Fame in Conversation -Francesca Galarus

Working at Morimoto, I have had casual encounters with famous people on both the local and national level. In addition to Morimoto and Stephen Starr, I have come face-to-face with such celebrities as Chase Utley, Terrence Howard, Dahani Jones, Pat Martino, Blackthought, Hideki Matsui, ?estlove, and members of the bands Tool and 311. These brief interactions have occurred in a setting where I, as an employee, had to treat these people partly as if they weren’t who they are, but also give them treatment slightly above what other guests receive. When I come across people like this, I am generally a little more star-struck than I’d like to be, but my enthusiasm is usually mirrored in the people that I share the experience with.

More often than not, I only tell my roommate/best friend Abby, who is celebrity-obsessed. I see her as my confidant and someone that I can gush to because she gets just as excited as I do. When ?estlove came in, I actually called her from work to let her know that I was standing twenty feet away from the famed Roots’ drummer. In less than fifteen minutes, Abby was at Morimoto with our friend Samantha in tow. “We were right around the corner,” she said breathlessly, “where is he?”

He happened to be in the restroom at this point, which was ideal because the steps connecting the main dining room and the bathrooms were right behind the hostess stand. When he came up, he walked right by us and out the door to make a phone call. Having the perfect view, Abby and I conspicuously stared at him while talking about “how awesome he is.” Samantha, on the other hand is not so into the Roots, so she showed less interest. ?estlove came back into the restaurant a few minutes later, walking within a few feet of us again, and went back to his table. After Abby and I spoke a little more about our “non-encounter,” my friends left.

We didn’t talk to ?estlove that night, with the exception of a “can I take your coat?” murmur, but it was something to us. We had even seen him play live several times, but we felt being this physically close to him in a more natural setting offered us a different kind of experience that not everybody was able to have.
Although more slightly more extreme, this is a typical reaction that I would receive from Abby when relaying my “brushes with fame through my employment at Morimoto.” For the purposes of this assignment, however, I decided to tell people that I don’t normally divulge these stories to.

My first choice was obvious. I had to tell someone about the biggest superstar that I have had interaction with – Terrence Howard. I was hanging out with my life-long friend, Rachel, and we were chatting as we normally do about everything from guys to school to work. As I was talking about how work was going, I added, “And guess who came in last week?” (Even though it was months ago.) “Who?” she replied with excitement. I told her and she smiled and said, “Haven’t you seen the pictures of him and I online at the basketball game?” She proceeded to tell me that her dad, a lawyer, had gotten courtside tickets to a 76ers game and not only could she see every droplet of sweat on each player, but she was sitting three seats away from Terrence Howard.

So here I was feeling rather insignificant and kind of stupid for even mentioning that I had “brought Terrence to his table” and Rachel was still talking about her more momentous “brush with fame.” They had talked, he posed for pictures, while at Morimoto, he had kept his hat low, didn’t speak to any one and left before the rest of his guests.

Rachel seemed genuine in sharing her experience (not like she was purposely trying to one-up me) and she offered polite commentary about my meeting by asking questions and saying it was weird how we had both met him. She asked if I wanted to see her pictures and I did, so we looked at them and she told me a bit more about the game. We talked about a few other celebrities that we’ve come in contact with and when that conversation ended, we went back to catching up.

With one more person to tell, I chose a completely different route and told me friend Adrian, who is very intelligent and hardly interested in celebrities. He knows a lot of useless information, so I decided to test him by sharing a “brush with fame” that was not so obvious.

Adrian and I were hanging out as we usually do on his couch. He was telling me about one thing or another and the television was on. When he finished, I turned to face him and bluntly asked, “Do you know who Pat Martino is?” “Jazz guitarist,” he immediately responded. I cursed, said he had a useless knowledge stockpile and told him he was right. Not surprisingly he responded, “Yeah, I know, of course I am.”

“Well, he came into Morimoto last night. He comes in all the time. With his wife. She’s Asian.” I was going on and on about him like I was some kind of expert on his life. “Cool,” was his only utterance. Our conversation there. We just continued sitting there, watching TV and talking as we normally do.

Adrian didn’t seem to care at all. I wasn’t one-upped. I wasn’t asked any questions. I experienced nothing that I had come to expect from sharing my “brushes” with others. I don’t know whether it was my choice of celebrity, the way in which I brought it up, the fact that Adrian’s a guy or his personality in general that caused his reaction. Mostly likely, it was all of those in combination.

The two reactions that I received while doing this experiment differed vastly not only from each other, but also from the reaction I typically get from Abby. I am definitely more accustomed to awe than I am to someone who has an even better story or someone who simply doesn’t give a crap. Celebrities have a strange effect on people and although, I don’t feel that my relationship changed with Rachel or Adrian since those discussions, I do wonder if maybe the fact that I even brought it up at all made them think a little differently about me.