My neighbor growing up was a cousin of Kevin Ritz so I went fishing with him and whomever was with him; usually some other teammate from the tigers or the Rockies. I hate fishing.
My neighbor growing up was a cousin of Kevin Ritz so I went fishing with him and whomever was with him; usually some other teammate from the tigers or the Rockies. I hate fishing.
Toyman01 wrote: I used to sell stuff to Bill Murray on a regular basis when I worked at a hobby shop. Not an idol, but definitely a interesting guy. The funniest thing, he drove a old 80s Chrysler convertible POS.
Did he buy the car from Jon Voight?
Definitely NOT an idol of mine but Kurt Cobain threw the sloppiest and most easily dodged punch I have ever had pointed at me.
JG Pasterjak wrote: My dad peed next to Larry Csonka once.
College roommate peed next to Montoya at the Brown Derby by Mid-Ohio during his first stint in U.S. open wheel.
He didn't wash afterwards.
(Montoya, not the roommate.)
Not my idol, but I had a beer with Cuba Gooding Jr. It was after the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup at a bar called Red Room. He was pretty chill, but I wanted to call him Radio the whole time...
I met Jeff Gordon a couple times in the 90's along with some other NASCAR drives. I sat with Humpy Wheeler at Charlotte Motor Speedway on the roof of he speedway club for a Coke 600.
ditchdigger wrote: Definitely NOT an idol of mine but Kurt Cobain threw the sloppiest and most easily dodged punch I have ever had pointed at me.
We want this story
One of the members of Rush fixed my sister's airplane seat once, but that's not her kind of music so she wasn't excited.
In high school my friends and I would go to concerts and at one venue the busses were just parked in back and no one else seemed to realize this. So we got to talk to and hang out with Rob Flynn from Manchine Head as he was just walking around playing a guitar. Super cool guy.
Other than that, while on a tour of movie studios during my senior year of high school I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking and almost got ran over by Brian Denehey in his Cadillac on one of the lots.
I met a car magazine publisher once.
I like Slash in Guns N Roses but saw him in Slash's Snakepit open for AC/DC and it was awful. He spent about 5 minutes air humping the stage. My 16 year old self was unimpressed. The old womens seemed to love it.
I walked backstage without permission to get an autograph from Hubert Sumlin. He was totally cool about it.
JoeyM wrote:ditchdigger wrote: Definitely NOT an idol of mine but Kurt Cobain threw the sloppiest and most easily dodged punch I have ever had pointed at me.We want this story
In the late 80's and early 90's I volunteered at the local community center for the performing arts. Setting up mic's, pointing stage monitors, running cables. It was a great way to rub elbows with musicians and get into shows for free.
Given Eugene, OR's proximity to Seattle I did stage setup for pretty much every grunge band before they were famous. Mudhoney, soundgarden, Green River and nirvana were like a bi-monthly thing. I got to know most of them by name, hence the familiarity with Cobain and probably why he tried to hit me.
My band was playing a cool little club in Portland called the X-ray cafe. Halfway through our set Kurt came in with some girl who walked straight up the the jukebox and plugged in "Come on Eileen" by Dexys midnight runners. It was piped into the same PA system that the stage used and drowned us out. We ended up having to unplug the jukebox so we could finish our set. After the show while I was clearing out I said something like "classy girl you got there" and he acted all pissed off and threw a punch. I had a guitar case in one hand and an amp in the other so I just leaned out of the way ad walked on by. I was underaged in a bar so I didn't want to bring any scrutiny onto me.
4 months later "Smells like teen spirit" broke big.
Lesley wrote: Had an early morning flight from Toronto to Austin for the ALMS at Circuit of Americas. Rather than stress over the rush hour traffic, I got there extra early and took the elevator to the lounge at 6 a.m. Doors open and this bad-ass dude comes on, tattoos, wild black ringlets tucked under a cap and all this awesome silver jewelry. I thought to myself "self, that there is our favourite kind of bad boy.... holy E36 M3, it's freaking SLASH!!!" There I was, shoulder to shoulder with frigging Slash, and I couldn't say a word. Sometimes I am sooooo lame.
I think MY panties would've gotten a little soupy there.
