I used to work at Airbnb. My role over there was sort of a strange combination of things, but at the end of the day I would spend most of my time in a room called the nerdcave, which i can only describe as a glorified bar. Over there I had some very weird experiences, including hanging out with the chief of police during an active shooting event (https://www.itworld.com/article/2707151/shooting-in-building-where-airbnb-is-based-leaves-two-dead.html), but that story is for another time. This story is about meeting celebrities... and i wish one day I will find odd pics of me with the celebs.
Anyway, I used to joke that my full time job should be to entertain celebrities from the nerdcave, and unfortunately for me, the joke was taken a bit seriously, which led to this silly post. As part of my job i would be introduced to a lot of people every day, sometimes could be up to 100 people, so for the most part I had no idea who they were or what they did, which led to some very awkward moments. Once for example i was introduced the prime minister of Ireland and his wife. At the time my favorite joke to tell was "you must be irish cause my penis is Dublin". I still remember after being introduced started laughing and telling the prime minister wife that i knew an hilarious joke about irish people. Luckily for the company, some coworker just drag me away by force before i can tell the prime minister's wife that hilarious joke. Oh well, but who cares politicians are not real celebs anyway. So every once in a while I would be brought some people and i would be hinted "davide here is a celeb". That should be all fun, but unfortunately turns out that celebs often showed up with other people, and I had no idea who this people were to begin with. One time this guy badly dressed showed up with a very nicely dressed woman. I was informed one was a celeb and supposedly a oscar winning actor of some sort. I did now wanted to offend anyone so i welcomed them both in the bar and they had some questions about my bar/office. I chat for a bit till there was a awckward silence so i decided to recognize their "acheivement" and i complimented the lady on winning the oscar and that i was a big fan of her work. Turns out the lady was some sort of an agent or friend of this other guy, and the guy was I guess some famous singer actor. No kidding i just had to google the guy, as I forgot who he was in the span of 10 secs after meeting him. Some guy named Jared Leto. I just looked the movie he made, and i do not think i ever saw any. Another time I was chilling in my office and Spike Lee walked in. I actually was able to recognize him. That day I was wearing a ghostbuster tshirt. Well Spike walks in and he is obviously confused by the full bar and disco ball. I say hi and tell him I knew who he was. He smiled and i told him "i loved you in ghostbuster". That was followed by ackward silence. Then he laughed and asked me where i was from. We chatted a bit, and whishing good luck for his pitch to raise capital for the project he was working on. But I could tell that for a brief moment he could not tell if I was joking or if was serious about ghostbuster. The next story is my favorite. Brian showed up with this lady into the cave and he introduced her as Katie. I was left with this lady Katie for a while. So first thing i did was to pour her a shot of whiskey and offered her the glass. I poured a glass for myself as well. She seemed weird out by me offering her a drink, maybe because i tend to make very generous pours, but she said she was not driking. I then offered a non alcholic drink and let her know that it was a bit unpolite as now i have to drink both the whiskey pours by myself, and the shotgunned them . I probably should mentions, my genrous pours were in pint glasses, as they fit was more than shot glasses, and that it was about 10 am in the morning or so. In my head, I convinced myself that she must have been some Brian's relative, as before i was left with his, dad, mom, sister and oh well, anyway. I start some light conversation with Katie telling her that she must be very proud of Brian's accomplishment, and some other stuff like that. Then i asked her how the family is doing, and so on. The conversation was weirds and she seemed quite unconfortable. At the end I asked her if she felt proud of Brian's accomplishments, to which she replied that she kind of have no sense of pride for accomplishments of people she is interviewing. I then asked her, "so you are not a Brian's aunt or relative?" . Turns out this lady was Katie Couric, some journalist of sort, and she was there to do some interviews. Anyway last story or this gets too long. One day, I was walking down the office and who do i see if not Dule Hill. And i was star struck. I invited him to my office offered some drinks, had a chat and gave him a tour of the place. For some bizzarre twist of events he was not gettin the celeb tretament tour. To me was magical as i love the show Psych. I had him do the Psych's Gus look to Sean like 20 times or more. Great stuff, really. If you did not watch Psych i reccomend it, it is like a scooby doo tv show. I think i have a good pic with Dule somewhere. I remember that pic as i was wearing a Mel Tillis tshirt, and i really love Mel Tillis. In case you wonder how i can loose pic in this digital era. Well most of my pics were all taken on polaroids, which i tend to loose a lot, or in the worst of luck gets stolen from my car! I had a bag with over 100 pics of me with twins, and some person broke in my car and stole my bag, which only had my collection of pics of me with twins :( Also, i do not value celeb pics much, unless the celeb is Officer Dooley!
