The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I looked at Jim's "Famous" thread but I didn't think I could get away with co-opting it. Who here's had fun encounters with famous people? Hanging out with Spud this weekend was quite an adventure; he's probably my most recent celebrity. Anyway, her'es a SongFight-related one for y'all:

The week after Gregory Peck died, one of the titles was "So Long, Atticus," referencing his famous role as Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Anyway, some guy from the band Atticus emailed me and said he liked my music and dug all the quirky songs and that I should keep on a-rockin'. They may or may not be famous (I think I thought they were famous, but there's another punk rock Atticus brand and it's for t-shirts and VA compilations). I expect that they were looking for illegal hosts of their mp3s and came across that track.

Erm, I accidently almost went home with a local news anchor last Friday.

I was at the local cafe with some friends, and my Dad was picking me up. This news anchor called Larry Mendte came in and ordered some drinks, and my friends and I talked with him while he was waiting. He got his drinks, left, and I saw Dad's car pull up. I went outside after saying my goodbyes, pulled on the handle, felt it was locked, looked up, saw Larry Mendte. I got the wrong car. I guess I should've noticed that the car had a GPS system and was too dark a colour, but, heh, oops. He gave me a quirked eyebrow, open mouth look, and I cracked up and ran inside. So I came back into the cafe, told the story to friends, and then finally went home in the right car.

So a 'fun' encounter with a vaguely famous person.

I occasionally shoot camera for the show I edit (it's a hip-hop show), so I've met lots of famous rappers and told them where to stand.

Off the top of my head:

Lil Flip (we stayed at his beach house), Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz (he surprised me by grabbing the camera and shaking it), Scarface, Master P, Z-Ro (we interviewed him in prison, and pissed off the prison by shooting video of the main gate, which Z-Ro then used in his video), Juvenile, Ying Yang Twins, Method Man (he was cool when a flunkie of his gave us grief), Jadakiss.

We also interviewed 50 Cent twice. Once just before his first album came out at a restaurant where all the local DJs and such were invited. This was before he got all famous.

Then again just recently at the same restaurant he played his (unreleased) album and explained each track. We shot all his comments, but then his manager decided he wanted the tape back, I guess since they didn't want any of the new album on tape before they released it.

Sarah Vowell has her own little featurette on disc 2 of The Incredibles, and as soon as I saw her face on the screen, I had this moment of revalation: "Whoa, I know that woman." I mean, I knew she was famous when I met her, and I recognized her voice in the movie, and on NPR, and such, but seeing her face on my TV from a DVD that I bought at Suncoast... That's a different experience.

She visited my high school last year. My classmated asked her questions that unsettled her political beliefs (or so she said... pssh) and my pal Colin bonded with her over Buffy. She's a gigantic geek.

I've also met Richard Ford, but I've got the sinking feeling that nobody here cares about him.

Oh yeah, about four years ago, I ran into Trent Reznor at the mall.

I had a 20 minute conversation with OJ simpson alone in the same room.

He's a real nice guy when he's not killing people.

so marcus, is that the atticus song we did together he heard?

Here's a funny one:

I'm working in an eyeglass boutique right next to MuchMusic about 5 years ago, right around the MM VideoAwards show. This tall guy comes in and starts talking to my co-worker, mentions that he is a member of the Tragically Hip. The guitar player in fact. She goes bananas, comes into the back freaking out and telling me this. Now I don't watch alot of videos, but I have seen a few of them from the Hip and this guy is NOT any of the members. For one thing, this dude has a glass eye and is about 6 1/2 feet tall. Very distinctive looking, so no chance at all. She looks at me like I'm just shitting on her parade for the fun of it, stomps off and helps this guy.

The next day I come in, and she's telling another customer about this experience, and points to a band poster she has framed with a signature from the mystery Tragically Hip guitar player. When I asked her what the guys name was, she just scowled at me and walked away.

I did sell a pair of glasses to Edwin of I Mother Earth fame though..very cool guy. And I once tried to sell a car to Sasha, the last drummer for the lam-o eighties pop sensation Platinum Blonde. On the test drive he took me around to his home studio for a look.

I also was fortunate enough to record some freestyle from the Maestro Fresh Wes, of Let Your Backbone Slide fame, when I was volunteering at the university radio station. THAT was funny. Dude is like 5 feet tall. Heh.

wow, you must of towered over him.

