I’ve met more famous people than a kid from Arkansas could ever hope.
I met Bill Clinton a few times before he was president. My dad was one of his appointees on the State Board of Health. One time he called the house and I answered the phone, he goes “Hi, this is Bill Clinton, is Arkydad there?” and I said yeah right, who is this? He laughed and said no, really. I apologized and he said “no sweat, I get that a lot”. I met him in person up at the Mt. Nebo Chicken Fry, where he was stumping for some friends. My dad introduced us. Then on April 26, 1992, I went to see him make a speech near the White House. After the speech, they put up the rope and I happened to be right by it. When he came by, I shook his hand and told him who my dad was and he kind of lit up like he was glad to be talking to a friendly face from Arkansas. That night, on the lead-in to the CBS Evening News, they showed me shaking his hand. I really should see if I can get a copy of that!
Living in the DC area affords on opportunities to run into politicians from time to time. I’ve met Tom Foley, Pat Schroeder and Leon Panetta in the grocery store on different occaisions.
Being into music and all, I have met many musicians, because I’m the type of person who has the gumption to just go up to them and start talking to them.
I’ve met R.E.M., the Psychedelic Furs, and many less notable folks in that fashion.
Lately, Ian MacKaye of Fugazi has shown up at three of my band’s shows. He was encouraging, said he liked the hooks in my songs. I actualy feel weird name-dropping him because I think he’s a good guy and not star-like at all.
Oh yeah, I met Bill Nye The Science Guy at the 7-11 near my house. He’s originally from the area and was visiting family at the time.
Forgot to add, I also met Jonathan Pryce (Something Wicked This Way Comes, Brazil, Pirates of the Caribbean) just after I’d seen him as Trigorin in The Seagull, and had the pleasure of telling him how much I wished I’d seen his performance before I did the same role in a college production. He seemed very shy.
I met the WWE wrestler Paul Wight “The Big Show” once in Las Vegas. I was at the Mirage and walked by his blackjack table just as he was getting up. I’m sure my eyes got as big as saucers when I saw how big he was in person. I asked if I could shake his hand, and he smiled broadly and shook my hand. His hand dwarfed mine! I was very disappointed that my husband was upstairs at the time - he had the camera.
Quick minor meetings, include carrying some of **Arlo Guthrie’s ** stuff at the same Pumpkin festival I mentioned earlier, but the day before at Christopher Street Pier. He seemed like a very nice guy as you would expect, but I it was just incidental talk.
I met **Bill Bradley ** in the early 1970s at a Mall when he was running for Senate. I am guessing his second term. I brought my NBA Card of him to sign. I think he got a kick out of a kid showing up for a political event with his basketball card. He signed it and encouraged me to encourage my parent to vote for him. I did.
I met **Geraldo Rivera ** at a Clearwater Festival and instead of fawning over him, I just asked him to sign a petition against an incinerator that was being planned. He signed, but he looked annoyed, I think as I did not treat him like a celebrity. I don’t really like or respect the guy anyway, so no loss.
I exchange a very brief conversation with **David Crosby ** at the Stone Pony. Between songs, I yelled out “Please play Guinnevere” He responded, “Not tonight but come to tomorrow’s show at the Beacon.” I then said, “Wooden Ships?” He laughed and said, “You’ll get that one.”
I met **Walter Koenig ** when he was on the USS Ranger filming Star Trek IV. Again, it was small talk about Star Trek and he signed his picture in my Star Trek Role-Player Game manual. I tried to talk to Nimoy, but only got some pictures of him directing. I missed Nichelle Nichols, she was only onboard for a brief time. (I thought **Elendil’s Heir ** would get a kick out of this encounter, but I am sure I mentioned it somewhere before.)
I bought Norman Spinrad a cup of coffee and a cookie - does that count? He autographed my copy of The Iron Dream.
I shared a cable row machine with Hulk Hogan, and I met Mr. Lee, a ninth-degree black belt in judo back when there were no tenth degrees (and there were only ten ninth-degrees). And I had my ass kicked by Irwin Cohen, multiple US National champion and 1972 Olympian, and by his brother Steve Cohen, in the Junior Nationals the same year.
But that’s basically it. No actors. One Senator (Rod Gram).
Best story I’ve heard in the past few years though.
This Irish guy I knew was on a long weekend in Barcelona in 2002. He and his girlfriend were at a little beach bar, and the only other customers were a middle-aged couple.
They got to shooting the breeze across the bar. The guy I know was bitching about his job - he was a building contracts manager. The middle-aged man was saying that he, too, had a tough job. “I think, maybe a little tougher than yours?” he smiled.
