Ask A Genius 936: Opportunities for the Fabled Fame
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/05/10
[Recording Start]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, you have had opportunities to gain fame.
Rick Rosner: Yes, I have done four pilots centered on either myself as a smart person or involving other people as well. None of these pilots have been successful, which is not unusual, but it is frustrating. I have a significant number of followers, 0.88 million (880,870) on Twitter, most of whom I purchased. Nevertheless, it appears impressive. I bought them ten years ago when you could purchase 5,000 followers for a dollar. I am looking at People Magazine, and it has an article on, I wonder what their name is — I was going to say Brooke Shields. When I was a kid, I thought I would get famous and marry Brooke Shields. I did not, but a friend of my brother’s did, so I have been in her kitchen because we were pitching a project. My brother and I were developing a project, and we went to his friend, a producer-writer, to get notes in their kitchen. So again, I have been celebrity-adjacent. My wife has worked at a couple of fancy private high schools in the LA area.
Jacobsen: So, she has a lot of contact with celebrities.
Rosner: She does not want to be famous, but I do. So, it is strange to be around celebrities. She receives emails from famous parents of their kids. She knows some of these people, and we see them. She goes hiking, and they are all around us. When I worked on Kimmel, well, Kimmel himself is famous, and I was right there. He gave me my own week on the show in the early days before he grew too annoyed with me because I am an interesting weirdo. He made me the announcer on the show for a week. This did not lead to anything. I know better than to try to interact with famous people. If you live in LA, you try to be relaxed about seeing famous people. It is like living in an open zoo; do not touch the rhinos. There is no way to win a celebrity encounter. The only way to win is to pretend that you do not know they are famous. If you can have an everyday encounter, like holding open the door for them, you do it. Or if you see someone at CVS, you do not say, “Hey, you are Natalie, what’s your name, from 10,000 Maniacs?” You ignore her and then tell your friends you saw Natalie, what’s her name, from 10,000 Maniacs. This was a long time ago. If they have a dog and you see them hiking, you can pet the dog and say, “Oh my God, what a nice doggy.” And that is it. It’s a brief interaction. You do not make a big deal out of it. Their celebrity is not a factor in the dog interaction. Then you are fine. If you start fawning over them, it gets awkward and gross quickly, and you feel like an idiot. Famous people, especially when you see them in person, carry a lot of our hopes and expectations like “that could have been me.” If you are in LA, there is a fair chance that you want to be famous. When you see a famous person, it is a charged situation, and the best thing you can do is not to interact at all or to minimize the interaction. Look but do not touch. There is no sex in the champagne room.
Jacobsen: Yes, exactly. Although, depending on which strip joint you go to, there might be. When I was in Atlanta, I drove past one in an Uber, and the driver mentioned there had been a murder there the previous night. You may recognize it from various rap songs. The strip clubs in Atlanta are much more hardcore than those in LA.
Rosner: Yes, so the famous people are all around, and…
Jacobsen: Do many of them just walk around without security, unadorned?
Rosner: Yes, because why would you, unless you have stalkers, why would you have security? If you are big enough, you are going to need security. You know, like Taylor Swift or Beyonce, you do not see them around. Maybe you do. Maybe when Taylor Swift is wherever she’s from, you know, maybe she does, but I doubt she goes to the grocery store. Nobody goes crazy for going to the grocery store if they have someone who does it for them. But I do not know if you can walk around your town. But you know, Carole hikes Fryman Canyon. And there’s Runyon Canyon. There are half a dozen canyons where people hike. Every canyon has people you might see. For a while, you would see Steve Martin on Fryman, and you just walk past and leave him alone. You would not stare at him. Then you would come home and tell me, “Oh, I saw Steve Martin. What was he doing? Was he with anybody?” Yes, he was talking to somebody and wearing a hat and sunglasses, and that’s it. Allison Janney used to live in our neighborhood. You would occasionally see her. Gavin Rossdale used to live up the hill from us. Carole saw him once at Ralph’s, the local supermarket. You do not hassle him. You just come home and say you saw somebody famous. If you try to impose upon them, nobody likes that. You feel like an idiot, and they feel like you are a bit of an idiot, but they are going to be nice unless they are a jerk. Unless there is a reason to interact. Say at Ralph’s, if Gavin Rossdale decided not to get a basket and now he has eight items falling out of his hands, you can say, “Do you need a hand with that?” This did not happen, but he would say, “Yeah, thanks.” You grab one of the items and put it on top of his. But, I have an idea for another session.
[Recording End]
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 