But, I’ll pony up to it.
So, I’m in Vegas with hubby and a few guy friends for a weekend blow-out. So we go to one of the casino bars and start drinking pints, yes pints, of margaritas. The strongest margaritas I’ve had in a while. So off to the loo I go.
And I see this girl. Standing in the longish line for the loo.
And I KNOW I know her.
(Now, I’m one of those people who always remember me so I figured she’s turn around and say something since I cannot remember where she is from in my life.)
But she doesn’t. So I stumble on over to her.
“Hey,” I say, “Did we go to college together or something. You look really familiar”.
“I don’t think so.” Says the person I know I know from somewhere, with a strange Russian accent. Hmm. I think. Perhaps I tutored her in my ESL workshop.
As this thought process in going on in my head, the room starts giggling. But, I keep pressing.
“I KNOW I know you from somewhere. Did you go to my high school?”.
“Um, no.” replies Oksana Baiul. “I am a skater and you have seen me on TV.”
Oops. I wish I was there with some girls at least–as the guys couldn’t believe I harassed O.B. in the bathroom.
In 1985 (I think) in a now-defunct trendy blues bar on Morris Avenue in Birmingham I followed the great blind blues singer and harmonica player, Sonny Terry, into the restroom and got his autograph. It wasn’t easy, Sonny had several relatives in Birmingham and they were holding a private reunion in the not-so-spacious restroom but after a scramble by some cousins for pen and paper we found an empty stall for Sonny to sit down and write his name. We all were laughing and teasing and Sonny was pleased that someone in his home town wanted his autograph.
A year later Sonny Terry died. His is the only autograph that I have ever sought, and sadly, I don’t know where it is today.
I didn’t want an autograph from Brownee {Sticks) Mcgee, I was mad at him. His guitar skills were absolutely inspired that night but I though that he was slighting poor old Sonny Terry.
Maybe not.
About a year ago I found myself urinating next to James Carville, and then eating at the table next to me, at O’Hare Intl Airport (for the record: he washed his hands afterwards, and then he had a big-ass plate of TexMex).
At baseball’s Opening Day this year (cards/brewers), I stopped in a hotel across from Busch Stadium to use the facilities, and was tinkling next to Bob Uecker.
This probably won’t mean much to people outside New Zealand, but I once urinated alongside Green MP Nandor Tanczos at a restaurant in Whangaparoa (north of Auckland). Not a word was exchanged.
A few months later, I did exchange a few words with him when he came to visit my university. I have a strange feeling he didn’t recognise me, though.
I stood in a very long line for the ladies room next to Julienne Moore. Didn’t speak to her, since I was busy talking to a friend of mine. She seemed rather preoccupied anyway.
I went next to an extremely drunk Kerry Collins, back when he was the quarterback for the Carolina Panthers. This was in a bar in Charlotte about 3 months before he was traded to the New York Giants for - among other things - excessive drinking!
You, sir, know how filthy a bathroom can get. Until you’ve seen the bathroom in a twenty-year-old punk rock club, you don’t know dirty.
Man, I miss that place. It’s a well-scrubbed lesbian bar now.
But anyway, to compliment An Arky’s story, I was in Lounge Ax in Chicago in 1995 to see Rocket from the Crypt. I went to the bathroom and saw a lanky guy with longish stringy hair at the next urinal. Even through the chemical haze swaddling my brain, I recognized him.
“Uhhhh…hey…you’re Peter Buck”
“Yeah”
“Uhhh…you’re…uhhh…you’re really cool!”
(zip) “Thanks.”
Then he walked out. I finished up, returned to my date and her friend at the bar. “Hey, you see that guy?” I say. “That’s freakin’ Peter Buck! I just peed next to him.”
“Cool! How big was his dick?”
“I dunno,” I say. “I didn’t look.”
They were flabbergasted that I hadn’t checked out the Buck Unit. So I made a note to myself: the next time I pee next to a celebrity, check out the package.
A gay guy I know who is totally obsessed with the straight Jim Steinman (he calls him Stein-God) once walked into a men’s room when he was there. I asked him what he did, and he said “I did what I had to do and got out of there.”
Montel Williams once said that he hates getting noticed while he’s peeing. He says he always wants to turn and shake the guy’s hand, while simulataneous peeing on his shoes.
I was taking a leak in one of the restrooms just off the boardwalk, I dunno, five or eight years ago. I finished up, went to wash my hands but couldn’t, as some tattooed guy was changing his kid’s diaper and taking up all the space. I came out and grumped to my wife about the general nastiness of the whole situation. A minute or so later, the guy came out of the bathroom and it was only then that I recognized him as Tommy Lee. And mostly because it was Pamela Anderson who then left with Tommy and child.
In the 50’s, dad was working at a T.V. station in Missouri. He was alone in the bathroom standing at a urial when two guys in suits came in. They checked things out and gave an “o.k.”. Then in comes Dwight Eisenhower who saddled up to the urinal next to dad. Seems Eisenhower was at the station making a campaign speech or something when he received the call from Mother Nature.
Dad said they exchanged pleasantries but did not go into details.
He was doing the college curcuit, and playing a small club under the cafeteria. During the set he said “I gotta go pee. Let’s go!” He ran off the stage and into the bathroom, and several of us followed. He continued being funny as hell through the pee, wash-up, and return to the stage.
What was really fun was that he goes off-stage. We wait a few minutes (no encore), then file up the steps. There’s Steve at the top of the steps, and continutes to make jokes. We ended up running around campus until about 2am, when he ended up on the college radio station. It was the most fun I think I ever had in Tallahassee (and that includes getting laid).
He had everyone hide beside the road, and he stood by the side of the road “hitchhiking.” So a car stops, and he opens the door and asks, “Do you have room for my friends?” – and about 30 of us pop up. And he had us give the constellation Orion a standing ovation. That still cracks me up. Of course, YMMV.
I ran into my hero Bruce Campbell at the Marriott hotel at DFW Airport near Dallas, Texas.
It was somewhat crowded, and I was waiting in line to relieve myself when Bruce walked in. He paused, asked, “What is this? Some kind of a line?” and then left, apparently eager to relieve himself elsewhere.
For those of you DFW Dopers who wonder why I occasionally utter that line in my most Campbell-ish accent, now you know its origin.
I used to work for the now-defunct video game company 3DO, whose founder and owner was Trip Hawkins, who had previously founded Electronic Arts, and is somewhat of a celebrity, at least in video game circles.
For some reason, Trip had been named one of People Magazine’s 50 most beautiful people in 1994 or so. So the joke was that you’d be peeing next to him, and you’d look over and say “that’s one of the 50 most beautiful penises I’ve ever seen”.
I don’t think anyone actually ever went through with it, though
I once scored some tickets to a small Prince concert, held right after his appearance at the American Music Awards for his album “Sign o’ the Times”. The concert itself was fabulous, and deserves its own thread. The small nightclub was packed to the gills with celebrities, so the chances of running into a celeb in the john were high.
On my first trip, I stood in line with Whoopi Goldberg, who seemed like a cool lady. She was laughing and joking about the length of the line and cracking us women up.
On my second trip, after waiting in line a long time, in walks the male lead singer of a group that was very popular right at that moment - “White Lion”. Lord knows why he came into the women’s room - maybe to do his “God’s gift to women” act to a captive audience. He then walked right to the head of the line and tried to take the stall I had been waiting patiently for, but I pushed him out of the way. Butthead.
