Gaming a Star-Crossed Money Grab.

Time was, star-struck tourist types would be content to pile onto big, smoggy buses and get guided through Beverly Hills, cruising past the palm-lined mansions of Hollywood’s aristocracy.

R-r-right, cheap thrills, craning and leering, hoping to spot Grable sunning poolside, or Gable mowing his lawn—presently looking to phone snap the Emmas, Scarletts and Pitts. 

Only now, Wall Street Journal Weekend reports that star-grazing tourist trappees opt for directly consorting with the celebs, actually pressing flesh and palling around with the ‘glitterati’—mainly pre-paid gringos slobbering all over themselves with selfie delirium amid such rapturously staged encounters.

Hence boutique companies, fundraising organizations—even hotel chains are hooking their richer thrill- seeking customers up with the global glitterati. No lie: pay steep five figures, be skiing with Bodie, posing with the Dalai Lama or Gwen Stefani, backstaging with Andrea Bocelli and Yo-Yo Ma .

Living the dream, timesharing the spotlight, keeping it unreal—whatever… just cut the fat check and pack along the kneepads, in case the stars were to turn up at all.

But once again, Vamigré points to a better way: namely, (Vamo) Slackin’ With the Superstars (SWS)!  Think about it, why suck up to marginal sell-outs and fading B-listers, when a little ingenuity and imagination could make this whole vicarious tagalong trip far more interesting?

For instance, wouldn’t it be better to be strolling Manhattan Beach with Jennifer Egan and George Saunders, balling with the Hamptons Five or garden grilling with Brady and Gisele? That is, minus the hovering corporate packagers and handlers.

Really, who wouldn’t rather be strummin’ and chillin’ with Dylan? How about diner diving with Tom Waits, jungling with David Byrne; cartelling or hanging ten with Sean Penn? Come on, let’s think bigger and brighter—totally, like ringing up Ringo, singing and shepherding with Sir Paul…Rollin’ with the Stones—from goin’ snowboarding with indestructible Keith to movin’ and shakin’ with heartbreaker Mick. Yo, way glammm, bringin’ it, rapping with Jay-Z and Kanye in their coast-to-coast cribs; hot club trolling with Swifty, Keyes and Kim.

Totally awesome, dig? Then stretch out even further by flashin’ dinero with Di Niro, crazy diva draggin’ with Marilyn Manson, steppin’ out with Javier Bordem to cross-border Juarez, then kickin’ back in slides and baggies with Will and the Dude.

Point is, who knows where STS could take us—doing god knows what, and with whom? All this, without the looming security details and pages of indemnification.

So the SWS feelers are now out there, and as soon as we get back some copasetic texts and touchies, Vamigré will pass them right along. Meanwhile, let’s bide our time, go our own way without any bogus Bodie and Yo-Yo playdates—much less chatting up the Pontiff in his Popemobile.

Because our chances of ‘SWS’ gratification are no more fanciful, if not farcical than concocted celeb-sniffing, money-grabbing tourist trysts. Staged plays which basically amount to little more than the latest chump-change Hollywood bus ride through the backlots of Beverly Hills. They’re just not nearly as thrilling or worth the going fare.

(MTC…until then, let’s keep it real, shall we…)