I see famous people.
There’s one now: indie filmmaker and downtown fixture Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers). It’s dark, I’m leaving work and he’s moving east on Prince Street. I’ve seen him in my neighborhood before. Today he looks like any other hipster in a dark trenchcoat with a black guitar case strapped to his back. What distinguishes him is the shock of Warholian white hair. It’s part of his brand.
I don’t say boo. Nothing against Jarmusch or his movies, or his current choice of boots, which look like Doc Martens from planet Neptune. I just never come across any celebrities who really interest me. I probably wouldn’t bug them even if I did.
I’ve been put off that crap for years, ever since I recognized horror-movie maven Wes Craven outside Tribeca Grill. I’d written a screenplay and, what the hell, I decided to pitch it to him right then and there. He politely suggested I contact his L.A. office. But his expression said otherwise. The second he realized I wasn’t just a fan, his grin became a grimace and his eyes went gray. He looked… scared. And this is the man who dreamt up Freddy Krueger.
So I leave celebrities alone.
Sure, I couldn’t help but notice comic Louie C.K. pushing a stroller one morning on Wooster Street. I certainly didn’t mind ogling X-Woman Famke Janssen walking her Boston terrier along 6th Avenue. Ditto Naomi Watts shopping on Bleecker.
Al Pacino I saw dining on the sidewalk at Da Silvano. Strange thing, I made him thanks to his unruly hair, which is reaching dangerously high, Kramer-ish altitudes. And, truth be told, I noticed Pacino because I noticed his attractive lunch companion first.
All right, I’m married, but don’t think I’m a perv for spotting celebrities of the female persuasion. My wife sees the true hotties anyway—Halle Berry on St. Mark’s Place for one, Heather Graham on Bowery for another. The missus even had an opposite-sex celeb sighting of her own recently. Some eye-contact shenanigans on the 6 train with that well-known cad Ethan Hawke. “He was listening to his iPod and he checked me out four times,” she gloated. “Hey, I’m a wife and mother—you have no idea how much it meant to me!”
I try my best not to imagine the Training Day costar frisking my wife.
Instead, I focus on the present. Like Jarmusch. He marches around a bend, going further downtown toward Cleveland Place. I keep heading straight.
By the time I hit Elizabeth Street, another familiar face pops up. A wiry little man. An old friend, perhaps, below the blue-and-white baseball cap and behind the clear-frame glasses?
No. I do know him, but I don’t, well, know him. Then I remember who he is because I own one of his CDs. This diminutive guy is none other than singer, deejay and tea restaurateur Moby. Wow, not bad. Jim Jarmusch one minute, Moby the next. A downtown two-fer on the day. Maybe I should ask Moby when his next album is coming out or if he holds a grudge against Eminem for dissing him in the song “Without Me” or, hell, what Gwen Stefani smells like.
Moby walks by.
I go home.