Famous people you've met.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Serial killer John Wayne Gacy - went to high school with my Mom, was at our house for dinner 11 days before his arrest.

Actor Dennis Farina - his sister married into my family.

Actor James Garner - at the Indy 500. He was in a golf cart. I would not have recognized him, but he sort of ran over my foot with the golf cart and apologized profusely. It was the voice that tipped me off.

Actress/singer Ann Jillian - when she was singing at a Chicago nightclub where my Mom tended bar.

Actress Marlee Matlin - went to college with her for one semester. I almost flunked a class because I was busy watching her sign language interpreter instead of paying attention to the teacher.

Most of the Chicago Bears Super Bowl season team - I waitressed in the Lake County Illinois area, where they train. One of my co-workers was the daughter of then offensive coordinator, Ed Hughes.

Coach Mike Ditka - my sister’s best friend is his goddaughter, and the Ditkas lived in the neighborhood.

Disc jockey Larry Lujack (“Superjock”) - I babysat for his stepson once, and he popped in occasionally at the college radio station where I did gopher work.

Meat Loaf - won backstage passes to one of his concerts

George Thorogood - ditto. He has the biggest hands I have ever seen.

SF/F authors and illustrators and assorted other associated people - Harry Harrison, Richard & Wendy Pini, Suzette Hayden Elgin, Peter Laird, Richard Knaak

Actor Tom Baker (Dr. Who) - drunk and obnoxious, he puked in an elevator I was on

Actor/disc jockey Danny Bonaduce - when he was DJing in Chicago, I met him several times. I have some family in the radio business, so I know more DJs than any normal person, but aside from Lujack and Bonaduce, no one outside the Chicago area probably ever heard of them. I think my sister dated about a quarter of Chicago’s on-air personalities.

Comedian Gallagher - complete jerk

Comedian Dennis Miller - at the same show I met Gallagher. He was quiet and not-quite-abrupt, but not friendly.

Pop band Bowling For Soup - at a meet-and-greet session after one of their shows. Nice guys.

Other musicians - There’s a huge number of musicians in my family, and I used to date a security guy at a concert venue, so I got to meet loads of people in the business - Dennis DeYoung & Tommy Shaw of Styx, Patty Smythe (formerly with Scandal, now I think married to John McEnroe), Cliff Johnson of Off-Broadway USA, Boy George… I’ll remember more as soon as I hit “submit”, I’m sure. Also, loads of local musicians. One I knew pretty well moved to Florida and apparently has a thriving career as an Elvis impersonator.

The highlight of my celebrity meetings - Eddie Izzard (swoon!)

42

See, I knew, as soon as I hit “submit” I’d remember more:

Oprah Winfrey and Senator Paul Simon.

43

Mojo Nixon who doesn’t put on an act as much as he just display’s himself and I still want my $20.00 back!.

Leon Redbone who walked into the radio station where I used to work (his interviewer was running late).

Adrian Belew hung out with me for a couple of hours on my radio show once.

T. Shaun Shannon (the comedian) used to work the comedy club next door to the pool hall where I worked (he drove a Datsun B-210 hatchback painted up like the “General lee”).

Thea Vidale (the comedienne) worked at the same comedy club.

Billy Ocean, I worked security for him at an amusement park years ago (trying to keep the teenage girls off of him, oddly enough he didn’t like that).

I worked security for The Moody Blues (Justin Hayward is nice).

Unclviny

44

Wow, some impressive stuff here. I’ve got almost nothing.
I TA’ed for Wolfgang Haken one semester. (Maybe the math geeks will know who that is.) And I could have taken a Poli Sci class from Paul Wellstone, but I didn’t.

45

Most of the people I’ve met were in the Canadian music industry:

Kim Mitchell
Murray McLauchlan
Kelly Jay (Crowbar)
The Stampeders (Rich Dodson, Ronnie King, Kim Berly)
Bill Henderson (Chilliwack) - at an outdoor festival. We chatted at length about his career and my record collection. He autographed some of my Chilliwack promo singles, and played a couple of songs that I suggested during his set. (“What am I gonna play?”)
Burton Cummings
Ian Thomas
Fraser Loveman (famous in the '60
Paul White (signed The Beatles to Capitol in Canada more than a year before the US division took notice of them
I’ve mixed recordings or done live sound for uncountable people who may have gone on to big things - I didn’t know who they were then, and don’t know if they made it.

