J Mascis Is Living All Over Me!

So I'm sitting at the Green Bean today (the Green Bean is one of my favorite brunch spots in the Valley - which is saying something in a valley that is, for some reason, stuffed to the rafters with great brunch spots) (I know valleys don't have rafters, but it'd be funny if they did, no?) and who walks in but J Mascis, lead singer of influential alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. He was accompanied by a lady whom I assume was his wife and a baby whom I assume was his baby.


How do I know it was J Mascis? Am I some sort of obsessive Dinosaur Jr fan who knows not only what every band member looks like, but also where they live, what they drive, when they graduated high school, and what time they take their dogs for a walk? No. In fact, I don't even own a single Dinosaur Jr album, although I'm familiar enough with their music and keep meaning to get around to downloading their highly-regarded album You're Living All Over Me. No, I know it was J Mascis because I once saw a picture of him, and he looks like this:



Mascis is the one in front


This, you will agree, is not a look that one encounters very often, and, having seen it once, it's pretty hard to mistake him for anyone else. Even in hippie-saturated NoHo.


The funny thing is, this is actually the second time I've seen Mascis since I moved here, the first time being a couple of months ago on the very same block as he scanned the menu of the new noodle restaurant in town. I'm convinced that J Mascis does nothing but wander back and forth along the same block of downtown NoHo, eating at the same three or four restaurants, pushing a stroller containing a baby that may or may not be his, and remaining completely unrecognized by his fellow NoHoites. Of course, he probably thinks the same about me.


The Valley, in fact, is awash in celebrities, past and present. Robert Frost lived here, of course, as did Emily Dickinson, Calvin Coolidge, and Sylvester Graham (inventor of the Graham Cracker). Since I moved here, I have also run into Jonathan Harr, author of A Civil Action and The Lost Painting, in NoHo - also twice, both times in coffee shops. I have yet, however, to come across the Valley's newest celebrity, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, although I remain hopeful.


In fact, I'm hoping to run into Mascis, Harr, and Maddow all at once, perhaps all out drinking at the Dirty Truth or getting burritos at Bueno Y Sano. I would walk up to them without a hint of fear or trepidation and invite them over to my place for cookies and board games. Which reminds me - I need to get some cookies. And board games.