INFORMANT:

Dave works for a big corporation and they are all grabbing drinks one night..

Dave is a name dropper

He claims to know everyone

Pretty much every you can know who is famous

Dave knows them

They go out grabbing drinks and his boss calls him out : “there is no way you know everybody.. Ill make it easy for you since we are going back to LA tomorrow lets go hang out with tom cruise since you know tom cruise .

They fly back to LA, they get off the plane.. on the first day of work… his boss goes “if you have a minute let’s go back to Tom Cruises Place .

They get up to the Gate at Tom Cruises place, the boss is  in the drivers seat.. rolls down the window

The security guard says “sorry sir this is a private residence. “

Dave leans over and goes: “O hey Johnny hows your day going”

The security guard says DAVE! Holy shit you should have told me you were coming

The gate rolls open. And sure enough tom cruise comes out of the house walks up to dave and gives him a secret handshake.

They grab a couple drinks together… and the boss wants to leave because dave proved his point and he thinks he got lucky.

Next day at work the boss says to dave

“I got a person you definitely don’t know”

“just to prove my point this weekend me and you are flying on a company jet to DC. Lets see if you know barrack Obama.

Dave is Down and his boss thinks he’s bluffing

Friday evening they pack their bags and fly to Washington DC. They go to the white house where Barack Obama is giving a press conference, Obama is answering all these questions and when he finishes he sees Dave in the Back, he tells the Secret service: “Holy shit Dave is here its fucking dave!”

Secret service guy goes up to dave and dave says Holy shit Larry I haven’t seen you in forever.

Larry says common back smoke a cigar in the back yard with barrack.

Dave says : can my boss come?

Larry the secret service guy says: Of course a Friend of Dave is a friend Of barracks.

They get to the Back, Barack and dave are catching up on old times but barrack is a busy guy so he finishes his cigar and he tells dave: don’t be a stranger, you should come back more often but I have to fly off to japan, So dave and his boss fly back to LA

On the plane the boss tells dave :

“This is ridiculous how do you know the president of the united States.

Dave says: We used to play basketball together in High School

Well how do you know Tom Cruise >

I used to date Tom cruises sister.

The boss says alright.

Next weekend we are settling this

We are going international

There is no way you know the POPE.

They go saint peter’s Basilica the next weekend for mass

The pope is on the Balcony, Dave and his boss are in the audience.

Dave goes: There is just way too many people out here he is not going to see me out here. Im going to go tell Giovanii i’m here

Boss: who is Giovanni ?

Dave says he is a security guard.

The boss is down there waiting for the mass to start while dave is going up to find the pope.

Dave goes up there and does his thing with the POPE

Comes back down real quick cause mass is coming up shortly

Dave comes back to the spot where he left his Boss. And the boss is on a stretcher getting taken away, he’s unconscious

Dave goes “ Shit what the Hell Happened?

One of the random people goes, All I said was who is the guy in the funny hat hanging out with dave and your boss feinted.

 

 

Tyler Sheets is a grad student at the University of Southern California, Gould School of Law. He grew up in Hawaii and has lived in a wide range of places from Denver to Kansas, to Hawaii to San Diego to Amsterdam. He is a surprisingly good story teller and writes as a hobby. This specific story he says was heard at the law school.

 

Not much strikes the eye immediately, but I think this can be seen as an account of a culture that is obsessed with celebrity and hates name droppers or show offs. I have spent too much time hearing people talk about how they met someone famous. For some reason our culture is happy seeing people they see on tv in real life, getting to know them would be one thing, but saying hi and snapping a picture suffices. The boss represents the care people give to celebrity, as if dave proving his coolness and his knowing them, while dave is represented as more famous in the end and as someone who doesn’t really care about celebrity but rather revels in it without need. Furthermore i found the hierachy of celebrity intersting. Tom Cruise from Hollywood, to The leader of the “Free world ” to the Pope