Photo Credit: Winslow's Tavern (formerly Aesop's Tables)
Would you believe me if I told you celebrities tend to be regular people, and they aren't always going to be the most adventurous or interesting people in a given room? Turns out, it's the honest-to-god truth. I learned this the summer after I moved to Cape Cod for a stage management internship with Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theater (WHAT) back in 1999. It’s not that I worked with any Big Names there. It’s more like Big Names summer in Cape Cod and the place is so strange and so cramped and so small that you are going to have at least a sighting, or two, if not some sort of run-in with one…or two. It probably won't be extraordinary when it happens. People need groceries, and 1999 was before cell phones and Instacart.
I had a few–sightings AND run-ins during my 18 months on the Cape, and with one exception, they were generally nice folks–and completely unremarkable, normal people. Honestly. A party definitely counts as a run-in, especially if you’ve blundered unawares into celebrity company and kind of get trapped there by wild circumstances. I had no reason to expect anything from a celebrity sighting/run-in other than having something fun to journal about. And although that IS exactly what I got that night…it didn’t come from the Big Names at the table.
I was closing down the theater and cleaning up after the final evening production of David Ives’ All in the Timing. (I actually think I was the ALD/light operator for that production.) We still had a "Creature Feature" (aka Sunday matinee) the next day, but it looked to be smooth sailing. The cast and I were tight. Which was great, because WHAT had packed us together like sardines into a creepy, decrepit old Captain’s House at 9 Eric’s Way that I truly suspected might be haunted. It was good to be friends with your roommate/co-workers in a situation like that.
Now, the guys in the show–Bob, Steven, Mike–were great and all, but folks came to see the three actresses: Kate, Julie, & Elizabeth As well they should have. Kate was tall and down-to-earth with short red hair. Best straightman I’ve ever seen play a stage to this day. Julie was a blue-eyed pixie of a blonde. Without fail, she could deliver exactly the right note for a scene’s punchline–she slayed. Elizabeth seemed aristocratic to me, willowy and small with long strawberry-blonde hair. Her humor is as dry as the Sahara, and her delivery has this stiletto edge to it-a sharp jab that cuts deep. Individually and together, they were as funny off the stage as they were on it. Julie had volunteered to save me a seat at the cast party, and that was where I was headed.
As I departed the theater and made my way to meet up with the gang, I noted the vomitous scent of rotting ass. That’s what Wellfleet smells like at low tide when the dead fish and oysters and the brackish marsh undergrowth are exposed to the air. Nobody warned me about it before I moved up here for the internship. There is nothing anyone can do about it but build up a tolerance. Folks still pay multi-millions to live there. It IS a lovely town, otherwise. One of the things that made Wellfleet particularly lovely was Aesop’s Tables on Main; it was a bit magical. Aesop’s was the sort of place where interesting random conversations happened as a matter of course. You’d typically run into the last people on Earth you thought you'd see out that night. You might even sight celebrities. Not that I had ever seen any there, or expected to. But the rumor seemed more plausible than an urban legend usually does...
I knew that Julie’s summer fling Phil–I think that was his name–had scored us a table at Aesop’s. As I drew closer, I could see that the crowd was enormous. All the lawn tables were overflowing with people. Through each window on both stories, I could see people crowded around candle-lit tables. The place was absolutely packed. Typical for a Saturday night. Fortunately, I spotted my group and made a beeline. Lorelai, an actress from WHAT's upcoming production, had joined us for the evening. She was a puckish, platinum blonde Quebecois girl who always played ingenues and could nail any accent–fun gal. They had saved me the seat farthest from the conversation. Which I didn’t mind, because Phil was typically a bit dull, and his two friends. Were. Awful! I figured that sooner or later, the girls would start cracking wise and things would be fine. But as I looked at their faces, I realized that these chicks were hypnotized. My heart sank, but I stuck around. I was perplexed that these women were agog over guys like this, and I figured that if I stuck around long enough, I’d at least find out why.
