MR

The Hardline thread made me think about this. Anyone who has met a celebrity/actor/musician that had a great experience or a bad experience, care to share? Some people you meet on bad days, and some people are just douches through and through. Others are cool as shit even though you may expect them to be total assholes.

I'll start....

When I was in college, they were filming Hellraiser IV the next block over from my school in Greensboro NC. All my buddies knew they were filming a big scene that night and we went over to the set (it was a street in downtown GBO) at maybe 4 AM just to watch them work. They were filming a scene where the cenobites were walking down the street with fire everywhere and it pretty much took all night for the 2 minute scene or whatever it was. As we were standing on the sidewalk, somebody behind me said "Aren't you guys supposed to be up early for class in the morning?" and I looked back and Pinhead (well, the actor who played him) was standing right behind me. It was pretty cool - the actor (Doug Bradley) was in full Pinhead makeup but had a leather coat on and big thick glasses as well. I shook his hand and said something dumb, and we stood uncomfortably watching the scene for the next 10 minutes or so.

More recently, we played an event in Charlotte and Michael Jordan has an apartment directly across the street from the downtown venue we were playing at. Michael was in the VIP section of the club next to where we were playing (it was the Epicenter if you're familiar, and we played on a rooftop with bars and restaurants all around us). A friend of mine is kind of a social fixture of sorts and he wanted to introduce me, so I went into the club barefoot and stood at the bar with about 6 other people who were talking to MJ. My buddy said, "Hey Michael, I want you to meet this guy, blah blah blah" and MJ shook my hand and said, "great to meet you, man," and I said something or the other that was probably embarrassing. Then we stood there and had a shot and listened to Michael hold court for the next 10 minutes, until he and his entourage left the club. Pretty damned cool.

I have never really met any celebrity who was a total dick.

If you go into the Mecca forum here on MR you will find a similar thread to this one.

I don't have much time here at the moment to go into details. but two of the ones I can mention are Frankie Sullivan and Jack Blades.

Ha, whoops...Didn't see that in the other forum. Carry on then.

Probably a more appropriate forum here. I haven't had the opportunity to really meet any big time celebs, although I did hold the door open for Christian Laettner back when he was a senior at Duke. He never even acknowledged me at all, but him being so tall, he probably thought I was just a door stop anyway...LOL!

I haven't really met too many A-listers. Some of the names below are local celebrities at most. But here's my list so far. All encounters lasted between 1 to 5 minutes except Omar Vizquel (more below). Generally, I don't go out of my way to meet celebs because I'm afraid their behavior might ruin my admiration for their songs/athleticism/movies etc. I also have never been an autograph guy, not even as a kid, and I'm certainly not going to kiss someone's ass just because I like their music/sports/movies/books etc. I just approach it like normal, and if they are dicks, I usually just walk away or get a jab in. Honestly, the only guy I'd go out of my way to meet (out of all the musicians and athletes I admire) would be Roger Federer. I'm pretty confident meeting him would be a great experience, and he's far and away my favorite athlete of all time for a million reasons. Anyway:

Very Cool Celebs:

Omar Vizquel (Indians shortstop in the 90s): This guy was a fan favorite during the Indians highwater 90s years. My uncle does financial work for baseball players, and Omar was/is a client. One day, my uncle was in town, and he brought Omar over to my parents' house to hang out. Coincidentally, this was when I liked playing baseball. I think I was probably 9 or 10 years old. I was out in the yard hitting baseballs with my cousin (who was a great ball player), and Omar came out and starts blasting balls all over the neighborhood. Fun experience, and definitely my most prolonged celebrity encounter.

Gerry Beckley & Dewey Bunnell (of the band America)
Steve Lukather
Elton John
Billie Jean King
Colt McCoy (Browns QB/soon-to-be backup QB or traded)
Todd Rundgren
Joe Haden (browns CB)
Austin Carr (Cavs TV color guy/good former player/one of the best college scorers ever)

Dickheads:

Andy Roddick
John McEnroe

Honestly, I don't expect these guys to go out of their way to be nice or to act like meeting me is the coolest thing in the world. I had a better rapport with some of the guys in the first column than the others, but you really would only make my dickhead list by being a complete jerk and acting like you're not happy to be somewhere (Roddick and McEnroe were crotchety dicks at a charity event in Cleveland and I witnessed them being cocks to several young kids and teenage girls--great work guys). I heard good things about The Avengers cast while they were in town filming the movie, but didn't meet any personally.

