At an event in Vegas with loads of free champagne, I saw Deborah Gibson (not Debbie, btw). I may or may not have been a little wasted, and I went up to her and said..."Oh! Debbie Gibson! I loved you in the 4th Grade! *singing* I think we're alone now!" She walked away. I am never allowed to talk to celebrities.
Outside of Paul Rudd touching my shoulder on Saturday . . . I used to work in Times Square across from MTV studios. There was always a massive line of kids standing around outside, blocking the sidewalk. I was in a rush one day past the building and slammed into some dude, called him an asshole, and then realized it was Nelly posing with people for pictures. I called Nelly an asshole.
PS. He wasn't wearing a bandaid on his cheek, which was why I didn't recognize him.
I was at Dan's Cheadle encounter. he was not cool about it. He said, loudly, "hey beth, there's don cheadle."
if political celebrities are fare game, my favorite is almost running over denis kucinich (literally) as I exited an elevator in a house office building. he's like half my height.
In St. Andrews Scotland they have this big celeb pro am golf tourney that annoys all the students there. My buddy tells me he went on this huge rant about how they just get in people's way when he was violently bumped into by someone at the bar. He turns around to yell at the guy when he sees "Oh shit, it's Shaft!" They proceeded to have a drink with Samuel L. Jackson, and he couldn't have been nicer.
I was several feet away from Willie Nelson. It was inside the Nashville Gaylord, but I was running late for a meeting so couldn't get a photo. I also shook hands with Bono when I was 15 and my obsessed friend found out U2's hotel location after their Chicago concert at Soldier Field.
I was at the Hollywood premiere of A Series of Unfortunate Events. At the after party I was talking to some guy with my gangly arms in full swing and knocked the drink out of the woman behind me; I turn around to apologize and it turns out to be Elizabeth Shue. All I wanted to do was tell her I was the man who would fight for her honor. She was still beautiful and smiled as I tried to explain.
ok, i actually do have one, so yeah I'm sharing two. Pretty much every year of my childhood since 1st grade my family went to Chicago for a Cubs game and other shit. My Dad used to think it was funny to say "Oh wow, there's Mike Ditka!" each time he saw someone resembling him, meaning a mustasched middle-aged dude, which is about 85% of the male chicago population.
On our last trip, right before I went to college, who did we finally see...Dikta!
Saturday night I met Owen Wilson and a few of the people working with him on the movie that's shooting in town. One of the guys, not Owen, tried to get me to go to his hotel with him. Kinda skeevy.
When I was in LA last summer, and friend of mine who goes to law school at Pepperdine took us to a beach in Malibu. We went for a walk along the very narrow beach, chatting and admiring the beautiful homes. As we approached one house, a man called out to us from his deck "this is the best thing I've seen coming up the beach in a long time." That man? Tony Danza.
besides meeting paul rudd... i went to shake kofi annan's hand and got pushed out of the way by one of his security guards. i guess i'm perceived as a threat. that didn't stop paul rudd though...swoon.
I once called Robert Novak a "nasty old man" by accident. I was sitting in Lafayette Park, eating a sandwich and minding my own business (and telling a story to a friend) and he walked by just as I was saying (somewhat loudly) "nasty old man." I swear I saw the back of his neck stiffen.
So a couple of weeks ago I was in Indy eating dinner with my family at R Bistro. My dad's very drunk friend recognized us & ended up joining our table for a glass of wine. David Letterman happened to be eating a few tables away from us and as he got up to go, Dad's drunk friend recognized him. He stumbled up to shake the man's hand, loudly proclaiming, "Dave! You're so funny, man, I love you!" To which David replied, "I doubt it", smiled, and exited promptly.
This is very Washington, but I was brunching a few months ago at Napoleon in Adams Morgan, and who was sitting next to me but George Stephanopolis, his wife and two daughters. Naturally I was polite, but some idiot on the other side of us decided to whip out his camera phone and non-chalantly take his picture. How gauche.
Saw Dave Chappelle at Tyson's Corner mall. This was right after his supposed "mental breakdown." I told him that I thought he was "funny as shit" and shook his hand. Then we stood there awkwardly for a moment and to fill the silence I asked if his show was going to ever come back on televisions. He said he didn't know and that we would have to wait and see. He obviously didn't feel like talking to anyone and then went into Radio Shack.
i have a bunch but none compare to this...my ex-girlfriend and sister were eating dinner at a restaurant in Denver. To make a long story short, Charles Barkley was there with Alfonso Ribeiro (aka Carlton from Fresh Prince!) and Dennis Haysbert and others. They invited my sister, my ex, and their friends back to their hotel party after dinner. Carlton was married yet incessantly hit on my ex, meanwhile, she and Charles actually became friends and talk to this day. lmao
i was in line in customs in toronto and my coworker looks at me and says softly 'rwanda.' i ignore her. again 'rwANDA' with a jerk of the shoulder. after 3 or 4 rounds of this i turn around and don cheadle was standing there.
he gave me the old 'heads up' and i looked at him like my coworker was a jackass. he smiled. he is short.
i forgot about the time i sat next to ll cool j's mom's best friend on the train to nyc. she showed me pics and everything. he decorates with a lot of dark purple and red.
