Two Lucky

(From left) Rachel Dratch, Fred Armisen, Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg, photos from the Internet

Christmas Day special

When Rachel Dratch drops her umbrella on my foot, I let out a little shriek. “I’m so sorry,” she apologizes to me. I try to respond, say something cool like “It’s okay,” but my jaws are too heavy to pull up. I start to mumble when Rusty steps in heroically: “Haha, no worries.”

In my defense, it wasn’t just Ms Dratch, who recently left celebrated comedy TV show, Saturday Night Live, to join Tina Fey’s 30 Rock on NBC seated next to us at a cafe on 9th and 2nd Ave. With her were SNL cast members Fred Armisen and Andy Samberg; and Rashida Jones from The Office (USA).

If you don’t already know this, Rusty and I are huge fans of both shows, and of Ms Dratch, who will appear next year alongside Amy Poehler and Parker Posey in the film, Spring Breakdown.

So for the next hour or so, it was a real challenge to curb our enthusiasm. To mask our fanatic chatter, we speak to each other in Mandarin. “Let’s not disturb them,” Rusty whispers to me conspiratorially. “I’m sure the last thing they want are two gay guys acting crazy and interrupting their personal time.”

When in the company of celebrities, I’ve learned two things - that they are impossible to ignore (from a reflexive, intellectually curious perspective), and that it is impossible not to smile. It’s as if by sheer proximity, we had been dusted by their celebrity glamor. The seduction of fame was never more evident: It plucked our daily experience out of the ordinary and made us feel special.

And of course, by “company”, I really mean “line of sight”, even though I’d like to think we came pretty close to actual conversation.

When our order arrives, the two mounds of waffles gloopy with chocolate ice cream elicit oohs from the celebrity crew. “What’s that?” Ms Dratch asks. “Waffles and ice cream.” Rusty replies. “It comes with chocolate balls,” I add helpfully. Ms Jones laughs. “That looks really good, the waffles I guess are kinda incidental,” she says.

We offer them some. Ms Dratch beams: “Aw, it’s Christmas, you’re being generous. It’s okay, we’re still working on our chocolate fondue.”

This entry was posted on Monday, December 25th, 2006 at 11:01 pm and is filed under New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.