by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

If you went to some random place, like a mall in the suburbs of Oklahoma City, and asked the people waddling around to identify photos of Montrealers, who d'ya figure would be the most recognized?

I'd bet my mint Lafleur rookie card that right up there with Shatner and Mario Lemieux would be Steven Cojocaru, the freakishly flamboyant and much-hyped celebrity reporter for Entertainment Tonight.

He's the guy you want to hear if you give a shit what diamonds J-Lo is wearing. He's so good at it that he's morphed into a big name himself. I've only seen him a couple of times because it's almost impossible to grab the remote away from the Squarepants-watching population of my home, but from what I've seen Côte-St-Luc's Cojocaru communicates with confidence and clarity, and he's emerged as a big name star whether you like him or... y'know, that other thing.

And a lot of people aren't crazy about him. He annoys about 70 per cent of us, if you believe Amiannoying.com, where he scores a full six points higher than Celine Dion.

That's a level of irritation that I can only imagine when I think of the guy who runs the dépanneur at St-Jacques and Girouard, who forces you to buzz to get in and unfurls metal rollers on his windows at night, giving the impression that my sweet neighbourhood is enduring a Rwanda-like civil war. Remind me to denounce that guy in print one day.

For whatever reason, our local literati have also cold-shouldered Cojocaru by ignoring the autobiographical Red Carpet Diaries he penned last year.

So I overcame my impulse to conform to that indifference and borrowed his book from the library across the street from the Cavendish Mall, a spot Cojo reports having spent his formative years shopping for gowns with his mother. The perky Asian librarian checked it out and cheerfully noted "That's the guy on TV."

I don't like to read books and generally advise against it, as it damages the eyes. But this one is a breeze. It's as if he scribbled the story on a matchbook after locking his keys in his car. It's also got a lot of pictures of him.

For the first while, Cojo has you on-board for his heroic struggle, which begins as a young misfit with escapist TV dreams of Cher and Farrah. He disappoints family with his indifference to things hockey-related, then grows up and writes Montreal gossip for Flare and does publicity for the Saidye Bronfman Centre. Next he's hired and fired as a publicist for Just for Laughs. He moves to L.A., where he struggles in a job requiring him to stamp autographs on glossy photos for Richard Moll, the tall guard from Night Court.

Cojo then tries to make a career by fashioning a flamboyant persona, hitting one of his many bottoms when his shitbox breaks down while he's dressed like a "giant Q-Tip." Then his career takes off after he befriends his idol, Joan Rivers. As his importance grows, he suddenly becomes a bit... well... annoying, describing his hometown as "Nowhere, Canada" and "rainy Montreal."

Cojo also denounces Hugh Grant as a "horny toad" - as if it's a bad thing. Cojo will "fall asleep during interviews with Johnny Depp" but then "slip in the completely unrelated question, ‘Who are you dating, are you a member of the Mile-High club?'" Such an entitlement complex to other people's lives is central to journalists but nowhere does he answer any such intimate questions about himself. As a reader, I'm disappointed by his failure to address his own types of questions like, "Are you more influenced by your left or right testicle?"

Cojo also seeks revenge against those who snubbed him and reward those who were nice to him. Helen Hunt to Hades for daring to ignore Cojo's thrust microphone!

Cojo's book was inspiring. It made me dream of becoming a huge movie star, so I could stop on the red carpet at his microphone, wait for a question, pause, tilt my head wordlessly and then jauntily just walk on by.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca