Back in 1995, I was on a college trip to Europe, which included about a week in London. One of our planned group outings was a performance of "Harvey," featuring Rue McClanahan as Elwood P. Dowd's sister. The theater was not in the main theater district, and this was by no means a well-attended show. Apparently at some point, our group leader managed to get word backstage that there was a group of about 20 American students in the audience, and after intermission we were moved to much better seats. And why not? The theater was seriously lacking spectators. After the performance we got to meet Rue and her co-star, and she seemed very gracious, and signed autographs and posed for pictures. One girl in our group was originally from Northfield, MN, and felt the need to tell Rue that her hometown was the home of St. Olaf College. A story that would've been much more appropriate to tell if we'd been in the presence of Betty White, I can't help but feel....

Actually, just a few hours ago Ken Jennings (the guy who won Jepoardy 74 times in a row) was at an event I was attending, with various members of the audience trying to stump him with assorted questions. Granted, that was more of a "in the same room as a famous person" situation than a brush, but it counts, doesn't it?

As for other famous people I've met, probably the most interesting was Alton Brown, a TV chef on Food Network (who I've noted bears more than a passing resemblance to Mr. Lileks...) I met him at a book signing a few years ago, and as he signed my books, I asked him of a culinary dilemma I was trying to figure out: how not to mess up rice. He confessed that he has to use a cheat sheet to figure out the proper ratio of rice to water. I just use a rice cooker now.

I rode in an elevator with Mr T at the Renaissance Center in Detroit before the premier of Rocky III in 1982. He is a lot shorter than I expected.

I had lunch with the Vice President of the Federated States of Micronesia, Mr Alik Alik. Very tasty mahi mahi.

When I was at grad. school in Buffalo, NY, in the mid-70's, I took a summer job for a firm in Chautauqua, where I stayed at a small motel during the week. The Chautauqua Institute had a summer program of music, lectures, etc. (just like in the 1900's), and one day the performer was Jose Feliciano. Imagine my surprise when he and his entourage sat at the table next to mine in the motel's restaurant.

I didn't want to bother him, so I just ate quietly, but when most of his troupe left he struck up a conversation. He could tell I was eating pork, and said "You know why blind folks love pork chops and chicken, don't you? Because you can eat them with your hands." He asked me what I did, and when I told him I worked with computers, we chatted for 5 minutes or so on the rise of computer controlled & generated sound.

Overall impression: Just a nice, friendly guy.

Sitting at work trying to get a little better organized, but I won't be here more than a few hours, so it hardly counts. Unlike the fellow who cleans our office, who works two jobs 7 days a week and somehow isn't too bitter to tell me that my son is cute and express an interest in my suddenly easy-seeming life.

My biggest brush with fame is meeting the bassist for Metallica, but it was more an arranged meeting than a "brush." Aside from him, I've only run into local sports celebrities.

Well, Sean Connery once nearly knocked me over as he exited an elevator. This was in Century City, big skyscraper, full of lawyers, financial firms, etc. I was standing too close to the door - the place was deserted - you hear the 'ping', door just starts opening, and this great big guy shoulders his way out fast. Got a nice bruise on my right arm. He never looked up, said, "Excuse me," with great sincerity, sounding exactly like 007, and almost ran down the hall. This was 1980, back when he still looked like James Bond, not the 'mature' version. The other people in the elevator were in total shock.
The reaction of women to this story is pretty entertaining. My current boss, who looks and talks a lot like Karen Allen in 'Raiders of the Lost Arc', almost fainted when I told her. Now she keeps touching my arm. "Right there?"
"Little higher."
"Oh, Sean!"

I had a patient named Max Goldman, When I went to go wake him up for a procedure, before me was Mr. Walter Mattheau. (stage makeup is a good thing) Donny Osmond was also in for a throat issue during a broadway run. Someone called these into CJ and it was not me! The other work encounters did not make it public but lets just say emergency rooms see a lot!