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Woot, what a big question. I'm originally from Italy and i live in Sf, so why do i own a house in Cleveland? That is bit of a story. I have been coming to Cleveland quite regularly for many years, and for a long time I would sleep on Steve's couch and then when Steve moved i used to stay at Paula (who now help me running this house). I used to always say to everyone that i love Clevland, and people asked me if i love it so much why don't i have house. At the time i saved a bit of money to buy myself a new car and replace my 80's ride. This was right in the middle of the housing crisis. I would see properties selling in Cleveland for so little and decided i should use those money to buy myself a house in Cleveland instead of a car. I thought, who cares i don't really drive anyway and i go everywhere by bike. I prepared myself and contacted a real estate agent and explained what i wanted to buy and she asked me to get a letter from a bank that i will have a mortgage. I tried to explain that i was coming with a bag full of money and i just needed to find a house over the xmas break. She did not believe me so i had my bank sending her a letter to tell her that i do have the money i claimed i had (really, not much money). When i came to Cleveland she came to Paula's place and she took me to see a few houses. She said she was concerned that the houses i wanted to see were all in dangerous areas and i should consider something in Sandusky instead. The day after visiting few houses she called me to tell me that she realized i was not going to buy a house but i was probably using her to scout houses to steal the copper pipes, and she dropped me as a customer. I looked online and found Sandy, the best real estate agent who answer on xmas day. I explained to her i was in town for like 4 days and i needed to find a house and i had the money to pay in cash. She had no questions, asked for some houses i was checking for reference and invited me to eat chicken papricash at the club house in Parma. She took me to see a couple of houses and i told her one seemed fine to me. She told me that i had 2 more days in the city and she could find a better place for less. Two days after she took me to the house that i now own, which is identical to the other house i was interested, just in better condition and did not have a cheap remodel done to it, so that i could fix it in a way i liked. Looking back, probably the first real estate wasn't thinking so wrong since i was going around looking like a complete nut. There were several feet of snow and i had sandals on all the time and i explained her that i did not own a pair of shoes. I bought the house, but unfortunately it took days to close the sale, so i sent Greg and Paula to get the keys and let me know how the house was doing. In those few days someone did stole the copper pipes in the house, off course, just not me.
For those who are interested. I received a few suggestions on how to improve the place, so i did some fixing around the house. The first thing people will notice is the light in the edelweiss. For the past 3 months it was broken, no light and no fan. I opened it up and replaced the switches, so now light and fan works! If you go in the prayer room, i started mounting the 3d Jesuses and i added a nice red lightbulb for a better lighting. I replaced the blinds in the bedroom and in the kitchen as the old ones were broken. I set up the colored lights in the living room. I moved the puff fish out of the doorway so that giant people above 5'4" will not hit their head, and put a new thing to hit your head instead. I cleaned up a bunch of the cabling in the kitchen so the tv area is less messy. I added old noir movies on the tv. I moved the towels to the bathroom and added a small table in there. I installed a couple of new faces in the bedroom. I defrosted the freezer and did a lot of cleaning left and right. I bought a coffee table for the edelweiss and a shoe shelf. I built a weird shelf out of a bass guitar and shoved on it a projector to watch movies full wall in the bedroom. Added a roku to drive the projector. I created a unique roku channel that can only be seen from the roku boxes in the apartment and i am slowly populating it with content. I got the organ up the stairs, so now there is a real organ! I took the tip money and refilled and improved the selection at the bar.
Special thanks to Shanon for adding a superb Gin to the bar and to Kimberly for leaving me some nice IPA. Also thanks to whoever left the tequila and the fancy beers in the fridge. And the most important, I added a poodle to the poodle display. Here is me with Tammy's portrait Well you are going to step into my private place and into my private life, so I can let Oingo Boingo explain it. As you will see even them had praying items on the walls.
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AuthorDavide is the owner of #davidestropicalpradise an unrated tropical destination in the west heart of west Cleveland Archives
December 2017
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