I've seen lots of celebrities over the last 29 years at DFW.

The biggest one, who was very nice was Michael Jackson. There was this white van parked outside the bagroom, and we were just curious as to why it was there, kind of where it shouldn't be, so we asked a supervisor about it and he said Michael Jackson is coming in on this gate and they're going to take him off in that van. So we all got ourselves a good spot, where he would have to walk right by us and that's exactly how it went. He came down the jetbridge steps in an eskimo coat, and it was the middle of summer. lol He walked by us, about 7 or 8 of us, and we were saying "Hey Michael" and stuff like that, and you could hear him, in his high pitched voice, saying "Thank you, thank you." This was way back in the Thriller days.

I saw President Regan get off of Airforce 1 one day also. I wasn't nearly as close, but he waved to my brother and me. I had called my brother to come out there and give me a jump start because my battery was dead. Nobody in the whole joint had a set of jumper cables. Before my brother got there, someone told me that Airforce 1 was going to park right over by that gate (chain link fence gate), Regan was going to be on it. So we waited and it happened just like they said it would. Regan got off the plane and waved right at us. That was cool. That was a couple of years before the Michael Jackson event.

We saw Martina Navratilova on the ramp one day. This was a trip. She had won some sports car at a tournament and they were offloading it out of a Lufthansa 747. The Lufthansa 747's were a combination passenger/freighter plane. About 2/3 of the main deck was for passengers and a 1/3 of it was for cargo. The door for the freight part is huge. I've seen helicopters come out of that thing. Her little Porche, I think it was, fit through that door easily. I didn't even know it was her until someone told me. I was just fascinated watching that car come off the airplane.

I've seen John Goodman, Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory, Henry Winkler, Jay Leno, Steve Nash, Shack, Magic Johnson, I see Emmitt Smith quite a bit. I saw him and Herschel Walker get off a plane together last year and Herschel eclipses Emmitt. He's a big dude. Emmitt always speaks to us, but Herschel shook our hands and was extremely nice. I saw Reba McEntire recently, just walking along with a girlfriend through the terminal, like she was anybody else, just yapping away.

The nicest person I've ever met was Tom Landry. He may not be a celebrity to a lot of you, but he sure is here. He was walking along carrying a suit case in each hand, by himself. I approached him and he sat his luggage down and shook my hand and acted genuinely appreciative that I took the time to speak to him. He signed an autograph for me and chatted for a few minutes and said he had to catch a flight, and off he went.

The nastiest person was Troy Aikman, followed by John Goodman. I was surprised at Goodman. Troy was pissy because he had been sidelined with an injury and the back up quarterback was playing so well that they left him in after Troy was ready to play again. That was eating his lunch. They came in on a charter, out by the hangar, and were exiting through the tail stairs of a 727. We were offloading the equipment. That shit is HEAVY! It was never fun to work one of their charters. Anyway, Troy came down and I shouted "Hey Troy!" in his direction and he turned around and looked at me with complete disgust. Me and the people I was working with were like "WTF??" He looked at me like he could kill me. John Goodman just ignored me, but he was standing right behind me on an escalator. It was like talking to a deaf person. He just kept his head down and wouldn't speak to me. I thought, you rude motherfucker. I guess he was afraid I was going to blow his cover and cause a crowd to want autographs or something.

Jay Leno was weird. I was just sitting with my first wife, who was waiting to get on a plane to Chicago when he came breezing in to the lounge area. He went straight to the pay phones, picked up a receiver, never put a dime in or dialed a number and just stood there, pretending to use the pay phone so no one would bother him. He stood there like that until an agent came and got him and took him down the jetbridge. 7 or 8 minutes.

Jonathan Cain was standoffish. He saw that I recognized him and he dropped his head, like "Oh God, no." Him and Ross were coming through security. I waited a bit to see if anyone else was going to come through, but I didn't see anyone and I just left him alone. That was during the time JSS was singing for them, and they were on their way home from their final gig on that tour, where I think it ended in Monterrey, Mexico.

