CELEBRITY ENCOUNTERS- My awkward encounter with Anthony Bourdain.

I have lived in Manhattan for many years now and throughout this time I have crossed paths with many famous people. Unfortunately the term has now been reduced to: CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS. But to me it’s much more than that – each time I come across a star in public, it’s a unique encounter followed by an opportunity to grab a beer with a friend and exaggerate what happened. Some people act like they couldn’t care less about a celebrity encounter. As my father in-law loves to say, “they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.” Yeah I know they do but it’s what they do after their pants are on.
Allow me to digress…I used to work at the front desk of a hotel that was across the street from Madison Square Garden. One summer for a month straight, Paul Si mon was playing the Paramount Theatre, a smaller venue within Madison Square Garden, which I believe holds about seven thousand people. For that month, Paul Simon’s roadies were staying at our hotel and one afternoon one of the roadies came to the desk and asked if I could photo copy something. It was the set list for Billy Joel who was playing the actual Madison Square Garden Arena for a week during Simon’s month at the Paramount. I asked the roadie why he was getting photocopies of Billy Joel’s set list and he said, “because there are certain songs that Billy plays where the crowd sings along so loudly that it shakes the walls inside the Paramount theatre. So when Joel plays songs like Italian Restaurant, Only the Good Die Young or Piano Man, I have all my roadies lean against the back wall to keep the vibrations down or else Paul gets completely buried….” Are you telling me Billy Joel rocks the Garden so hard that Paul Simon’s roadies have to “hold up” the wall? For me that’s so impressive that “yes” I would get excited to meet the Piano Man. And I am convinced my father in-law says he doesn’t care about celebrities because he’s never seen Ray Conniff and the Ray Conniff singers at the local Dunkirk Diner. If Conniff walked in and ordered a cup of coffee you can bet my father in- law would be the first one in line to meet him (most likely the only one too, unless my mother in-law was with him at the time) The point is, as we get older ou r tastes may get a bit more fickle, we aren’t going to get hopped up over every famous Tom, Dick or Harry that walks past. When I was a kid the first famous person I ever met was the goal keeper for the NY Arrows Indoor soccer team, Shep Messing. Fucking Shep Messing and I was beyond excited, if I ran into Shep Messing now he’d owe me an apology for not saying “Calm down kid I’m just a goalkeeper for a soccer team in a league that won’t last till your tenth birthday.” At the time that’s all I had, Jack Nicholson was never coming to Oakdale, Long Island for a beer, it was Shep Messing at the local library or NY Met catcher John Stearns at the Nissan auto dealership from noon to one on Sunday, bring your own pen and photo. Not anymore, not living in NYC. Now… the way the night clubs have a VIP list to get in, I have a VIP list before I even mention I saw you. Let me explain, a few months back I was smoking a cigarette on 57th street, standing next to a blue mercedes limo. Just then Giraldo Rivera and his ridiculous mustache come out of this over rated steak house and walk to the limo. It turns out Geraldo was looking for a new limo and they brought it over for him to check out. I’m listening from ten feet away while Gerlado is telling the driver, “I love the inside wood paneling, is it oak?”
I never told anyone about that encounter because it’s low level, it’s Giraldo Rivera, zero on the celebrity encounter chain. However one I enjoy telling is when I encountered Matt Dillon. It was 2am and I was walking alone on the upper west side, the only other person on the side walk was Matt Dillon arguing with a chick on his cellphone, I simply walked on by and that was the end of the encounter. Now, there are those that would simply call this a celebrity sighting. But c’mon man, were talking about Matt Dillon getting grief from a broad, at 2am no less. Do you have any idea how gratifying that is? Knowing that someone as cool as Matty Dillon still has to work for the lovin. To call that a sighting isn’t doing it justice. Normally when I see a celeb I keep my cool but I recently had an encounter that didn’t go so smooth, it’s that encounter that motivated me to write this blog in the first place.