When I worked at the Record shop at Southdale mall in the 80's, two men with cowboy hats entered the store. One was circling the tiny country section of Cds and cassette tapes. The other approached the counter and asked if we had any George Strait music. (my expression was a Oh sh## who is that?) I replied Im sorry what kind of music is that? George's manager informed me that the other guy in the store was George Strait himself. (I am from Minneapolis and I listened everything else but country)

Richie Sambora was at Gluek's Bar in 1988/89 for a small meet/greet for his solo album. We invited him to a twins game that night, he was a good egg, very entertaining,very cute, but he drank a bit too much to walk unassisted. Good to hear that he now is sober..

1) Christmas vacation, 1970, introduced to Bob Crewe in the Moose Lake, Minnesota Ben Franklin store by one of my best friend's aunts when they were home from NYC visiting her family for Christmas. (Bob Crewe of "Silhouettes on the Shade" et al and, most recently, the musical "Jersey Boys") (When visiting the same aunt, my daughter had the chance to play on the piano on which Bob had written "Lady Marmalade")

2) Saw Burl Ives in concert at the Center in the Square in Kitchener, Ontario a few years ago when he was already in his 80s. A friend of ours is the house manager and got us an invitation backstage after the show. Mr. Ives was as gracious as could be and told the story of how, as a young boy, he once shook the hand of an older man in his neighborhood in Illinois who had shaken the hand of Abraham Lincoln.
So, I shook his hand -- which meant I shook the hand of a man who had shaken the hand of a man who had shaken Lincoln's hand.
And that's even closer than the conventional six stages of proximity!

One evening back in the mid 1980's I was going into a supermarket near where I was living outside Buffalo, NY and saw a new Mercedes with all kinds of antennae sticking out of it parked outside. Inside was Rick James along with two women.
Also, about a year ago my wife, who works in a pharmacy waited on Leonard Nimoy. He is now a photographer and was in town doing an exhibit of his work.

Harmon Killebrew was the first famous person I was ever aware of, back in my early childhood, listening to Twins games on the radio. I met him about three years ago, through mutual friends. He is the classiest, dearest of men and let me tell you; he's HOT. I know the man is close to seventy but he's still got it!

Somehow, I convinced Joey, Johnny and Marky Ramone to jump into my 1978 Toyota Corolla after a soundcheck near Baltimore to visit the semi-legendary record store where I worked at the time.

At one point, when it became clear that my "it's only five minutes away" was stretching the truth by three, Johnny started to get a little nervous: "where are you taking us?"

But by then, we were practically there, and it quickly became clear that I was not a mad stalker intent on keeping the band in a jar in my basement. We pulled up in the lot, and I made my triumphant entrance to the store, with 3/4 of the coolest band in the world in tow.

After about a half-hour prowling the stacks, the band left with groaning armloads of free vinyl and I left with my reputation solidified for years as "the guy who brought The Ramones to Music Machine."

Mid 80s in Cabo san Lucas ran into Keith Richards several times when he was there for his wedding. Cabo was much smaller then -- Harbor, dusty town and two nice resorts. Keith was staying at the Finisterra. We were staying on our boat.

One night or early morning we ran into Keith while he was trying, with no success, to start his truck. We offered to help but he insisted through mostly unintelligible grunts and gargles that the truck wouldn't start because it was pointing uphill, the gas tank was in the back and, obviously, the fuel will not flow uphill to the engine...

We tried to explain that this problem had been solved years ago but he was having none of it. He did, however, ask to go fishing with us the next morning.

We waited and waited but no Keith. I don't imagine he's ever seen the early side of noon.

Brushes with fame, two on a plane. Romerez was sitting in First Class, looking for all the world like he seriously asleep. Well, how could he actually be asleep with the noise and jostling of people boarding the plane, but I didn't see anyone bother him.

