Famous people you stopped and "hassled"

mtn wrote:

Wall-e wrote:

pinchvalve wrote: Traveling for work and taking clients out to dinners lets you run into a lot of people and sound really pretentious.

Meeting Lee Iaccoca at Spago does sound much better than Abe Vigoda was on my bus(he was). I get oddly uncomfortable approaching famous people on the street. I usually just keep walking. There have been a few exceptions but even then I try to be quick and not annoy them. The strangest was probably either a few years ago when stopped at a club at my post. They had live music and towards he end of my shift I'd hang out by their door to listen to music and bullE36 M3 with their doorman. It was cold and I was wearing a scarf my wife made me that looks like a bus. He stopped on his way in to tell me he thought it was cool. I also saw Tracy Morgan after his accident when he was getting ready to tour again. I was driving across 57st in Manhattan and thought I saw him get out of a car. I banged a quick U turn, stopped in front of him, jumped out to wish him well, then jumped back in the car, made another u turn and kept going.

I'm dyin to know, who was it?

Oops sorry, It was Moby.

I see Jerry Adler in the hardware store every once in a while. He drives a PT Cruiser.

A friend of mine shared a house with two football players and one day as I was finishing off for the day helping him with his turbo engine install. So my friend is about 6 foot 5 or so and the football roommates are at least that (more like 6 foot 10 at a minimum) plus 100 or so more pounds.

Anyhow Gabrielle Union comes in with her husband/fiance of the time. She kept her hoodie up so never realized who she was until years later. I make some stupid joke about finally having someone around my height in the house. She just grimaced which is fine given I was some random dude covered in smelly oil and trans fluid.

Last summer I was at a huge concert my friend Luke puts on in Portland. Each band gets 15 minutes on stage with a backline of gear. They walk up, plug in and knock out their short set and clear out in 15. There will be as many as 20 groups a day doing this. It is awesome and brutal. A band I quite like was getting ready to start and the guitar player loudly hit the most out of tune, brash and completely wrong chord costing them half a minute to restart. The tall fellow next to me winced and shouted "ouch!" then looked down to me and continued the mocking facial gesture. I just said "Hey, if it was perfect it wouldn't be rock and roll" he smiled and said "yeah, I like that. I really like that, good attitude man!" he kept patting me on the shoulder and smiling. After their set he said "E36 M3 I gotta go!"

Not 5 minutes later they introduced that man on stage. Peter Buck formerly of REM. I had no idea.

About 10 P.M. and a few friends were sitting in a hotel parking lot in folding chairs drinking beer in Dallas. I was filling the ice chest with ice and Willie Nelson walks up and waits to get ice. I just say "Hey Willie...wanna beer?" He grins and says "That's a stupid question!" and follows me back outside and we all drink beer and talk about life for a while. Kinda dark and I don't think everyone realized who he was. One guy just asks him what his story was and Willie just says "I'm here for the concert tomorrow". My clueless buddy goes "Willie Nelson concert?...love me some Willie!". A few dick jokes later he realized and we had a fun time.

Bruce

I once yelled "BEN!" at Ben Affleck from across an intersection in Boston cuz my friend i was with didnt believe it was actually him, it was.

Since I used to crew in a couple of pro series, I've met a few "famous" race drivers, the most famous probably Mario Andretti. Benny Parsons once came and sat with us at a show for about an hour or so. He was a seriously nice, down to earth guy, exactly how you saw him on TV. Bobby Rahal almost ran me down with his car at a vintage event some years ago, I had to jump out of the way. I flew on a plane once with ex-Buffalo Bills linebacker Cornelius Bennet. They always talked about him not being the biggest linebacker, but he was huge in real people terms. A nice guy also.

All these comments make me glad I am not famous!

I guess it's the modern equivalent: The other day both Ice-T and Dee Snider liked my tweets.

If you were into BMX in the '80s, then you'll recognize today's celeb encounter:

Bob Haro and I have hung out before, and he's just a neat guy--a car guy, too. The occasion was the Spring Fling, a killer old school BMX reunion held in St. Augustine, Fla. We just went up today. Also spent time with Mat Hoffman, Stu Thomsen, Brian Blyther, Ken Coster (owner of Skyway) and others--plus our awesome local crew. No charge to attend, and lunch is included.

