He gets that a lot. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/mlkplaque.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/mlkplaque.asp</a> *edit* Focus: I saw Mariah Carey and Derek Jeter eating in a Carrabas in Tampa many, many freaking moons ago. People all but ignored him. I got her to sign the back of my dinner check. She barely spoke, claiming her voice was horse and she was resting it. To the best of my knowledge, she hadn't performed in town - she was there for him during spring training. I also met Bruce Campbell at his book signing at the Tampa Theater a few years ago. I was not allowed to get an actual picture with him, but here's a picture of him checking out my name on my shirt (BRUCE CAMPBELL LOOKED IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF MY TITS!). I asked him to marry me. Sadly, he said no.
Nick Swisher bought me and my buddies rounds of drinks in Phoenix during spring training in 2006. We drove down there from SF and the first day we were there it rained for the first time in months so all the games got rained out. We went to the library to watch some NCAA conference tourney games then left right as it started raining again so we ran across the street to Gordon Biersch to get out of the rain and there happened to be an A's, Giants charity event there. One of my friends saw Swisher and bought him a shot and we just started bullshitting with him and next thing you know he's telling us to come over to the VIP/players section and is buying us drinks at the bar and telling us stories about living with Houston Street. Really awesome and hilarious guy. Sucks he's with the Yankees now. Spoiler Throughout the night after going over to the players section he'd randomly just put his arms over his head into an O and scream OAKTOWN!!!! Spoiler I grew up around Lincoln, NE and in middle school played basketball on a team with Barrett Ruud of the Tampa Bay Bucs and Alex Gordon of the Kansas City Royals. Also when I moved back to Lincoln after college we hung out with the baseball players a lot and Joba Chamberlain used to come to my house to party. Barretts a really cool laid back guy and is back in Lincoln quite a bit. Joba is pretty quiet and unassuming, well he used to be before he got all Yankee status. Not saying he is a dick now but people know who he is instead of back in college where he could blend in pretty well.
When Lewis Black performed out here in September '09, he stuck around afterward to sign autographs. I became a babbling moron but managed to ask him if I could get a photo with him. Not a great pic of me, but it was the single coolest moment of my life. My dad's best friend is a professional umpire in the major leagues. I have had the priviledge of meeting a nice array of Yankees (Posada, Bernie, Giambi, Sheffield, Damon, Cano - all really nice guys...Jeter walked by too quickly before I could say hello, Gay-Rod didn't stop because he's an asshole). When the Angels were playing the Mariners in 2008, I was meeting my dad's friend for a drink and was waiting by the Mariners locker room. I narrowly missed meeting Mike Scioscia, which upset me highly. I wanted to ask him so badly how he survived his bout of radiation poisoning after working at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The day after my wedding, we were waiting in line at security to board the plane to our honeymoon. Mr. Pink started tugging at my sleeve and said "I think that's Jeff Beukeboom over there." I glanced and said "No, that's not him." After about five minutes of him declaring Beukeboom was standing within ten feet of us, I finally said "Fine, I'll find out." I went over and asked if it was truly the man himself and he smiled a big smile and said yes. I shook his hand and said "It's an honor. 1994 Rangers, my best sports memory." He thanked me profusely. Nice guy.
Going to NYU led to a lot of time spent in the village which led to a number of sightings. Also, for a semester I was in the dorms in Union Sq. so fairly often there would be some movie shoot or something going on. I'm sure I've seen more famous people without realizing they were of significance than seeing them and realizing it. A lot of them are uncertain as they looked like the person but I have no way to really be sure. I saw Matt Damon at a Starbucks once. Another time I saw Uma Thurmon standing outside of a brownstone having a cigarette. I had no idea how tall she was until then. I saw Sarah Jessica Parker at Mud, which is a coffee shop. I'm pretty sure I saw the girl who plays Cameron from House getting into a limo, but I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure I saw some big rapper since it was a ridiculously tricked out and loud Escalade with a couple of black guys inside. I never talked to any of them though. For whatever reason, seeing a celebrity never really seemed like a big deal to me and I really don't see the point of autographs or pictures with the person. Oh shit almost forgot, the biggest one was Barack Obama. He was giving a speech in Washington Sq. Park during the early goings of his campaign. Me? I was sitting in a Linear Algebra lecture in the Silver Center which looks over the park. The crowd was insanely loud and was chanting on occasion. At one point the the crowd chanted something unintelligible and my professor pauses, looks outside, and says "reminds me of 1936 in Munich." The whole class fucking died. This guy was a total dick and had never attempted to exchange pleasantries with any of us much less make a joke, and then he busts that line out.
