A long, long time ago - way before most of the readers of Ms. Havrilevsky were even gleams in their parents' eye, maybe even before Ms. Havrilesky was wearing plastic pants while she played with her toys in the playpen, I had the opportunity of spending a considerable bit of time with a Hollywood Legend. My writing mentor, who had written Mr. Hollywood Legend's least-favorite movie he made - but had become his good friend in the process - told me as he introduced me to Mr. HL that "he needs someone who hasn't heard his stories to listen to them, and if he chooses you, youll learn something if you listen up." My mentor was right, and I did indeed get a better "graduate" education than one could get at either UCLA, USC, or any other cowtown college with an MFA program in "fillum". Mr. HL read my stuff and told me "there's hope for you, kid." We used to eat a very nice top-of-the-line delicatessen lunch twice a month in his office while he talked and I listened. It was the best education a screenwriter could get, because most of it was about the business of being a screenwriter, which is where most screenwriters fail.

One thing he taught me was, be polite to everybody and don't mess them over. You never know where they're going, and you never know when you might need a good word from them. The guy who's down will be up, and vice versa. This wasn't new news, I had figured that out in ten years of professional politics-as-a-blood-sport, but all that was mere boot camp for the Real Deal - which is Hollywood.

I've survived as long as I have for knowing that, and every "bump in the road" has come from not remembering those words of wisdom.

Too bad Generation Y-bother hasn't figured it out. The two articles about Gawker prove that while it might have been right once to believe "don't trust anybody over 30," today the rule is "don't trust anybody under 30." You people are pathetic in your moron stupdity - you're even dumber than we were.

I've gotten real news from Gawker.com-when the MTV permalancers lost their benefits and went on strike, Gawker reported. I didn't see anything about that on NYTimes.com. When the street exploded near Grand Central, I read about it on Gawker. I've gotten more real, useful news from Gawker than I've ever gotten from Salon.

Just about every anti-Gawker article I've read seems to come from people who are very much like the people Gawker focuses its lenses on--rich, privileged public and semi-public figures. If they want to pool their money and start a little website poking fun at me (I can see the stories now--exposes on shopping at Payless, how all my gloves are made of cloth, and I actually need my salary! The horror!) they can go right ahead.

Whether famous or not, even unknown, certain people who make their living as performers just have a weird light about them, a charisma that the rest of us don't.

While working in gee-gaw shops on Fisherman's Wharf in the years right after college I met my share of celebrities. Janet Jackson came into the store where I worked during her "Rhythm Nation" tour (boy, am I dating myself or WHAT?). She was sweet and shy and almost unfathomably sexy. From that height we descend to Leon Rippy, who came into the same store a year earlier. Rippy has had prominent co-starring roles in many films over the years, perhaps his biggest as the colonial militiaman who commits suicide after seeing his murdered family in "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson. Anyway, he also had that charisma, and was quite nice, fretting about spending any money lest his wife "kick [his] butt." And from that mid-level we descend to some guy hired as a "Young Elvis" impersonator for a 50s theme party at a former employer. This guy was a nobody, but he had that charisma in spades, and was also a very cool dude, quite nice.

This kind of thing is why these people get work in the entertainment biz, and keep getting it, at whatever level they are situated. This is why it is so sad to run into "actors" and "singers" without one ounce of that wonderful energy, knowing they'll never get anywhere, but seeing the ferocious ambition blazing in their eyes.

I'd love to know why my Letter defending Gawker was starred with an Editors' Choice, only to be demoted 3 hours later to "blather ".

How does one's post go from being starred as Editors' Choice get demoted in this way?

Havrilesky's article missed the mark on Gawker by a mile, and I said so. I'd suspected Salon Letters censors posts critical of their writers, but HOW shit-heel of you to take my Editors Choice star away from me, seriously cowardly.

On behalf of those of us who enjoy Gawker, and disapprove of Salon's egregiously dumb comparing of Perez to said site, a hearty screw-you.

I completely agree with this aricle about crazy celeb and media-obsessions. I am of an age where I don't even know half of those gossiped about and they seem to live empty lives anyway, so what's to envy?

