Do you have any claims to fame?

I have a friend, whose sister is dating/engaged to Tommy Lee of Motley Crue…

Stuff like that?

I’ve met Barack Obama three times, and he remembered my name the third time. That was pretty cool.

None whatsoever.

back in the day, I had a chance to go to a national tournament in Tennessee for Goldeneye for N64. I was only a freshman and my dad wouldn’t drive me. People from all over the country competed in this tournament.

The person who won the entire tournament, and some crazy gift card amount to a Best Buy was from my high school, and I beat him by a land slide 4 out of the 5 matches we’ve ever played (the time he won, it was by 2 kills).

So, whenever someone says, “Oh, I’d beat your ass in Goldeneye for N64”, if it were me saying it, it’s probably true.

Vince Furnier, who later became Alice Cooper once lived in my house, along with his then band, The Nazz.

I drove “The Aquanauts” Jeremy Slate’s Jaguar once when he took me out to dinner.

I appear in Edie Sedgewick’s Biography, in a cameo role, but I was briefly one of her many boyfriends.

I left a pair of underpants in Hamilton Camp’s pool.

I used to live in Walter Hopps’ house with Bruce Nauman. Walter also introduced me to Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper.

I got stoned with Dr. Timothy Leary, and with Dr. Alpert before he became Baba Ram Dass.

I dropped acid and watched the 1967 Rose Parade with Ken Kesey (and others.)

I was friends with Ed Kienholz.

I met Oscar Levant just before he died, and heard him play the piano.

I sat on a bed with Tammy Grimes (she was wearing a feather boa.)

I have more, but I wouldn’t want to brag.

I am virtually acquainted to a guy who met Mr. Obama three times.

None that I’d want my mother to know about… Let’s just say that I had fun at college.

A co-worker that I had back in California ended up going from his retail gig to being an FX mold maker on Iron Man, Indiana Jones, G.I. Joe and a ton of other movies.

Speaking on a smaller scale: An ex of mine started a band that won an MTVu contest and gained some small popularity for some time. She asked me to do the photograhy and graphic design of their EP:

http://www.amazon.com/All-Envy-Aside-Ep/dp/B0013R4528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1250797232&sr=8-2

I know a few “stars”, a really big one even. I went to school with some childhood stars, including a girl who appeared on Kids, Inc and the OG Saved By The Bell. I was born and raised in L.A.; here it’s not so big of a deal.

I seen Nelson Mandela once

In the Half Century of my adult life, I have managed to win an award here and there, be recognized for my service more than once, and accomplish a few note worthy things. They are all past, and forgotten by all but one or two people so far, and will disappear completely when my days are done.

I’ve shaken hands with Bobby Kennedy the day before he was shot. Also, back when he was managing the San Francisco Giants, Roger Craig bought me a drink at a bar in Cincinnati. But hey! I’m freakin’ AstroChuck.

@AstroChuck were you in Santa Barbara, in the Plaza? Because I was there too, and also shook his hand! Small world!

@pdworkin- No. I was at the airport in Sacramento.

Damn!

When Belphegor was finishing their act, I waved and the guitarist waved back. That was awesome.

In 2001 I was in NYC for spring break to visit a friend. I was walking down the street and saw Jon Stewart. I walked up to him and tickled him and ran off.

This was before he was on The Daily Show.

Blessed by Bishop Tutu while at uni.

I’ve been hit on by three famous people. Nothing came of any of those because, unfortunately for them, I found none of them attractive.

Robert DeNiro gave me the once-over a few years ago in an elevator.

Shook Grant Hart of Hüsker Dü awake after finding him passed out in the women’s lounge at the student union right before he was supposed to go on. Sheesh. I think he’s clean now.

One of my best friends was in the Ed Sullivan audience for the premiere of The Beatles in the US on 9 Feb. 1964. It was a birthday present from his father, who knew someone very high up at CBS. If you squint, you can see him on the DVD. He was very blond back then.

@johnpowell I thought Stewart took the reins in 1999?

@lefteh :: I worded that badly. I had never seen The Daily Show until about 2004. I only recognized him from the movie Half Baked.

lol johnpowell

About a year or so ago, I went with my wife and one of my daughters to Manchester (England) to shop. Well they did at least. I just took them. Anyway, as we walked down the High Street, my eye was caught by a familiar, but ‘impossible to meet’ face in the crowd. After stuttering in disbelief to my wife, I walked over as asked – “Mr.Fargas?”.

Yes, it turned out to be Antonio Fargas. The (Original) Huggy Bear, from Starsky and Hutch. He was appearing in a play in the city.

@lloydbird – That’s great. I loved him in I’m Gonna Get You, Sucka. (So not PC).

I used to carpool with Taylor Knoth, a kid that was 2nd in the world in racquetball for his age group. He was 16 at the time.

That year (when I was playing) our school took second in the nation. Quite an accomplishment considering high school racquetball doesn’t account for the size of your team/school and we were outnumbered by the winning school almost 4–1.

A year or two latter our school took first.

Back in the mid 90’s I met and had drinks with Billy Ray Cyrus’ brother. My only claim to fame.

I want to become a singer and an actress when I grow up and I’m really good at it! Tons of people say so! :)
I haven’t met anyone famous but I have seen a lot of famous people,bands,singers,ect.
I wonder what it would be like becoming famous…

I saw the Beatles in DC on their first tour to USA. We had seats down front and were pelted by jelly beans thrown by those higher up.