I was at a Jazz Butcher concert at a small place in N Virginia called Iota and happened to go up to the bar to get a beer at the same time as he did (Pat Fish). Ended up chatting with him for a couple minutes about how I was doing a cover of his song "Penguins." Turned out pretty bad, really, my recording setup wasn't good at all, but he called it "mental" afterwards, which I liked.

Also, was at a science fiction convention with my sister and some of her friends to see Bruce Boxleitner (of Scarecrow & Mrs King, Tron, Babylon 5 fame). In the evening we were hanging out in the hotel bar and he came down to get something to eat and ended up sitting with us and chatting for a couple hours. Talked about the Civil War and such. Cool guy.
-bill

wow, you must of towered over him

Heh...well, at 5'6, not exactly, but I did marvel at the difference between how he looked on TV and how he looked in person. BIG difference. Camera angles can do aLOT for those of us vertically challenged.


It's too bad they don't do as much for girth, eh? [/quote]

Right after I bought my drum set back in High School, I attended a small drum lecture in a music store with Billy Joel's drummer Liberty Devitto. He was really cool to listen to play. He talked about his touring with Billy and gave us stories about how Billy Joel would have moments where he would forget the words to songs during concerts but he would look back to Liberty who was always singing the lyrics in the back. He then told us a story about how during a concert some time soon after Billy Joel got divorced, Bill looked back to see Liberty mouthing out "she got the car, the house, the ..." etc etc. It was a funny story to hear in person. He also signed a TAMA drum towel for me and a headshot. Both I still have.

I have also attended an advertising awards event with local Austin Famous Homeless guy Leslie (As well as walked past him numbers of times while going to my local Starbucks) :
http://austintexas420.tripod.com/leslie ... tures.html

I went out for coffee with John from King Missle. Michael Moore signed my "Downsize This" saying that I was a very nice person. I passed by Conan O'Brien walking down the street (that one probably doesn't count since I was too chicken to say hello).

Bill- Pat Fish really hated my cover of Human Jungle. But he did say "you sound quite good enough to get along without my say-so anyway." which I liked.

I met and talked with Ron Jeremy at the Hustler store in Hollywood. I took the day off work and drove from San Diego to meet him. That's about it for famous people. Except Drew Bledsoe went to school with me.

Steve Wozniak, the inventor of what many people claim was the first Personal Computer, inventor of the original Apple Computer, half-owner of Apple Computer Corporation and design team leader for succeeding models of the 6502-Series-Based Apple computers took my father out for a cup of coffee during a televised computer-show in 1984. This computer show had 50 or 60 different booths, representing different new products from major computer corporations, as well as independent hobbyists who had modified and expanded their personal computers.

News crews from several major networks trying to painlessly explain and introduce the world to these fascinating “Home-Computer-Things”, decided that the man to have narrate and explain what each booth at the show was trying to represent was Mr. Steve Wozniak. The very first computer Steve encountered with the news crews was my fathers. My father didn't have a booth because he didn't feel like his computer was unique enough to deserve the outlay of money needed to reserve one, but he was given permission to create the “Introductory Computer” for the show, which sit on a pedestal in the entranceway and was the first thing people saw as they walked in. My dad was checking out the other booths at the show when all of this happened behind his back on national television.

My father had modified his own personal Apple ][e with a Transwarp card which boosted overall system performance, installed a memory expansion card, and had wired up his very own speech-synthesis card. Using his upgraded hardware to the fullest advantage, he coded his own software to display a fully animated overhead map of the show, and had the speech synthesis card talking, explaining what each booth was exhibiting as the map flew around.

The news crews where very intrigued at hearing this Apple ][ talk. Speech synthesis was still a very new thing. “Wow! The computer you designed can talk Mr. Wozniak?” to which he replied “No, no it can't actually. Here. Hold on a moment.” He removed the monitor and opened the lid to the computer, revealing the mess of wires inside caused by my dad's homebrew speech synthesis card. Upon seeing this he said “Ok. This is one of my computers, but whoever owns it has done a hell of a lot of work to get it doing what it's doing right now.”

Later, after the television crews had finished their rounds with Mr. Wozniak, he asked to meet the man who had that computer out front. My father was brought to him and Wozniak offered to go across the street a buy him a coffee so he could explain what he had done to that Apple ][e to make it able to “Get on it's head and to a handstand in front of everybody.”