I'll add this, not in contradiction of the above but due to direct experience with some great actors, politicians, et al.

Living in Manhattan you often run into celebrities. Even though the upspoken but hip action is to avert one's gaze, this is not always possible.

In diret contact with some celebrities--people who I love from afar, or whose work really affected me--it's only human to say hi, smile or even talk if they so desire. I'm thinking of my encounters--to name only a few:

how Tony Randall RIP, smiled at me, I waved back and then he asked for help with one of his young twins, and I happily helped put the kid on a park swing. How Gabriel Byrne met at a coffee shop, and I was sure I knew him from Columbia, as he nicely disabused me of that associaton.

One day I met Meg Ryan, and I'm not a big fan of hers, but as we both were buying baby toys and compared notes, I felt that high again. Or how twenty years ago Lyza Minelli, both of us in better days, helped me pick a bathing suit for my honeymoon. When the store closed she kept working with me for

"perfect outfits" for at least an hour.

Or the day I met Mario Cuomo in Grand Central Station, or say: the great Andre Gregory entering a hotel, who was delightful. Very Funny. These people know they are "known" but a casual contact is what they, like we, need.

Jason Alexander: I met in Hawaii with my sister who lives there. He was being mobbed and was even nice about it. But we told our then young kids NOT to talk to him, not to even look. And how then he was the one who saved one of my nephews from drowning--nephew thankful but didn't look up or say a word!

All these and more than I can now recall--were not only nice to be with for a few short minutes, (the nicest by far was Eli Wallach who hugged me) or Dustin Hoffman ( who my sister hugged,): all these celebrities gave off a light that felt magical.

I don't know why but something does accrue to great actors, like Ed Harris who I mistook for an old flame and he laughed. In long, when meeting most real celebrities in a ordinary way (one of my kids went to school with the son of Kyra SEdgwick and Kevin Bacon, so I saw them daily) and what I have felt from some, not all, is a real high. Unreasonable, sure is to me. I'm far more into intellectuals than popular culture but there you have it, what I bet is true for others here.

It's as if we get refracted light from them. I think of myself as immune to celebrity and recently I gave a singer I didn't know, one Steven Tyler from Arrowsmith, a "fuck off" because he was in my face, this to my kids' horror, (and how I learned his name). O, one of my best encounters, when I was sitting next to Heath Ledger at an airport many years ago, when he was a pre-teen idol, completely unknown to me. After hours waiting for a delayed flight, and chatting amiably, he gave me his home number because he said his mom would love me. Then Drew Barrymore, totally unaffected and homey, joined us and she was just herself... All these meetings for good or ill are I'll admit: utterly memorable. And I do not know why. It's the vibe, the feeling, the light in them that pours onto you.

I conclude from this that though I don't read celebrity news I do read and watch films as of course you all do too--and as a result, I've found that I feel really good after meeting someone I like or respect if from afar. Perhaps this benign affect is the underlying reason for the awful celeb news you read with distaste. Or could be.

Because it's for us regular folks, not about wanting to pull them down, but how celebs, however ridiculous it sounds, can pull us up. For a few minutes that I, for one. remember vividly.

PS:(Woody Allen once flirted with me in my beauty days, a good moment and the worst: when I was strolling with a group of "disabled" and poor inner city kids in Central Park and they went wild over Jerry Seinfeld. He was in no mood hear this tiny chorus scream his name. He looked around at this group and gave all of us the finger. I almost punched him for that. These were handicapped kids whose having a Hi from him would have made their day, or their year, for Lord's sake.

But basically I have only had fun or nice interactions with those celebs whose paths I crossed inadvertantly. It makes me feel good. They don't feel the crazy stalking of the media and I think that is key. In big anonymous cities or airports, they feel you are just someone with a nice vibe especially if you treat them at essence: no different than anyone else.

Of course, inside you are amazed, as in "I'm sharing toy tips with Meg Ryan?" So does anyone agree? Or am I of such a different generation that this doesn't even compute. I ask if anyone reading here has had like experiences.