Before I get in to the embarrassing encounter I’d like to tell you about a time when I was cool as a cucumber under an intense celebrity encounter. It was two years ago, I was on my way to a small toy store on Lexington Avenue on Manhattan’s upper east side. It was a few weeks before Christmas and I was buying a toy guitar for my niece. After several at tempts at cheap stores my wife called and told me about a small toy store in the neighborhood, it will be a bit pricey but it’s quality stuff and it would be my best chance to get a quality toy guitar. I step into the toy store and it was smaller than I had anticipated, as I take my shades off I notice a very attractive woman standing about five feet in front of me. Immediately she turned in my direction and my first thought was, “Wow this lady looks a lot like Angelina Jolie…” Then of course it registered that it might actually be Angelina,. At that moment I looked down and one of her adopted kids was standing at her feet and it was confirmed. Now keep in mind I had come a long way since my Shep Messing encounter and on this particular day I was smooth. Without skipping a beat I smiled politely as you would to any mother with her child, then I thought to myself, “If she’s here maybe…” With that I look to my left and standing right next to me, I mean right next to me is Brad Pitt. Pardon my French but Brad fucking Pitt, how cool is that? I politely say excuse me and walk past him as if he was Joe Blow in the hardware store. But in my head I was thinking, “Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are right next to me.” The next five minutes were pretty wild for me, I was the only other customer in the store, I shopped for the guitar but the entire time I was looking at guitars I would peak back to see if th ey were still there. It would be no different than if you were food shopping and a unicorn was pushing a cart next to yours, every few minutes you would peak over and ask yourself, “Is that Unicorn still here?” After a few minutes I found the guitar I was looking for so I called out to one of the workers who was standing about ten feet past Brad Pitt. I yelled excuse me and the employee turned around but so did Pitt, so I looked at Pitt and pointed beyond him to indicate I was trying to get the employees attention. But for a split second I had Brad Pitt’s attention, for a split second I was heavily involved with extremely important people. Am I exaggerating the importance of the celebrity encounter? Of course, but that’s what they are there for. That’s why it’s annoying when stars say they wish they would be left alone, if you don’t want the fame then don’t do what you do. I completely understand why the stars can’t stand the paparazzi, that shit is stupid and dangerous. I am simply talking about someone wanting to say hello at a restaurant, or get a picture taken if they see you in a store. For a star to complain about that would be like a cop complaining he has to carry a gun. I must point out that Pitt and Jolie ignored me with class, they weren’t snooty, they didn’t ask for the entire store to themselves yet they knew everyone in there was bugging out. So when you have an encounter with the two biggest stars on the planet, (I=2 0don’t care how much money Will Smith’s movie’s grossed – Brad Pitt is the biggest star on the planet) and they handle themselves like that, you can imagine how annoyed and disappointed I was when I met Anthony Bourdain and he was “to cool for the room.”
First of all there are some reading this right now saying, “who the f is Anthony Bourdain?” Good for you, he doesn’t deserve to be that famous, he’s a cocky asshole but I was and still am an admitted fan. Anthony Bourdain hosts a show on the travel channel titled ‘No Reservations.’ On the show Anthony travels all over the world sampling authentic dishes from each region he visits. Unlike most travel hosts, Bourdain is actually a cool dude. He’s a chef living in New York City and aside from cooking and eating he’s a big drinker and smoker, and the travel channel shows all that. In fact, Anthony got so cool, there’s barely anymore food in the show, it’s more about him getting drunk and smoking all over the world. If you haven’t seen it, trust me it’s a good show but Bourdain is a cocky bastard. He will eat and drink with native people that can’t speak English and while they are hanging he’s really nice. Then when they add Bourdain’s narration later on he has no problem making fun of the people or the nasty food he just ate. One night my wife a nd I were watching the show and it begins with a close up of Anthony talking into the camera. He say’s something like, “I live here in Manhattan’s upper east side, the restaurants up here are notoriously bad and if you can avoid it I would suggest eating in any other neighborhood.” My wife and I have been living on the upper east side for close to fifteen years so were both looking at each other like, “Do you believe this asshole?” Next Bourdain says something along the lines of, “but if I am in a bind and I HAVE to eat up here, this is the only place I’ll eat.” Then the camera pans out to show Bourdain biting into a hot dog, standing in front of the Papaya King hot dog stand. I look at my wife and go, “do you believe the arrogance? If I owned a restaurant on the upper east side I would be so offended right now, there’s hundreds of outstanding places to eat and he bites into a fuckin hot dog, it never ends with this asshole.”