I met Doug Bollinger from the Australian cricket side last year and he was fucking cool. We were at a bucks party that had just started and he was chatting to us on the sideline while the others were batting and he was funny as hell. Kept bitching about how he had to play and would rather be on the piss.
I met the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, when my ship pulled into Sydney back in 07. I knew he was important but I didn't quite know exactly who he was at the time. It was only when I saw him on TV at a bar later that night and a local commented on it that I made the connection. I mentioned that I met him earlier in the day and they gave me that "yeah right motherfucker" kinda look. He was much shorter than he looks on TV. Good guy though, seemed really cool.
I met Brendan Fevola (AFL footballer and general douchebag) at a hotel bar about a month ago. Was meeting friends there who had started chatting to him. He spent a fair while trying to pick up one of the girls we were with and was talking himself up bigtime, but he did buy everyone a drink so that makes him alright. For something more relevant to you Americans, I went to high school and was quasi-friends with Andrew Bogut. He left our school in year 11 I think, and ended up at the Australian Institute of Sport for a bit before hitting the NBA. He's a pretty good guy, comes across as arrogant sometimes but I think its more just self confidence and determination. He used to play a lot of soccer with us at lunch and was a mean goalie. Motherfucker is also smart - I hear he's bought a nice parcel of land over here and built an awesome training facility with a gym, pool and courts for when he's back home, with the idea of training younguns once his time is up. You may have been the last lot of sailors to be greeted by Little Johnny as PM. We voted him out in favour of another small bloke later that year - K-Rudd, as he likes to be known.
When I was really young (2 years old probably) my parents to me to Disney. We were eating dinner in some restaurant and my mom noticed Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley come in and sit down right near us. On our way out of the restaurant, and much to the dismay of my father, my mom walked past their table and said, "I'm so sorry to interrupt your meal, but I just wanted to say that you have a beautiful family and I'm a big fan." At that, she smiled and turned to walk away. Billy said, "Well come here and talk for a minute." So my mother and father stood and talked to them for a couple minutes and during the conversation Billy asked, "And who is this little guy?" My mom said my name and he put out his arms, so she handed me to him. He stood me up on his knee and bounced me up and down--I've been told I smiled and laughed profusely as he made faces at me. He then handed me back, they all shook hands, and off we went. Other than that, I recently met Hugh Grant's brother. Which is to say, I haven't met anyone even remotely famous since I was two years old.
I haven't met any celebrities, and I don't really expect to living in Portland. But I did happen to see two quite randomly. First, I was taking my little sister to prom, and as I turned onto the street where the hotel was, a cop car was blocking traffic and people were crowded on the streets. I couldn't figure out who on earth was important enough for that until out of a black SUV about ten feet away steps Barack Obama and starts waving to all the good people of Portland. He added Portland on as a last-minute stop for his campaign trail apparently, but I did not expect to see him so close. The second was completely random. Some friends and I were out in the suburbs and decided to get something to eat at Shari's, which is a really crappy restaurant chain that maybe has two or three patrons a night and is the haven for drunk high school kids. So color us surprised when Anton Silva walks into the crappiest restaurant in the city and eats two meals to himself. I can't imagine he felt very good after that.
Mr. Lahey from the Trailer Park Boys gave my friends (one of which was Vanilla) and I the middle finger back in high school. He was picking his daughter up from the elementary school which was in the same building. We were sitting outside and at first we didn't recognize him because he didn't look like a bumbling drunk. Then one of us screams "HOLY FUCK IT'S LAHEY!" to which he responds by turning around, laughing and giving us the finger as he runs into the building. I've met some of the rest of the crew on separate occasions. Ricky was the best though. He would come into the Canadian Tire I worked at trying to be as discrete as possible. Any time he was in the automotive section you could be sure there was a fight as to who was going to go help him out. We also may or may not have turned on the store-wide PA system and screamed Reveen.
