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PARKER: Smith & Oates keep the cameras clicking

By Penny Parker, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 22, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Will Smith connects with the camera-clicking crowd outside the Denver Newspaper Agency building Friday when the megastar stopped by to promote his new movie, Seven Pounds.

Photo by Ken Papaleo / The Rocky

Will Smith connects with the camera-clicking crowd outside the Denver Newspaper Agency building Friday when the megastar stopped by to promote his new movie, Seven Pounds.

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Movie actor Will Smith garnered loads of fan-tention when he arrived at the Rocky Mountain News-Denver Post-Denver Newspaper Agency building Friday to do interviews for his new movie, Seven Pounds, an inspirational tear-jerker that opens Dec. 19.

Smith, who stayed overnight at the Ritz-Carlton, arrived in a large tour bus with his picture plastered on the side. Roughly 100 people greeted him in the lobby with cameras clicking and people gripping pieces of paper hoping for an autograph.

"He was very gracious in taking pictures with whomever asked, including Rocky staffers," said my colleague Mike Pearson. Office gal Friday Lizzy McCormick snagged a shot with the star.

Prior to his arrival at the newspaper building, Smith visited John H. Amesse Elementary School in Denver, the Rev. Leon Kelly's Open Door Youth Gang Alternative Program and Children's Hospital. Denver is the last stop on his promotional tour for the movie about a man who suffers a tragic loss in his life and resolves to help improve the lives of seven strangers. Pearson predicts Smith will earn an Oscar nomination for his role.

Smith just missed by minutes an old pal, John Oates of the popular group Hall & Oates. (Smith and Oates are Philadelphia guys). Oates, a longtime Aspen resident and ski enthusiast, stopped by the Rocky building to talk about his latest album, 1,000 Miles of Life. It was recorded in Nashville, Tenn., with top musicians, including Telluride Bluegrass stalwarts Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas.

He chatted about his Colorado connections (his first trip to Aspen back in the '60s was $125, including airfare, lodging and lift tickets), posed for photos and played guitar, serenading the newsroom with a Hall & Oates classic from an early album. Wonder what song it is? You'll have to go to RockyMountainNews.com on Friday to see the performance.

GREENBERG GABS: Today Show travel editor Peter Greenberg, in town Thursday to promote his new book, Don't Go There!: The Travel Detective's Essential Guide to the Must-Miss Places of the World, stopped by the travel writer's reception at the Magnolia Hotel on Thursday.

"Most travel writing is such boosterism," Greenberg said. "In these hard economic times I wanted to do a book that gives people criteria to decide whether they should go there."

Categories include lamest claims to fame, airlines that are so bad you should never fly on them, cities with the highest crime statistics and cities with the most DUIs. Greenberg's Web site dontgothere.org invites travelers to add places to avoid.

"I got an e-mail from someone who said their worst experience was at the Hotel Bel-Air," he said. "I assumed it was the hotel in Bel-Air, Calif. No, it was Bel-Air armpit, Kansas. He sent me a picture of the towels that said Hotel Bel-Air written in Magic Marker."

Greenberg said he's shopping the book for a television series. The show will include a segment telling viewers if one of his no-no places has cleaned up its act.

THE SEEN: Peter Greenberg, author and Today Show travel editor, and seven other folks dining at Rioja on Thursday. Chef Jennifer Jasinski prepared a tasting menu for the table with shared appetizers, a pasta course, multiple entrees and a dessert duet. Greenberg was in town for a book signing at the Tattered Cover.

EAVESDROPPING on two men at The Piper Inn talking about trying to quit smoking: "The only way the patch would work for me is if I put it directly over my mouth so I couldn't smoke."

Penny Parker's column appears Tuesday through Saturday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-AM (630). Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail parkerp@RockyMountainNews.com.