While enjoying several drinks in the Village last night at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame with Katie, she abruptly began motioning and whispering to me not to turn and look at the person I could then sense standing directly behind me at the sparsely populated bar. Of course, nothing made me want to turn around more just then. But I didn’t. I thought it was a bum or someone with crazy hair who wanted to know whether I’d found Jesus.
After the mystery person paid for a purchase and turned to leave, Katie gave me the O.K. to turn and check him out. It was James Gandolfini, smaller and more cherubic in person than I imagined. Before leaving, he gave a fleeting, knowing glance to everyone at the bar who was pretending not to notice him. This would be the closest I’ve knowingly been to a celebrity in New York, excluding concerts and book signings.
I’m glad the bar-crowd was of the “treat the celebrity like a regular person” mindset instead of the autograph-seeking rush-mob it could have been. I chalk it up to today being St. Patrick’s Day, for which faux Irish bars citywide attract tourists and people from New Jersey who aren’t as cool as Katie, leaving decidedly un-Irish spots like the Hall of Fame as secret neighborhood hangouts, which is sort of why we went there to begin with. Although if I’d elected to attempt small talk with James, I would have skipped the tired and obvious Sopranos chatter to mention how much I appreciated his nuanced performance as Big Dave Brewster in The Man Who Wasn’t There.
After further discussion, Katie and I decided a mistaken-identity route could have been even more fun. For example, I could have told Mr. Gandolfini that I loved his work and owned all of his albums, similar to how Katie wanted to tell Ric Ocasek, a frequent browser at her old Barnes & Noble, that her favorite vocal performance of his was “Drive”, a song actually sung by the Cars’ bassist.