I don’t know Dean Cain in any sort of biblical sense. he went to my high school for one year and we were on a sports team together. He wouldn’t know who I am, but then again, I’m not hosting “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”.
I had a professor/advisor in college who is regarded as “The Worlds Foremost Expert on High Impact Projectile Mining.”
My father has had several articles on sunspots and their corresponding electromagnetic interference…or it might have been solar flares, I don’t recall.
One of my distant uncles on my fathers side has some sort of Mathematical theorem or correlary named after him, though I don’t know who or what 
My mothers family is distantly related to Rembrandt (van Rijn).
As for myself, I’ve been told, quite often and always when in Cleveland, that I look almost exactly like Jim Thome. In my defense, I’ve got smaller ears. Also, I was one of forty Marine Corps Reservist nationwide selected to try out for the Marine Corps Rifle and/or Pistol Teams, two years in a row (I missed rifle by a bunchpby 3 points).
Since others were doing the 7-degrees thing, my best friend met Mr. Bacon in Vegas a few years ago.
I’m the only SQA guy in our company to know both Segue and Rational testing software platforms, and I’ve been with the Practive for less than a year (read: I’ve been doing software testing much less than a year).
Let’s see, there’s got to something else…I’d be willing to wager I’m the only, or am among an extreme minority, of Dopers who have driven a NASCAR (at Atlanta).
Since my previous post contained a pathetically low celebrity count, as compared with previous posts…
Terry Jones of Monty Python sent me a letter in October. I was working in the Alumni office of St. Edumnd Hall, Oxford; Jones is an Old Member of the Hall.
I was walking to my college at Oxford (Jesus) in 1996 to pick up my mail. A limo pulled up about ten feet in front of me, and four bodyguards climbed out, letting out a tall, distinguished man. That man was Nelson Mandela.
Last month, I met Penn and Teller! I got pictures too!
I ran into two members of Tortoise after attending their show in Osaka, Japan. They were wandering the streets, totally lost. So I and my friends helped them find their hotel. We got some beer and hung out in their hotel room, watching their home videos from their tour of Australia and talked about some Japanese movie where the female lead lays an egg.
And it occurred to me afterwards that they were the rock stars, but we bought all the beer…?
Shook hands with Kim Deel outside 9:30 Club in DC before a Breeders show. She said she was Kelly, but when the show started there was only one of them on stage. Although I could be mistaken. She was really kooky and hadn’t bathed for quite some time.
Stood about ten feet from Bruce Willis when I was working at King’s Dominion (like every other kid in Central Virginia).
Met Japanese pop sensation Dreams Come True when they played a $5 show in DC (unheard of in Japan). A friend of mine f\got me into the pre-show party where everyone got catered guacamole except the band…they just got a stack of posters to sign.
My great uncle helped develop the loudspeaker.
Can’t think of any more. Mouthbreather, what was Dean Ween like? Did you guys Scotchguard together?
And if you look on page 193 of the February 2001 issue of British Cosmopolitan, my face is blurred in the background right in the center of the ANA flight attendant recruitment ad. They made me comb my hair and everything and I barely got in the picture.
I met Adam West at a car show when I was a kid. Got an autographed picture of him wearing the batsuit.
Na-na na-na na-na na-na na! Batman!
well…
I lost 2 different trivia contests on National TV!!!
One in 1988, one in 2000.
Also…
I have some real fun stories about some really famous people (See I worked in the production team of the Istanbul Feastival for 12 years):
Wynton Marsalis: One night after a gig in the city, when he was in his hotel room with a fan(!), I called him up at 3:00 a.m. to go to an all-night-open restaurant.
The fun part is: He immediately came down to join us!!!
Carlos Santana: Not a personal experience exactly, but its true: During the show, while he played guitar solos, he would check the girls dancing in the orchestra pit right in front of the stage! He had 2 shows and 2 girls that we had to give backstage passes to. Only one of the girls spent the entire night with him.
The fun part is: The girl was on vacation - coming all the way from Argentina - and…her fiancee had to spend all night in the lobby waiting for her to come down!!!
Chris De Burgh: He came to Istanbul after a show in Athens, and a Greek “fan” had also joined the touring party.
The fun part: THere was a promotion dinner sponsored by his record company, and because this “fan” thing was against his image but he insisted on bringing her along, no press was allowed in the promotion dinner!!
