Argyreia Nervosa wrote:The definition of fame is debatable, but here's my list.

-I spoke to Stephen Hawking very briefly after a lecture he did one time.

I'd say you're pretty safe with that one.

I'm only going to mention one music person because I think it is unremarkable that I have met a lot of musicians.

Rode an elevator with Cab Calloway and said "Hi-de-ho!" to him when he left. He smiled at me and nodded. An hour later I passed Henry Kissinger on an escalator (He was going up, I was going down).

Bumped into Ewa Mataya at a pool tournament. Like, turned a corner into a staircase and boom ran into her. Face plant right into her boobs. Same tournament, got autographs from Steve Mizerak and Grady Mathews.

I sat at the counter at Chris's Billiards while Raymond Ceuelemans kvetched to Semih Sayginer about his draw in the tournament. "Not Pete Rincon, not Jamie Martinez, but Dick Jaspers! I come to Chicago and I have to play Dick Jaspers!" Kinda funny if you know billiards.

When I was 12 years old, my dad took me to hear a lecture from Werner Von Braun at the University of Montana, and I had him autograph the capsule of my Saturn V model rocket.

Coming out of an elevator at a fancy hotel in New York, I ran into Doyle Brunson and his wife, and he shook my hand. I missed a similar opportunity with Richard Dawkins.

On a baseball trip to Puerto Rico, I shook hands with both Frank Robinson and Dusty Baker (who complimented my fedora), and watched Novotny shoot dice with Augie Ojeda. Saw Kyle Farnsworth surrounded by chicas latinas muy caliente.

Saw Pete Barbutti walking down the street in Seattle in about 1978. Get this, he was smoking a cigar! Imagine that.

Met Andy Kindler at a diner in Hollywood.

I said "hi." and shook Ian Mackaye's hand.

yaphet wrote:I said "hi." and shook Ian Mackaye's hand.

I shook hands with Mackaye in Manchester. I was going to see The Evens. I had forgotten that my Dad was coming to stay, so I had to take my Dad with me. When we found the Levenshulme Snooker and Bowls club, we walked in the wrong entrance to find Mackaye and Amy Farina setting up and unloading from the van. I said "Ah, Ian Mackaye," in my best Dr Livingstone I presume voice and shook his hand.

After the show, we had a chat and then my Dad took over and had a big conversation about the Iraq war.

Shit, my Dad got on with one of my heroes better than I did.

To make matters worse, a few months later, my Dad was on his way to stay again and I had forgotten to say that I was going to see Joe Lally, in Manchester again, so I took him along again. We walked into the bar before the show, to meet Joe Lally sitting down alone with his bass. We had a chat and shook hands, etc.

After the show, my Dad went up to Joe Lally and told him to, "Keep up the good work."

Before this, my Dad had no idea about Fugazi. I have christened him the Fugazi Soloist Stalker. Two down, two to go.

Here's my Dad hanging out with Joe Lally. Aargh!

http://www.southern.com/southern/galler ... etail=1569

oh, right, i have two post cards from ian mackaye.

For a while, when I was young, I was nuts about basketball (and sports in general).

One night I was at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee with my dad, to see a Bucks game. Before the game started the franchise was honoring Kareem Abdul Jabbar, hanging this huge old shcool Bucks jersey up in the rafters to commemorate his stint playing for them back when he was Lew Alcindor. Having been a huge fan of the Kareem-lead Lakers during the late Eighties, I made an effort to head down near the court in the hope of being able to say hi to him. Sure enough I ended up shaking his hand, very briefly, and it was HUGE.

Our handshake resembled the cover of Plastic Surgery Disasters.

At a summer intensive language course in Olomouc, Czech Republic, I stayed in a dormitory right next to Christ Bauermeister, bassist from Jawbreaker. He made an amusing impression - slightly dorky clean-cut look with wire frame glasses combined with *shitloads* of tatoos. He was going back to college after the band broke up, looking to get a degree in history, and was into learning German and Czech.
Since this was years ago and I didn't listen to Jawbreaker at that time, I just treated him like a normal person.

When I was a kid, I met Jeff Daniels in his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan. This was long before Dumb and Dumber and all that shit came out.

I have been about 10 feet away from the Dalhi Lama when he visited Ann Arbor. One of his right-hand lamas, Galek Rinpoche, was my next-door neighbor.

That's about it. Perhaps I should get out more.

that damned fly wrote:oh, right, i have two post cards from ian mackaye.

If you had two postcards from my Dad, then I'd be seriously impressed.

I met Pele in Aberdeen in 1990. We were staying in a hotel for some conference that my dad had when he worked on the oilrigs, and the Brazilian U16 team were staying in the same hotel. It was the U16 World Cup, you see. We met him in the lift.

I also met Frank Bruno, Bob Holness, Chris Eubank and MR MOTIVATOR whilst appearing on a kids TV show in the early 1990's called "Disney Club".

I got to say: "And next up, it's Tailspin."

I've seen Simon Amstell (the Never Mind The Buzzcocks presenter) 3 times in 2 years during the Edinburgh Festival. You can't fucking move for minor grade celebs during the festival though.

In the '80s I worked in the "Film Business". I worked in LA for a couple weeks on a Jerry Seinfeld HBO special. I put makeup, giant shoes and a dog costume on him. For the TV show, of course. I rode in his Porsche, went to his Hollywood apartment, watched TV. He was very nice, very neat, mellow.

Larry Miller (later the Seinfeld doorman) picked me up and drove me to the studio during the shooting. Very nice man too. Joel Hodgson was one of the writers, he's hilarious.

Since my parents were wrestlers, I met many of their contemporaries, Mad Dog, Crusher, Bruiser, Vern Gagne, etc. etc.