Tell me! Drop a name!

[thebitterguy]

Okay, so I'm kinda discombobulated today. Tell me a story that involves dropping a celebrity's name. Even a minor one; like, award winning fanfic writer counts.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I once speculated to Fred Pohl that if it turns out the universe picked "relativity, FTL" from "relativity, FTL and causality", then the Fermi paradox becomes even worse because not only are none of our contemporaries visiting us but apparently we don't even rate visits from archaeologists of the future. He said that that was the most depressing thing that he had ever heard.

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

I can do this...I have a reasonably embarrassing story, even.

I'm a big fan of Scottish mystery author Ian Rankin. About three years ago, he was in Ottawa for the Ottawa International Writers' Festival and his agent arranged for him to drop by Perfect Books (where I work part-time). I knew he was going to be coming by but I didn't know what time, and I had to be at the office all day (15 minutes away, walking).

I got dressed nicely and...waited. When the store folks called to say he was there, I ran downstairs, hailed a cab, and spent $6 to get to the store in time to meet him.

I leapt out of the car and ran to the store's front door...I grabbed the handle and pulled it halfway open, just as a friend from the next-door store came out.

Him: "Whatcha doin' over here!? Shouldn't you be at the office??"
Me: *girlishly* "OH MY GOD! Ian Rankin is here! You know, that Scottish author I like so much? I can't wait to meet him...I'm all fangirl! I'm over the moon! I hope I don't come off as an airhead...I'm not going to tell him he's my favourite mystery writer. I'm going to calmly ask him to sign his new book, shake his head, and leave with my dignity intact!!! Eeep!!!"
Him: "Who's that behind you?"

So I turn around...and Rankin is standing directly behind me, in the half open doorway, two feet away, cracking up.

Most embarrassing moment EVER.

Once I realized my dignity was gone, we had a good laugh about it...he's a really nice guy. Down to earth, funny, and just all round friendly.

There. :)

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

Of course, that should be "shake his HAND"...:D

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

Turns out I went to high school with Andrea Roth, who played the holographic woman in the Robocop series. The only problem is, every time I say "I went to school with Andrea Roth," everybody says, "Who?" Does that really count as name-dropping?

[tfbretz.livejournal.com]

Back in the dark ages, when Richard "Lord British" Garriott was first creating his Ultima games and populating their universe, he ended up giving NPCs in the setting the names of folks he knew in the SCA in Austin. So, I know the "real" Dupre and Iolo and others. I guess I know Richard too, but he's a bit of a prat, really.

For some reason, today that's more interesting than selling books to Tommy Lee Jones or fencing with Henry Thomas, which I've also done.

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

Living within spitting distance of Hollywood and formerly having worked in Beverly Hills, I've got more than my share. Heck, my sister-in-law even works for Jay Leno (*name-drop!*)

One time, LaToya Jackson approached me just to tell me that she thought a particular customer that was in our facility is senile. Yes, he was, but there's no way he's as crazy as her. Anyhow...

I've got a couple Ahnold stories too. One time he told my brother, "You look so good in that leather." That's a story that's fairly amusing even if I include the context, which I shall not. ;)

Another time, during the recall election, I was trying to walk to my drawing class and his big black SUV whipped through the parking lot, up onto a curb and blocked my path. His bodyguards piled out of the vehicle and wouldn't let me by to get to classbecause he was going to be walking through my building to get to where he planned to give his speech. He himself was cool and friendly; the goons were dicks. At least I was able to get up there after the goon squad followed him.

[thebitterguy]

It does! It's the drop that counts, not the impact!

[thebitterguy]

That is pretty darn depressing, yeah. Maybe they're all too busy going forward in time to pillage future eras.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I've got several award-winning fic writers on my f-list.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Oooh! At my current job, I've handled Kurt Vonnegut's tax forms!

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Back in 1988, I was in the United States Coast Guard, stationed at Coast Guard Group Monterey. One of the regular duties of a Coast Guard small boat station was to conduct burials-at-sea for local veterans of the US Armed Forces -- when time and personnel allowed.

At one point, time and circumstances did NOT allow, for a period of, oh, several weeks. It was the height of sailboat season, and that meant that the duty crews were running almost non-stop, as people who probably shouldn't have been trusted with boogie boards were out playing sailor. During this time, everyone at the station knew that a container with the ashes of some local author was sitting in the XO's office.

Finally, we hit a lull. I wasn't on duty that evening, but I was hanging around the barracks when a friend of mine who was came running up the stairs to pound on my door and get into my dress uniform.

"That writer we're burying tonight? It's that guy you were talking about the other day -- Robert Heinlein!"

Heinlein was, of course, a Naval officer in his youth, and thus eligible for a military burial.

I wish I could say that I was together enough to have read the opening of Heinlein's "Requiem" or the chorus of "The Green Hills of Earth" as we scattered the ashes, but, instead, we scattered them in silence -- while Earth herself, as if on cue, provided skies that can only be described as "fleecy", and cool green hills on the horizon.

The dolphins playing nearby were a deviation from Heinlein's script, but not an inappropriate one.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I was backstage in Chicago wearing my Daisy K costume from Doctor Who and John DeLancie asked me about my really big gun.

[racing-girl.livejournal.com]

I met Michael Scumacher and he signed my bra ... And Mika Hakinen asked me back to his room (this was before he was married)but he was really drunk so I kept busy dancing with Jacques Villneuve and chatting with Alain Prost.

