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I’ve been thinking about a particular feature in Us Weekly, the one called Stars: They’re Just Like Us, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Us Weekly is wrong. Stars are not just like us. They’re not even like each other.
Three weeks ago I was in New York, attending a small comedy show at a bar called The Slipper Room, when a celebrity birthday party broke out. This apparently happens all the time in New York. Obviously my friends and I were not invited – it was a small gathering in a small bar, but because we had accidentally been there for the comedy show, we saw no reason to leave. At least not after Heather Graham showed up. I always thought she was overrated, but in real life, she looks like a tall angel with no wings and jeans tucked into her boots.
Heather Graham wasn’t the only star in the Slipper Room. She was joined by Parker Posey, the guy from Sports Night with the crooked nose (also known as the kid from Dead Poets Society with the crooked nose), and Demetri Martin, a comedian whom you probably haven’t heard of, but who is kind of a distant acquaintance of mine even if he won’t admit it.
Being in a confined space with celebrities is a little awkward. It’s like seeing somebody you know, but don’t want to talk to, in a foreign country. This happened to me in Paris several times. Once I was on the metro and recognized a girl who lived in my dorm freshman year. I never had much to say to this girl, and when we saw each other on the campus green, we probably didn’t say hello.
From the moment I noticed her (about six seats down and across the aisle from me), I was very uncomfortable because I had nothing to say to her in America, and it wasn’t like being in France was going to give us anything new to talk about.
However, I am aware that most people feel that running into an acquaintance in a distant setting, no matter how flimsy the association, warrants an exchange of pleasantries. This was a source of anxiety because I was worried that she would see me, recognize me, and want to chat, so I got off at the next stop even though I was nowhere close to home.
What do you think the most awkward moment ever would be?
Obviously it would be traveling to the moon, exiting the space shuttle, taking the obligatory first giant leap off the low-gravity moonscape, landing, and running into someone you kind of knew from middle school.
Is that why you’re not an astronaut?
Yes.
There are two types of people. The first type believes that:
A = s/td
where
A = awkwardness
s = shakiness of relationship with friend or acquaintance on a scale from 1 to infinity. So if s=1, the person’s your best friend, and if s=infinity, you met the person once and hated them because they made fun of your shoes behind your back, but it wasn’t that far behind your back, so you heard them.
t = time since last encounter with friend or acquaintance
d = distance from location where you would expect to see friend or acquaintance.
As d increases, A decreases because s remains stagnant. In extreme cases, when d is measured in light years, sex can happen. See fig. 1, which demonstrates increasing time and distance.
But I am the other type of person. In my experience, figures 1b, 1c, and 1d would all look exactly like 1a. The two people never advance beyond “Hi,” which means awkwardness actually increases proportionally to time and distance because what’s left unsaid weighs heavily on the conversation. (Picture you and another person holding a net. Now imagine that there’s an elephant in the net. Since the elephant is directly between the two of you, you can’t see around it, your back gets tired, and the air begins to smell of circus.)
So instead of A=s/td, I would update the equation to look like this:
A=std
And that makes sense because there’s nothing more awkward than trying to explain that, yes, you have an STD, but no, it’s not your fault.
For me, being near a celebrity is like seeing an extremely shaky acquaintance on the moon. Except I’m the person I don’t want to talk to, and the celebrity is me. At the party in New York it was hard to know how much to look or not look at Heather Graham. If I didn’t know her as Roller Girl, I would have spent 90% of the party trying to make eye contact with her, hoping for a wink or something. But I didn’t want to creep her out so I only stared at her for 80% of the time.
This made me feel uncomfortable because it felt like I was forcing my eyes to go in directions they weren’t supposed to, which is probably what life is like for someone with a lazy eye. But imagine how awkward life must be for Heather Graham. Everywhere she goes, guys are staring at her 80% of the time, but with a self-conscious look in their eyes like maybe they should be staring at her 10% more often.*
My mom has a story about visiting Sun Valley, Idaho, which goes like this:
I was in a café and I kept looking at a handsome man at another table because he looked familiar. I thought maybe he had worked for me in the seventies, when I managed a Sun Valley restaurant. Sometimes when I looked over, he would give me a knowing nod, so I started thinking that I definitely knew this man. I mentioned it to my friend, who I was having lunch with, and she looked over at the man. She said, “That’s Bruce Willis.”
That kind of thing happens to Bruce Willis all the time.
Bruce Willis, like Heather Graham, exists in the Almost Totally Ubiquitous Recognition stratum of stardom. There are six strata of stardom, and it’s important to separate famous people into these categories because there are so many of them now. Thanks to the internet, even idiots like me have a website. I am not famous, but that YouTube kid who played Pachelbel Canon on his guitar is. He’s in either the fifth or sixth stratum.