Phil was a balding business figure of medium height and average looks who was in his fifties. I have no idea what he actually did for a living or even if he was a townie or a summer person. He seemed affluent, connected, and kind of cagey, but he was charming and clever and Julie dug him. His first guest was an intense man with dark eyes, a hawkish nose, and tightly curled, closely cropped, dark but graying hair. He wore mostly black and looked like he was the type to stand back in the shadows and watch things. It actually seemed like in other circumstances he might be interesting. He sat, semi-scowling in deep concentration as he and Phil made backchannel noises at the talking man sitting with them. This guy, y’all. He was wearing an orange tank top and cargo shorts, but also had on a cargo vest--like he was an adventurer! He had sun-streaked hair, an artfully unkempt 9 o’clock stubble, and cheekbones that could cut glass. This guy embodied the type of tense, rugged, outdoorsy masculinity that you saw in pre-millennial Jeep ads. AND HE KNEW IT. Whilst he droned, he would strike straight-up model poses straight out of GQ. The girls were agog at this guy specifically. I wanted to vomit.
And what he droned on about was what EVERYONE was droning on about at the time: The goddamned Perfect Storm. Cape Cod has traditionally been a very literary/arty community but they are also WAAAAAY into their maritime history as sailors and fishermen. The Perfect Storm hit the sweet spot between these two cultural nodes, which resulted in a summer-long interest in the novel and its cinematic fate. The problem was, I hadn’t read it and I didn’t want to. The genre does not naturally appeal to me. It seemed like the sort of thing that guys who read Cussler, or Michener, or Clancy, would also read, and I also didn’t read those authors. Growing up, we read Cold War-era Sci-Fi, High Fantasy, Police Mysteries, and Christian historical commentary in my house. That other stuff seemed dull by comparison.
Worse yet, from what I HAD read about The Perfect Storm, it seemed the whole awful thing could have been avoided if enough of those assholes had listened to women. The whole Perfect Storm cultural moment pissed me off because The Perfect Storm--nature-- was not at fault for this disaster; idiot men were. The point of the book seemed to be to make them look like tragic heroes when their abominably short-sighted life choices here ruined ALL of their families’ lives. Mind you, I was planning to try to read the book later that fall in case I was misjudging it but wasn’t about to waste any part of my summer on any part of it. As I sat stewing, I realized that this conversation was different. They were talking about the movie. Well, the talking man was humble-bragging about getting a great deal with the movie rights. First, I thought, who talks like this on vacation? But then a sinking feeling started to set in. Finally, I leaned over to Julie and asked her who these guys were.
In a hoarse stage whisper that the entire table could hear–if not the whole lawn--a tipsy Julie tells me, “OHMYGOD Wendi! How do you not know? THAT’s Sebastian Junnnnnngeeeeer! Like, amazing, right? Phil knows him! That other guy, Robert Sabbaaaag, he’s the author of my new favorite novel Snowblind–which I will check out and start reading tomorrow. Did you know he LIVES here? Phil knows HIM, too!”
Because I know people could hear her and see me react to it, I tried to seem nonchalant and pleasantly surprised by the news. In truth, I could not have cared less. I was then even more convinced that my estimation of the book was almost certainly spot-on. This dude was EXACTLY the type to transform the devastating consequences of men who ignored the good advice of smart women in a failed bid to manhandle nature into the tragic death of a brave and noble captain who valiantly battled with nature and lost. There is nothing noble about leaving widows and half-orphans without income behind you because you ignored smart women who told you not to go and do what got you killed. Strangely enough, that wasn't my biggest concern. Confusion was.
Ancestor vernation, the worship of nature, and the appeasement of Gods I can understand, but worshippers in the "Cult of Celebrity" make no sense to me whatsoever. I'm too busy for stuff like that. I have things to do. Moreover, even before I moved to the Cape, I suspected that celebrities were just normal people who'd led interesting lives. After meeting a few, I thought that celebrities are just normal people who've lived interesting lives AND are burdened by the fans’ relentless expectation that they wield pixie dust on demand or something. I just never took to that whole "cult of celebrity" thing.
But THESE guys? They had quicksilver tongues instead of pixie dust, and they demanded worship. Which was a shame, because we had three of the most talented comediennes who’ve ever acted on Cape Cod sitting silently in awe, instead of dominating that ENTIRE conversation with their quick wit and high energy. We’d have all been better off if they had. I could see my evening sinking into an irredeemable slog, but I thought it was still early enough to find an actual good time. My thoughts got cut short by the sounds of screaming.