I creeped out my FAAAAVORITE female singer by making a dead hooker joke while trying to sell her a van. Since I figured any shot I had at her being my new best friend was blown, I just laid all the dead hooker jokes I know on her.
A couple months ago, I sent Henry Rollins an email regarding one of his blog posts...I got an email back almost immediately, and we spent the next 6 hours going back and forth on politics. Kind of cool, but kind of disappointing.
I interviewed Angelo Moore of Fishbone, and he was a complete dick.
One of the members of Groove Collective pretty aggressively tried to berkeley my girlfriend at the time. Hindsight being 20/20, I should've said "Go for it."
The older I get, the more I realize, they're all just regular people, and as 99% of people are either idiots or inconsiderate shiny happy people, you can't really expect any of them to be any different than your average person.
Craig Wedren of Shudder to Think is super berkeleying nice. As are the guys from Seaweed.
poopshovel wrote: Craig Wedren of Shudder to Think is super berkeleying nice.
Agreed. I did a set up for them and after sound check my girlfriend came to see me. I asked her if she wanted d to come to the show and her response was " eww. No way. That guy sounds like he is trying to sound like geddy lee"
Craig was right next me. The smile just fell off his face. I turned to him and said that I must have made her listen to "rag" too many times. He perked up and stared smiling again. Bought me a street taco after the show.
ditchdigger wrote:poopshovel wrote: Craig Wedren of Shudder to Think is super berkeleying nice.Agreed. I did a set up for them and after sound check my girlfriend came to see me. I asked her if she wanted d to come to the show and her response was " eww. No way. That guy sounds like he is trying to sound like geddy lee" Craig was right next me. The smile just fell off his face. I turned to him and said that I must have made her listen to "rag" too many times. He perked up and stared smiling again. Bought me a street taco after the show.
Color me jealous. I was this >< close to driving to DC to see them last weekend. They did a 20 or 25 year anniversary show at Black Cat. I'm desperately hoping the "Hey, we should do a little mini-tour" conversation happened at some point. One of the greatest live shows I've ever seen. They were "good" on the Get Your Goat tour. They were "great" on the Pony Express Record tour. I'm sure the addition of Nathan Larson and Adam Wade had a LOT to do with that.
After 56 years of travels out and about, I have had the opportunities to meet many peopel I admire for the accomplishments and lives. But one story for this crowd was pretty cool. A ew years ago my son Jacob and I were guests of Bob & Linda Stallings at the 24 Hours at Daytona. This particular year Dan Gurney was the Grand Marshall, and with Alex driving it was a good time. Gainsco Racing had rented one of the Tower Suites behind the pits right at start/finish, and Linda got us passes to the suite.
About midnight, Jacob and I set up camp in the suite, with the laptop for live T&S. Linda comes in with Dan, and he settles up next to Jacob. After a few minutes conversation, I excuse myslef for a trip out to the track for a couple hours. I get back into the suite about 3-3:15 AM, and there's Jacob and Dan Gurney still there, side by side.
On the drive home the next day, I ask Jacob about his time with Dan Gurney. Now, realize, and 21 or 22 whatever Jacob was at the time, he knows cars. So Jacob says, and I quote; "He was amazing. He knows his E36 M3 about cars.".
What? Like the back of a Volkswagen Beetle?
I spent a night in Paris at this little pub-type place. It was an open mic night so I thought I'd terrorize the French for once. There was this group of Brits there and we sang some stuff and the one guy kept buying me beer. Guinness.. which I hate, but it was free.
Long story short, we're closing down the place at like 4 in the morning and he's talking about how he's recording children's musical audiobooks because he and the gang were sorta "blacklisted from Arista." Then he says in a most drunken slur: "you're a yank, you might have heard of us. I'm Jeff Lynne... we're Electric Light Orchestra."
I darn near wee'd in my knickers.
