TV. In fact, if we didn’t have tivo we’d probably never leave the house at night for fear of missing our favorite television shows!

No surprise then that we were ecstatic when we heard that this year’s Emmys show was being broadcast from the Nokia Theatre in the same complex where Tim works. All week long he sent me photos of the red carpet being rolled out and bleachers set-up. We kept our fingers crossed that the red carpet would be laid right in front of his office window and, sure enough, it was! We immediately decided to watch the pre-show festivities from the 2d-floor conference room.

The ceremonies started at 5PM, so we left the house before 1:30PM. Traffic around the theater was a nightmare; but because Tim had wisely acquired a special parking pass (for employees only), we got waved onto streets that were otherwise closed to the public. We had to pass through several groups of guards and then wind around Israeli-style barriers into the parking lot. At the top of the stairs was a small staging area with Entertainment Tonight banners. Everyone was dressed in black and even the camerapeople were wearing tuxedos. We had obviously arrived.

By the time we picked-up lunch-to-go downstairs, it was 2:30PM. We set-up camp in the conference room—fabulous view of the red carpet right below our feet. A few unknown women were posing for photographers before entering the theater, so I went to the staff room to eat my salad.

I was halfway through lunch when Tim yelled, “Quick, Babe. It’s Ben from Lost!” And that was that. I ran back down the hall. One of Tim’s coworkers joined us in the conference room. For the next two hours we yelled out stars’ names and debated exactly who we were seeing (several false Katherine Heigl and January Jones sightings!). I was most thrilled to see my latest hero Neil Patrick Harris, who is tonight’s master of ceremonies, and William Shatner, who skipped the photo line altogether. It was all very exciting and now I’m just counting the minutes till the show begins here at 8PM. Here are just some of the beautiful people we saw (click on each image to see better).