And Mat Hoffman:

Last year we rode together some. This time we compared broken left arms.

In reply to David S. Wallens:

That's berkeleying awesome!

Michael Ironside - the shiny happy person in almost every 80s action movie - and I chatted on a flight. Not so much a hassle as he was quite chatty and never once tried to kill me.

Christopher Titus. I almost literally ran into him after a show a few years ago, I was coming down the escalator at B&N and he plus manager were heading up to grab a coffee. I stopped a mere one foot from him and looked up..."Titus! Great show!" Hand shake and thank you's, and they were off.

I talked to Jim Gaffigan at the baggage claim area in the Orlando airport a couple of years ago. He flew in by himself, no "entourage". Really laid back, normal type dude.

petegossett wrote: In reply to David S. Wallens: That's berkeleying awesome!

Thanks. Both guys are just awesome. Both are way into cars, too. And, yes, there's a modern Bob Haro sicker on my Porsche.

This isn't a harassment but I guess it qualifies as a celeb encounter. I have been a huge Agent Orange fan since high school and, long story short, have gotten to know the guys. I recently built up a new Agent Orange skateboard, and before their recent Orlando show Mike Palm, the band's singer/guitarist/founding member, took it for a spin:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TWXbby2Bovs

Facebook reminded me there was one person I chased for an autograph. I was a huge Alan Kulwicki fan as a kid. When he won the championship in 1992 I ditched school to go to the Waldorf Astoria where the awards banquet was held. I had heard that the winner's car was parked out front and you could meet drivers during the day. I took my cameras and my NASCAR yearbook that I'd get for Christmas every year. I met a bunch of my heros, each as nice as could be, and took a leak next to a very young Jeff Gordon.

Then they started to rope off the area around Kulwicki's car out on Park Ave and a crowd of pro photographers gathered and pushed us back. I still managed to get a really nice shot shot of him and his father. He stared to sign autographs afterwards but he was being rushed away to the banquet. He still continued to sign for anyone that ran along through the lobby with him. I got mine just before he went into the elevator. It was the first time I remember being able to sense a complete stranger's happiness and excitement.

1988RedT2 wrote: I must be hanging out in the wrong places. The only celebrity I can recall bumping in to is Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka.

When I was in high school, they had a wrestling match at the school. I was hanging out in the hallway when Jimmy Snuka came out of the dressing room and asked me to grab him a few bottles of water from the concession stand. Forgot about that one!

einy wrote: I talked to Jim Gaffigan at the baggage claim area in the Orlando airport a couple of years ago. He flew in by himself, no "entourage". Really laid back, normal type dude.

I feel like I'd get along with him really well.

And here are some of my missed connections:

Linda Hamilton drinking coffee at an L.A. coffee shop. It was 1994, and I'm still positive it was her.

Dee Snider driving his van--yes, high-top conversion van--through our town circa 1990. He lived near us, kinda. It had to be him.

Scott Ian, from Anthrax, Tower Records in New York City, circa 1992. Like us, he was there just looking for music.

Oh, my parents are 90% sure they sold a car to Joan Cusack. They sold a car to A Joan Cusack that lived in Evanston, Illinois (where THEJoan Cusack is from), and it sure looked like her--but they don't know. The timing makes it a little suspect, but not out of the realm of possibilities: It was a 3 year old Oldsmobile Toronado in 1987, so she was on SNL, but not big yet. A nice enough car, but nothing flashy.

This is all according to them, as I wasn't born yet.

Too bad they didn't keep the pen they used to sign the title, maybe there were teeth marks.

It used to happen the other way with me when I lived out west. Roommate had a friend who was a tour manager, so anytime anyone he booked was in the area, we got the call to come show them the local flavour. Mostly rappers, but a few bigger names.

My dad was a pretty big fan of the band Little Feat, we've been on tour buses with them, band members ate with them at the festival they had in Jamaica every year, lots of sideways smokes in parking lots with them, we even got a sympathy card from the band manager when he died.