It was the summer of ’93. I was staying with my father that summer in Monterrey, CA. Said parental unit had recently purchased his and hers 40th anniversary Corvettes. They were beasts of a machine, with supple leather and stitching that screamed new money.
Either way, my dad and stepmom took off in her car for work or something, leaving me with his car sitting there taunting me. After walking to the store for the 3rd time that day, and tired from hunting Leatherback sea turtles the day before (We found one!), I grabbed my Dr. Dre CD, hopped in the ‘vette, and started driving.
Being 14 with no license or any driving/navigating skill whatsoever, I get lost and end up in Carmel. I pull up to a gate, and the security guard just let me in. As I wind up the hill, I see this awesome ranch style house at the top. Now, because the road was narrow I needed to get all the way to the top before I could turn around. Except there was a problem at the top of the hill and his name was Clint fucking Eastwood.
He gets me out of the car, and being a horrible liar (Erin can vouch for that) I tell Clint everything. In his gritty voice he’s like “Well, I suppose we should call your father.”I was TERRIFIED. He gave me a glass of iced tea as I sat in his dining room scared shitless, not from the impending ass whipping I was going to get from my dad, but by the fact that I thought Dirty Harry was about to kill me.
He took a picture with my dad, which spared me from the beatdown, but I never saw those car keys again.
Several years ago my parents, sister and I were at White Flint Mall and there was all this commotion. Maria Shriver was there and then we saw folks realize Arnold Schwarzenegger was there as well. We mostly just stood back and watched (Maria was super skinny skeleton even then - not that you can't tell that on tv). Then all of a sudden my dad runs toward them to thank Ah-nold for "all the years of entertainment" and my dad shook his hand. I think he was scared of my dad. Plus, Arnold's shorter than my dad who is 6'2". To this day my dad still says "he's short" whenever Arnold comes up.
21 comments:
At an event in Vegas with loads of free champagne, I saw Deborah Gibson (not Debbie, btw). I may or may not have been a little wasted, and I went up to her and said..."Oh! Debbie Gibson! I loved you in the 4th Grade! *singing* I think we're alone now!" She walked away. I am never allowed to talk to celebrities.
I saw Don Cheadle at a resort in North Carolina when I was as hung over as I've ever been in my life. That's my only non-political run-in.
Outside of Paul Rudd touching my shoulder on Saturday . . . I used to work in Times Square across from MTV studios. There was always a massive line of kids standing around outside, blocking the sidewalk. I was in a rush one day past the building and slammed into some dude, called him an asshole, and then realized it was Nelly posing with people for pictures. I called Nelly an asshole.
PS. He wasn't wearing a bandaid on his cheek, which was why I didn't recognize him.
I was at Dan's Cheadle encounter. he was not cool about it. He said, loudly, "hey beth, there's don cheadle."
if political celebrities are fare game, my favorite is almost running over denis kucinich (literally) as I exited an elevator in a house office building. he's like half my height.
My stories suck so borrowing a friend's.
In St. Andrews Scotland they have this big celeb pro am golf tourney that annoys all the students there. My buddy tells me he went on this huge rant about how they just get in people's way when he was violently bumped into by someone at the bar. He turns around to yell at the guy when he sees "Oh shit, it's Shaft!" They proceeded to have a drink with Samuel L. Jackson, and he couldn't have been nicer.
I was several feet away from Willie Nelson. It was inside the Nashville Gaylord, but I was running late for a meeting so couldn't get a photo. I also shook hands with Bono when I was 15 and my obsessed friend found out U2's hotel location after their Chicago concert at Soldier Field.
I was at the Hollywood premiere of A Series of Unfortunate Events. At the after party I was talking to some guy with my gangly arms in full swing and knocked the drink out of the woman behind me; I turn around to apologize and it turns out to be Elizabeth Shue. All I wanted to do was tell her I was the man who would fight for her honor. She was still beautiful and smiled as I tried to explain.
ok, i actually do have one, so yeah I'm sharing two. Pretty much every year of my childhood since 1st grade my family went to Chicago for a Cubs game and other shit. My Dad used to think it was funny to say "Oh wow, there's Mike Ditka!" each time he saw someone resembling him, meaning a mustasched middle-aged dude, which is about 85% of the male chicago population.
On our last trip, right before I went to college, who did we finally see...Dikta!
