star struck again

That's definitely an LJ-worthy experience! He's supposed to be a really nice guy. Did you see him when he came to Berkeley back in the early-to-mid 90s?

I forget where I was going that day, but I didn't see him. If I remember right, Ron Alcalay went and took copies of the Bad Subjects issue with my piece in it.

That's AWESOME.

That's so cool!

You've so come to the right place! I'm such a star-fucker, I begin to fluster and blush when I simply call into a radio station to comment on some such little thing.

Small story: a couple of years ago when I was trying anything to keep Center Stage (BTF) open, I was asked to talk a minute or two on KFOG's morning show. I walk in and Dave Morey stretches out his arm to shake hands and I just stood there. Everyone laughed and I continued to JUST stand there. I had to be "on air" in like a minute so I figured out how to pull it all together and ultimately raised a couple hundred bucks, but I'll never forget just standing there while Dave Morey was trying to shake my hand. I should say, I'm not like this with every "personality" just the cool ones.

My star-struck nature has been a bit uncomfortable a couple of times, due to the way guys pee. Yes, on at least two occasions, I've found myself standing at a urinal next to someone famous. It's very disconcerting. (Trivia note: the two people were Ron Dellums and Jack Casady.)

:: can you hear me laughing over here by Lake Merritt? ::

There are so many comments I can offer up to this, but I will choose with:

did you look down... and over?

I considered writing something about that ... should have known you'd ask anyway.

No, I can't give any details about that stuff. Nor did I say "water's cold" or any of those other things guys do when they are peeing.

OK, now here's another anecdote I've told more than once. Back in my factory days, it was a given that whenever you were standing at the urinal next to another guy, one of us would say "water's cold" and the other would say "deep, too!" Fast forward to my grad school days. Back when I was still taking classes, I got this weird illness where I would cough once, turn beet red, and then pass out. The doctor gave me some kind of anti-spasmodic or something ... whatever it was, it made me VERY dopey, so that I couldn't drive or anything. With each class I attended, I spoke to the professor before class and said don't call on me if you can help it, because my brain ain't working, and then I would announce to the class that if I keeled over, just kick me, I'd come out of it, I had some weird illness.

So I'm sitting in a Mitch Breitwieser seminar, and we're talking about Thoreau, or rather, everyone else is talking about Thoreau and I'm just trying to stay in my seat. Various phrases enter my brain, but for the most part, I'm out of it. I tried to concentrate, and I heard Mitch say something about how cold the water was in Walden Pond. At which point I looked up and blurted out in a very loud voice, "DEEP, TOO!"

You know it's a good story, if you *are* able to tell it over and over!

A classic this one is.

You know I was all set here to write something fairly dark this morning; after this little exchange of ours, I'm not sure if that's the direction I can go. BTW, that's a good thing.

Actually, your story reminds me of a similar one that was even stupider. We went to see the pianist George Shearing in concert once. Shearing was a fine jazz pianist who was famously blind, and who was also featured in a famous scene in On the Road where Dean refers to Shearing as "Old God Shearing." Being that On the Road has always been a favorite of mine (my son is named Neal), I had more than the usual interest in Shearing.

Before the show, my wife and I are sitting in our seats, and there's a guy behind us who looks very familiar. But I can't place him, until finally I realize: it's George Shearing, and I didn't recognize him because he didn't have his sunglasses on.

Well, I get all shaky with excitement, and finally I get up the nerve to go over and introduce myself. "Mr. Shearing," I say, and I stick my hand out. Old God Shearing smiles and says "Yes?" I reply with some blather about admiring his work blah blah blah, but inside, I'm wondering if there's something wrong with God. Because George has his hand out in the air, and he's waving it around as if he was searching for a cookie. I'm thinking the guy is spazzing out, and meanwhile, I still have my own hand out for him to shake.

Which is when I finally get it through my thick skull that Mr. Shearing has been trying to shake my hand the whole time, but HE CAN'T SEE MY HAND!

Duh.

I felt very stupid. I don't suppose it helped that I instantly grabbed his hand and pumped it far more than necessary, as if that made everything better.

:: still laughing ::

Great Story! I won't try and top it with my meeting Marcel Marceau when I was a little girl of six and yelling, "Why Won't You Talk To Me?"