I saw Shaquille Oneal a couple of times. He looked freakishly tall walking through the terminal with nothing but average height people around him.

The only other person I can think of that I saw was Dick Butkus. He was doing an OJ, running through the airport trying to catch his flight.

My crew chief told us a story that when he worked in Boston, everyone knew that he was a huge Lauren Hutton fan. Why, I don't know. but he said one day one of his co-workers there came up to him and said Richie, you'll never guess who's standing in the book store upstairs, and Richie said "NOOOOOO!" with big eyes, and they guy said yep, she's up there right now. So off Richie goes, to the book store and lo and behold, there she was, leafing through a book. He figured this was his one and only shot, so he walked straight up to her and said "Ms. Hutton, I love you!" and he said she looked him right in the eyes and said "Fuck off!"

I've met Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley on several occasions. Most of them were back in the 90's. Paul is pretty reserved. Generally friendly but I do know people he has brushed off. Gene is a mixed bag. He can be hilarious and very polite, but other times he can be a dick. However if you stand up to him, he respects that and drops his schtick.

They did an autograph signing at the old Hammerjacks in Baltimore around the time of Alive III and I was backstage because I had a friend who worked at a record store. So I was able to get my stuff signed without waiting in line. I made the mistake of saying to him when he came by that I had a "couple" of things for him to sign. In reality it was only 3 things. Gene will sign anything but HATES when professionals auto hounds sell things. So he begins to lecture me that he only has time for one thing and there are a thousand people waiting in line and how I'm taking advantage of where I am at, etc.

My response was "So are you going to keep running at the mouth while THOSE people are waiting and sign these 3 fucking things for me or not?" He smiled with that evil grin, took the items and signed them and shook my hand.

This pic was from much later at a 2010 official (paid) meet & greet.



I had my then 4 year old with me and they were all fantastic (as they should be for the cash) but they paid extra attention to my daughter that night. It was funny watching Paul bending down to pick her up to tell her that he had a "little one at home just about your age". She was a little scared of Gene at first until he started making faces and trying to get her to fist bump him.

Rick wrote:My crew chief told us a story that when he worked in Boston, everyone knew that he was a huge Lauren Hutton fan. Why, I don't know. but he said one day one of his co-workers there came up to him and said Richie, you'll never guess who's standing in the book store upstairs, and Richie said "NOOOOOO!" with big eyes, and they guy said yep, she's up there right now. So off Richie goes, to the book store and lo and behold, there she was, leafing through a book. He figured this was his one and only shot, so he walked straight up to her and said "Ms. Hutton, I love you!" and he said she looked him right in the eyes and said "Fuck off!"

conversationpc wrote:

Rick wrote:My crew chief told us a story that when he worked in Boston, everyone knew that he was a huge Lauren Hutton fan. Why, I don't know. but he said one day one of his co-workers there came up to him and said Richie, you'll never guess who's standing in the book store upstairs, and Richie said "NOOOOOO!" with big eyes, and they guy said yep, she's up there right now. So off Richie goes, to the book store and lo and behold, there she was, leafing through a book. He figured this was his one and only shot, so he walked straight up to her and said "Ms. Hutton, I love you!" and he said she looked him right in the eyes and said "Fuck off!"

I am LMAOVL!!

I love Lauren Hutton too ...even more now!!

Jeremey wrote:Ha, whoops...Didn't see that in the other forum. Carry on then.

No. I wasn't saying that there's anything wrong with you starting this thread. Just mentioning for those who might want to check it out too.

Rick wrote:The nicest person I've ever met was Tom Landry. He may not be a celebrity to a lot of you, but he sure is here. He was walking along carrying a suit case in each hand, by himself. I approached him and he sat his luggage down and shook my hand and acted genuinely appreciative that I took the time to speak to him. He signed an autograph for me and chatted for a few minutes and said he had to catch a flight, and off he went.

^^ This! OMG Rick, what a dream that is. I've met a lot of the guys from that era (I will never forget the day Staubach visited my pop - nor will I ever live it down), but meeting THE man himself. Yer my hero!