I have shaken hands and taken pictures with Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez, and Sean Kinney of Alice in Chains. I actually got to talk to Sean and Mike for about 10 minutes, discussing where they should go with the band now that Layne Staley was gone, and they really seemed interested in what I had to say as a fan. Also, Sean Kinney was coked up out of his mind. Unfortunately, all of those pictures were lost; it's a long, kind of boring story, PM me if you really want to know. I met Rob Zombie briefly after a concert in 2005 (FUCKING AWESOME concert, by the way, best live show I've ever seen); he was signing autographs behind a steel barricade, and moving from one side to the other, and I missed my chance to have him sign my stuff, so I did what any other hardcore fan would do: I slid under the barricade and went up to him. I got to shake his hand and tell him that his music was a really important aspect in my life (I've been listening to him for almost 20 years, and it got me through some tough times) right before a security guard hauled me off. I got a picture with him too, but it came out really shitty and you can't even tell it's him.
I got backstage at Rob Zombie's Demon Speeding tour in 2002 for being the first in line at Copps Colliseum. Here's a guy that doesn't turn it off: he has people in Hallowe'en costumes BACKSTAGE, and his bass player Blasko (funny and insane, to say the least) introduced me to a drinking game where you watch Italian horror films (the hardest of the hardcore) and do a shot of Yager everytime blood is pilled on screen. I was on ecstasy so I couldn't taste the alcohol. I think he thought I was a bigger freak than him. His guitar player, Riggs, was a stoic sociopath. The only thing he said to me is that he was going to kill me later on that night. Zombie himself is skinny, nice and work-driven. He doesn't smoke, drink or do drugs. He just drinks LOTS of black coffee. His 6-foot surfer girl wife/go-go dancer Sherri is beautiful and profane, but not like the annoying harpy"Baby" from his first 2 movies. Zombie gave me the skeleton gloves cut off at mid-knuckle that he wore onstage, which I still have and wear to metal concerts. I met Tom Cruise by pure coincidence at a bar in Toronto years ago. He is about 5'5" and probably (no exaggeration) the nicest person I've ever met. I didn't think it was him at first because he has braces on and was shorter than I thought. My friend played him at a game of pool and T-Cru whomped his ass without missing a single shot after breaking. I think my buddy forgot Cruise took intense billiard training for The Colour Of Money and can play at a near pro level since then. Hear this: this guy is NOT a kook, not a freak, but a very kind movie star who truly loves what he does and the people that are his fans. He jokes, he listens to you and laughs constantly. I met Jim Belushi right in the middle of the monstrous crowd at the 2003 SARStock concert in Toronto. He's a fucking asshole and told my friend and I to leave him alone. David Cross was right about him. A rock star friend of mine introuced me to Robin Zander and Rick NEilsen of Cheap Trick, both hysterical and off-the-fucking-wall musicians. I would LOVE to be friends with these guys, they are the Cat's Ass. In Calgary, I was staying in the same hotel as a bunch of WWE athletes. I was hung over to the tits and leaning on the front desk when I heard a woman laughing. When I turned around, it was a pint-sized knockout, Trish Stratus. She gave me a water and wished me at feeling better, very classy hot chick. I also got to see a hilarious sight outside: an airport hangar-sized Triple H and robochick Chyna having a Who's Afraid Of Virgina Woolf-style Domestic in the parking lot. He was trying to be reasonable, she was losing her mind. Sick of it, he hopped in his rental and peeled off, leaving her insane, frightening ass in the parking lot screaming profanities. That broad is off the fucking WALL.
Working in NYC I'm actually surprised I never do see anyone remotely famous, though I kind of put my head down and walk as fast as possible between work and the train station. My only brush with fame came a few months ago. I was walking down 35th about to hang a left onto 7th to head to the Port Authority when I walked past Pauly D and his giant blowout. He was wearing what looked to be a really expensive suit that was too big for him, and a pink shirt. Whaaaat a lovable douchebag.