Fuhrman was already boarded in First Class, as well (different flight years later), but was not acting like he was asleep. I should have told him "thanks for trying", but decided to let him have his privacy.

Clint Eastwood was filming the movie "The Gauntlet" in Phoenix, Arizona, two blocks from where I worked at Arizona Public Service Company. I was walking to my car at a parking lot far from the office, when I ran into him, during a break in the filming. Boring but true.

Hmmm, had a few. Met Charlton Heston in a Macy's at a book signing. Very nice, no guns though.... I escorted Al Davis to a hotel room once. Didn't say much, tipped $10.

Spent some time watching Larry Zbyszko play blackjack. Waited for him to put the dealer in a figure four leglock, sadly it never happened. Don King once shopped in a store I was running. Cheapest man in town, wanted a discount on everything he bought. Carried a roll of $100s too.

I've seen others in passing, most seemed oblivious to their surroundings. Guess they need handlers to get through the day.

I was tending bar at a small, neighborhood restaurant in Phoenix (Feeney's on 12th Street if anyone knows it) in the early-mid '80s, when who should walk in and sit at my bar on a Friday night but George Wendt, aka Norm from Cheers. Of course this is at the show's peak of popularity so it didn't take long for everyone in the place to notice (I suppose one of the waiters announcing who was at the bar to the entire back half of the house helped). Anyway, he and the guy he walked in with managed to have a draft beer and a shot of Jack Daniels before the idiots asking for autographs drove them out. I figure that was when my bartending career peaked. It was all down hill after that.

I have several:

1) I got to shake hands with George W. Bush when he was the Texas Rangers' owner and I was a college radio reporter.

2) I rode in a hotel elevator with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis at a jazz festival in Wichita, Kansas. (I would have liked to "talk shop" with him, but there were all these real-estate convention ladies in there with us, and I don't think they recognized him, so I didn't want to invade his privacy. All I said was "I'm looking forward to hearing you tomorrow" when I got off the elevator; for all the convention ladies knew, he could've been speaking on Getting a First Mortgage or something.)

3) This is less of a brush, but I was in a movie theatre lobby in Indiana with John Cougar Mellencamp (the Cougar part was still there at the time) and his entire family.

4) As a college jazz professor, I've had quite a few famous musicians ride in my car during our annual festival, though I don't know how many are famous outside the jazz world; the best-known one might be Clark Terry, a veteran of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, who's now in his 80's and still plays.

5) I was an extra in the movie Necessary Roughness, which was shot at my college while I was there. I got the autographs of Kathy Ireland and Sinbad in the process.

Plane stopped in 1968 in Des Moines, Iowa
on way to Omaha and, at 10:30 pm, didn't think
much of it...then the Supremes came on. i was
too chicken to go up to them though.

Got off a plane in Denver in 1980's and we had
just avoided the most awful plane ride i had been on; coming
down in Denver can be awful cause it comes, from phoenix,
over the mts. then........down.......hard. Scary.

looked in the books section and saw Dick gregory, alone.
Went over to him and asked him 'how much you down to
now? He told me, shook my hand, and i said, "take care,
we don't want to lose you." he chuckled.

I'm at work and killing time through lunch. I waited in the cold drizzle one November night in 1978 in Saint Louis with the girlfriend at the time. We stood at the Kiel Opera House stage door to greet Bruce Springsteen.
She was a huge fan of his and had just taken me to my first Springsteen show of what would become many. It was the "Darkness at the Edge of Town" tour and I'd just been suitably blown away by the four hour show.
The E Streeters filed out through the small group to the tour bus. When Bruce came out a lot of the girls had signs and there was a great deal of excitement and chatter.
He was very friendly with everyone as he made his way to the bus. Some of the girls got kisses, but Mad had the sniffles so declined to make the effort. I was able to shake his gloved hand, clap his shoulder and told him "Great show!" which is what a lot of us had to say that night.
He was shorter that I expected and had not bulked up yet. He seemed genuinely appreciative that we enjoyed the show and were hanging out to meet him.
I became a fan for life and have subsequently taken my wife and boys to recent shows.
Thanks