I was the tape op for an interview with Tom Waits
I interviewed and smoked a joint with Rick Derringer when I was 17.
Victor Borge (took my mom backstage to meet him after a show. He autographed copy of his first 78-RPM album, and had his picture taken with us)
Stayed for several days in the home of actor Curtis Armstrong in the Hollywood Hills. On that trip, I met:
Zak Nilsson (Harry’s son - went to his house, jammed in his studio, drank his beer)
Andrew Sandoval - compiler and producer of many, many CD reissues from Nilsson to the Monkees to the Beach Boys and more. At his house.
Jim Keltner (most ubiquitous drummer on pop records for >30 years)
Ritchie Schmitt (recording engineer)
Bill Martin (composer, session musician to the stars)
Andrea T. Sheridan (Nilsson historian and liner-note writer)
several actors whose names escape me, who were in “Skidoo” (Otto Preminger movie)

Next month, I’m going to meet Ira Flatow (NPR “Talk Of The Nation Science Friday”) when he comes to the station where I work. (I know… ooh! aah!..)

46

Let’s see… I got autographs from the following:

Mark Martin (very nice guy)
Dale Jarrett
Michael Waltrip
Sterling Marlin (incredibly nice)
Terry Labonte
Jimmy Means (poor guy didn’t even have a pen, guess he never expected someone would ask him)
Lake Speed
Richard Childress

Benny Parsons was too busy to give me one when I asked, apparently.

While I’ve never been directly introduced or anything, I have been standing in the eRupption Zone at a UK game with Ashley Judd.

I’ve had classes with a couple of UK basketball players, and I’ve met/spoken with Tubby Smith. My buddies and I once got former UK player Gerald Fitch’s car towed (he had it parked on a handicapped sidewalk cutout at our apartment complex.) Also met former player Travis Ford on two occasions.

A friend of mine saw Kid Rock, Hank Jr. and their posse at a restaurant back home, since Hank’s cabin is not too far away.

47

Tom Wolfe (enjoyable conversation for a few minutes; he was a charming guy)

Bill Cosby (he was pleasant enough, but this was shortly before a show, so he was a BIT curt with everyone, understandably).

Regis Philbin (just before I went on “Millionaire” and failed even to make the Hot Seat; he was nice enough, but again, it was just before showtime, so he was a BIT curt with everyone)

Ted Koppell

Chuck Jones (he signed my copy of “Chuck Amuck,” and I got to tell him that “The Rabbit of Seville” represented the high point in Western cinema)

Tommy Smothers (I was 10 or so, and met him at the TWA terminal at JFK airport; he was very friendly to my brothers and me).

48

Oh… and I haven’t seen the Dixie Chicks in quite some time, but they used to be regulars at Tuesday trivia games at an Irish pub here in Austin. I generally tried to ignore them, because they were usually there with their husbands, friends and relatives, and there was no good reason for me to bother them.

ONCE, just once, I approached Natalie Maines (who was then taking some heat for making disparaging remarks about George W. Bush and the war in Iraq) and told her “there are still a few of us Republicans who like you.”

She gave me an appreciative smile, and I left it at that. I never made any other attempts to talk to any of them.

49

Most of mine are sports related and some are downright humorous…

The late great **Chick Hearn **, legendary TV announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers…at Ceaser’s Palace in Vegas…he was watching us (wife & I) play at a blackjack table and he made some uniformed clinking sounds with his chips, I turned around to see who was doing that and there he was…Whoa! Chicky Baby! Shook his hand (I’m not into autographs), gushed a little, and talked to him. The schlep next to me asked, “Who’s that?” When I told him who he was, the schlep asked about his own beloved Indianapolis Pacers for the season (I think this was in the fall of 1987), and Chick ran down the top 8 players expectations for the team and then said they didn’t have a good chance to make the playoffs. Heh. At that point, I also realized that he was in Vegas doing UNLV games at the time. Ah well, God rest your soul, Chick. I’m glad you’re not around to see the current circlejerk that are the Lakers of 2004-2005.