Panther wrote:

Rick wrote:The nicest person I've ever met was Tom Landry. He may not be a celebrity to a lot of you, but he sure is here. He was walking along carrying a suit case in each hand, by himself. I approached him and he sat his luggage down and shook my hand and acted genuinely appreciative that I took the time to speak to him. He signed an autograph for me and chatted for a few minutes and said he had to catch a flight, and off he went.

^^ This! OMG Rick, what a dream that is. I've met a lot of the guys from that era (I will never forget the day Staubach visited my pop - nor will I ever live it down), but meeting THE man himself. Yer my hero!

He had his fedora on and everything.

When I worked for a trucking company I had to go to one of those god awful annual meeting type things and they normally schedule an entertainer for the last night. Apparently they had booked Richard Jeni and in the week leading up to the event Richard decided he'd rather eat a bullet than perform for a trucking company annual meeting, so they scheduled a last minute replacement. During the dinner who should I see walking around taking pics but one of my favorite comedians, Colin Quinn. I caught him and got a pic and talked to him about Tough Crowd and Jimmy Norton etc...unfortunately I had made plans to meet my sister (the event was in her town of Houston and I never see her). The next morning the closing meeting was opened by the president of our company standing up and apologizing for the rude and disgusting set from the comedian the night before, who had apparently dropped the N bomb, joked about Mexicans, and made fun of the big annual award prize winner's appearance. He said they had no idea who he was and he was a last minute replacement for the recently deceased Jeni.

It was a win all the way around!

I've never really run into a celebrity in "real" life but I did get to briefly speak to Robby Steinhardt, violinist for Kansas, after a Kansas show back around 2000. He was nice enough. I saw him at least one other time at the Indiana State Fair a year or two after that talking with a group of fans before the REO Speedwagon set and right before theirs.

Fact Finder wrote:I was drinking in the Capitol Hill Holiday Inn Sports Bar in D.C. in 1998. I struck up a convo with a British gent named Tony. We somehow hit it off and closed the bar down. The next day I did my business and returned to the bar and Tony was there. I ambled over and off we went again till closing. Next morning at breakfast, I saw his friend and asked, where's Tony. He looked at me funny and says "oh..Tony won't be up for breakfast" I asked why not? and he said, "Do you know who he is" and I say no, and he then tells me it is Tony Kaye from Yes. I was speechless. We actually remained friends and in contact from 1998 till 2001 and I haven't talked to him since. I do have his number somewhere. And this pic from when we met up again in DC in 2001..







Oh, and he is one cool dude.

Very cool!

Growing up in florida and going to spring training games was what me & my dad did all the time. From Lauderdale, palm beach, winter haven, bradenton, Vero beach and around, we went to spring training games and I got a ton of autographs on baseballs. And back then going to these games, you could practically sit anywhere you wanted, not a lot of people attended these games like they do now. I would see players who weren't playing at the concession stand, or juts hanging outside and get them. More often though, it would be during the game or afterwards when they're coming out of the clubhouse, getting on the bus and heading out. MY 3 biggest prizes were 1. 1975, I got nearly every autograph of the Big Red machine during and after a game against the Red Sox in Winter Haven on a foul ball I had gotten. From Concepcion, Griffey sr., Seaver, Bench, Foster , Rose, and Morgan, they are all there. From that same game, we had gotten a program of the game (back then they were only sheets of paper stapled together) and during the game, hanging over the Red sox dugout for what seemed like a dozen different times, Bernie Carbo grabbed it, took it inside the dugout and came back with everyone's autograph on it. Lynn, Rice, Tiant, Pterocilli, Yaz, Fisk. Also, during a game in palm beach, got all the Orioles of that team, Palmer, Baylor, Blair, Hendricks, Thte two Robinson's. I tell you one motherfucker, who if I ever run into him, I'll slap the shit out of him and I don't care how old he is now. In Vero, ran up to catch Tommy Lasorda(he was riding in a golf cart). It stopped and I made it up to his side and asked him for his autograph and he said "Get the fuck away from me kid". Man, I was totally hurt. I mean, I was never cussed at by an adult before(I was only 9 or 10 at the time) and it bought tears to my eyes. My dad was so fucking mad that we just left and never went back to vero. The one band I got backstage was on their second go around through Orlando on the Hysteria tour. Backstage, got to meet the band and autograph my Hysteria shirt, even Clarky's!