Anyway a few months go by and I’m walking down 2nd Avenue, not far from my pad and who do I see eating at an outdoor cafe? Anthony Bourdain. After I walk past the restaurant I call my wife and tell her who I just saw eating in our neighborhood. My wife goes, “I thought he only eats Papaya hot dogs in our neighborhood.” I go, “Oh shit your right I forgot about that. I should say something.” Then my wife goes. “You totally should, but don’t hang up I want to hear it.” That should have been my first hint that this was an ill conceived idea, when the other person wants to make sure they can hear whatever it is they are telling you to do, it means they want a good laugh. So I stroll back over toward the restaurant and I stand in front of the sidewalk barrier and start yelling to Bourdain whose about four tables back but still outside. I have the phone held up in one hand and with my free hand I am waving toward the host of a show on TRAVEL CHANNEL. Not Dennis Leary from Rescue Me, this is a cook on cable and I am waving like it’s Paul McCartney coming out of the Ed Sullivan Theatre in ‘64. As I wave I’m yelling out, “Anthony, Anthony.” At first he completely ignores me, he hears me loud and clear but he’s ignoring me. I know he hears me because everytime I yelled Anthony he would cringe very, very, slightly. Meanwhile the rest of the establishment is beginning to look at me like I am the asshole. I just assumed everyone thought Bourdain to be as much of a cocky asshole as I thought he was and they would have no problem with me yelling to him in he middle of their meals….apparently I misread that one. Finally some lady yells, “Enough!” Can you believe that shit? This man insults the eating establishments in my neighborhood on television,=2 0I try to have a conversation with him at a restaurant and I am the bad guy. I go “Miss, relax I just want to ask him a question.” Then I redirect my attention back to asshole. “Anthony, Anthony.” Finally after he realizes I ain’t going away he looks up and really annoyed says, “what?” I will admit his “what?” was filled with so much anger and annoyance it threw me off. Anybody who knows me loves having conversations with me, so to have that response shook my confidence a bit. So I go, “Why are you eating here?” And again – only this time more angered – he goes, “what?” But not “what?” like I didn’t hear you. It was “what?” like, are you really interrupting me to ask me this shit? Of course I knew that at the time yet I still repeated myself, “why are you eating here?” So he holds up both arms with his palms facing upward with a facial expression basically saying, “cause it’s a restaurant dope!”
It was at that moment I realized he’s made over two hundred shows and there’s a slight chance he might not know what the hell I’m referring to. So now I yell out, “shouldn’t you be eating a hot dog?” Which makes absolutely no sense to anybody eating in the place that is not an Anthony Bourdain fan. And to add insult to injury, Bourdain tends to dress and act a tad as20if he might be gay, in fact before I knew he was married I assumed he was gay. So to yell out “shouldn’t you be eating a hot dog?” could be misconstrued in several ways. Now Bourdain goes, “I’m with some friends pal.” That’s when major embarrassment started to settle in for me. When a famous person goes, “I’m with friends” or “I’m just trying to have an enjoyable evening,” that’s when you know you are bothering the shit out of them. But that’s not who I am, I have never been that guy so this was not sitting well with me, at this point I should have walked away but instead I try to explain why he should be eating a hot dog. I say, “you said you only eat at Papaya King on the upper east side.” At that point a waiter comes over and goes, “that’s enough sir.” I go, “bro he doesn’t even want to be eating in this place.” “Sir enough.” And then Anthony gives me a sarcastic wave, he holds up his hands and moves his fingers. I couldn’t believe this shit, I ran into Brad Pitt at a toy store. I took a leak next to Steven Tyler in a hotel lobby restroom. I jogged ten feet from Howard Stern in Central Park on more than one occasion and never a problem. Now I got f’in Anthony Bourdain brushing me off in front of a crowd. I momentarily thought about saying something not so nice then quickly realized I was out of line. And if that wasn’t enough, the mock applause from the restaurant crowd as20I walked away confirmed it. Just then I put the phone back to my ear and asked my wife “did you hear that?” I guess she did because all I could here through the phone was her laughter. She was laughing so hard it made me laugh too. I thought about how foolish I looked and if I could take it back – would I? If I could have walked another block to Third, and have never ran into Bourdain, would I? No way, because now I have a story. Cars, money, pets, even people come and go but no body can ever take away a great story.

So next time you spot a celebrity and if the opportunity arrises… tell them your a fan you may be surprised how cool they are. Unless of course, it’s the unpredictable, MR.  cool TONY Boudain. Then you should simply tell him that Bobby Flay could kick his ass, with one hand tied behind his back during a live taping of Iron Chef.