How A Starving Artist Crashes Into A Celebrity.

There are roughly 8.4 million people living throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

Most of us:  Commoners.  Little People, Nobodys, The Anonymous...Worker Bees and Starving Artists.

There's that good chunk of the population who can afford the world but have no real notoriety:  Blue-Bloods.

And there's "Them":  the Celebrities.  A-Listers, D-Listers, Legends and general Tabloid-Fodder alike, this city is crawling with them.  Crawl-ling.  They're everywhere.

It is, therefore, not uncommon for a Commoner like yours truly to experience some kind of run-in with a Celebrity.  I, in fact, guarantee you that every single citizen of the city has more than one run-in story.

What you'll notice, however, is the fancy way that the storyteller (be it Commoner or Blue-Blood) plays off the story of such a run-in.  In most cases, they play it off extraordinarily cool, discuss the run-in as if it really wasn't that big of a deal and that, naturally, that simple interaction turned them into besties.

"Do you know who I met today?"
No.  Who?
"Oh my God."
Who?!
"Wait for it..."
Ew, STOP! Whooo?!?!
"I met.  Matthew.  Broderick."
No.  No!  Get out!! Where?!  Oh my GOD! What happened?!  
"Oh.  Oh no.  Totally not a big deal.  Just, you know, on the street.  73rd and Amsterdam."
Just, like, on the street?  What HAPPENED, though?!
"Oh, I mean.  He was just, like, walking.  With a coffee.  With his head down, or something.  But we were, like, really close, because of that corner of 73rd and Amsterdam where's that all that construction?  You know?  So it's kinda tight?"
Right.
"So, we were close.  And he looked up at me and kinda smiled so I said..."
Ohmygod...
"No!  All I said was, 'You have to know that I still watch War Games all of the time.  It's so incredibly profound and ahead of its time.  So, thank you for that.' "
Wow. 
"Right."
So...like, was that it?
"...Yeah.  I mean, no, not really.  He totally said 'Thank you' and smiled at me again."
Oh.
"Yeah.  ...Matthew's hair is so much grayer than you think."
Really?
"Yeah.  But, like, it looks dashing on him. ...Matthew's totally nice."

This happens.  All.  The.  Time.

Because the New Yorker doesn't want to admit that they get starstruck.  The New Yorker doesn't want to admit that they might act a fool in front of a celebrity.  They want you to know that they are 100% cool 100% of the time.  Commoners and Blue-Bloods alike.

I have been dumb.

I've had a couple run-ins with a couple pretty famous folk, and I legitimately kept my cool around them because, you know, "They're just people" and they have to attempt to lead a normal life sometimes, too.   I was all sorts of proud of myself.

However. ...

So, John Oliver of "The Daily Show" used to come into my old work-place every single weekend to have brunch with his fiancee.

(I.  Love.  "The Daily Show".)

But, there was a good long while that I never got to effectively serve him anything, someone else would have already gotten to him before I could.  And so one day, there I am, taking out a coffee and a darjeeling oolong to a table, and I get there and I look up, and there's 7-foot 3-tall adorable hilarious British John Oliver staring me in the face, with his precious lady-friend sitting across from him looking at me like "Umm, just set that crap down and leave us, please.  You oaf."

So I said Oh! and smiled and, before I knew it, the following came out of my mouth (complete with British-accent--I have NO idea where that came from--and a head-bobble, because I'm awkward and ridiculous):

Your coffee, Mr. Oliver, and I do hope that you have the loveliest morning.  Thank you, Sir.

He looked at me like I had seven heads (I deserved that), I was horrified at myself and ran away.


...The opposite of cool.  Hilarious in retrospect, but the 100%-opposite of cool.

And then, there are also occasions when an embarrassing run-in happens and there is simply nothing that you can do about it.

I've been filling-in at my old job the past couple of weekends (they put me "on-call" which was entirely nice).  At said old job, there is only one bathroom, which we rightfully have to leave for the customer's usage only, and so we are forced to run next door to the ridiculously posh and over-priced tanning salon and use their facilities.  Fine.

Yesterday, my one server-friend ran up to me and grabbed by the shoulders, her face had turned white.

Sweet Jesus, what's happening?
"I ran next door to take a pee."
Ok...
"I didn't lock the door. ...Kim Kardashian walked in on me."
...
...Honey...
"She had her head down, she said she was sorry.  ...She's fucking beautiful. ...I'm sorry, I just don't know what to do with myself."

...HILARIOUS!  Hilarious, but the 100%-opposite of cool.

 And then, there are stories.  There are stunning stories.  Stories where the Commoner didn't lose his cool, but where the Celebrity put the Commoner in his place.  These are gems.  And these 100% most definitely happen.

And this is my favorite:

A friend of mine and his buddy were lurking around in some dark back alley of SoHo really late one night, having a dandy of a time with their friend MaryJane.  They're chatting it up.  They're feeling glorious.  And then they look down the alley and see a dark figure sauntering towards them.

"Is that Bill Murray?"

Sure as shit, it's Bill Murray.  And Mr. Murray, saunters directly up to them and says:
Excuse me, but are you boys smoking weed?

My friend hands him the joint.


And so there they are:  two Commoners and a Bill Murray in some dark back alley of SoHo really late one night, having a dandy of a time with their friend MaryJane.  They're chatting it up.  They're feeling glorious.

Twenty minutes into the conversation:
So.  I bet you're going to tell all of your friends that you smoked a joint with Bill Murray tonight.

"...I mean, probably.  Yeah."

Well, would you want to tell them a better story?

"...OK."

OK, then.
And he reaches for my friends hand.
Tell them that you smoked a joint with Bill Murray, and then he stole it.

...And off he went, leaving two Commoners in his dust, abandoned, weedless.  Schooled.

But with a glorious glorious story to tell.

100% Hilarious...and I dare say 100% Awesome.

It's an interesting world, this city where there's so many different kinds of people living on top of one another.  I think that too often, we don't take enough stock in just how cool that is.  But, I don't know, maybe that should keep us on our toes, too.  Everyone gets caught with their finger up their nose every so often...when you live here, however, you just have to assume that the person catching you may or may not be a Gyllenhaal.

Maybe that's legitimately not a huge deal to you.  Maybe it's the biggest thing that's ever happened.

Either way--at least you'd have a story to tell.