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[side_show]

I've had a great deal of weird celebrity run-ins because of my work.

I've witnessed:

Keifer Sutherland drunkenly hitting on my friend on a bar patio while his children slept  on the ground under the table.

Keanu Reeves as Hamlet refering to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as "my most excellent friends" (I'm not kidding - this was during a preview performance and there were at least 200 other witnesses).

Seeing Joanna Kerns (the mom from Growing Pains) in direct natural light and clearly seeing the line around her face where her face lift ends.

Anyone else?

[Carlos del Vaca]

I saw John McCain in the airport.

[CortJstr]

I saw John Tavolta at the Air & Space Museum but it was before both Pulp Fiction and disco nostalgia so my mom had to explain who he was.

Also, I saw Sissy Spacek at the mall in C-ville standing in line for Sabarro.

There was also a few people at the Film Festivals I worked at. Stan Winston (special effects for T2, Aliens, among others) taught us a drinking song.

[slink]

Well, I saw Paul McGann on a train once. Sat across from us at a table in fact .
He didn't look in the mood to talk, but he was carrying some very expensive shoes.
And I've met Alan Rickman and Janeane Garrofolo, who were both very nice. I spent an afternoon with them on the set of one of their films.
I saw William Gibson at a bar post-reading in Edinburgh counting his change and hitting on undergraduate students, and my brother with his arm round Iain (M) Banks' shoulder (he decided they were good friends?!?!).
And I'm related to Jenny Agutter, which just makes watching Logan's Run and Walkabout massively disturbing!
I think I'm forgetting some of the less important ones, but who probably were more interesting. I've met a few authors and actors and musicians but generally not for long, and some of them weren't exactly famous.

[jay-ell]

As the world-record-holder for longest-standing crush on Michael J. Fox (with the possible exception of his wife, Tracey), I have to say that I am pleased to know that a nice guy thinks he is nice.  Also, I like short guys and hockey.

[side_show]

My friend saw David Hasselhoff spray breath freshner into his mouth and because of this decided she hated all celebrities.

[slink]

Oh man. I'd love to meet Michael J Fox. Ever since Back to the Future I've just thought he was class, and he has always seemed like a really nice, genuine guy. Good humoured and talented.
I forgot the best of mine, which is a little disjointed from the actual guys (what with death and all) but I live just down the road from Chaz Chandler's wife (widow) and went to school with and dated for a while their daughter, Katy. All of this means that upon visiting them I get to play Jimi Hendrix's guitar! Well, one of them. It's rather dead, but it was nice to get to play it.
Again, they're really nice people.

[AugustWest]

I don't have many, and certainly not to compare with those in the list here.  I'm dreadfully envious of Slink getting to play Jimi's guitar.

Lessee:

I was at Churchill Downs one day and was walking through the doors from the grandstand to the clubhouse not watching where I was going.  I bumped into a guy, pretty hard.  Turned out to be noted gambler and racist Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder.  Didn't talk to him, just said "Scuse me" and walked on.  I didn't realize it was him until later.

I ran into former U of Kentucky basketball coach Joe B. Hall in a Chinese buffett about a month ago.  We had a nice chat about the hot 'n' sour soup.

I went to high school with the drummer for the Black Crowes, Steve Gorman.  There were 12 people in our senior class.  I once spent 17 hours in the back of a van with him, on the way to Sarasota, Florida for our senior trip.  I think he played "Radio Free Europe" 70,000 times.  He was the first person I knew into REM.  Nice guy.  Gave me backstage passes to one of his tours.  I still see a couple of his brothers at school reunions.

[AlohaDawg]

I was at a Vancouver Grizzlies game a few rows away from Snoop Dogg. That dude just EXUDES coolness. He doesn't take himself over seriously, which is refreshing.

When I was in college I did this honors seminar and I met Charles Krauthammer and Jeane Kirkpatrick. THAT was pretty cool. They have huge, huge brains.

My wife had much cooler run-ins than me. She was president of the May 4 Task Force at Kent State University and a member of the student programming board.

She has :

driven William Kuenstler around in her Chevette
driven Adrian Cronauer around in her Chevette
had breakfast with Spiro Gyra
shopped for guitar strings with Joe Walsh
and participated in the scoring a certain amount of white powdery substance as part of the "unwritten" contract with the Ramones.
And she still occasionally hears from Alan Canfora, who was one of the people shot at Kent on May 4, 1970. Not exactly a celebrity, but...

Accursedly, all of this was way before we met.

[slink]

Talking of white powdery substances for stars, well, not the same, but my ex met Less than Jake after one of their gigs and hey wanted to come to my flat for a smoke, but with me hating them, and me and my mate being concerned that from the sound of it they were just going to smoke all our pot I said no. So I didn't meet them thankfully.

One of my friends got to meet Serj Tankien from SOAD, which I'm stupidly envious of, since he seems like such a cool guy.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Oh, well if we're going to go back in the day, in my college radio days I...

had pizza with Social Distortion
drove the guitarist from Screaming Trees around in my car
met Kris Novoselic, he talked falsetto into my tape recorder
had King Missile (of "Detachable c*ck" fame) in the studio for an interview, they did all the talking
had a beer with Ed and one of the Chads from Live
got scolded by Chuck D in front of a big crowd


I know there were other encounters like that, but those are the most memorable.

[jay-ell]

AugustWest just reminded me I went to H.S. with Darren "Dexter" Holland of the Offspring.

I used to love the Offspring (OK, still do) back when I was a punk kid.  My seventeen year old brother in law was all like, "I found this great band, they're all underground and indie, I'm sure you've never heard of them" and I was all, "dude, that's the Offspring, I was listening to them ten years ago on cassette tape."  It cracks me up what kids today think is hip.  

I went to college with a woman who went to high school with Woody Harrelson.  He's a jerk.  Also, my Mom kissed Burt Reynolds on the lips when he came to Toledo for a production of "The Rainmaker."  And my mother in law met Eva Peron when she (my MIL) was a young girl in Argentina.  They sat behind Evita at the theatre, and Evita gave my MIL's younger sister a baby doll.

[slink]

Oh, well if we're going to go back in the day, in my college radio days I...

had pizza with Social Distortion
drove the guitarist from Screaming Trees around in my car
met Kris Novoselic, he talked falsetto into my tape recorder
had King Missile (of "Detachable c*ck" fame) in the studio for an interview, they did all the talking
had a beer with Ed and one of the Chads from Live
got scolded by Chuck D in front of a big crowd

I definitely envy for meeting erm, the one of the ST brothers hehe. Can never remember their names, only Lanegan. He is a gear guitarrist though.
And meeting King Missile can only have been amusing.

[wombat]

OK, this is definitely about a celebrity and skin:  The other day, I got to show a naked mole rat to Robert DeNiro.

He was very nice, and gracious about the intrusion his whole bizarre entourage was causing.  I decided he was nice enough against all odds (I have a prejudice against movie stars) that I let him hold the naked mole rat, even though it was really against the rules.  Don't tell my boss.

He had an inexplicable mob of people with him.  He seems to have about a million kids.  There were some obvious airhead Hollywood types, and some totally normal grownups.  We couldn't figure out their relationships to him.  It was an interesting culture clash, with the airhead Californian guy talking about buying a chinchilla coat when we showed him the chinchilla (obviously unaware of how shocking that was in zookeeper company) and the airhead Californian girl who complained about how smelly the building was and said "Eeuw, don't you all have to shower like a hundred times when you get home?"

[wombat]

Oh, and Sandra Day O'Connor came for a tour once.  Is that a celebrity?

But mostly the celebrities just want to see the damn pandas.