Off season posts require some creativity. So here were go: What has been your brush with celebrity? (@HCP - I dont think you get to play ) I live down the street from one of the Jackass guys. When he moved in, I said to my wife, "do you think he will be throwing wild parties?" She replied, " I hope so!" (No wild parties yet.) I peed next to Bruce at a movie theatre in Westwood back in the 80s. I once spent a day driving Sid Caesar around L.A. But the best was when my brother saw Mick Jagger strutting down the street in West Hollywood. Bro hustled, caught up to him, sidled up and looked over and said, "Hey Mick." . . . But it was Steven Tyler!
Jerome Kersey bumped into me coming out of Veritable Quandry and apologized for nearly knocking me over
I’ve had run ins with musicians who are famous in the indie pop genre because of being in my band but none of them are actually celebrities. We’ve appeared in a Heavenly music video, for example, but nobody knows who that is.
I was working at Emanuel Hospital, walking down a corridor, when Clifford Robinson stopped me to ask where the men's room was. Why he would ask me instead of a male, who knows. I was at Oakland Convention Center and saw Rickey Henderson leaving the men's room. Felt this odd sense of "you mean, the great Rickey Henderson has to pee just like mere mortals?" Saw Simon & Garfunkel at LAX, with suitcase & guitar, just like the song. Once cooked dinner for Holly Near when she did a benefit. Vegan and sugar free. My cousin saw Joni Mitchell in New York buying Drano, had the same thought I did when seeing Rickey Henderson, "what, you mean Joni Mitchell gets clogged drains like mere mortals?"
When in Rome a few years ago we were walking through a neighborhood and noticed all these really old cars driving in a line and one car acting kind of reckless. I was like WTF is this all about, then all the cars regrouped and did it again. As we got closer we saw it was a movie being filmed. The movie was Zoolander 2, the scene was from the trailer where Ben Stiller is trying to take a selfie with a selfie stick while driving the red convertible. Other than the cast and crew there weren't many people there so we got to hang out and watch them regroup and reshoot that scene multiple times. One of the producers (or someone like that) took a liking to us and spent a lot time hanging out and explaining what was going on. He also told us lot of interesting stories about other movies he had worked on, recently it was a James Bond movie. He said they got to blow up a bunch of supercars for that movie and had a blast, it was stressful tho cause they only got one take. The stars were not there but Ben Stillers stunt double was and we talked to quite a few people working on the film. They had a big area set up for food and we consider just wandering over there and pretending like we were part of the crew, but decided against it.
My other one was going to see Team Sleep in a small club in Portland. I was a big Deftones and Chino fan so it was fun seeing him in such a small setting. After the show he came out and hung out with a small group of us fans who stuck around.
I sat next to Cheryl Hines on a plane from LA to Dallas. Kind of a minor celeb, but very nice. I had so many Curb Your Enthusiasm questions, but held off and just let her know I thought it was hilarious. Lauren Vélez asked me to take a picture of her and a friend while they were at the Philadelphia train station. It's on her Instagram somewhere. They were on a campaign stop for Hillary raising money or something.
Several come to mind. My favorite was talking with Jerome at Volcanos Stadium in 1997. Very nice guy, was behind me in the beer line and we got to talking. spent twenty minuets or so telling stories. Probably 15 years ago, I had a truck for sale. Alec Baldwin came to look at it. Gave me some BS name, but stated he was working on a project in Portland. Went for a drive with him and was fucking with him. Said he looked like Alec Baldwin to get his reaction. His reply was "what's a bald one" . Perfectly topped off his attitude. I said oh never mind, just a family of asshole actors from the East coast. Needless to say, I did not sell him the truck. My brother played semi pro Football and I got to meet guys going up or out of the league. Most impressive was Billy Joe DuPree. Talked me into going to one of their parties and play it off like I was the fourth string QB. Crazy. As happens, I met a lot of guys in the music business. Paul Barrere from Little Feat is probably the most well known. Oh, my nephews wife is Carlos Santana's niece. Only spoke to him once briefly at their wedding ten years ago.
Oh one funny one: About a decade ago we were in Paris with my kids, they were teens. James Franco, right when you kept hearing about him getting all of these college degrees, was in our lobby. Super nice guy, I take a pic with both my girls and him. Like a dad moron, I say to him, "stay in school!"
And here is the best Matt Damon story ever: I friend of my daughter was a struggling actress in NY. She's invited to a wedding and goes into a little dress shop one afternoon. Matt Damon and his then girlfriend are in there too. Our friend tries on what was apparently a gorgeous, but quite expensive dress, and everyone ooh's and ahs her. Of course she couldn't afford it. When she comes out of the dressing room, the Damons are gone and the dress is paid for. He bought it for her and left. #mensch.
When I was 21, I had a retail job, but also worked a couple of springs/summers at Oaks Park as a carnie for a second source of income. Jerome Kersey was at the park one day with his daughter and a few of her friends, and I was working the Water Races game (which is cool because you have a headset to talk to anyone playing or anyone nearby. I spotted him and, like an idiot, called out his name over the loudspeaker. Luckily, people didn't mob him, but instead, he came over and they all played a few rounds of the game, and I made sure they all got giant stuffed animals. I talked with him for a bit and he was very cool and appreciative of the kind words I gave him. At the retail job, Sam Elliot happened to be a regular customer while he spent time at his mom's house, so I got to interact with him a few times.
Met alot of people in my travels from Sly Poker Dog to Muhammad Ali..... but the coolest, because of who it was and where it was...... Winter of 2000, I was working in at Oregon State for the "God Conference 2000" At their performing arts center on campus. Religious leaders and speakers from around the world speaking for a weekend. Ran into the bathroom real quick and look to my right and who do I see in the urinal next to me....Bishop Desmond Tutu. Pretty dame cool! I was hoping he look down and tell me how "blessed I was"! Didn't happen.
Oh yeah I forgot, my second cousin is Kellen Clemens; when he was 5 and I was 11, we were at a family reunion/50th wedding anniversary for our great grandparents... he asked me to play with him so we threw a nerf football around. I like to think I got him into football.