Saturday night I met Owen Wilson and a few of the people working with him on the movie that's shooting in town. One of the guys, not Owen, tried to get me to go to his hotel with him. Kinda skeevy.
When I was in LA last summer, and friend of mine who goes to law school at Pepperdine took us to a beach in Malibu. We went for a walk along the very narrow beach, chatting and admiring the beautiful homes. As we approached one house, a man called out to us from his deck "this is the best thing I've seen coming up the beach in a long time." That man? Tony Danza.
besides meeting paul rudd... i went to shake kofi annan's hand and got pushed out of the way by one of his security guards. i guess i'm perceived as a threat. that didn't stop paul rudd though...swoon.
I once called Robert Novak a "nasty old man" by accident. I was sitting in Lafayette Park, eating a sandwich and minding my own business (and telling a story to a friend) and he walked by just as I was saying (somewhat loudly) "nasty old man." I swear I saw the back of his neck stiffen.
So a couple of weeks ago I was in Indy eating dinner with my family at R Bistro. My dad's very drunk friend recognized us & ended up joining our table for a glass of wine. David Letterman happened to be eating a few tables away from us and as he got up to go, Dad's drunk friend recognized him. He stumbled up to shake the man's hand, loudly proclaiming, "Dave! You're so funny, man, I love you!" To which David replied, "I doubt it", smiled, and exited promptly.
This is very Washington, but I was brunching a few months ago at Napoleon in Adams Morgan, and who was sitting next to me but George Stephanopolis, his wife and two daughters. Naturally I was polite, but some idiot on the other side of us decided to whip out his camera phone and non-chalantly take his picture. How gauche.
Saw Dave Chappelle at Tyson's Corner mall. This was right after his supposed "mental breakdown." I told him that I thought he was "funny as shit" and shook his hand. Then we stood there awkwardly for a moment and to fill the silence I asked if his show was going to ever come back on televisions. He said he didn't know and that we would have to wait and see. He obviously didn't feel like talking to anyone and then went into Radio Shack.
i have a bunch but none compare to this...my ex-girlfriend and sister were eating dinner at a restaurant in Denver. To make a long story short, Charles Barkley was there with Alfonso Ribeiro (aka Carlton from Fresh Prince!) and Dennis Haysbert and others. They invited my sister, my ex, and their friends back to their hotel party after dinner. Carlton was married yet incessantly hit on my ex, meanwhile, she and Charles actually became friends and talk to this day. lmao
i was in line in customs in toronto and my coworker looks at me and says softly 'rwanda.' i ignore her. again 'rwANDA' with a jerk of the shoulder. after 3 or 4 rounds of this i turn around and don cheadle was standing there.
he gave me the old 'heads up' and i looked at him like my coworker was a jackass. he smiled. he is short.
also, why have so many of us met don cheadle?
i forgot about the time i sat next to ll cool j's mom's best friend on the train to nyc. she showed me pics and everything. he decorates with a lot of dark purple and red.
It was the summer of ’93. I was staying with my father that summer in Monterrey, CA. Said parental unit had recently purchased his and hers 40th anniversary Corvettes. They were beasts of a machine, with supple leather and stitching that screamed new money.
Either way, my dad and stepmom took off in her car for work or something, leaving me with his car sitting there taunting me. After walking to the store for the 3rd time that day, and tired from hunting Leatherback sea turtles the day before (We found one!), I grabbed my Dr. Dre CD, hopped in the ‘vette, and started driving.
Being 14 with no license or any driving/navigating skill whatsoever, I get lost and end up in Carmel. I pull up to a gate, and the security guard just let me in. As I wind up the hill, I see this awesome ranch style house at the top. Now, because the road was narrow I needed to get all the way to the top before I could turn around. Except there was a problem at the top of the hill and his name was Clint fucking Eastwood.
He gets me out of the car, and being a horrible liar (Erin can vouch for that) I tell Clint everything. In his gritty voice he’s like “Well, I suppose we should call your father.”I was TERRIFIED. He gave me a glass of iced tea as I sat in his dining room scared shitless, not from the impending ass whipping I was going to get from my dad, but by the fact that I thought Dirty Harry was about to kill me.
He took a picture with my dad, which spared me from the beatdown, but I never saw those car keys again.
Several years ago my parents, sister and I were at White Flint Mall and there was all this commotion. Maria Shriver was there and then we saw folks realize Arnold Schwarzenegger was there as well. We mostly just stood back and watched (Maria was super skinny skeleton even then - not that you can't tell that on tv). Then all of a sudden my dad runs toward them to thank Ah-nold for "all the years of entertainment" and my dad shook his hand. I think he was scared of my dad. Plus, Arnold's shorter than my dad who is 6'2". To this day my dad still says "he's short" whenever Arnold comes up.
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