New Year’s Day (or was it Eve?), 1999…My son’s hockey team had a tournament in the north part of L.A., and the team we played against had a kid whose dad was Luc Robitaille. Great guy…I shook his hand (but my kid got his hockey stick autographed by him) and gushed as usual. I’ve seen Luc lots of times (along with **Gretzky, McSorley, Hrudy, Granato, Blake, etc.**before in the tunnel from the lockerroom to the ice between periods screaming and cheering the LA Kings onto the ice with my oldest son on my shoulders (he was about 4 or 5 at the time). Anyways, we watched the kids play the game and chatted for a few minutes, and I wished him good luck on getting his 500th goal which he got 8 or 9 days later versus Buffalo.

Now, this is funny.
My wife and I, my brother and my best friend were on another gambling binge, except this was at Lake Tahoe, at Harrah’s or Cesears. Wifey, Bro and BF were playing blackjack and I was playing at some other table and some other game. I looked up and noticed some big guys (that looked vaguely familiar) walking in a pack over to the table were my 3 cohorts were. There was some yelling and cursing going on. I told my dealer to deal me out a few times and went over to the other table. It turns out that my brother was arguing with guy next to him about how ugly that Jim Plunkett is and how he sucked so badly throughout his career (even though he did win 2 Super Bowls with the Raiders…which means squat to my brother, a die hard Payton and Bears fan), and the guy became livid. Turns out my brother was arguing with one of Plunkett’s linemen. Did that matter to my brother? Hell no. He got in his face and egged this guy (Klunkett, Butt-Plug Uglett, etc…my brother was a little ripped and felt a little invincible at the time) on until the pack of other Ex-Raiders (and a few current ones) were hanging around the table (um, Security…we have a situation down here on table 19) …and then we all saw Mr. Plunkett walk into the group of beastly looking dudes and kind of eased the situation a little by saying “Come on guys, John’s party is starting up”. Thank God John Madden’s 50th birthday party was about to start because I didn’t bring any body bags with me on this trip. Never did find out which guy my Bro got verbal with, but I’m glad we didn’t find out through a police or coroner’s report.

I had the unfortunate event of seeing a nekkid sports star. I was coaching and managing my son’s hockey team and we were on the far bench at the Disney Ice Center on the NHL sized rink. Our game followed the Mighty Ducks practice but the team was already in their locker room and nobody else got to see them…except me. Since I was on the farside of the farthest bench, manning the far door, when a puck flipped up out of play, I looked just beyond where the puck landed on the short opposite side of the ice, and saw through the lockerroom door (it was open) and a very buff and nekkid Paul Kariya, combing his hair. Fortunately, it was a side shot. Later on that weekend, we did see the Mighty Ducks run their last practice before flying off to New Jersey to take on the Devils in the Stanley Cup series a couple of years ago. Every time I see Paul Kariya skating on the ice, instead of thinking “great hockey player”, I’m stuck with “Nekkid Hockey Player”. Ack. No handshake for you.
Oh, and there’s Thomas F. Wilson, aka bad guy “Biff Tanner” in the “Back To The Future” Triology…at my best friend’s (same one in Tahoe) wedding…he was from the bride’s side of the party. Shook hands (still not big on autographs) and chatted a little…pretty normal guy. No threats or fighting here…as a matter of fact, good thing my brother wasn’t there, he hated that those movies…and would have let Mr. Wilson know about it.

50

Gary Kasparov

  • definitely a genius, not just at chess. He was a contributing editor to the Wall Street journal and gave a lecture to our History Society.

Derren Brown

  • have you seen his illusionist TV shows in the US? Very pleasant, gave autographs and chatted.
51

My short list of people I’ve had conversations with. ( As opposed to helping in a retail-working capacity)

Martin Mull
John Candy
Carol King
Sam Kinison
Eric Idle
Sally Stuthers
Bill Cosby
Strother Martin

I saw and talked with a ton of others, in the course of my jobs, but these stand out