Oh yeah, getting off a small prop plane, having flown from LA to San Luis Obispo, my newly-wed wife asked a woman to take our picture in front of the airport signage. As we were getting arranged and our photo taken, I noticed her escort was non other than Claude Akins who was seen in numerous shows during the 70's.
He seemed somewhat disengaged and appeared to be eager to get to somewhere else.
Thanks again

My last night before shipping out to Okinawa in November of 1980 I went to Disneyland. Ended up sharing a gondola (sky car? cable car?) ride across the park with Elliot Gould.

This was during a writers' or SAG strike. He said he'd run out of things to be bored doing.

A nice guy. I didn't bug him about his work - just told him I'd liked most of what I'd seen so far, and wished him luck in the future.

Actually, National Columnists Day is April 18, which is the day Ernie Pyle was killed by a sniper in the South Pacific in 1945.

Before the National Society of Newspaper Columnists chose April 18, a columnist named Jim Six "invented" the day in late June when he didn't have a column topic, and he was able to get it listed in some of the "official" guides.

In deference to him, it could be called Jim Six Day. However, the NSNC -- which is holding its annual conference this weekend in Philadelphia -- says the real National Columnists Day is April 18. Since there are more of us than there is of him, we claim authority.

While we're on the subject, why aren't you a member? This is a great organization. This year our speakers include Bill O'Reilly and 3 Pulitzer Prize winners. Tonight we're giving our Lifetime Achievement Award to one of them, Clarence Page.

Then we'll party.

Check out www.columnists.com

Love your site, but National Columnist's Day is April 18th.

In honor of Ernie Pyle, I present a gallery of vintage graphic desgin featuring the columnist's weapon, that engine of war, the typewriter!

UPDATE: Let's not forget the other arrows in the writer's quiver: the pen and pencil!

Somehow I forgot this one in my list earlier today: In the course of being a college radio reporter, I got to interview Nolan Ryan several times (not on a one-on-one basis, mind you, but it was still cool).

And I have a friend who's a semi-retired film score composer. In his studio, I've sat in the same chair where Clint Eastwood once fell asleep. (I'm in a group that has monthly meetings at this studio, and people always race to get the "Eastwood chair." It really is comfortable...)

I was working at UCLA med center in 1976. Walking down the hallway of the Private Pavilion was Henry Fonda. He was visiting Jacques Cousteau's son (a patient at the time). I was amazed how short Henry Fonda was.

1) Many years ago, when we lived in Helena, Montana Charley Pride (country singer) lived across the street, I went to school with his kid. It was just before Charley hit the big time in Nashville. My folks saw him perform at the local dinner theatre/supper club.

2)Returning from Florida with a pack of cheerleaders, we saw Michael Jordan in the loading zone at San Diego airport. He smiled, waved & said hi to the whole gaggle of gigglers. This was when the NBA was on strike.

3) I worked at the cleaners in Poway, California where Tony Gwynn brought his cleaning after a road series. He's only famous to baseball fans, I suppose, but he's the best of the lot in my book. A truly good man.

Some August in the late 70's ('78, '79, '80) I took a Trailways bus from Fun City to Long Lake, NY to join my parents camping in the Adirondacks. I was minding my own business when I heard a murmured ``hey, that's Maureen Stapleton...''. I looked over, yep, there was a modest lady who looked familiar.

She got off at Albany.

You can't really blame her for not flying...

"Spent some time watching Larry Zbyszko play blackjack. Waited for him to put the dealer in a figure four leglock, sadly it never happened."

I would've KILLED someone in order to be put into a figure 4 leglock by Larry Zbyszko when I was in about 9th grade. ;-) He was the love of my life back then. Lasted about a month. snicker

Okay, I'll be the geek that points out that Leonard Nimoy played MR. Spock, not DR. Spock. :-D

1. First brush with fame: Got an autographed ball from Johnny Bench. He was good friends with a local Chevy dealer in town. My sister later drew over the autograph with magic marker.

