Lots of people who work as celebrity assistants are doing their jobs because they’re trying to break into the entertainment industry. That makes sense, since working for a celebrity is a great way to make contacts and learn about how the industry works from the inside. However, one celebrity assistant is hoping to make the jump into a slightly less related career - he participated in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ annual “Fantasy Camp.” While most of the guys who participate in the program are trying to meet famous baseball players, there was one camp participant who had a little star power of his own:
“I was doing some scouting last night for today’s draft and I was looking over everybody’s occupation,” the former D-backs All-Star outfielder said. “I saw that one guy is list as an assistant to an actor or actress and I was wondering if he would be willing to share just who that is.”
Gregg Simon slowly stood up and said, “I’m the personal assistant to Carmen Electra.”
Not surprisingly, everybody asked if Electra might make an appearance during the week to support her PA, but it didn’t happen. MLB.com blogger Steve Gilbert, who was chronicling his experiences at Fantasy Camp, asked Simon if meeting his baseball idols was as exciting as meeting Electra’s famous friends.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “No way. This is much cooler. Meeting these guys is a much bigger deal. The only thing from ‘Hollywood’ that compares to this for me was meeting Bruce Springsteen and Howard Stern. No one else is close.”
I’ve always wondered what athletes do during their off-seasons. Do they play sports every day just to stay in shape? Do they hang out with their families? Take trips? Buy expensive things? Well, one athlete does something very unusual during his time away from the sport - Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Ross Ohlendorf spends his down time working as an intern for the US Department of Agriculture. And he doesn’t even get paid. Man, I feel like a total slacker right now compared to this guy, it’s not even funny.
Ohlendorf will be spending 20 hours a week this winter studying cattle diseases and their migration patterns. He works in a small room that he shares with another intern. “This one’s been, I’d say, the most exciting off-season I’ve had,” he said in an ABC News interview.
Retired tennis star Andre Agassi has a new autobiography coming out, and it sounds like this book is going to be very interesting. In the book, Agassi admits to having used meth while playing competitively. He then failed a drug test, but managed not to be thrown out of tennis because he claimed that he hadn’t taken the meth on purpose… it was his assistant’s fault.
According to an excerpt of the autobiography “Open” published Wednesday in The Times of London, the eight-time Grand Slam champion writes that he sent a letter to the ATP tour to explain the positive test, saying he accidentally drank from a soda spiked with meth by his assistant “Slim.”
“Then I come to the central lie of the letter,” Agassi writes. “I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs. I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely.
I am guessing from the quotes that Slim wasn’t the assistant’s real name. Although… it would be even more awesome if Agassi didn’t even have an assistant and the whole story was made up. Regardless, maybe it’s time for “Slim” to write a tell-all? I’d read it.
Some hockey players, like vanity internship poster boy Sean Avery, decide to switch careers and go from sports to fashion. Hockey player Mark Messier, on the other hand, decided to make a move within his industry. The multiple Stanley Cup winner has just been hired as the assistant general manager for his former team, the New York Rangers. He has been retired from playing since 2005, and his #11 jersey was retired by the Rangers and now hangs in Madison Square Garden.
There are some rumors that the move is merely a placeholder until the current GM retires and Messier can step into the position, but I for one find it really cool that this dude with so many accomplishments and so much name recognition is willing to put in some hard work and try out a new role in the industry he loves. Team Messier could kick Team Avery’s butt any day.
Nate Silver, the stats genius behind the website www.fivethirtyeight.com, which tracks current poll numbers and translates that into potential electoral votes for the presidential candidates, does not have an assistant. [Note: Silver is also the brains who runs baseballprospectus.com, which I have to mention or else my boyfriend would kill me.] According to the Bend Bulletin, one of the many publications eager to find out more about he mysterious but brilliant Silver:
Nate Silver’s political rags-to-riches story plays out on a BlackBerry brimming with e-mails and a schedule conspiring to run him into the ground.Last spring he was a sports statistics savant virtually unknown outside the world of obsessive baseball fans. Now he dreams about hiring a personal assistant.
Hear that, baseball junkies and policy wonks? Now’s the time to send in your resume! Get to him now before the election ends and his schedule frees up.
Ashton Kutcher is a well-known TV and movie actor, is rich, and is married to Demi Moore. What more could a man want? Oh, well, being an assistant coach at a high school, obviously.
Page Six reports that Kutcher is now working (unpaid, I presume) as the assistant football coach at the L.A. private high school Harvard-Westlake [unrelated side note: two of my cousins and my ex-boyfriend went there, so I find this extra funny]. Apparently he got the gig through nepotism: the school’s coach is one of his close friends.
Will he actually improve the team’s record, though? Is he doing this just to hang out with his buddy? Or is this just a stunt for his latest reality show?
Although the Beijing Olympics are over, there’s one more story from the Games I wanted to share on this blog.
I’m sure you heard the awful story of Hugh McCutcheon, the coach of the US Men’s Volleyball team, whose father in law was killed and mother in law gravely injured in a random act of violence shortly after arriving in Beijing. While McCutcheon (shown at right with some of his team members) took some time to be with his wife and family as they grieved and sorted out their lives, the show–well, the Olympics–had to go on. McCutcheon entrusted his coaching assistant, Ron Larsen, to handle the team in his absence. Once McCutcheon’s mother in law was well enough to be airlifted back to the US for medical treatment, McCutcheon rejoined his players, and on Sunday night, they defeated Brazil to win the gold medal.
Continue reading ‘a heartwarming olympic assistant story’
With all the hullabaloo around the Olympics (and let’s not forget the crushing on all the fine young men in bathing suits and gymnastics outfits*), we naturally started wondering about all those nameless, medal-less faces running sprints, dodging bullets and shredding records in the office world. We thought we’d take a moment to recognize these Office Olympians with a few awards. Without further ado…
The Michael Phelps “Swimming Machine” Award goes to… the reason we have a Former Assistants Done Good category in the first place is Odessa Whitmire, who made the best of her time as Ben Affleck’s assistant, first by hooking up with Matt Damon, and then by joining forces with Affleck’s sister-in-law Summer Phoenix to open two high-end vintage boutiques. See, people, it is possible to be a former celebrity assistant with actual non-famewhore career ambitions, rather than just a CaCee Cobb.
Continue reading ‘if there was an olympics for assistants…’
Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, who along with David Beckham is probably the most recognized (and, um, most hot) soccer player in the world, recently suffered an injury that will have him hobbling around on crutches for awhile. To pass the time during his recovery, he’s been hanging out in L.A. Entertainment Lawyer reports that Paris Hilton tried to pick Ronaldo up at a party, but he declined. And who was he at the party with? A woman he referred to as his “assistant,” who was with him to “aid his recovery.” Entertainment Lawyer wasn’t buying it either, but hey… would you turn down a chance to be Ronaldo’s personal nursemaid? At the very least, you know his disinterest in hooking up with Paris Hilton indicates he has common sense and good taste.