The Scorpions: Klaus Meine (the singer) tried to relieve himself in the bathroom of the Stadium they would soon perform, but when he saw that there was no toilet seat (you know you have to squat over a hole in a traditional turkish toilet) he couldn’t do it.
The fun part: I worked with Scorpions for 5 days - 2 shows - and the only words I spoke with a band member was this: “Klaus, you should have shit at the hotel!”
Marthe Graham: Anyone know her? The famous choreographer?
When her dance company came here for a performance she was with them too, and I guided her on a city tour.
The fun part: She was 92 years old, semi-blind and I had to push her wheelchair everywhere!!!
I sat on the lap of Erin Moran at a telethon.
I got a peck on the cheek from Miss America, 1980.
My wife would laugh at this because our “in joke” is that whenever we point out these obscurities, the other one says," You’re famous."
I (and a group of fellow American kids living in London) did some crowd noises that were dubbed into the movie "Won Ton Ton, the Dog That Saved Hollywood. (1975)
I met David Letterman in a health food store (1982). He was very nice and took a few minutes to speak to me. I was and am a HUGE fan.
I had garage passes to the NASCAR race at Watkins Glen in 1997. I rubbed elbows with Dale Earnhardt, Ernie Irvan, Robert Yates, and many others. Most were very nice and very friendly.
George Plimpton spoke at my high school graduation (1978).
People I have seen on the street in NYC: Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland, Joseph Campanella, Bernie Koppell.
I saw Jackson Browne in JFK Airport in 1999.
I am friends with screenwriter Lem Dobbs (The Limey, The Hard Way, Kafka, Dark City). He introduced me to Briget Fonda.
Gee, I’m famous.
OK, if we’re going for Batman stuff, I have to mention that I interviewed ** Burt Ward ** live on local radio in a promotion at a car dealership where he was the star attraction, in ** Robin **costume and everything. This was back in 1977 or so and he was aready a bit bitter about being reduced to do personal appearances at car dealerships in small Oregon towns.
I can’t believe that I forgot the defining moment of my life! Steve Wozniak replied not once but twice to emails I sent him! Howzat!
Obscure Canadian references? You want obscure Canadian references?
Okay…
My entire family and I once had dinner at Ed Broadbent’s house in Ottawa when I was a kid. (My mother worked with him in the elections in the seventies.) This is where I discovered Asterix books.
My best friend and I rode an elevator with Ben Wicks. My friend and I had just been swimming and I did not have my contact lenses on, so everything was a blur for me. When we got out of the elevator, my friend said, “Do you realise who that was?”
I said, “No. I can’t see anything!”
“Ben Wicks…”
Angangaaq Lyberth once gave me a ride from the Bancroft area to Belleville, Ontario. (Note: Northern Canadian reference.)
Due to an introduction by an acquaintance, I spent a few hours one pleasant Saturday in approximately 1990 at Nash the Slash’s apartment. He introduced me to the music of Sheila Chandra and Monsoon. For which I thank him. And I still don’t remeber what he looks like; he was completely unremarkable in appearance. (For the uninitiated, he performed always with bandages over his face, and it was a bit of a game to try to find an actual photograph of him.)
An acquaintance has stayed at Starhawk’s house. Due to this acquaintance, I met Starhawk very briefly at Bioneers '99.
Non-Canadian obscurity:
I’ve traded email a couple of times with Bertilo Winnergren, the drummer for the Swedish band Persone (and also a expert HTML-slinger).
My great-grandfather and his brother were on the English cricket team which toured Australia in the 1880s (which tour led to the establishment of the Test series). In spite of this ancestral expertise, I have not yet understood cricket.
And lastly,
My sister lives in Roberta Bondar’s home town. Okay, that’s reaching…
I was the first person to tell the world that New Zealand is a country in which, although the populace appears normal and sane and humanitarian, in fact violates human rights in quite disturbing ways. It is a country in which a huge percentage of the work force left school at 14 or younger and in which a lot of people are, quite frankly, embarrassed by education, or at least had their education purposely ruined. It’s a country in which, in stead of short courses of desperately needed sleeping pills or transquillisers (almost banned) women are confined to men’s acute wards of psychiatric hospitals until they promise to give up their childish ways. Women’s physical illnesses are commonly seen as psychiatric and hysteria is a common diagnosis. It’s a country in which nearly 1500 “immigrants” decided to return home last year because they couldn’t get jobs. It’s a country in which experience is required for the most simple jobs and employment agencies ruin people’s lives with demands for this. A very, very questionable country indeed. Remember all this the next time Primaflora or her familiars talk to you.
