I saw David Cross on the street in New York

I saw David Cross on the street in New York. Why should that be special? For someone who lives in a big city and takes public transit, being seen is a regular occurance. Being famous doesn't make you any more visible, it's not like some sort of radioactive ooze which courses through your blood making you glow an iridescent green. And yet I did notice him, more so than the millions of tourists who flocked to Manhattan for New Year's weekend, more so than the literally hundreds of crazies who leered at me as I walked through the lower east side, and nearly more so than the gangs of thin but still not quite hot hipster post-teens I someday dreamed I would fantasize about. And yet walking through Alphabet City with my eyes focused squarely (dad joke) on the sidewalk ahead of me, I still noticed that the guy walking by on his cell phone who looked strangely like David Cross, was in fact, a coarsely bearded David Cross.

If you think about it, seeing a celebrity on the street is likely to have almost no palpable impact on your life. Television is one of the least interactive mediums, and yet we feel like we know a person simply because their character has become so familiar to us. Watch enough of an actor or comedian's work, and you can begin to boil their range of characters down to a closer approximation of their real persona, like an oscillating wave approaching zero. I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what David Cross the person is like. I’ve watched most of Mr. Show. I’ve watched all of Arrested Development religiously. I’ve listened to his DVD commentaries, read interviews – particularly Brian M. Palmer’s. I have several of his stand-up albums, have watched his YouTube clips including him getting thrown out of a Jim Belushi concert. I liked Scary Movie 2 (if nothing else because the redhead from 90210 was in it reoowr). I’ve seen and enjoyed a number of the various shows and internet “things” he’s been on – mostly not realizing he was going to be in them, I assume similar things make us laugh – like Wonder Showzen, Clark and Michael, ATHF, Home Movies, Strangers With Candy, Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job, and She’s The Man (ed note: She’s The Man was an IMDB lookup). Simply put, I probably know more about David Cross’s work and more about his personality from his filmograph than I ever would gleam from a 2 minute conversation with him.

Just like I don’t really give a shit when someone begs me for money on the sidewalk, I doubt celebrities care about making a personal connection when a fan accosts them on the street. Perhaps they feel generous and give a hand shake or a how-do-you-do. But there is no denying that awkwardly listing off of all of the reasons why “I think you’re so great I know all your work we should hang out some time... do you understand that I'm cool too?” is the least personal connection you can make with a person in a given day.

And yet… It reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons where in an effort to save flagging rating, producers of “Itchy and Scratchy” bring on a new character – Poochie – who ends up ruining the show. "As a loyal viewer," one characters says, "I feel they owe me." "What?" asks Bart. "They've given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them." For all the entertainment that actors and comedians have provided, I think that many people – myself included – feel like we owe them, if nothing else, a debt of gratitude. We want to say thank you for making me laugh, thank you for giving me and my friends something to talk about, thank you for providing me inspiration for my own hobbies and extracurriculars, thank you for standing up for what you think is good and funny in an entertainment landscape literally littered with the smoldering wreckage of sell-out bombs.

David Cross wrote an article for New York Magazine “Urban Etiquette Handbook” which for the most part I agree with detailing the Dos and Don’t of how to act when you see a celebrity (#1 be a hot chick, #2 buy them a beer) – and I don’t think I violated any of these tenets explicitly. But what I want to stress is that the reason why I stopped to say hi when I saw him on the street was not to add a notch on my celebrity sightings prison wall (Danny Devito, check, Ryan Reynolds, check, etc, hurl), but to sum up as best I could in a very limited amount of time my appreciation for his work, his career, and my best wishes for his future projects I look forward to indulging in. And in that moment of decision, using the split-second-timing and reflexes that comedians spend lifetimes honing, I came up with this gem:

“Hey… I like you… on… the TV”

So, David Cross, I’m sorry for that – I know you were on your cell phone, and I provided what was the greeting equivalent of the reaction shot from a first-round loser on “Are You Smarter than a 5^th Grader”. Just know that despite my boneheadedness, I consider you a both a source of entertainment and a model for my own creativity. Whenever a famous person commits a public lapse of judgment bringing them down to the level of the common person, the well-worn cliché states that “celebrities are people too”. Well, people are people too, and sometimes we inconsiderately bother you to thank you for your contributions to our lives.