Thought experiment: Think of all the people you know. Define these people as anyone you’ve ever met for longer than ten seconds. Now think of all the people you don’t know. Define these people as people you know of, but whom you’ve never met. Dead people don’t count, but celebrities, athletes, and friends of friends do count. What do you think the ratio is? I say at least 1:50.
Now think about living a hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, or three thousand years ago. The ratio swings in the other direction as you travel back through time. I bet if you were a caveman, you would only know people. You wouldn’t know of anyone. This conversation would never happen:
CAVEMAN FRIEND: Do you know Dag?
YOU: No.
CAVEMAN FRIEND: Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense. I only know him because he’s my brother-in-law. Anyway, he lives in those caves up by the Mammoth-dwellings, you know the ones I’m talking about?
YOU: With the view of the glacier?
CAVEMAN FRIEND: Yeah. Not from his cave, but yeah. So he killed a pretty big saber tooth the other day.
YOU: Really?
CAVEMAN FRIEND: Really.
That conversation would never happen because cavemen couldn’t talk.
In the Stone Age, there were no famous people. Now there are millions. Here are the six strata:
This circle is reserved for extremely famous people like George W. Bush, Branjelina, and Joe Camel. These people cannot go anywhere without cameras following them. They cannot live normal lives. They cannot go to a café in Sun Valley and have my mom mistake them for a former employee.
Most people in their native land know them, but they can still take a vacation to some sections of Africa and blend in, provided they are
A) a black person who speaks fluent Congo, or
B) a zebra
This is where Parker Posey goes. A lot of people love Parker Posey and appreciate her work in films like Dazed and Confused and Best in Show. Other people don’t know who she is. If you were a celebrity in this stratum, you would constantly be wondering whether or not you should name-drop yourself when waiting for a table in a restaurant because maybe the host or hostess will know you, or maybe they won’t, but either way you’ll look like an ass.
The guy with the crooked nose from Sports Night and Dead Poets Society fits here. Right now there’s a 25% chance that you know who I’m talking about. But if you saw him, you’d go, “Ohhhhhh. That guy.” I feel bad for these celebrities because they occupy (through no fault of their own) the same corner of my memory reserved for high school classmates like the kid who locked himself in the art gallery and remained motionless all day, I guess as some sort human art installation. I don’t remember his name, but if I saw him, I’d go, “Ohhhhh. That guy.”
I like this stratum. This is where I would want to be. This is where well-respected film directors and authors go. Imagine being in a bar, hitting on a girl, getting rejected, and then as she’s walking away, saying, “I directed Schindler’s List.” She would turn around and make out with you immediately.
Stephen Spielberg directed Schindler’s List.
Exactly.
When I was in college, my friend Huge existed in this stratum of stardom. He didn’t go to my school, but when he was planning to visit, I would tell my college buddies that he was coming, and they would say, “Wait. Is that Party Boy or the kid that pretended to fall down the stairs but actually did fall down the stairs and put his head through the glass door?”
And I would say, “Both.”
And they would say, “Ohhhhh. That guy.”
The comedian from the party, Demetri Martin, exists in this stratum. You wouldn’t know who he is unless you really like post-modern, understated comedy, or unless you worked as an intern on Late Night with Conan O’Brien when he was a writer there (like I did). I feel like this stratum would be mostly frustrating because let’s say you’re the most respected clown in the world. Other clowns believe that you’ve revolutionized the industry – your work has influenced how all young clowns comport themselves at birthday parties for five-year-olds. But if you were sitting next to a beautiful woman or man on a bus, and they asked you what you did, and you said you were a clown, they would never get beyond that. They wouldn’t care what kind of advancements you’d made within your profession. Unless the bus was heading to a clown convention, in which case, you might get laid.
The question is: Which stratum, if any, would you want to be in? You should think about this (a lot) because when you’re in your twenties, the possibility still exists that you’ll become famous. You can’t predict how or why, but because you’re young, something could happen. Simon Cowell could hear you croon a drunken rendition of Rocket Man at a karaoke bar and sign you to a record contract. Woody Allen could cast you as an extra in one of his films, or at the very least, marry you.
Maybe you’ll become famous, or maybe you won’t. But if you find yourself close to being a star, decide which stratum is right for you. I know which strata I wouldn’t want to be in – I wouldn’t want people looking at me like we were vague acquaintances who happened to run into each other on the moon.
But I think I would like it if some day, when I left a room, somebody could turn to somebody else and ask who I was, and the somebody else could describe my life, and then the first somebody could say, “Ohhhh. That guy.”
*Which would make 88% of the time, not 90%. I know.
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