I get to choose between Groucho Marx and Mahatma Gandhi. Tough decision, but I think I’m going to go with Groucho. I would love to listen to his stories of working in Hollywood during the Golden Age of films, and especially being able to do so in an age of rampant racism and bigotry.
Plus, if I could make him laugh, it would be one of the greatest highlights of my life.
I’m going to have to pick Douglas Adams, of course, so I can thank him for the fish and the meaning of life. But the little imp in me wants to throw Justice Scalia in a room with Johnny Knoxville. The Madden twin brothers from Good Charlotte could supply the soundtrack. Best dinner party ever!
ETA: Oh, and I can’t believe someone passed up a dinner date with Alice. Blasphemy!
There’s Sergei Rachmaninoff - my orchestra performed one of his symphonies last year, and my conductor would explode with delight if I got him an autograph.
Or Sophonisba Breckinridge. I hadn’t heard of her before tonight, but from what I’ve read she sounds like a fascinating person. She was a lawyer, a suffragette, an abolitionist, an activist against child labour, a pacifist and quite possibly a lesbian.
Or Joseph E. Murray, who pioneered organ transplants and won a Nobel prize for medicine. He actually only died a little over a month ago.
Or William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of blood and was personal physician to Charles I. He was with the king at the battle of Edgehill, and apparently during the fight “He told me that he withdrew with them under a hedge, and tooke out of his pockett a booke, and read. But he had not read very long before a bullet of a great gun grazed on the ground neare him, which made him remove his station.” I like that.
It’s a really tough call between Harvey and Breckinridge! I think I’ll flip a coin. OK, it came up tails, so I’m going with Breckinridge.
Well, if their being dead is not a factor, it looks like Isaac Asimov wins the day, though only if he’s alive and not in a decomposed state. If it has to be a living person, I guess Cuba Gooding jr.
My choices are my twin-sister-from-another-mister Mariah Carey (who’s 4 hours my junior) or -
Louis XVII
Nathaniel Currier
James Callaghan - British prime minister
Sarah Vaughan
Cale Yarborough
Michael York
Tony Banks - Musician (Genesis)
Andrew Farris - Musician (INXS)
Quentin Tarantino
Derrick McKenzie - Musician (Jamiroquai)
Brendan Hill - Musician (Blues Traveler)
Nathan Fillion
Fergie
Since I doubt Mariah’d put her phone down for a full minute’s conversation, I’ll have Nathan Fillion as appetizer, Michael York for entree and give my dessert to the poor Dauphin, as he deserves to feel like a kid for a damn minute.
Much as it turns my stomach to defend her, I have TMJ and it’s recommended I eat my pizza that way as well. I don’t know if she has TMJ or not, but I’ll wager she didn’t want a bunch of photoshopped pictures of various items replacing a slice of pizza being shoved into her lipstick-covered maw.
I’ve got lots of actors/actresses/entertainers:
Lauren Bacall,
Peter Falk,
Ed Begley, Jr.
Mickey Rourke,
David Copperfield,
Jennifer Tilly,
Molly Shannon, &
Amy Poehler
And musicians:
B.B. King,
Richard Marx, &
Marc Anthony
Athletes:
Elgin Baylor - basketball Hall of Famer
Orel Hershiser, - baseball pitcher
They all lose to scientist:
Albrecht Kossel - Nobel Prize winning German biochemist and geneticist who first isolated and described the 5 bases in nucleic acids. I hope he speaks English.
B.B. King would be the runner up and my definite choice of those still living.
I could go all intellectual like and choose Robert Browning, Brahms or Tchaikovsky or even Evita but to prove my utter shallowness the invite is out for Traci Lords. If she declines then Janis Ian can come if she brings an instrument.