I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee

by mg at 01:28 PM on September 09, 2002

For no apparent reason, I feel compelled to share with you my favorite celebrity encounter. Not the encounter with my favorite celebrity, the encounter with a celebrity that is my favorite. With that semantic clarification out of the way, lets get on with the story.

Being a New Yorker, I've had my fair share of brushes with fame. I’ve lunch with James Brown, done drinks with Frances McDermott, stood in line behind Sean Lennon and shared a subway car with Lili Taylor, just to name a few of my many chance encounters. But one sticks out in my mind way beyond any of those stories.

This was back a couple years ago, when I worked in New York’s trendy Soho. I was at work on a Saturday, because that was the kind of guy I was before the man got me down. Soho on a weekday is trendy enough, with clothing shops with only five dresses, hanging lonely on their hangers. Three hundred dollar pairs of jeans. Small galleries filled with works by artists I would have heard about, if I were at all hip and connected at the New York’s steamy underbelly.

On weekends, the neighborhood became an absolute madhouse; people filing in and out of shops, to try on those five lonely dresses, or lined up to pay $12 for a drink outside of bars that didn’t bother advertising themselves. That kind of stuff always makes me nervous, but I had to work, so I put up with it. Besides, all the models that lived and shopped in Soho frequently walked around in the kind of outfits you only see people wearing on VH1 House of Style. The kind of outfits that don’t leave much to the imagination, which is for the best since after working 70-hour weeks, I don’t want to have to use my brain, allowing me to watch and drool mindlessly.

By this time it was late Saturday afternoon, I was done with work as much as I thought I’d be able to be done with work on a late Saturday afternoon. I decided, instead of just heading home and crashing, to walk around a bit. I like walking; it helps relieve stress for me like only one other thing can help me remove stress. There is something so very relaxing about walking mindlessly, especially since I don’t have to get all worried about the other person’s satisfaction.

So, I was walking around Soho, not really thinking or processing much, just absorbing and meandering. As I’m walking, someone steps out of one of the shops about 10-15 feet ahead of me. The world begins to move in slow motion, like the world always does in action movies at the end of the final battle, our hero bloody and seemingly beaten. Except, I wasn’t bleeding and no one with a distinctly European, but non-specific accent was beating the crap out of me.

So, this figure steps out of the shop in front of me, and in the slow processes of my brain, it strikes me that this person is vaguely familiar. In fact, it sort of looks like my dad, slightly balding and definitely graying hair, a little round around the middle, wearing a too-tight t-shirt, too-short shorts, and loafers. I really think it could be my dad, if I could imagine my dad ever going to Soho, much less shopping there.

I’m staring at this person trying to get my mental gears grinding to figure out who he might be, getting closer, step-by-step. All of a sudden, it is slow motion, not like an action movie anymore, but a ‘80s teen comedy, where boy is walking towards dream girl, who is throwing her hair back and standing laughing with her cheerleader friends. The guy turns toward me and notices me staring intently at him, and as he does, it hits me. That isn’t my dad, it’s Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto) from TV’s Murphy Brown.

As I realize this, Frank Fontana realizes that I’ve realized who he is. I am still slow motion walking towards him. He gets a look on his face like, “Oh, here comes another adoring fan, getting ready to ask for my autograph.”

The way I remember it now, I think he even was reaching to get out a pen. At this point, I am one step from him, but I don’t stop, walking right past, our eyes on each other’s eyes as I strafe by him. I turn my head back around for one last look, and I see his body collapse in a dejected sort of sigh.