I met young Bill Clinton in Georgetown numerous times.

That’s about it, not much to brag about :-}

I walked into Richard Thomas (“John Boy” Walton and the voice over on the Mercedes Benz commercials) in a men’s haberdashery store in the city.

Got Joe Torre’s autograph in a Barnes and Noble store.

Work with someone who went to school with Jennifer Lopez,

Have a cousin who married a multi-millionaire who owned Herman’s Hermits and Studio 54.

His daughter had a cable show where she interviewed Yankees.

Close friend of a close friend of Frankie Avalon.

My mother knew Anthony Franciosa and Shelly Winters well.

Does being part of winning the state JHS football tournament count, or watching famous Tanya Tucker do a hand stand on the bar for me, or climbing Granite Peak in Montana, count; unfortunately, I just didn’t get in the news. No Nobel Prizes here, just many life experiences that were famous for me.

Half-Baked was so bad.

@Quagmire – Richard Thomas. Wow. Only in the last year or so has he lost his boyish good looks. That’s pretty impressive. I’ll bet Matthew Broderick would stab Thomas in the eye for a chance at genes like his.

Are we talking about the same Richard Thomas?

John-Boy, right? That pic’s actually from this past March. Maybe he just photographs well, but that’s looking pretty good for 58.

That’s the one!

Ok, I shook hands with Hank Aaron, got his autograph and missed guessing his batting avg. by 11 points when I was twelve.

I was having this conversation just last night with lynneblundell. I don’t think I’ve been luckier than anyone else, but I’ve met quite a few famous people in my time. I think that if you live long enough, and travel long enough, and talk to people long enough, eventually these things are bound to happen. There are so many famous people in the world right now that you couldn’t avoid meeting them even if you wanted to!

So, apart from my own claim to fame (and excluding the whole media attention my daughter generated over the past year or so), here’s my list of people I’ve met:

I’ve met James Brown, Vaclav Havel, Danii Minogue. James Brown was really really short.

I was quite good friends with Kahi Kahiasvili, weightlifting gold medalist (and world record holder) in Atlanta 96. He called me right after he won the gold medal, which was really weird because there was a bunch of us watching him on TV and celebrating, and suddenly the phone rings and I pick it up and it’s him!

I went to school with Alexis Alexoudis, who scored the fastest Champions’ League goal ever (something like 19 seconds I think?). We used to play in opposite teams and I often had to mark him. He was pretty good, but I didn’t think he’d be that good.

Another of my classmates went on to become an olympic swimmer.

One of my girlfriends has become a quite famous composer, another is a TV actress.

My best friend’s little sister has also become a famous actress. My other best friend’s wife is an internationally renowned violinist. That guy generally knows a lot of famous people who I’ve met through him, particularly composers and other musicians.

The guitarist from my 7th album is also extremely famous, particularly within the classical music circle. He won a competition as a child, beating (and amazing) a bunch of grown ups who looked down on him.

I’ve met the prime minister of Turkey (not the current one, a previous one).

My saxophone player from my 2nd album also played in Blues Brothers (the movie).

My ex wife met Bill Clinton, he went into her shop to buy something and they started talking.

Met lots and lots of fairly famous people just passing by in the street, or at airports and so on. I once travelled on the same plane as Melina Merkouri for example, or another time I was sitting on a plane next to a famous Czech model whose name I forget now. There’s plenty more like that.

The only time when any of this made a difference was with Mike Roberts. Mike Roberts used to be in a pop band in the 80s called “King” and they had a big hit called “Love and Pride” (the Brits here will remember it). Paul King went on to become an MTV presenter, and Mike got a job as a sound technician at the Depot Studios in Coventry (where I recorded my first album). I knew the guy pretty well, but didn’t know he was famous. When my guitarist came along to record his bit, he saw the sound technician and whispered in my ear “wow! That’s Mike Roberts! What is he doing here?” I had no idea what he was talking about, so he went on to tell me that he still had a poster of Mike in his bedroom. We persuaded Mike to play on one of the tracks, which boosted sales and helped my own career a lot in the years to come.

Another weird story comes from one of my professors at uni: when she was a young girl she was dating this French DJ. One night they were eating out in Paris when this drunken, stinking American (who apparently knew her boyfriend) came to sit with them. He complained about how lonely he felt, and peed down her trousers just before passing out. The next day they heard Jim Morrison had died. She now wishes she hadn’t washed those trousers, they could have fetched a fortune by now!

That is interesting, I didn’t even think about it until @Jack79 mentioned James Brown. Once of the first jobs I ever had was working at a big old hotel in DC. It was a truly unbelievable experience for a hick kid from a little hick town. It was close to the outdoor ampitheater in Rock Creek Park, I can’t remember the name, anyhow, all of the acts who played there would stay at the hotel. So I did indeed meet James Brown, Martha and the Van Dellas, Johnny Mathis, and a whole bunch of others I can’t remember at the moment. That was the best job I ever had, I worked in the accounting office and front desk but I loved to roam through the bowels of the old girl. I would visit the maids and hang out in the garage with the car jockeys, I knew the house dicks and would sometimes go with them to handle complaints, I knew the cooks and chef (I ate very well), the bellmen a couple of whom had advanced degrees and left ceo type jobs to avoid alimony. DC in the early 60’s was quite a place!