Grrr! Tom Cruise Name-Dropping

Tom Cruise has nothing to do with this column.

Except that Tom Cruise is in boldface.

And despite the recent "controversy" about the "South Park" episode "Trapped in the Closet" and the resulting war between the show's creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker and Scientology or Cruise's lawyers, this column doesn't deal with it.

Tom Cruise is a non-issue to me.

Just as John Travolta and Nicole Kidman are also non-issues in this column.

But I did run into Jamie-Lynn Sigler at the Mondrian Hotel in Hollywood the Friday before the Academy Awards. The "Sopranos" beauty was in town filming an episode of something, and I was waiting for my car to come out of the valet after shooting a piece on the Oscar "preferred" goodie-bag.

The Oscar "preferred" goodie bag is just a misnomer, by the way, to get reporters like me to think that the person we're interviewing actually has something to do with the Oscars, when in fact they just represent a bunch of boutique firms that want to give free stuff to Oscar nominees with the provision that said nominees' names could be used in future marketing material.

"A massage bed used by Matt Dillon," for instance.

Anyway, since I was standing around with a camera in tow, I asked Jamie-Lynn, who is more beautiful in person than she is on HBO, if she wanted to do a quick interview. Yes, I was joking, and she laughed appropriately.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler has a sense of humor.

But hey, I'm just putting her in the column because I can boldface her name and thus attract your attention. In fact, I haven't said much of anything about any of the boldfaced names so far in the column.

But that's OK. It's customary for columnists to drop names, places and new names for cocktails at "exclusive" bars in their columns.

After all, we have access, and you don't. Ha Ha Ha. How do you like that, Grrr! readers? I can go to a cooler-than-you party because I'm cooler than you. Ha!

Take that!

Never mind the fact that once in a room with so many other "cool" people, most reasonably sane columnists quickly realize that it's going to be really hard to write about this party and make it seem cool because it really isn't that cool.

I mean, I know Patrick McMullen, the celebrity photographer of "Kiss Kiss" fame, is running around with his camera, but I'm hard-pressed to find anybody really cool to talk about.

I know that Dennis Hopper is here and I know I'm supposed to think he's cool, but I never did get "Blue Velvet" and it's been a while since I recited the Sicilian/Moors monologue of "True Romance," for obvious reasons.

But hey, I had a free Mojito, one of those ultra-cool beverages that is the specialty of the house at The Ivy in Santa Monica, a frequent haunt of Lindsay (it's not Lo-Han it's Lowen) Lohan.

That being said, FOX 411 columnist Roger Friedman introduced me to the Beverly Hills power lunch spot The Grille on Dayton Way, where I conducted my Oscars gossip interviews with Friedman and Baz Bamigboye of The London Daily Mail. Click here to watch that piece.

The Grille was a very cool place, steeped in Hollywood history.

Of course, nothing all that scandalous happens there. For that you have to go to nightclubs like Butter or Bungalow 8 in New York, or Rick's Cabaret for that matter, the newest mammary mecca chock-full of bold-faced names. Although Rick's is more discreet than say, Scores, in revealing it's better-known clientele.

In Los Angeles, Skybar, Privilege and Starbucks are also good for celeb sightings and anonymous call-ins to tabloid columns from "tipsters," some of whom don't know that the term "canoodling" doesn't mean walking arm-in-arm, in fact, it's slang for making out.

Of course, it's a testament to pop culture that in this column full of boldfaced items, that city Paris and the Hilton hotel chain never once meet in successive letters.

Ah, how we've Grrrrrown... and no, I don't think I'm cooler than you. That's the point/joke of the column.

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