Jay Leno, Bob Einstein (Super Dave Osborne) and Georgia Engel called me about my book when I was writing it.
I’ve chatted with James “Rosco P. Coltrane” Best & Victoria Jackson on AOL.
Among my Facebook friends is a somewhat well known voice actress and singer. I won’t name-drop but the characters she’s played tend to be pink.
I was chatting with someone last night that I have been playing scrabble with. she informed me she was a very famous person. I didn’t believe her so she called me on video chat. She messaged me first thing this morning and we have been talking all morning. Not sure what to think, I still suspect it is some kind of trick but she is very nice. No flirting just talking.
I corresponded a few times with a Nigerian prince. He stopped when I wouldn’t send the $500 he needed to deposit $20,000 in my checking account. Seemed like a cool guy.
I sent an email to Scott Meyer (author of Basic Instructions) complementing a particularly funny comic and didn’t expect a reply. He answered the next day! Seems to genuinely be a nice guy.
http://www.basicinstructions.net/
So is she famous?
Have you heard of Christopher Moore, the author of numerous humorous novels? Yeah, so have I. Years ago I saw a book on the shelf written by Christopher G. Moore who it turns out is a different Christopher Moore. He has a character who is an expat from the US, living in Thailand where he works as a private detective (excellent books, check them out).
I wrote a review after reading some of Moore’s work and he replied! We chatted a bit about this and that.
Michael Dormer was an artist with impeccably cool credentials (e.g., the Hot Curl statue in La Jolla, CA and the 1967-68 children’s TV series Shrimpenstein! seen locally in LA). Back in early 2012, it fell to me to check some references to Shrimpenstein! for accuracy, so I found Mr. Dormer’s website and emailed. Mr. Dormer emailed back a couple weeks later. Along with clarifying the references, he said he still had the original Shrimpenstein puppet (which he had restored) and wished he could tour with it in the Shrimpmobile - a customized 1968 Camaro created to promote the show - to provide folks with a real “blast from the past” (a phrase he claimed he invented in the late 1950s.)
I was very saddened to read his obituary six months later.
Oh darn. But it wasn’t the Queen.
For a certain level of celebrity, I’ve found it easy to get a response on Twitter if you’re respectful, original, or just timely. I’ve had some replies from very responsive people like Tim Omundson and Duncan Jones. I did get a couple of replies from heroes of mine like Frank Oz, Ade Edmondson, and Adam Hughes. I try not to fawn over any of them, I’d rather we talk as human beings, or try to make them laugh. The dream is to work with them and befriend or at least discuss things on that level.
But having said that, I don’t know if they’d count as conversations so much as acknowledgements no more special than a handshake.
(1) For you Mad Magazine folks, remember Leonard Brenner? He was the longtime art director of the magazine. When he retired the magazine did not acknowledge his departure. I wrote a letter to then chief editor Nick Meglin protesting Brenner’s lack of recognition. John Ficarra responded in writing explaining that Brenner did not want any acknowledgement. Ficarra obviously looked me up as a subscriber because he went on to thank me for my 20+ years of subscribing.
(2) I once sent an effusive note to author Paul Aaron. He responded with a gracious note as well.
(3) More recently. I had occasion to send an e-mail information request to aviation artist Joe Milich. He responded by answering my inquiry and then wrote at length about the decline of “old world” print reproduction techniques. He also said he regretted agreeing to sign all the prints people ordered. Wore out his hand he said.
I don’t know if it counts, but I’ve gotten replies from some of my tweets to people like Kris Letang, Daniel Carcillo and Brent Johnson. Really brief ones, but it was pretty fucking cool.
(A couple of others, but probably only local Dopers have heard of them)
Back when I was funny, Shelley Berman, Larry David’s dad on Curb Your Enthusiasm, liked my email so much he asked if I had ten minutes to tour with him. I didn’t.
Novelist and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs was one of my professors and I did research for a number of her books, but I bored enough of you with that.already.
When writer Harry Turtledove started his Twitter account a few months ago, I corresponded with him about how we had met at a mutual friend’s Christmas party one year, although I told him I was sure he would have no idea who I am. We corresponded personally for a while, then just in general since his started using his account.
I am a shooting enthusiast. There is a very popular (in shooting enthusiast circles) YouTube guy that does a lot of very informative and fun videos on various vintage and modern firearms. I really enjoyed his videos and watched pretty much all of them. Then one night he posted a video that crossed a line for me and IMHO revealed what he was really about. I posted a reply to his YT channel and he replied to my post almost immediately. I replied to his reply and he deleted the whole exchange. Haven’t been back since.
I am facebook friends with a guy who was in The Fall. Of course, many, many people have been in The Fall.
Your a Farker??
Was. …
Jack klugman would probably be the most famous person I communicated with regularly. I used to pick horses for him to bet on. He was convinced that I was a top handicapper as he had pretty good luck with my picks.
I didn’t initiate the interaction, but I once received a bug report from Linus Torvald about a piece of software I wrote. We had a short conversation about it.