Ive met and talked to Mike Ditka a few times, he was very nice to me and my wife, very friendly
and polite. worked at a country niteclub and met a few "stars" freddy fender was standoffish, Faron Young was
a blast, Ronnie mcdowell (did the "Elvis soundtrack" ) was amazing, Ali stopped by and everybody loved him,
was very nice to everyone!

conversationpc wrote:I've never really run into a celebrity in "real" life but I did get to briefly speak to Robby Steinhardt, violinist for Kansas, after a Kansas show back around 2000. He was nice enough I saw him at least one other time at the Indiana State Fair a year or two after that talking with a group of fans before the REO Speedwagon set and right before theirs.

Robby was always good with the fans.

No Surprize wrote:Growing up in florida and going to spring training games was what me & my dad did all the time. From Lauderdale, palm beach, winter haven, bradenton, Vero beach and around, we went to spring training games and I got a ton of autographs on baseballs. And back then going to these games, you could practically sit anywhere you wanted, not a lot of people attended these games like they do now. I would see players who weren't playing at the concession stand, or juts hanging outside and get them. More often though, it would be during the game or afterwards when they're coming out of the clubhouse, getting on the bus and heading out. MY 3 biggest prizes were 1. 1975, I got nearly every autograph of the Big Red machine during and after a game against the Red Sox in Winter Haven on a foul ball I had gotten. From Concepcion, Griffey sr., Seaver, Bench, Foster , Rose, and Morgan, they are all there. From that same game, we had gotten a program of the game (back then they were only sheets of paper stapled together) and during the game, hanging over the Red sox dugout for what seemed like a dozen different times, Bernie Carbo grabbed it, took it inside the dugout and came back with everyone's autograph on it. Lynn, Rice, Tiant, Pterocilli, Yaz, Fisk. Also, during a game in palm beach, got all the Orioles of that team, Palmer, Baylor, Blair, Hendricks, Thte two Robinson's. I tell you one motherfucker, who if I ever run into him, I'll slap the shit out of him and I don't care how old he is now. In Vero, ran up to catch Tommy Lasorda(he was riding in a golf cart). It stopped and I made it up to his side and asked him for his autograph and he said "Get the fuck away from me kid". Man, I was totally hurt. I mean, I was never cussed at by an adult before(I was only 9 or 10 at the time) and it bought tears to my eyes. My dad was so fucking mad that we just left and never went back to vero. The one band I got backstage was on their second go around through Orlando on the Hysteria tour. Backstage, got to meet the band and autograph my Hysteria shirt, even Clarky's!

I met Bernie Carbo back in 1994. He invited me to stay at his house with him and his wife for a few days because he knew that I was a huge Baseball fan, and that I wanted to go to spring training. I had to head back home though, because I had to go back to work a couple of days later.

Bernie Carbo is a very nice guy!

Journey/Survivor wrote:

No Surprize wrote:Growing up in florida and going to spring training games was what me & my dad did all the time. From Lauderdale, palm beach, winter haven, bradenton, Vero beach and around, we went to spring training games and I got a ton of autographs on baseballs. And back then going to these games, you could practically sit anywhere you wanted, not a lot of people attended these games like they do now. I would see players who weren't playing at the concession stand, or juts hanging outside and get them. More often though, it would be during the game or afterwards when they're coming out of the clubhouse, getting on the bus and heading out. MY 3 biggest prizes were 1. 1975, I got nearly every autograph of the Big Red machine during and after a game against the Red Sox in Winter Haven on a foul ball I had gotten. From Concepcion, Griffey sr., Seaver, Bench, Foster , Rose, and Morgan, they are all there. From that same game, we had gotten a program of the game (back then they were only sheets of paper stapled together) and during the game, hanging over the Red sox dugout for what seemed like a dozen different times, Bernie Carbo grabbed it, took it inside the dugout and came back with everyone's autograph on it. Lynn, Rice, Tiant, Pterocilli, Yaz, Fisk. Also, during a game in palm beach, got all the Orioles of that team, Palmer, Baylor, Blair, Hendricks, Thte two Robinson's. I tell you one motherfucker, who if I ever run into him, I'll slap the shit out of him and I don't care how old he is now. In Vero, ran up to catch Tommy Lasorda(he was riding in a golf cart). It stopped and I made it up to his side and asked him for his autograph and he said "Get the fuck away from me kid". Man, I was totally hurt. I mean, I was never cussed at by an adult before(I was only 9 or 10 at the time) and it bought tears to my eyes. My dad was so fucking mad that we just left and never went back to vero. The one band I got backstage was on their second go around through Orlando on the Hysteria tour. Backstage, got to meet the band and autograph my Hysteria shirt, even Clarky's!