Does that count????

yes, this is when I was much younger and in a foreign country... nothing like that ever happens to me anymore. *sigh*

[creativedv8tion.livejournal.com]

1995, White Zombie concert (Well, Babes in Toyland, Reverend Horton Heat, White Zombie concert.) Me, my friend Joe, and my roomie Hollie are at the front of the general admission, right up against the railing. For all three sets.

It's not so bad during the first two, but as Zombie starts, we get squished, and I get turned sidewards by the mass, so my ribs are being pressed against the railing. This hurts. Now, I'm a pretty big guy and can use leverage and all to move people, so w/o looking, I push as hard as I can at the person that my back is facing.

It's a fucking brick wall. I push again. Nothing.

I look over my shoulder, and oh my f'ing ponies, it's Pitbull #2, Anthony Durante (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitbulls), and just beyond him is Gary. I geek out, after asking Anthony to make some room so I can face the stage. He and Gary do so with ease, and we rock out with the Pitbulls. Later in the show, we even go back and mosh in a pit with them, Raven, Sandman...

[tfbretz.livejournal.com]

That significantly tops my wife's meeting with Alex Zanardi by an order of magnitude.

[mightygodking.livejournal.com]

Guy Gavriel Kay complained to Indigo Online when I wrote a bad review of Lord of Emperors while I was working there.

[rabidchyld.livejournal.com]

I have lots since I have been to Dragon Con for so many years. I don't even know if that truly counts, but here are a few highlights:

One of my first years at DC Clive Barker was there and I was standing in line waiting to get into a panel where he was going to speak. While in line I struck up a conversation with a very nice British man, and we talked about the Hellraiser movies, and about Clives books (I said they are either genius or shit), and the fact that I had won my favorite in an auction and Clive was supposed to sign it. When they opened the doors, that very nice British man said see ya later, and walked up to the front and sat down, only to be introduced as Doug Bradley...AKA Pinhead!!

A few years ago we met Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge (Holly on Red Dwarf) while hubby was dressed as Rimmer. Apparently he was the first American Rimmer they had ever seen and went on and on about it for quite some time. lol.

A couple of years ago I was hanging in the bar with Connor Trineer and Paul McGillion and flirting endlessly with Paul (because he's my secret lover, and he told me I was pretty..and I was really drunk). I tried to get Paul to go into a dark corner with me but he wouldn't...*sigh*. Anyway, Connor thought it was really funny and the next day I got an autograph from him and he wrote me a love note on it. It is currently one of my most prized possessions.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

So are you gonna be at the game tonight? The one with Robin D. Laws?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I met Malcolm Gladwell in a Chapters a year or so ago. I went up, excused myself and said that I enjoyed his work. Then I politely left him alone. He was looking at true-crime thrillers at the time. At least it wasn't the dirty book section.

Four years ago, I also had a nice friendly conversation with Pico Ayer outside a cocktail party.

I'm a bit of a lit geek... 8/

(Oh, and I also once went to school with Jackie Hennessey, Jill Hennessey's twin sister, and creepy co-star in Dead Ringers.)

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Oh, and once upon a time I met Stephen Lack, star of 'Scanners'. I really wish it had been Cronenberg himself, but Lack was a nice guy. But it was a long time ago and I barely remember it (maybe 25 years?).

[inscrutable.livejournal.com]

My girlfriend's best friend's boyfriend was the drummer for Dropkick Murphey's back in the day. Now he's the soundboard guy for Rancid when they go on tour. Last summer the girlfriend and I were invited out to the sold out Rancid show, where we hung out backstage with Davey Havoc from AFI. For no good reason, there was a fireworks display that night, and we had to explain to Davey Havoc why the hell there were fireworks in the middle of August.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I met Darryl Hannah at a Film Festival in France, the year of my exchange. It was a horror/sci fi festival, and she was there for a role where she played a fifty-foot-tall woman - I can't remember the name of the film, but it was quite forgettable. My host father sold her some pharmaceutical item while I translated.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I once tried to link Paul Gross' comments on government subsidizing of the arts all the way back to the Pyramids, and from there to smccloud's theory on the art inside those Pyramids being one of the first examples of what's become comics as we know them. Would've been at his Q&A session at the Press Club just before the first installment of H2O aired.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

I once almost collided with Robin Williams and his wife and son as they came out of a restaurant in New York City. I also once almost collided with Spike Lee as he was coming out of the downtown Tower Records (4th/B'way) branch.

The only other times I've met anyone famous was in a managed fashion (i.e., a con), which from what I can tell doesn't really count. :D

[vampyrehunterm.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have a couple.
A few years ago when Absinthe and I were living on Bathurst, we had a roommate. The roomie and I were walking back from the bank together, and I was explaining to him that all the white trucks parked along the street in front of the high school we were passing meant that they were filming something in the neighbourhood. As we were talking, this vaguely familiar looking guy is walking towards us. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out where I might have seen him before. As we pass each other, he smiles at us and says hi. After we passed him, we realized it was Jeff Daniels.

The nursery school I used to teach in is in a church downtown, and they film a lot of stuff in and around the church. My co-worker and I walked right by Roger Daltrey as we were leaving work one day. A couple of months later, Sylvester Stallone was filming scenes for a movie in the church. He had his wife and kid with him, and he'd asked if his kid could play in the playground. I was busy serving snack to the munchkins and had my back to the door. I heard someone talking behind me. I turned around and Stallone was standing in the class room. He asked me if there was some way I could let him into the playground. I told him my co-worker had the key and could let him in. I went back to serving snack.