Other than that, I did live in L.A. for 7 years. Very few idol sightings, but lots of celebs. But topping the list of respected celebs that I got to actually chat with, hang out with, or otherwise actually befriend:
William H. Macy (he frequented the Burbank Lowe's and constantly thought I worked there)
Lou Diamond Phillips (regular at a bar where I worked)
Kiefer Sutherland (regular at my friend's bar and always good for a line or two)
Gwen Stefani (Ok, just met a few times, but dang... hot)
Sly Stallone (He and I had standing reservations on Thursdays at Herb Alpert's restaurant and always sat at adjacent tables)
John Popper (Not sure why, but he always called me to go to strip clubs)
Oh, and I've had my hand on Jamie Lee Curtis' butt. Roll that beautiful butt footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV5f5qPyen0 Fast forward to 1:40. I'm wearing the grey plaid flannel shirt as we pass her around the crowd
A couple of the more unexpected ones were Jimmie Johnson on Houston St in Manhattan and Chocolate Meyers, from Dale Earnhardt's at Rockefeller Center by the Tree, and Mario Andretti near Battery Park after a sports museum opened down there. I have run into a few other people in NYC but you generally don't meet many racing people there. One of the coolest I met was Moby. I have this big bus scarf my wife made me that I wear when it's really cold out and when he was waiting for someone he asked me about it out of nowhere.
I met Danny Popp at a local autocross. He stopped by with a nasty C6 that they were towing to SEMA. They were using our event as the shakedown on their way there. It was pretty cool to meet a pro driver. Super nice guy. And yes, he beat all of our asses 
mndsm wrote: Not an idol- but I ran into Jeff Hardy (WWE/TNA) at Arby's at MOA. Didn't realize it was him until I saw the crazy beard. Had his hair all tucked in a hat. Didn't say anything to him, figured he wanted to be chill for a bit.
Not idols, but people/wrestlers in the public eye:
Saw Hulk Hogan, Nick Bockwinkel and Bobby the Brain Heenan all sitting together at the Italian Pie Shoppe restaurant in Eagan,MN in the early 80s (I was a kid and was in total awe)
As I was coming out of a convenience store bathroom in Duluth in 1997, Kevin Nash was walking in. This was just after Monday Night Nitro was on tv live from the Decc Arena in Duluth.
Saw Jim Brunzell walk into a convenience store along University Ave in St Paul at 2am in the late 90s.
Met Jesse Ventura the night before he got elected governor (he trounced two career politicians in that race).
and
Met Arsenio Hall when I sat in the "dogpound" on his tv show in 1992.
ditchdigger wrote:JoeyM wrote:In the late 80's and early 90's I volunteered at the local community center for the performing arts. Setting up mic's, pointing stage monitors, running cables. It was a great way to rub elbows with musicians and get into shows for free. Given Eugene, OR's proximity to Seattle I did stage setup for pretty much every grunge band before they were famous. Mudhoney, soundgarden, Green River and nirvana were like a bi-monthly thing. I got to know most of them by name, hence the familiarity with Cobain and probably why he tried to hit me. My band was playing a cool little club in Portland called the X-ray cafe. Halfway through our set Kurt came in with some girl who walked straight up the the jukebox and plugged in "Come on Eileen" by Dexys midnight runners. It was piped into the same PA system that the stage used and drowned us out. We ended up having to unplug the jukebox so we could finish our set. After the show while I was clearing out I said something like "classy girl you got there" and he acted all pissed off and threw a punch. I had a guitar case in one hand and an amp in the other so I just leaned out of the way ad walked on by. I was underaged in a bar so I didn't want to bring any scrutiny onto me. 4 months later "Smells like teen spirit" broke big.ditchdigger wrote: Definitely NOT an idol of mine but Kurt Cobain threw the sloppiest and most easily dodged punch I have ever had pointed at me.We want this story
After reading this story in combination with seeing your avatar, I am laughing my ass off at the visualization I have of Booger with that top hat smoking a cigarette and carrying a guitar case and an amp, dodging a punch from that little hobo Cobain.
No idols for me either, but I did meet James Brown in a hotel elevator in Richmond Va. around 30 years ago. Also met Doc Watson but I was at a bluegrass festival with his cousin so I guess that doesn't count in this thread.
Not my idol at all.... Not really that famous either but I'd love to have his job.
I met David Freidburger twice... The first time he was drunk in the back of a van getting gas on a road trip or something. The second time a year later he ignored me, I was just kind of like really? Your just like I always imagined you but hoped you would surprise me.
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