(Let’s not count front row or otherwise close concert seats you’ve scored)
I used to work in a place that occasionally received celebrity visitors, so I have three pretty big names:
Justin Timberlake
Mike Tyson
Michael Jackson
Whatta ya got?
mmm
Mike Tyson. His date tried to tip me an eighth of weed. I didn’t smoke weed. I was 15 years old, and terrified of the Devil Weed. He didn’t do a thing except look slightly embarrassed and get her drunk ass outta there. I threw the weed in the trash three coatcheck stations away.
Billy Corgan. I fell in his lap at a club, completely accidentally. His security guy was not amused. Corgan didn’t say a word.
Carlos Santana and his brother and the rest of his band circa 1992. Stuck on a plane for 9 hours seated in the middle of them. I had no idea who they were, but they were nice guys. Jorge was very talkative, and kept asking me for the best nightclubs and places to have fun in Chicago. I was 17 and from the 'burbs, but way too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know jack about the nightlife in the city. I bluffed my way through it, badly.
Dick Clark. Passed him on Broadway, just as my show was getting out. He was on his cell phone. I nearly brushed his sleeve with mine.
Do politicians count?
I’ve shaken Jimmy Carter’s hand and photographed George Bush (the elder).
Meat Loaf
Patti Labelle
Reba
Cher
The Neville Brothers
Soundgarden (Chris, Kim, Hiro & Matt era; I took them bowling and out for dinner; later we partied in their hotel room with the weed I sold them)
GWAR
Bill Cosby
Danny Devito
Bill Clinton
Def Leppard
Barry Manilow
Pat Sajak
Vanna White
Alex Trebek
Charles Barkley
Shaquille O’Neal (we met the day after we had each moved to Orlando; helluva nice guy)
Ginger Baker
Penn Jillete (we have mutual friends and I’ve been on the lighting crew for a couple of their specials; freaked my friends out when he said hello to me by name at a Residents show a few years back)
My list could go on for pages tho: I’m a stagehand and have been for over 30 years. I’ve been fortunate enough to have met quite a few celebs and to have been able to converse and relate to them as if they were regular jackoffs; they seem to appreciate the normality more often than not.
John Wayne, back when he was aging, but still big. We exchanged “good mornings” passing in a vestibule.
I’ve been within arm’s reach of House Speaker John Boehner. Who did not deign to acknowledge that I existed.
Robin Trower
Pete Townsend
Marilyn Manson
Chris Cornell
Darius Rucker
Dean smith
Mike krewsywewski (sp)
Jimmy V
Tony Foale
My buddy has been a guitar tech for lots of bands for many years. Getting struck by the stars isn’t my thing but I’ve been close to some of these clowns by default. Chris Cornell burped at me. I felt so honored, humiliated, insignificant all at once.
Graduated from NCSU during some sweet basketball days. I worked at the student union and subbed at the coliseum.
I introduced Tony at a motorcycle conference. I (embarrassingly) didn’t realize what a god he was at the time but that’s the kind of star I would let strike me.
President Bill Clinton
David Sedaris
James Watson (of Watson and Crick fame)
Kary Mullis (Nobel Winner for PCR)
Keith Urban, I guess. I was at a concert, pretty close up front, and he leaped off the stage and was running thru the audience; he passed close enough to me that I patted his shoulder.
Long conversation with Stephen King.
Peter Jennings held the door open for me.
Conversed with Regis Philbin.
Sold Leeza Gibbons a doughnut.
Lots of conversations with some of the 80s Dallas Mavericks. Some were nicer than others.
Don Ameche.
Rudy Giuliani
Jimmy Carter
Al Gore
Michael Dukakis
Ed Koch
Jackie Kennedy
Maggie Smith
Jessie Jackson
Pols love the Staten Island ferry terminal.
I was a teenaged nerd and once literally bumped into George Takei at a Star Trek convention. I’ve also seen Woody Allen on the streets of Manhattan. I was also a political nerd and got to see a 1988 debate in person between Dukakis, Gore and Jackson in Madison Square Garden.
I met Dr. Jonas Salk’s wife last week as well as his children, author Seth Mnookin and Dr. Paul Offit.
Dr. Offit signed a book to me with this sweet inscription as I tried not sound like a babbling idiot:
To LB,
With great appreciation for your wonderful contributions to children’s health. And with all best wishes,
Paul A. Offit
With the 20ft rule, there are several, especially having attended several scifi conventions. Rode an elevator with Brent Spiner and chatted for a minute.
Britney Spears was having dinner two tables away from me. I could have hit her with a bread roll so I count that.
But for folks I actually got to meet and spend time with, I worked at DFW airport for a while and part of the job was meeting and escorting VIPs to their flight. The ones I remember:
Kim Basinger
Hal Linden
Terry Bradshaw
Lynn Swann
Barbara Mandrell
Jerry Lewis
Joan Jett
Susan Powter
Waylon Jennings
Peter Noone
But the highlight was walking Jack Lemmon to his connection. He was as awesome and classy as you would expect a man of his stature.
The biggest name I’ve actually spent hours with is Temple Grandin. I was lucky enough to work with her fairly regularly for several years and enjoyed every minute of it.
I once shook hands with Gerald Ford when he was President. It was a crowd event after he gave a speech.
I Dunno. I mean, what if I was wrong?
awkward
Danny DeVito was staying at the Bellagio in Las Vegas at the same time that me and my girlfriend were there back in 2004. I saw him in the mall area of the hotel complex, where he walked right past me. He’s even shorter than he appears onscreen.
I suppose it’d be either Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, Irish singer Tommy Makem, or physicist Stephen Hawking. I’m not sure which of the three is most famous (probably Hawking, I guess).
Ages before 9/11 when people could roam freely around airports I said hi to Sam Kinnison at O’Hare at like 2 AM while I was waiting to pick up a friend returning from Las Vegas.
Maybe 20 years ago at about 5:30 AM catching a flight out of O’Hare I passed Cindy Crawford in a narrow concourse; She gave me a kind of weak smile that seemed to say “Please just let me get where I’m going…” so I just gave a half smile back and kept walking.
You could almost see her shoulders relax as we passed and I thought it must suck sometimes to get hassled everywhere you go.
And I swear as God is my witness when I just proofread that it said “so I just gave a half smile back and kept wanking” before I changed it. :eek:
I want to claim Carl Sagan but the auditorium was big and I wasn’t close enough. However at a different “skeptic” event I briefly stood a meter away from Steve Allen. Thanks to my former Planetary Society membership I can add Bill Nye and Buzz Aldrin.
And you passed up the chance? :eek:
