Greatness Rides a Two-Wheeler

Last evening, at photogenic dusk, I was crossing the street as a man in a dark Polo shirt chugging along on a bike was proceeding up Broadway. As he neared, the cyclist raised his hand slightly so that I would pause long enough for him to pass and I recognized that hand gesture and then the man making it: it was Alec Baldwin, out for a Sunday evening bike tour. His raised hand had a nod of recognition in it, a mild hello, and I wondered if Baldwin had somehow recognized me from Vanity Fair and was acknowledging my existence. After all, I had done an entire column in tribute to him, so perhaps he was sending some professional respect back, giving me his priestly blessing, his benediction.

No, more likely he was saying with his hand, "Let's try not to crash into each other, OK pal?" It would have been the gentlest of collisions, given the rate at which he was biking and I was walking, but it would have glitched up his momentum and forced him to start pedaling again from scratch.

Still, it's a shame we didn't have time to talk as our tugboats passed in the dusk because I'm sure Alec Baldwin has some juicy opinions to share about the momentous ass-implosion of the Murdoch Empire. Ah, well, perhaps another time.

I want to take this near-brush with stardom as the opportunity to mention that for some inscrutable reason I will be attending Comic Con this week on behalf of her Majesty's Secret Service (my code phrase for Vanity Fair). I was planning to attend dressed as Prince Valiant in honor of the lavish reprints of Hal Foster's classic, which I'm collecting, but was told I wouldn't be allowed to bring my "singing sword" on the plane, so there went that idea. So I guess I'll just go as "me," letting others provide the color and dash.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/07/last-evening-at-photogenic-dusk.html

Prince William Charles Mountbatten-Windsor Prince Charles Camilla Mountbatten-Windsor Duchess of Cornwall