“Go on then,” said the guy I know. “What do you do that’s tougher than juggling dozens brickies and plumbers and plasterers and electricians between dozens of different sites?”
“I’m the interim President of Afghanistan,” replied Hamid Karzai, on low-key vacation with his wife. Then the guy-I-knew noticed the guys in dark glasses, looking around, subtly scattered around the beach nearby.
I’ve run into Itzhak Perlman quite a few times at his summer music program. A truly charming guy, and very funny. He once stood up in a concert and told jokes (supposedly, one of the performers couldn’t find the music, but I suspect that was a set up). They were the worst jokes you’ve ever heard, too dumb to even appear in Bennet Cerf’s Book of Laughs.
He had the entire audience roaring.
I’ve also seen him lead a student orchestra. He was a fantastic teacher.
My father contributes to the camp and was once invited to a benefit. It turned out it was at Perlman’s own apartment in NYC, and when my father rang the bell, Perlman himself came to the door. Very down to earth.
I’ve had a couple of extended lunches with Ray Bradbury. I’ve had coffee with George R. R. Martin. I’ve had a few (more than a few, really) beers with Spider Robinson. I’ve had drinks with Larry Niven. Hang around conventions enough and you get to meet all sorts of people.
Jim, in that context, “capped” was used to mean “topped, shut down and put in my place.”
Harlan was in Anchorage for a reading, and I was the only person at the venue who knew the remotest thing about what was needed, so I spent 45 minutes before it started helping Harlan unload books, set up the table and stuff like that. We chatted the whole time, and for my help he gave me several personalized signed books. After the reading, during the Q&A, I attempted to be a smart-ass by asking him to apply Sturgeon’s Law to his own work. Lesson: plowboys shouldn’t draw on hired guns.
When I was young, I was crazy about Dame Judith Anderson. I share a birthdate with her (but not in the same year). When I was fourteen I finally got to meet her: she came to my town starring in “Medea.” Fortunately for me, there were not many groupies hanging around, and after the performance I was allowed to go backstage. We had a conversation for about an hour, and I performed a Shakespeare scene for her (I was an aspiring actress at the time). She was kind enough not to laugh at me. I will always remember this great lady for her wit and grace. And, of course, for her Mrs. Danvers.
Other people I’ve crossed paths with professionally:
Steven Spielberg
Orson Scott Card
Douglas Adams
Anne McCaffrey Dave Arneson (the lesser-known co-creator of D&D)
Probably my best encounters were with a couple of relatively minor voice-acting celebrities: John Rafter Lee, who did the voice of Trevor Goodchild from the original Aeon Flux cartoon, and Susan Egan, who did the voice of Megara from Disney’s Hercules. I directed both of them and they were total professionals and a real pleasure to be around.
WorldCon was in Anaheim a few years ago (1996). I had chatted with Spider on the con floor, having corresponded with him sporadically over the years. He mentioned a suite party that was happening that evening and told me to stop by. I did. Lots of filking and much beer. The details on our conversations is a bit fuzzy, but they were rather wide-ranging. That was the same con at which Harlan dropped trou and flashed a bunch of us.
My brother just married the daughter of a producer of COPS. We’re so proud. :rolleyes: I kid, actually he is a very sweet and astoundingly generous man who produces some of the most despicable television created this side of Japan. Lovely fellow, honestly, for a man who makes “art” worse than the pimple on a dog’s butt. Bless his heart.
But more to the point, I was once stranded on a plane for over 9 hours with Santana and his crew. I was sitting smack in the middle of them, talking to the chatty one (I think he was Carlos’ brother, he said) about life, the universe and everything. I had no idea they were famous until some people came up for autographs, and then when he did tell me who they were, I had to confess that I’d never heard of Santana! :smack:
Back in my college days, I got to drive the band The Tubes from the concert hall back to their hotel. I spent about 30 minutes doing laps around their hotel, while they smoked copius amounts of that evil drug, marihuana.
In the summer of 2000, between my sophomore and junior years of college, I was an intern at AOL working in one of the labs. My last day we were going out to lunch when the boss got a phone call directing him to come back and clean the lab in a hurry, because Jimmy Buffett and the president of the company were coming through on a tour. We raced back, shoved everything in one of the offices, and closed the door. About ten minutes later, the official tour came through–no company president, but Jimmy was there. He shook everyone’s hand, made small talk, and then left.
As far as I can guess, this had something to do with the AOL/Time-Warner merger.