Back in high school I went to a Seahawks football camp put on by Matt Hasselbeck for QB's and receivers. Me being a receiver, I got to work with guys like Bobby Engram and Jerheme Urban. Both of them were really nice guys, Bobby was pretty quiet at first but I hung out with him during lunch and he's an all around cool guy. I didn't spend much time with Hasselbeck since he was working with the QB's most of the day, but I did get a picture with him which is most likely back at my parents house in storage somewhere. Jerramy Stevens showed up for a while, kind of a douchebag. Lofa Tatupu was also there for about an hour, that dude is an ox. But he is very polite and friendly.
My buddy recently won a contest where he got Mark Martin's fire suit. He also ended up getting some hot passes to a race and met a ton of people. While he was there he got in good with some PR chick for Hendrick Motorsports and she invited him out to see her this past weekend at Dover. After the race he was hanging out in a casino and Denny Hamlin was there. I told my friend to buy him a beer and they ended up hanging out for quite a while. I also got a pretty interesting string of texts from my buddy. "Just won $2,000 on a machine. Denny says he hit the jackpot on the same machine the other day. "Jesus he is lit up" "Fucking Den Den keeps hitting the max bet button. I'm down to $1,200. Better cash out" "He's pretty cool but he spits when he talks" I guess Denny felt bad for losing $800 for my friend so he put $800 into a $100 machine and said they'd split the winnings. Sadly they didn't win. The closes I ever came to meeting a celebrity was when I got backstage passes to a Rob Zombie/Ozzy concert. We were stumbling around in some tunnel and bumped into Rob as they were headed out to do their show. The bouncer guy kinda started yelling at us but Rob said something like "Fuck it man, let the kids have some fun". He was really short but seemed nice. I was too drunk and wasn't sure who it was right away so I didn't get a chance to say anything. Ozzy read his lyrics on a teleprompter that was disguised as a speaker on stage. He also threw a water balloon at me.
I would say the closest I've been to celebs was two years ago when I went to visit some old Air Force friends in South Dakota. My buddy was working at one of the Sturgis events and got me backstage to basically be a part of the Three Six Mafia concert. I'm not a huge fan of them..but it was just an awesome time, drinking free beers all night and seeing the rest of the crowd below you like I was some hot shot. They basically took every slutty chick that wanted to meet them in their dressing room for intervals at a time and then sent them on their way. I got DJ Paul and Juicy J's autographs on a Newport cigarette pack.
The summer after my freshman year in college, I worked for a car stereo/phone shop in Marin County, which has a fair number of celebrities living there. Soon after I started working there, I see a black BMW 7 series pull into our lot. Shortly thereafter, who should walk in but Huey Lewis. Turns out he was the next door neighbor and a good friend to the guy who owned the shop. He would come in about once or twice a week to say hi to the owner, and inevitably, to ask me how to work his cell phone. Real nice guy, but a pretty good advertisement as to why it was kind of dangerous to be a coke-addled rock star in the 1980s. Still, it felt pretty neat that someone like that knew me on a first name basis.
Back when I was in high school a buddy of mine wanted to wait out back of this concert to meet the bands. Eventually the main act of the night, Static X, came out and we got to meet all of them. Tripp Eisen was the guitarist at the time, formerly of Dope, and seemed like the most down to earth chill person of the group. He stayed out and talked to a bunch of us for a while after the rest of them left for the buses. Then a few years later he was busted for posing as a Static X look a like of himself and fucking some 14 year old in the parking lot of a mall. Weird because the guy seemed cool at the concert.
Last fall I went to the Deutsche Bank Championship, a PGA Tour event in Norton, MA. Although I didn't get a chance to talk to him, I was within 10 feet of Tiger Woods as he walked up the fairway to one of the tees. I am a very casual fan of golf, and only know 5 or 6 golfers, so seeing the one, the only Tiger Woods that close was honestly chilling. The moment was also elevated because it was the final day of the event and Tiger was in the midst of a monumental comeback (only to fall short in the last two holes), so he looked very focused and determined, just as I had imagined him to be on the course. The DBC was before Tiger's accident and massive scandal, so he was still regarded as the best golfer and one of the best athletes of this generation, perhaps all-time, without all the controversy clouding his image.
Speaking of celebrities, I just found out that Kelly Ripa's dad, Joe, will be officiating my civil union tomorrow. He's the Camden County clerk. I know, don't be jealous.