So every time my wife sees Stevie Wonder on the tele, she points excitedly and says “Look, it’s my BFF.”
Hopeless, don’t you think?
We were in LAX and she was off to the side away from the crowd, guarding some luggage, I was still searching the carousel for more, when Stevie Wonder and his entourage walked past her.
Overcome by the moment she smiled at him. For obvious reasons he didn’t smile back.
I don’t know about you, but we are impossible celebrity spotters when we go overseas. At home, we treat them with near contempt. It’s a ‘too cool for school attitude’. But take us beyond our borders and we are a completely different beast. New York is the most fertile ground for celebrity hunting, they seem to let their guard down and foolishly try and live like normal people.
Naomi Campbell, being mundane but supermodel beautiful, waiting at our luggage carousel at JFK was a promising precursor to a fruitful trip. (It took a little while to see her behind the mountain of Louis Vuitton luggage) I have developed a reputation in the family as the celebrity eagle eye… “Oh look there’s…” Andy Samberg sipping coffee as he walked in front of our cab, Parker Posey trying to be anonymous at a sidewalk café, Kellie Osbourne, in her pseudo punk, wild child days, not once but three times. We started to think she was stalking us. Willem Defoe and (I assume) his beautiful young girlfriend brushed past us on Fifth Avenue. I have a photo of my son with the late, great James Gandolfini on the street in Broadway. Back in LA it was Jeremy Piven, actor Mike Starr and Formula One superstar Lewis Hamilton at the airport, Eric Clapton at the Four Seasons bar, and Randy Quade (pre alleged crazy) sitting next to us at a Japanese restaurant.
But simply spotting a celebrity and boasting about it is superficial and shallow, don’t you think? It’s when a connection is made that you feel like you’ve actually become part of their world. We were enjoying a Mother’s Day brunch at the Odeon in TRIBECA, when a small child, about two, ran towards our booth, giggling.
I turned and, smiling, looked up at the chasing mother.
The beautiful Amanda Peet radiantly smiled back and mouthed ‘Sorry’ as she grabbed the toddlers hand.
Our eyes met for a fleeting, precious moment.
Now whenever I see Amanda Peet on the tele, I point and excitedly say, “Look, it’s my BFF”.
Hopeless, don’t you think?