I met Bernie Carbo back in 1994. He invited me to stay at his house with him and his wife for a few days because he knew that I was a huge Baseball fan, and that I wanted to go to spring training. I had to head back home though, because I had to go back to work a couple of days later.

Bernie Carbo is a very nice guy!

Yea, he was super nice to me and I'll never forget that. Lasorda on the other a bonafide dickhead!

Being in LA I've worked for and played with some and have even had lunch with one when I worked for a name act. I was also an usher at a Latino awards show four times. I've met a ton and luckily have never had a bad experience like the Lasorda incident. The only strange one was Rob Halford, but I realize it was my approach that was wrong. He was standing on sunset in 85 ( ahem, with a group of young blonde guys) and I approached him and started just asking questions and he totally ignored me. Thought it was weird for years but now I realize I didn't approach him right. 2010 was a cool year I met and played with Neal- who was totally cool, ( I have not posted the full story on this here) and then a few months later Chad Smith happened to stop by my bands Sunday gig. I recognized hm right away and my singer got him up for two songs .


http://tinyurl.com/9yh8pol

(Skip to 27 second mark)

It was pretty funny as I had just watched his MeAtbats style spinoff funk band at City Walk two days before, and here he was at my gig. I'm a huge Chad Fan mainly from his non Chili stuff like Glenn, chickenfoot and meatbats so this was a thrill for me.

The one I had lunch with one on one was Stewart Copeland, it was a thrill and he was totally cool to hang and talk with.

I have some other even cooler stories too. Being in LA meeting celebrities it's almost like asking whens the last time did you drive or eat something.

One that stands out as being incredibly nice was Mark McGrath from the band Sugar Ray (and Entertainment Tonight and whatever that "guess the song" show was on VH1). A group of six or eight of us were eating at a Vegas casino and he was sitting a few tables away with a male friend. I waited until he was getting up to leave the restaurant and asked if he'd be willing to take a picture with a few girls at our table. He was very nice about it (asked me my name & shook my hand) and patiently took individual pics with four or five members of our group.

I work in sports and see a lot of celebs at the various venues, but since they're at a public event and are usually promoting something, they're usually on their best behavior. Two I witnessed being very nice and patient with fans were Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas (who was only there because her husband, Josh Duhamel (sp?) was promoting a movie) and Tom Cruise. Cruise was smiling, signing autographs, laughing, taking pics with anyone that wanted one and genuinely seemed to be having a great time. I also watched the singer, Usher, be very cool to anyone approaching him at an event. He'd look them in the eye, ask them their name, actually have a quick conversation with them, sign their items and take pics. Very accommodating. He had a HUGE bodyguard with him, but the guy just stayed close by and didn't interfere with anyone approaching Usher.

All I could say afterwards was, "that guy gets it." He created some lifelong fans that day, just by being nice and acting like he gave a crap.

Another semi celeb that showed up at our Sunday gig, a few months after Chad was Tim Drury , keys from Whitesnake and the Eagles , now with Don Felder. He's a photo guy as well and that's what he was doing, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out who he was. He kind of looks like Randy Meisner and he did play with the Eagles so I was confused for a minute. When I figured out it was Tim he walked up the stairs and I caught his attention by waving and pointing at him and making an air keys motion with my hand. He kind of shrugged and made " yea but you are good too gesture . " I've recently talked with him at work and he remembered me and that day. Nice guy. It's funny to be watched by others like him who I am used to watching.

