Fun in LA

I'm happy to report another amazingly fun weekend, although sans children, or maybe partially because we were sans children (hate to admit it but true!!)!!

We were in LA as my toy company, my particular toy, Norman PhartEphant, was invited to a celebrity gift suite for the MTV Film awards. It was fun, and may spark more than one post trying to tell about it; the journey of a consumer product, "fart" as offensive, cool and amazing business interactions, great time with the husband, starting to feel the reality of moving the company forward, etc.

But in a nut shell we met lots of Disney kid celebrities, the crew from Days of Lives, amazing/beautiful/tall WWE talent (male and female; and I'm not sure who was more impressive), a couple comedians, a rock start (Yes, even Slash smiled when he squeezed Norman's tail!!), a few singers/rappers, aging icons, a few "i didn't know he was still alive" icons and a few really cool athletes!

And I didn't recognize a single one of the celebrities. And only one celebrity seemed slightly surprised; ok, it was Tish Cyrus, aka the mom of Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana), so when she said, "my kids will love this", I said, "How old are you kids?" Yeah, she looked at me like I was from another planet. Instead of wearing a shirt that advertised my business saying, "I Phart. I Phart a lot." I probably should have had one saying, "I don't watch TV, especially the Disney channel." Then they would have understood what they were dealing with, with me.

Overall, the celebrities that attended were LOVELY, both in the photographic sense and in the great little conversations we had concerning Norman PhartEphant. While the other vendors talked to the celebrities about their "next project", at my station, folks immediately went to conversations about their kids, and how they couldn't wait to show their kids Norman. So my standard question was, "how old are your kids?" To which the answers really ranged! From over 40 years old to little guys of two and three years old. One former football star, who had arms as big as my thighs, completely melted with Norman and then said, "My son is going to love this!" I smiled, "how old is your son?" to my surprise "18!" I know this sounds weird, but here is this totally impressive piece of manliness, melting over a toy and excited to show his already adult son, that makes me MELT!

So these are the other things I learned in LA:

• I don’t own anything that would qualify as “cool” or "hip" in shoes.
• Not everyone is comfortable saying “fart” out loud.
• I can, and am, willing to talk to anyone.
• Even when you are famous, if you are the man in the relationship, you still get stuck carrying the bag.
• Not all former athletes get fat. Some become very cool.
• Almost everyone giggles at a fart joke.
• I’m not hip, but I’m friendly.
• Smiles are really non-threatening.
• There are many highly photographic people in the world, even when not "dressed up"!
• There are painless business transactions.
• Some people will actually ask if they can have a shirt that says, "I Phart. I Phart a lot".