Henrietta wrote: Bill- Pat Fish really hated my cover of Human Jungle. But he did say "you sound quite good enough to get along without my say-so anyway." which I liked.

Heh, either I didn't know that was you or I just forgot. But I think your cover is fantastic. Jennifer & Al, then? Don't think he hated it, from reading this review, really. Better than "At first I couldn't see the virtue in this"
-bill

OK. I was working at the White House on a CD-based Interactive Tour. I was hanging out in the Usher's office when Chelsea Clinton popped her head in and said "Has anybody seem my mom?". One of the ushers looked over at an LCD readout which included the line "FLOTUS-Yellow Oval" and said "yeah, she's up in the yellow oval room".

On another occassion, you should have seen the army that was deployed the second Hillary called down and said that she wanted to go on a bike ride with Chelsea in fifteen minutes.

Hmm, lets see... I used to live in los angeles so...

-Tina Yothers of Family Ties fame used to frequent the movie theater (years after the show was off the air) in Simi Valley, CA that I worked at in high school/early college (yes, I'm showing my age! Some of you weren't even born yet when that show was on!)

-Mel Gibson walked by me in the lobby of a different movie theater that I worked at in Agora Hills, CA during the same timeframe in my life.

-I saw Jerry Seinfeld and a very young looking woman on Sunset Blvd once.

-Teller, of Penn & Teller, was sitting in the booth behind ours in a restraunt in San Francisco, talking on his cell phone.

-Phil and I have been to the same monthly comic book convention in LA as Glen Danzig, Phil has talked to him

-Phil and I met Henry Rollins at a book signing at Tower Records on Sunset.

-Phil and I attended a record relese party for Mark Mothersbaugh's (of Devo) recent band, The Wipeouters. We met and talked to him.

Wow, I know there's more, I just can't think of more at the moment!

Just found out these guys went to school with one of my buddys from Brighton. To bad they aren't very musically talented.

These guys used to come into the building where I went to graduate school and make sandwiches for profit:



When they got shut down by the health department, they decided to fuck the day job and get serious about their band.

talked with pete stewart of Grammatrain at a music festival a long time back...

a famous christian band called Bride... sung happy birthday to me when i turned 13... that was pretty cool...

uhm... met all of Guardian...

(excuse me i've met grammatrain twice)...

uhm... met the mom of the tight end that played for rams when they won the superbowl... can't remember his name right now...

uhm... ehhh... seems like more... but i can't really think of 'em now... maybe later... just never really think about stuff like that much

Most of my meetings with celebs have been after concerts. Here are the ones I remember:

I met Don and Phil Everly in Kellogg, Idaho. They signed a couple of things for me.

I met Douglas Adams in a book reading in Spokane, WA. I have a few things signed from him.

I met Mark Lindsay (lead vocalist of Paul Revere and the Raiders), he signed quite a few albums for me.

On a seperate occastion I met Paul Revere (from Paul Revere and the Raiders) autographs = yes again.

I briefly met Dan Seals a long time ago after a concert, again, one autograph exists amongst my papers.

I have hung out with the makers of Sifl and Olly (Liam Lynch and Matt Crocco) on several occasions. Rachael and I have stayed the night at Matt's house. Matt, Liam, and Mike Taylor all signed my acoustic guitar.

I met the members of Dada after a show, they all signed my guitar.

I recently met Paul Westerberg after a show, and pictures and autographs exist from this meeting (including my avatar at the time of typing this). Paul autographed my acoustic guitar.

I met and hung out with many famous songfighters in Austin in 2004. It was freeking SWEET!

I have become close friends with the guys in the local band <a href="http://www.kitegravity.com">Kite</a>. If there is any justice, they WILL be famous one day. They opened for Smash Mouth at the most recent Fiesta Bowl. No recordings exist yet that properly capture the excitement of their live shows. I am thrilled that the Half Racks are opening up for them on April 15th. They amaze me.

If I remember other ones later, I will post them. Those are the ones I do remember for now.


ROCK!

Glenn (DR FUNK)
http://glenncase.songhole.org

Heather. Redmon. wrote: -Teller, of Penn & Teller, was sitting in the booth behind ours in a restraunt in San Francisco, talking on his cell phone.

That one's a classic.

Heather. Redmon. wrote:-Phil and I have been to the same monthly comic book convention in LA as Glen Danzig, Phil has talked to him

Danzig reads comics? I knew he was frontin'!