Room with a View

Ever since we moved into the new office on Newbury Street, every day has been rife with excitement. Or at least, rife with the potential for excitement. Actually, I was just looking for an excuse to use the word "rife." But there has been plenty of times where I almost saw someone famous on this street, dating back to college.

Katherine Gibbs is just a couple of blocks down the street from the office, and while I was going there, I just missed Stephen King walking out of 7-11. I read about it in the paper the next day. This wasn't too long after his accident, so he still had crutches. How do you miss Stephen King hobbling down the street on crutches? By the way, not only is it appalling to realize that was six years ago, but the name of the school, which apparently sounded too stodgy and grandmotherly to it's target daytime-TV-watching market and has since been rechristened "Gibbs Boston". Blasphemy. Oh, and the auditorium I graduated in is now an H&M clothing store.

Granted, celebrities aren't as common a sight on the street as, say, Tricycle Man, but during my time at this address, I've seen everything from Gwen Stefani's body guards standing outside the Armani store to the Legend of Zelda-style view of the top of Steven Tyler's head. One of the guys I work with saw Michele Kwan walking out of the Ritz one day. Maybe if she'd won the gold, she could have stayed at the Four Seasons. Gee, that was kind of harsh. I hope she doesn't know Jeff Gillooly.

Anyway, as I mentioned last month, Condoleeza Rice stayed at the Ritz recently, and police escorts swarmed the building. When I saw the bomb squad truck, at first I honestly thought it was because the Yankees were in town. The truck wasn't for them, but a big yellow Yankee bus (which doesn't seem to be affiliated with the team, the names are just a coincidence) pulled up in front of the hotel later that day around 2:00 to bring them to Fenway.

My bosses are siblings, and the sister's best friend is a huge Yankee fan. She'd mentioned to her friend before that some of the players stayed at the hotel across from us when they were playing the Sox, and we always saw a small group of fans huddled around the front entrance waiting for autographs or simply glimpses of their favorite players. A group of about a dozen or so people started to form a little after noon, and my boss, who we'll call Lucy, thought it would be a good idea to go down across the street and ask those guys what they knew, (i.e., who stays at this hotel, what time to they leave for the field, etc.) She also thought it would be a good idea to bring me along.

So we walked over to the group, and she interrupted two guys that were in the middle of a conversation with, "Okay, guys, what's going on here?" Thinking she was some authority figure, they asked if they were doing anything wrong.

She explained that she just wanted to know when are the players coming out, and started making small talk. Where are you from, do you come here every time the Yankees are in town...stuff like that. A guy in sweatpants and a knit cap with the Yankees emblem embroidered on it who had been standing a few feet away came over and things took a turn. I couldn't smell it on him, but the nature of his banter suggested that he'd recently tied a few on. She told him that her girlfriend was a big Yankees fan, and he quickly interrupted.

"Girlfriend? Are you a lesbian?"

"Excuse me? Look at the ring, I'm a married woman!"

"Hey, that don't mean anything anymore!"

It went on like that for a while, before she motioned to me, suggesting that she brought me along in case things got out of hand. Let's just pretend for a minute that the idea of me being a body guard isn't completely laughable, and that, when coerced, I strike down with great vengeance and furious anger those that would attempt to poison my brothers. Let's pretend. Even so, like I get paid enough to confront a bunch of big guys with baseball bats. Keep dreaming, lady.

Anyway, the conversation went back to her girlfriend being a Yankee fan, and the guy started asking her all these questions to test her mettle.

"What was Joe DiMaggio's batting average in 1941?"

"I don't know, but my girlfriend would know that."

"How many RBI's did Matsui have last year?"

"My girlfriend would know that, too. I'm telling you, she could talk you guys up and down all day."

Somehow, the conversation shifted to what he did for a living. He told her that he doesn't work because he won the lottery ten years ago and he's a millionaire. Then he pointed at the Asian guy standing next to him and said the Chinese are the richest people on the planet, before adding, "Oh wait, that's the Jews."

I was stuck somewhere between being extremely uncomfortable and highly entertained. I'm pretty sure he called her a lesbian a few more times before she mentioned that she had seen Condoleeza Rice that morning.

"Did you shake her hand?"

"No, she was heavily guarded, but she waved...."

"I bet you would have shaken her hand if you weren't a racist."

Standing there while my boss was called a lesbian and a racist--not sure if I'm supposed to step in and trying as hard as I can not to burst out laughing--has to rank up there as one of the most surreal moments ever. She took the guy's mostly good-natured jabs in stride though, and as his grand finale, he asked which floor our office was on, because he wanted to know if it was high enough for him to jump out and kill himself. Why? Because "No woman will marry him."

As we were departing back to the office, he told her that if her marriage doesn't work out, they should get together. And with that, we went back to work.

When the Yankee bus pulled up to the building, I got a few shots of some players from our seventh-floor window. It was hard to see who's who from my window, but I was able to spot Joe Torre signing autographs, Johnny Damon, and guy I'm pretty sure is A-Rod (The knit cap guy said he was staying at a different hotel, but then again he said a lot of things.)

There were a couple of guys who I'm sure were someone but I'll be damned if I could tell who they were. One guy looked like O.J. walking out of court.





As if that wasn't enough excitement, Friday a cloud of smoke drifted past the window. Hold on, that wasn't the exciting part. When we opened it to see what was going on, a thick smoky smell filled the room and black smoke was rising from a car down the street. It was hard to see exactly what was going on, because there was a tree in the way. But several fire engines quickly and loudly arrived at the scene, followed by a woman who appeared to be the car's very surprised owner. It looked like it could have been deadly if anyone had been in the car, but thankfully it was empty and the fire department handily kept the fire contained. And, in what is probably the coolest part about being a fire fighter, they smashed in all the windows with axes. Who wouldn't want to smash in windows with big honkin' axes?

















And today, there's a giant fiberglass cow sitting outside the hotel entrence.