Giovanni Ribisi is a pretty big name in Hollywood, so since I had a direct encounter with him today, I thought I’d share. Ribisi, who is starring in the comedy Ted with Mark Wahlberg about a teddy bear that comes to life because of a childhood wish, was a couple of people behind me in line today at the LA County Registrar’s Office, the East LA Branch.

He was passionately kissing a young blond-haired woman with an English accent. They must have kissed passionately at least 3 times in line, not seeming to care who was watching. When I realized who he was, I asked him if he was Giovanni Ribisi. He was very friendly, and said yes he was, and I told him I enjoyed his work. He thanked me and then asked me if I was getting married today, and I said no, we had waited too long and that it was finally time to get our child’s birth certificate. I asked him and the blond woman if they were getting married today and they quietly said yes, in a shy kind of way.

We chatted for a little bit and I told him what I do as General Manager of Crown City Media, LLC. I told him how we provide broadcast journalism training for aspiring TV News Reporters and behind the scenes personnel, who go on to amazing careers at places like CNN, Good Morning America, National Geographic, ABC 7, and TV News Markets all over the country. I also told him that I consult internationally in broadcast journalism training and general news room restructuring and that I was trying to break into show business with show creation, development and production of TV series, movies, and documentaries. He seemed impressed and said that was really great. I then asked him what work he was doing currently and he told me he was in the movie TED, and asked if I’d seen anything about that. I told him yes, I see it everywhere, and that it seems to be on ALL the buses. He smiled.