2: Back in college at Oklahoma State about 1983. Was at a cowboy bar on the strip in Stillwater. I was relieving myself in the bathroom trough. Standing behind me was a true cowboy who looked like he had just come off the trail: huge hat, bushy handlebar mustache, neckerchief, knee-high cowboy boots with pants tucked in. As I was walking out, he said, "Don't they teach you to wash your hands at this school?" I said, "No, they teach us not to (urinate) on our hands." Two nights later, I'm watching Johnny Carson, and they introduce cowboy poet Baxter Black, same guy in the bathroom. Guess he'd been on campus to give a reading.

3. Got to ride in an elevator with Nancy Kerrigan of Olympic misfortune fame. It was 1995 and we were at the Oklahoma state capitol. I was a state agency flunky and she was there to present a big scholarship donation to children of the Oklahoma City bombing victims. Very nice of her, but her handlers were of the "don't look her in the eye or speak to her" variety.

I think it was in the spring of 1972, although it could have been the fall of ’71. The date doesn't matter much I suppose, but “The Getaway” was filmed in at least four Texas cities; Huntsville, San Marcos (30 mi. south of Austin on Interstate 35), San Antonio, and El Paso. As the cliché goes, “I know because I was there,” at least on the fringe, of the San Marcos location.

The most common way and certainly the fastest way to get from San Antonio to Austin, then and now, is through San Marcos. Returning home to Austin from a San Antonio trip one evening about sunset, I stopped in San Marcos for gasoline, filled the tank and went to pay. The cashier stood next to his register like a wax statue, utterly transfixed, staring over my shoulder at what I thought was my car.

He mumbled in a distant voice, “Did you see that?” I turned around thinking someone was maybe tampering with my car, trying to steal my 8-track or something. I asked the cashier what he was talking about. “Steve McQueen,” he whispered.

I looked again. A car was being fueled at the pump in front of mine by a man with light-colored hair. His back was toward me and the cashier.

“He gave me ten bucks,” the cashier stammered.

“Wow,” was all I could muster. Nice tip in a time when $6.40 would fill a 20 gallon tank. I dropped some money on the counter for my own gasoline and walked slowly back to my car, trying not to stare at the car ahead of mine. Ironically, it was a gray-blue Ford Mustang, but looked completely stock, nothing at all like the famous Shelby GT from “Bullitt.” The man with light-colored hair finished pumping gas.

I must have been doing the awe-struck-tourist thing, maybe ten feet from a man who I had been told was Steve McQueen, because he suddenly jumped in the Mustang and burned rubber getting out of the station. Understandably so, famous people develop a sort of radar that indicates when conditions are coming together for a potential recognition mob-scene by well intentioned but ultimately annoying fans. Me and the cashier standing and drooling like dumb-struck village idiots would have driven off any celebrity, major or minor. And in those days Steve McQueen was about as major as you could get.

Was it really him? Probably. My gut says it was. They were filming in San Marcos at the time, everyone was talking about it, even up in Austin, about seeing Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw around town doing this or that. That cashier was certainly convinced it was him. But then, he got a good look. I never saw his face, just the back of a head with light-colored hair of a guy pumping gas.

Maybe I should call this “My Probable Brush With Greatness.” Or I could just go with my gut feeling and know that me and Steve McQueen almost rubbed shoulders, buyin' gas down to the Texaco.

Seems like Clint Eastwood gets around... I was assisting at the Monterey, CA Special Olympics (a traditional military thing to do) in 1986 when I saw him walking across the field, probably to present an award or two. He was already the mayor of Carmel. I went up to him, blocked his path and asked if he was going to do Firefox Down (sequel book to Firefox). "No" was his answer - and he's kept his word.