What's your "Claim to fame"

[Matthew]

I live under the flight pattern for Newark airport.

I flew into Newark last Monday.... and woke up 7/4.... sorry.

[7/4]

!@$...$#@, &^%#, %^%&!!!!

[Aggie87]

Speaking of pushing aside, I did it once myself, and I've felt bad about it ever since.

This was about 1979. I was in a record store in Pittsburgh. The import section was upstairs. I don't recall why, but I was in a really bad mood. As I was leaving, a punk rock and roll band in black leather jackets were lined up side by side at the foot of the stairs. Perhaps to have their photo taken. Really posturing like they were bad. I stepped between this short skinny petite guy and a guy that looked like a girl and pushed them aside so I could leave.

The band went on to have some hits. They were called The Talking Heads. The skinny guy was the lead singer, I think his name was David but you rock fans would know. He looked startled and hurt, and the bravado disappeared in a flash. The blond guy really was a girl. Her name I'm pretty sure was Tina.

You broke up the band, GA!!!

[ejp626]

I'm almost certain that I saw the members of Dee-Light (the female singer and the DJ) coming out of an apartment in SoHo. It was across Broadway and I couldn't get a closer look (and it would have been so not-NYC to stare).

My wife was working at Court TV and talked to Regis Philbin when he called up for some reason.

[J Larsen]

I passed by Regis and his wife on Broadway in the UWS once. I also recently passed by Steven Tyler in Hell's Kitchen - he was dressed just like on stage. I did a bit of a double take and he smiled and raised his hand to me.

I think my earliest "brush with fame" was when Thurston Moore stepped on my foot at a show at the Warfield in SF in about 1989 or 1990. He turned around and apologized profusely.

Edited April 28, 2007 by J Larsen

[GA Russell]

In 1976 I had a summer job working for MCI. I sold their long distance service at a time when no one had heard of them. I would call up businesses and give the presidents the pitch.

I spoke to four relatively famous people without knowing when I dialed that they were in charge:

Dagmar (late night TV personality)

Ralph Guglielmi (Notre Dame and St. Louis Cardinals quarterback)

Van McCoy (Do the Hustle! )

Bob Purkey (Cincinnati Reds pitcher)

edit for typo

Edited April 28, 2007 by GA Russell

[ejp626]

Well, I've met and corresponded with an awful lot of people in urban sociology/urban studies that I think are noteworthy, but none of them are really famous or celebrities. The most famous was Herbert Gans (The Urban Villagers and The Levittowners). Back when there was such a thing as the public intellectual, he was reasonably well known. I stopped by his office in Columbia and discussed whether I should go there to do a sociology PhD. Unfortunately, I just had such a poor rapport with him I decided to go elsewhere. He is an occasional commentator on an urban sociology listserv, and his responses remind me a great deal of Chuck Nessa's now that I think about it. (Psychic twins or separated at birth?)

[GA Russell]

his responses remind me a great deal of Chuck Nessa's now that I think about it.

ejp, you're making me laugh again!

[Jim R]

Wow, I forgot one of my best ones... When my wife and I were students at San Jose State in 1975, we were in a "career planning" class. Kevin Pollack was in the class, and when we broke into small groups to work on some project, we got in the same group with him. I remember him doing his incredible Peter Falk/Columbo impression, but it wasn't until a few years later that I realized how versatile he really was.

[neveronfriday]

This guy was in my class. We once cooked cat food at his place (or was it dog food?).

Somewhere, I still have a hand-written note from this guy telling me to get my act together and practice more.

I threw a full beer cup (what a damn waste, I know) at this guy once because he walked off stage after about 20 or 30 minutes at a concert. Got him good.

I helped the guy on the right once get rid off the most annoying reporter he had ever seen. We just started talking and completely ignored the lady.

This guy fell on me and two friends once at a concert. We made sure he didn't get hurt.

...

[robertoart]

Fifteen years ago a friend of mine was having an art exhibition here in Melbourne. I had arranged to meet her to see the work. while we were at the gallery Eartha Kitt and a small entourage of very sharp looking African American men entered the gallery. 'Wow that's Eartha Kitt' I said to my friend, and 'she's come to see your show..that must be her band with her'. While Eartha and some of her entourage were talking to my friend, I plucked up the courage to approach one of her "band". I walked up to one of them and being nervous and gushing, out came words to the effect of, "Are you guys from New York?" "I love Jazz" "Do You Know Ornette Coleman?"........The person I was addressing turned his head towards me and said 'I'm from mainland Australia Mate......I'm just showing this mob around". By the time I had got over my embarrassment and the person I was speaking to had stopped laughing, Eartha and her band were already out of the gallery and off somewhere else. The person I had spoken to was an Aboriginal 'country and western, singer called Murray, from a place in rural Australia called Murray Bridge.

