CELEBRITY ENCOUNTER #1

Hundreds of years after the age of hunters and gatherers, we still hunt for celebrities and gather everything associated with them. Paparazzis still possess the same wild animal instinct of the cavemen, and publishers who espouse them are no less civilized than Neanderthals.

Wherefore we ask, what do celebrities have that you (unless you're one of them) and I don't that we scramble for spots in their presence? Honestly, I don't know, which does not necessarily mean there ain't. Because I, too, sometimes get starstruck, and then later ask, why?

Have you ever had your share of celebrity encounters? Did you, at one time, rub elbows with a star? Or probably even had dinner, if not sex, with them?

Mine's not as grand, but cool enough to tell.

February 1996, at the Annual Arts Festival in Coconut Grove, a free jazz concert was held at Peacock Park, open to the public, and it featured some of the biggest names in jazz music locally and internationally: Spyro Gyra, David Sanbourne, Ed Calle, and the University of Miami Jazz Ensemble. My brother and I were in attendance, sitting on the grass and on a spot closest to the stage. Less than a hundred people were within 100 meters from the stage, and probably even less were paying attention. Miami, after all, was not a jazz country, and their collective presence was probably more out of curiosity than anything else. In short, almost nobody cared, which my brother and I couldn't care less because that meant we had the open space practically to ourselves.

The star of the day performed, and in one of the highlights of the hour, his saxophonist went down the stage and serenanded each member of the small audience with a few notes from his sax. When the concert was over, my brother and I sat still on the grass, completely perplexed that we just watched the stars for free, a few yards away, while everyone else went to their more pressing business of running around for booze. "If this was in the Philippines", my brother remarked, "we would have been sitting behind a hundred thousand people."

We were still on that stupor when, my good jazz god!!!, the star of the concert came down and approached us. Are you two twins?", he asked. "(Gulp), no", I said, "I'm 5 years older". I looked at my brother and I thought he had a lockjaw, as if suffering from tetanus, which I understood because this intruder was his big hero artist from high school and was now talking to him like a friendly stranger asking for directions.

The artist then made an offer while looking at my camera. "Can we have our picture taken?", then called for one of his stagehands without waiting for my "(Gulp) yes of course" of a response.

So we had our picture taken, with the artist in the middle and his arms over the shoulder of my brother and myself. I was even thinking that he might pull an act and put a peace sign atop my head for some devilish effect (or was it really I thinking of doing that to him?)

The picture, from then on, became an incriminating evidence of one of my few celebrity encounters, and a testament, to me at least, that there were celebrities like this guy who knew to plant their feet firmly unto the ground.

That artist, by the way, was pianist David Benoit.