The Doctor is Not Taking Your Calls

While living in DC, I ran into famous people all the time.  Famous inside the beltway and for politcal wonks, that is.  I even had one of these famous people (well, famous to the MSNBC crowd) as a grad school professor.  After a while, unless the last name was Kennedy, I stopped noticing — or at least no longer bugged out my eyes and looked like The Runaway Bride.  The only time I was remotely dorky and asked for a photo op was in 1999 was when I ran into Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan at Race for the Cure and he’s not exactly known for being a warm and fuzzy guy.

During my short tenure in LA, I’m yet to see an A-lister.  According to US magazine, celebrities are ‘Just Like Us’ and shop at my neighborhood grocery store or hangout at the beach not far from my apartment… of course they do it when I’m not there. Instead, I’ve been relegated to celebrities people no longer care about (ie Donna Someone from Knots Landing, the morally-deficient father from One Tree Hill, and a few guys who were regulars on Buffy the Vampire Slayer).  I take that back.  Lindsey Lohan almost side swiped my car earlier this year at a four-way stop.  This was post-rehab and coincided with her attendance at traffic school in Santa Monica.  True story. 

If the world actually cared about the “famous” folk I run into, I’d actually see papparazzi while shopping at my local Banana Republic.  But real celebrities don’t shop at Banana Republic, do they?  And since I don’t walk around with a coffee IV, the chance of running into them at Starbucks is pretty slim.  

My uncle, on the other hand, has a pretty sweet set up.  Once upon a time, he purchased land in St. George, Utah.  The plan was to build a home following his retirement, a place that was close to his in-laws, but nature being as it is, his in-laws passed away.  He still planned to move to St. George, however, because the area was growing, was next to a college, and has great weather.  The plot of land was in a gated community and continued to appreciate.  Life was looking good.

On a recent visit to their plot o’ land they noticed a few orange or pink flags in the yard, courtesy of their backyard neighbor.  Builders has erroneousy marked his property and were in the process of putting up a fence or laying sod or something 5 feet into my uncle’s property.  This, of course, struck a nerve because let’s face it: property is expensive, especially property next to this particular neighbor.  My aunt, being both an attorney and a physical therapist, made her way over to the neighbor’s house to point out the problem.  It should be noted that this neighbor has a full basketball court, which is surrounded by a high fence.  He is tall.  VERY tall.  He keeps to himself.  He lives in a gated community and his house is worth, say, a couple million.  At this point you have to wonder: who IS this guy?  How many ginormously tall and very private millionaires live in Southern Utah anyway?

Upon meeting the aforementioned neighbor, my uncle was dumbstruck to discover that the man was none other than (drum roll, please): Julius Erving… the great Dr. J!  I would like to point out how unfair it is that my uncle has a history of meeting famous people in the most random places: like Larry Doby and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters (While those meetings both occurred in the mid-1960s, that’s quite the coup and pretty random since they were all living in Mexico at the time — but for different reasons, obviously).  Having former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) stare freely at your chest while walking through the basement of the Capitol Building doesn’t even come close!

Thanks to the economy, it turns out that my uncle can’t afford to build on his own lot and is therefore trying his darndest to sell it to Dr. J as the good doctor would like to build a place for his mother-in-law.  But, apparently, the doctor isn’t taking his calls.