This may be the only time a 'country and western' performer has ever been potentially mistaken for a student of Harmolodics, accept perhaps Jerry Garcia.

[robertoart]

I have had two 'real' Harmolodic 'close encounters' though. Having stood at a urinal next to both 'Dewey Redman' and 'James Blood Ulmer,' although ten years apart.

I was in there first both times. And no, I didn't look.

[GA Russell]

This guy fell on me and two friends once at a concert. We made sure he didn't get hurt.

What's his name? Should I know him?

[Big Wheel]

Henry Louis Gates once called me "little brother."

I've flown on planes with Manny Ramirez and KC and the Sunshine Band.

One of Eddie Money's roadies screamed at me never to touch his band's equipment. If I hadn't been 17 at the time I would have thought of the ultimate retort: "You're one of Eddie Money's roadies."

[BruceH]

This thread reminds me of the old Letterman bit "brush with greatness."

[rostasi]

This guy fell on me and two friends once at a concert. We made sure he didn't get hurt.

What's his name? Should I know him?

That's the now departed Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy.

[Tom in RI]

I was in Boston a few weeks ago with my wife and daughter daughter picking up a cello for my daughter at Rayburn Music (it could be so much worse, it could have been a trumpet, or even worse, drums). While there I heard a guy helping a clarinet player adjust his instrument, it was Emilio Lyons.

[Jim R]

This thread reminds me of the old Letterman bit "brush with greatness."

Yeah, I used that phrase above, with the same thought in mind.

In the early 70's, my older brother belonged to a fraternity at the Univ. of Oregon. While I was up there visiting one time, I got to meet one of his fellow frat members, the great tight end Russ Francis (who went on to a fine career in the NFL). I have pretty big hands (I can palm a basketball), but Francis' hands seemed twice the size of mine. He held the national high school record for the javelin throw, iirc.

Speaking of handshakes, I got to shake hands and talk briefly with Albert Collins after a show in SF back in the early 80's. What a humble and gracious cat he was.

[jazzbo]

Okay, here are some. . . .

I shook hands with Hubert Humphrey.

I shook hands with Haile Selassie.

I talked briefly with both William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg at a sherry hour at the University of Chicago (one of the weirdest five minutes of my college experience).

I almost danced with Angela Strehli at the Flying Circus.

Edited April 28, 2007 by jazzbo

[catesta]

In August 1977, while sitting on the entrance steps of a Bayside Queens funeral home, I received a little pat on the shoulder from Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra while the man with him (Frank Tieri) handed me a $20 bill and said "your grandfather was a good man".

[Jim R]

I almost danced with Angela Strehli at the Flying Circus.

Wow!

[Jim R]

In August 1977, while sitting on the entrance steps of a Bayside Queens funeral home, I received a little pat on the shoulder from Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra while the man with him (Frank Tieri) handed me a $20 bill and said "your grandfather was a good man".

That's it. You win.

[jazzbo]

Yes. . . I should have asked her to dance!

You see, for about a year I went out at least once a week with two women I worked with to clubs featuring blues bands and danced away with them. . . . I was beginning to play in a band and I wanted to get some blues dancing experience in and Lou Ann Barton, and Angela Strehli were bands I was seeing two or three times a month each. I'd be dancing with either of my two friends up in front of the stage and I know Angela knew me as a dancing fool and one night I was at the Flying Circus waiting for one or the other or both of my friends to arrive, and they hadn't. So I was leaning against the wall watching the band do a few numbers without Angela, pretty close to George Rains the excellent drummer, and Angela came up and leaned against the same wall right next to me and said Hi. I said hi. . .and then just sort of stiffened up. I kept thinking "maybe I should ask her to dance?" but was not sure that was the right thing to do. So after about three minutes she sort of did a little twist of a dance in front of me, then walked over to front the band and they started up a tune. My friend Tracy (oh how I miss that mixed up girl who left us too soon!) had actually walked in and watched the little tableau and came up to me and said "Angela so wanted you to ask her to dance!" I've kicked myself so hard mentally about that over the years. And oddly it was the very last time I saw Angela and that band in that decade; she moved to San Francisco weeks after that.

She is one cool lady. And that band with Denny and George was the bomb!

[Dan Gould]

In August 1977, while sitting on the entrance steps of a Bayside Queens funeral home, I received a little pat on the shoulder from Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra while the man with him (Frank Tieri) handed me a $20 bill and said "your grandfather was a good man".

Is this some sort of weird, little known Italian tradition? Slip a kid $20 at a funeral? And if you're Frank, you can have a lackey do it ...

[rostasi]

Yes.