About a couple weeks ago I had a "close encounter of the 3rd kind" with Jay Leno. He was driving very slowly on the 101, showing off one of his many vintage cars, hood down and famous chin up. We got to drive next to him, real close, and I was on the passenger's seat looking straight at him. I rolled down the window and waved at him, grinning like a banshee. He saw me, waved back and grinned like a banshee too. haha...I yelled: "Jay, you look great!" and he yelled back: "You too!". We both laughed and I pulled out my camera (never go anywhere without it) asking him if I can take a pic and he yelled: "Only one?" , then he started posing for me, making all kinds of faces! The only problem was that the batteries decided to fuck me over right then and the camera died, so I pretended to take a few pictures while cussing in my mind. Kept a smile on and thanked him for allowing me to take pics. I didn't take not even one pic, dammit!
But all in all it was fun and he was cool.

*Laura wrote:About a couple weeks ago I had a "close encounter of the 3rd kind" with Jay Leno. He was driving very slowly on the 101, showing off one of his many vintage cars, hood down and famous chin up. We got to drive next to him, real close, and I was on the passenger's seat looking straight at him. I rolled down the window and waved at him, grinning like a banshee. He saw me, waved back and grinned like a banshee too. haha...I yelled: "Jay, you look great!" and he yelled back: "You too!". We both laughed and I pulled out my camera (never go anywhere without it) asking him if I can take a pic and he yelled: "Only one?" , then he started posing for me, making all kinds of faces! The only problem was that the batteries decided to fuck me over right then and the camera died, so I pretended to take a few pictures while cussing in my mind. Kept a smile on and thanked him for allowing me to take pics. I didn't take not even one pic, dammit!
But all in all it was fun and he was cool.

I'm surprised he wasn't trying to get pics of your goods. You'd have looked much better on the late night show than him!

*Laura wrote:About a couple weeks ago I had a "close encounter of the 3rd kind" with Jay Leno. He was driving very slowly on the 101, showing off one of his many vintage cars, hood down and famous chin up. We got to drive next to him, real close, and I was on the passenger's seat looking straight at him. I rolled down the window and waved at him, grinning like a banshee. He saw me, waved back and grinned like a banshee too. haha...I yelled: "Jay, you look great!" and he yelled back: "You too!". We both laughed and I pulled out my camera (never go anywhere without it) asking him if I can take a pic and he yelled: "Only one?" , then he started posing for me, making all kinds of faces! The only problem was that the batteries decided to fuck me over right then and the camera died, so I pretended to take a few pictures while cussing in my mind. Kept a smile on and thanked him for allowing me to take pics. I didn't take not even one pic, dammit!
But all in all it was fun and he was cool.

Darn!!! Going to Monterey this weekend usually I see him there at the historic races. Last year I went to the area next to the track where concourse Italiano is and I said hi to Michael Anthony as he walked by.

Fact Finder wrote:I was drinking in the Capitol Hill Holiday Inn Sports Bar in D.C. in 1998. I struck up a convo with a British gent named Tony. We somehow hit it off and closed the bar down. The next day I did my business and returned to the bar and Tony was there. I ambled over and off we went again till closing. Next morning at breakfast, I saw his friend and asked, where's Tony. He looked at me funny and says "oh..Tony won't be up for breakfast" I asked why not? and he said, "Do you know who he is" and I say no, and he then tells me it is Tony Kaye from Yes. I was speechless. We actually remained friends and in contact from 1998 till 2001 and I haven't talked to him since. I do have his number somewhere. And this pic from when we met up again in DC in 2001..







Oh, and he is one cool dude.

I met him briefly a few years ago at a former friend's house (her husband is a music producer), along with the singer from Toto (can't think of his name)...I didn't know of either of them but of course knew the bands they were in. It was cool to hear them practicing in the next room/studio.
I've seen celebrities in stores, restaurants, and places I've worked but I would never approach them...I'm not even sure I'd have the nerve to approach SP, one of the few celebs that I really admire/adore.
I was introduced to Sally Ride (RIP) a few years ago at a function...I thought that was pretty neat meeting the first woman astronaut.