Great-grandmother scandalized society at the time by having an affair with the then-famous poet Ezra Pound. Grandpa still won’t talk about that.
Japanese emperor waved energetically at me (yes to me - no-one else was around in this particular place!) when he visited UK in 1998 or so.
Have enjoyed quiet drinks with the actor Albert Finney, also Nigel Davenport.
Met Bill Gates, who posed for a photo I took of him. (Must put that on my site some time, now I think of it…)
One friend is the Sultan of Brunei’s mother-in-law (seriously!)
Another good friend played Pogo Patterson in Grange Hill (popular in the UK in the 1980s)
My mother lives next door to H from Steps (plastic pop group, inexplicably big in the UK).
Loads more, some I can’t say…
My sister tends bar in a club where 3 Doors Down used to perform before they got their record deal.
I have performed on the steps between the big reflection pool at the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, and some visiting Australian dignitary watched and applauded.
I was school spelling bee champion and 3rd in the region when I was in third grade.
I was district spelling bee champion and 5th place in the region when I was in eighth grade.
My uncle’s brother works with and for NASCAR drivers Hermie and Elliott Sadler.
Another uncle’s brother drives the show car for Tide Racing.
My great-grandfather’s brother (great-granduncle? possibly a generation before THAT, yet) was a concert violinist who performed regularly at Carnegie Hall and the like. We have some flyers from just before WWI advertising his quartet.
One of my maternal ancestors was Lord Blaney, of Blaney Castle in Ireland.
NASCAR driver Dave Blaney is my mom’s second or third cousin.
Ha! One of the Iranian hostages (Gary Lee) once lived in the house I’m living in now!
When I was in fourth grade, we had classroom spelldowns to determine who would compete in the actual school spelling bee.
My turn came, and I was given the word “saxophone.” My classmates all started laughing, because they knew I played sax in the school band.
Then, I proceeded to spell it wrong! Pandomonium reigned.
Here’s the family one:
When I was young, I was told that my great-great-great-great grandfather was a companion of Daniel Boone.
I used to think this was pretty cool, until we started reading a book in school about Boone. And there, right on one of the pages, was this account (I’m paraphrasing, but this is the essence of it):
“Then one evening, a friend of Boone’s by the name of Johnson burst into the fort, gesticulating wildly, babbling incoherently and waving four Indian scalps in the air.”
My grandmother’s maiden name was Johnson. Suddenly, this bit of my heritage wasn’t so neat after all!
Here’s the celebrity one:
In college I was a DJ on the station in town that played what was then known as “underground” (as opposed to Top 40) rock. My roommate booked all of the musical acts for the school’s Student Union.
We had gone to another college to catch a performance by Mike Nesmith of The Monkees, who at that time was just getting a serious solo career off the ground. He was very good, so my roommate booked him at our college.
When Mike came to town, I had the chance to tape an extensive interview with him in his hotel room (which inexplicably didn’t come out on the tape, much to my eternal dismay). When we were through, Mike asked my roommate and me what we were doing for dinner.
At that point, we obviously didn’t have any plans, so Mike ended up treating us to Chinese and some delightful conversation. He was a great guy; extremely intelligent yet very down-to-earth.
The one thing he said that I remember was that, while he had a low regard for the music The Monkees produced (despite our protests that some of his songs were really quite good), he was very proud of the TV show itself. He thought that it was innovative, and in its own way, subversive (and time has proven him right).
It’s funny how reading everyone else’s posts prompts memories of your own.
My friend and I were walking around a local discount department store here in Ohio in the late 60’s when to our astonishment who should come strolling down the aisle but Dick Clark!
There was absolutely no question it was him. He had a teenage kid with him, and Dick looked somewhat pissed off, not at all the affable persona he presents on TV.
Many years later, I read Clark’s autobiography, and it all made sense. His first wife was from my hometown, and he obviously was back paying a visit to his son, who lived with his mom.