We went to the Ikea in East Palo Alto, and afterwards went to Palo Alto for lunch. Mr. brown remembered that the Zuckerbergs lived in an area near the freeway, so we turned off into that neighborhood, saying, hey, maybe we’ll see Mark, har har. I was actually really only counting the number of giant mature redwoods that were in the neighborhood (lots), and we passed a couple out for a stroll. Mr. brown stared for a second and said, “that’s Mark and his wife.” I looked and by george it was. There’s no mistaking Mark Zuckerberg; he looks like Data with blue eyes. They were just out having a walk at noon in their beautiful neighborhood, and I didn’t see any evidence of bodyguards in black SUVs anywhere, either.
One always wonders about people like this.
Like do they go to the grocery store in their sweatpants and tees like us mortals? Or do they have people that do this stuff for them?
If I were that rich I’d be too paranoid to go anywhere without a security detail.
I saw Ballmer once at the Tully’s coffee in Medina. He was wearing a ratty polo shirt and some non descript baggy shorts. My kids remarked “he dresses worse than you do, Dad.”
I have literally run into Steve Ballmer at the local large supermarket in Bellevue. He was obviously on the phone with his wife making sure he was buying the right thing.
As we approached them from behind, he did turn his head to kind of check out the car that was passing them. It looked like an automatic safety move on his part.
Years ago, we also saw Bill Gates. We were at a big seafood restaurant on the Olympic Peninsula, and there was a largish family at a group table. As my husband came out of the restroom, he locked eyes with the older guy at the head of the table - it was Bill Gates, and Bill looked apprehensive at being recognized. But Mr. brown quickly looked away and came to our table to tell me who it was. I surreptitiously glanced over, and yep it was him. Again, I saw no security detail. But that doesn’t mean there were no bodyguards in the parking lot or dining covertly at a nearby table.
I think the probability that Mark Zuckerburg has lookalike androids walking around as a security decoy is 1%. But if he does have such androids, he has at least 1000 of them.
Therefore it is more likely that the Zuckerburg you saw was an android.
That’s clever of him! Then he also has 1000 android Mrs. Zuckerbergs, 'cause we saw and recognized her too.
Unless she prefers the company of one of the androids.
Mrs. solost and I saw Bob Seger’s youngest son taking a walk a month or two ago (my wife happens to know what he looks like because he bears a resemblance to our youngest son, and she pointed him out). I think we were in the neighborhood looking for a garage sale or something. Though Seger lives in a big, beautiful house, the surrounding neighborhood is surprisingly ordinary-- middle to upper middle class. Yes, merely celebrity-adjacent, but it’s kind of cool that Bob Seger lives just a couple miles from us, and we might run into him at the store or something one day.
A local park does free outdoor concerts in the summers, and this past July we saw a Bob Seger tribute band. We were hoping Mr. Seger himself might show up out of curiosity, since the park is literally a mere mile from his house-- maybe join in on a song or two, that would’ve been fun. But if he was there, he stayed low profile.
Who actually walks around with an entourage of bodyguards/security? Besides American politicians and Russian oligarchs…
David Bowie used to take the subway all the time. He carried a Greek newspaper and nobody bothered him.
Elon Musk?
I used to work with a woman whose son lived in the Twin Cities. One day, he was at the grocery store, and saw a short, skinny, light-skinned black man in a T-shirt, blue jeans, and flip flops in the produce department, inspecting oranges. When he checked out, he said to the cashier, “I think I saw Prince in here!” S/he replied, “You probably did; he lives in the neighborhood and comes in here all the time.”
I guess we didn’t mention American oligarchs that wished they were Russian oligarchs.
When I was at the University of Georgia in the very late '80s, it was drummed into every new student that if you saw Stipe or Bill Berry or one of the other guys from R.E.M around Athens, you acted cool and didn’t fanboy. I never saw any of them, but friends did - Athens was and is a small city, so there was a decent chance of running into Peter Buck or Mike Mills in a grocery store or café or coffee shop.
As we were given to understand, the band valued Athens because it was a place where they could live regular lives; and somehow they engineered a citywide conspiracy to help them maintain that lifestyle.
Once upon a time, I knew where Hakeem Olajuwon (the ex-Houston Rockets basketball player) lived. One day going to lunch with my work buddies I drove past his house, and he was out for a walk! We slowed down a little and he kind of glared at us… so we took off.
I’ve been an R.E.M. fan since “Chronic Town” and have never made a “pilgrimage” (ba-dump) to Athens, but I have always heard that too. Peter Buck relocated to Seattle many years ago and people left him alone there too, even though it was no secret where he lived (next door to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love) and after he had his twins, people definitely followed that unwritten rule about celebrities, where if they are eating and/or with their children, leave them alone.
When Julia Roberts was married to Lyle Lovett, he performed in Des Moines on a Saturday night, and that morning, they visited the farmer’s market. You bet people knew who they were - not many people look like Lyle Lovett, that’s for sure - and they totally left them alone.
Meb Keflezighi is a marathon runner who is not a household name in most areas, but he is in mine due to his affiliation with a large road race, and he also lived in San Diego for many years. My sister has too, and while she didn’t know exactly where he lived, she did know it was near her because more than once, she saw him running in the park where she walked her dogs.
Me. I do. I’m very famous and popular.
Meb is a legend! I’ve never met him, but he has a long association with the Peachtree Road Race (one year he raised $30,000 for the Atlanta Track Club’s Kilometer Kids program by starting dead last; people donated for every person he passed during the race). He has the reputation of being a very nice person.
By virtue of volunteering at the PRR, I have met other Olympians and Paralympians like the wheelchair racer Tatiana McFadden and the ultramarathoner Jackie Merritt. Most have been approachable and friendly; I suspect it’s a function of competing in a niche sport, so not having the same pressures of fame as, say, Tom Brady.
One of my favorite runners is a marathoner name Bernard Lagat. In 2017, he was 5th overall at the PRR, and first master (over 40). I was volunteering with the Elite Athlete Hospitality, so I watched him cross the finish line. The other elites crossed the line and headed to the hospitality room, for water and massages and such. But Lagat jogged down the finishing area, shaking hands and thanking all the volunteers handing out bananas and Powerades. Hr was incredibly gracious afterwards, taking selfies and talking to everyone who approached him, and made a point of thanking the Track Club and the volunteers in his victory speech.
I once sat in front front of Lou Reed in a SoHo movie theater - the first Bourne flick, I think it was. I mean, I didn’t sit right in front of him, because he’s pretty short and I’m pretty tall and I didn’t want to block his view of the screen. Little old man in a black T-shirt and glasses. My wife, who was a huge fangirl of his, started freaking out, but we’d been living in Manhattan long enough by then to know that we were supposed to freak out quietly without the celeb noticing. It was pretty cool.
I don’t think that rich people in the US have much of a problem with security when they’re out in public with a large group of random people around. The main danger they face is being kidnapped and held for ransom or being forced to reveal passwords that would allow people to access their wealth, and the more random people there are around the less likely someone is going to be able to drag them away successfully. It’s not like they have a ton of their wealth carried around with them at any time, and it’s hard to credibly threaten people when there a ton of spectators.
Going where there aren’t all that many other people around - that’s a bit more dangerous.