Vaughn But Not Forgotten

      At a time when popular culture demanded that everyone south of 14^th street wear black, I was typically out of step in blue jeans, work boots and plaid, woolen shirt. I often thought about updating my wardrobe - buying some black jeans, for instance – I just never quite got around to it. There were times, though, when that outfit came in handy: I might be turning the corner off Broadway on to Prince of a Sunday morning to find the street closed down with police barricades, soot-white box-trucks and swarms of burly gaffers, key-grips and roadies dragging coils of cables and lights around in a chaotic street ballet. These guys were dressed just as I was and I soon found I could slip in amongst them and belly up to the groaning board of free bagels, cream cheese and the cornucopia of tasty delights provided on movie sets throughout the City. More often than not these shoots tended to happen in gritty, atmospheric locations - SoHo, Tribeca and the Brooklyn waterfront - which, of course, were the neighborhoods where most of us lived. And were it not for the occasional complimentary schmear, the whole movie-set thing was a royal pain, blocking the way home or, in the case of our building in Dumbo, actually preventing me for hours from going through my own doorway. That was  the “Once Upon a Time in Old New York” shoot, I think, or maybe it was that dark Robin Williams thing about a taxi driver. 

 

    

      It's no wonder that those of us in America's major cities become jaded by and immune to the proximity of that sort of celebrity; they are invariably more trouble than they're worth. Tourists gawk at the barricades, hoping for a sighting of some lesser star; urbanistas elbow through, hurried and disgruntled. In New York and LA, there is simply no avoiding celebrity. My own daughter, while a student at Occidental College, came downstairs one morning to find Vince Vaughn sitting on her couch, which would be enough to disgruntle anyone! The more often you find yourself warming a bar stool next to Vince Vaughn or Miley Cyrus or Owen Wilson, well, the less radiant their luster.

   In the mid 70's I worked a summer in a small boutique in Providence called Spectrum India. I was really there as a male presence to provide the illusion of security for the two sales-girls as the place had begun staying open late. The store reeked of patchouli and incense and we sold, in addition to Indian inspired clothing, lots of silver and turquoise jewelry, trade beads and other imported trinkets common at the time. One afternoon I took a call from a woman who identified herself as Gregg Allman's road manager. She asked if we would close early so that Gregg could come in for some personal shopping. The Allman Brothers were at the Civic Center that night, so it was possible this wasn't a hoax perpetrated by one of our friends but not very likely. “Sure. You bet! We'll close early for Gregg.” I told her facetiously.

   

     

Sure enough, about 5 o'clock a limo pulled up and out popped Gregg. As she shut the door behind him, one of my stunned co-workers flipped the sign to “Closed”.  After passing out warm quarts of Ballantine Ale, Gregg, already dripping with turquoise and silver, proceeded over the course of the next two hours to purchase virtually everything in the place. This largess was punctuated by several trips to the basement with one or the other of my colleagues for recreational interludes the nature of which I can only imagine. Oddly, perhaps by way of consolation, he scrawled his phone number down on a paper napkin and handed it to me. “ If you're ever in Macon,” he told me,“give me a call.” As he left, Gregg took our names and invited us to come down to the stage door of the Civic Center that night where he'd leave us back-stage passes. We each ran home after closing to get ready and regrouped to go downtown together. We worked our way through the throngs and mayhem to the backstage area, assuring the cops and bouncers along the way that we were on the list. Only to find, of course, that we weren't on any list and neither were the hundreds of bus-boys and waiters and room-service wallas clamoring at the barricades. It appears that my new best friend had invited half the service sector of Providence to this event without actually putting any of us on the list. Convinced that this slight was somehow a minor oversight in our case, we stood there for hours – long past the point when the Allman Brothers actually arrived and started their set –  futilely expecting to be ushered in as Gregg's buddies. This early brush with celebrity, enhanced by a rancid combination of warm Ballantine and anxious dry-mouth, left me with a bitter taste for that sort of glam and tinsel. Not that I didn't hold on to Gregg's number for years.....just in case.

   Here in Maine we don't really have any celebrities. There are a few, like Martha Stewart, tucked away here and there in the summertime, but not so's you'd run into them at the Puffin Stop, not like the Vineyard or the Hamptons. Paul Newman summered in our little community some years back while shooting nearby. I'm told he spent his evenings drinking canned Budweiser and playing nickel-ante poker with our friends, although I wasn't there and can't vouch for that. Everyone says he was a regular guy and that he brought the beer. 

    

     Stephen King may be the closest thing we have to an indigenous celebrity and most people who purport to have met him say he's a regular guy, too. I've been told for years that I look like Stephen King, though I certainly can't see much resemblance, at least not from perusing the dust jackets of his books. Once or twice a month, though, when I'm wandering through the supermarket or down to the landfill – it's never a glamorous location – I'll notice a few people in my periphery looking my way, maybe nudging, pointing and whispering to each other, and I'll know.... Maybe it's because they're just starved for a sighting but eventually they'll approach, timidly and ask, “Are you Stephen King...?”

   

      One day I'll get up the gumption to say yes.