"Cool hair! You look like Hayley!"

My friend while working in LA for a month was out with his intern eating lunch. She has dyed red hair, and she saw another girl that had the same. She decided to talk to her. "Hey, you're hair is cool. You look like Hayley." (Lead singer from band Paramore). "Well that's because I am." A full hour conversation sparked from there. My friend hit me up to tell me this story and I just said "Saying a celebrity looks like themself has to be the best way to start a convo with them."
Got me to thinking...

FOCUS: If you could "run into" any "celebrity" you LIKE (not hate or want to punch) around town, how would you start up a conversation with them?

ALT FOCUS: Have you met any "celebrities"? How did it go? What did you talk about?

(Let's leave T Max out of this way more accessible and mostly everyone has recounted meeting him on this board or the last.)

 

We've done the celebrity thread before but it's been a long time, and this one has a twist for the FOCUS.

I have run into celebrities here and there and don't bother them. But I really want them to notice that I'm going out of my way to not bother them. I want them to think "hey, there is a really hoopy frood who does not feel the need to bother me just because I am a famous celebrity. I like that."

Sadly, I don't think they think this.

 

I have a friend who goes to New York every weekend to stalk celebrities. Sometimes i go with him. If I weren't with him, i wouldn't even approach a celebrity, but he goes right up and asks for their picture, shoots the shit, etc. Because of him, I've met Robin Williams, Rumer Willis, that guy who almost won (or did win?) American Idol that first year, Tina Fey (at the signing for her book.), and the current cast of Doctor Who (at a signing for their DVD release.)

 

I was in a music video once in high school. I "ran into" Pharrell, Jay-Z, Dame Dash, Kelly Ripa (?) and Beanie Siegel. It was still one of the longest days of my life.

I've played basketball with Duchovny a couple times. Once he was with Orlando Jones, for some reason.

 

One of my favorite columns in the NY Times is Metropolitan Diary in which readers submit anecdotal tidbits of life in the big city. Here's one person's random encounter with a celebrity.

Here's another's encounter with Mel Torme. It's the 4th one down on the page.

 

My brother in law was an airman on the Stennis when Halle Barry came to visit. Since he dealt with ordnance, he was often in a secluded part of the carrier and didn't get memos on a lot of the goings on above deck. When Ms Barry finally made it to their part of the ship, they were both unaware and suprised to see her.

That's when my B-i-L dropped this bomb (pun intended): "Do you know who you are? You're Halle Barry!" He said she looked at him like a pig staring at a wristwatch and just smiled and moved on.

 

I've met Ice Cube back when he was still in NWA. He was one of the nicest, coolest, most approachable guys around. We actually started calling him "Nice Cube".

I met John Goodman when he was on Roseanne and was somewhat popular. He was a fucking asshole.

Sinbad is by FAR the coolest celebrity actor I've met, and Shaq is one of the coolest pro athletes.

However, this is my favorite story of all time:

Back in 1983 I was 12, and I was always into cars. Ferraris especially. I lived in Encino, CA which is a suburb of Los Angeles. I'm at the car wash with my Dad, and there is a bright red Ferrari 308 there. It was awesome. I go over and I'm (respectfully) studying it from every angle. This young black guy comes over and says, "Hey, you like the car?" I said, "Yes, it's a Ferrari 308, it's incredible!" He said, "Well, it's mine. Wanna check it out?" He opened the back. Opened the front. Let me sit in it. We must have spent 45 minutes looking at that car. He said, "Hey, it was nice to meet you, but I gotta split."

He hopped in the car and drove off.

My Dad comes up and says, "Do you know who that was?" I said, "No, he didn't say."

"That was Marcus Allen."

From that day forward, Marcus Allen was my favorite football player.

 

My manager used to live/work in LA, and being in media and advertising for some time, she has had her share of celebrity run-ins. While discussing a few, we both agreed that the best celebrity stories just involve normal conversations often with no mentions of said celebrity. I've had a few.

Met Ne-Yo in the Atlanta airport. We were both on the moving walk way and his manager was checking sports scores since it was in the heart of March Madness. It was going slow and we were in a line of people, so I basically asked them if their brackets were as fucked as mine were. Ne-Yo looked up, stared at me for a second, and then started cracking up and joking about his. We talked for a good 10-15 min after we got off. Solid dude.

Was on an airport shuttle with Lifehouse at O'hare. I don't care for their music, but it was better than talking to the old Asian couple also with us. Nice guys, but horrifically dull interestingly enough.

Erick Dampier (benchwarmer for the Miami Heat) actually started a conversation about toothpaste with me at Walgreens 2 weeks ago when they were in town playing the Bulls. That was hilarious.

I was at a club with friends when Curtis Granderson got the table next to ours. I mentioned that he was my roommmate's fav player cause he used to watch him be a beast for the Toledo Mudhens a few years back. He lit up and we talked baseball and Chicago bars for a good half hour as assorted groupies and bros glared at me. Solid dude.

 

All of the celebrities I've met have been rock stars after the shows during the autograph signings. I saw Alice in Chains a few years ago when they re-united with Will DuVall as the new lead singer, and I got autographs and pictures with all of them. Will, Jerry Cantrell and Mike Inez all showed up about 30 minutes after the show, but Sean Kinney was nowhere to be found, and I knew he wasn't on the tour bus yet. I waited with a few other people (who turned out to live in the same town as I do) until 1 AM, and finally he came out, COKED UP OUT OF HIS MIND. I'm serious, he had white residue around his nostrils, and he was talking a mile a minute in that odd, stilted way that coke users talk (don't ask me how I know this). Apparently he was backstage with some groupies the whole time.
Anyway, he shot the shit with us for about 20 minutes, and probably would have gone on even longer, but Jerry Cantrell finally came out and practically had to drag him onto the bus.
I "met" Rob Zombie in 2005 after a show; he was signing autographs with a steel barrier between him and the crowd. I slid under the barrier to beat the crowd, and got to shake hands with him and take a picture with him before a bodyguard dragged me off.
Other rock stars: Vaden Todd Lewis (the Toadies/Burden Brothers), Taz Bentley (The Reverend Horton Heat/The Burden Brothers), the rest of the guys in the Burden Brothers.

As far as the focus goes: Dave Wyndorf of Monster Magnet.

 

While at the legendary SARStock cocnert, my friend and I bumped into James Belushi, who had about six Outlaws bikers with him. We just wanted to give him a quick kudos, but he yelled at us to "stay the fuck away". Yes, David Cross. He is a huge asshole.

My friend/roomate and I got drunk with The Iron Shiek at the patio bar Barney's here in town a few summers back. He could barely walk, but he was also a complete riot. He constantly reffered to Hulk Hogan as a "fucking faggot" and bought round after round of Crown shots. He was also a monster garbage disposal for cocaine, which he kept taking blasts out of a one-hitter right at our table, out in the fucking open. I'm amazed nothing happened. The Bushwackers were also there, they called us gay for sitting together.

Former gold glove for the Blue Jays Kelly Gruber is AWESOME, ditto for former World's Fastest Man Donovan Bailey, who showed up at the bar I used to DJ at for a charity thing and got destroyed with us at the bar, downing beers like a couple of automated Falstaffs. They both would talk to you about anything, answer any question they had, and played grab-ass with any female in sight not attached to an oxygen cannister. Fun, fun guys.

Rick Emmitt from Triumph has the whitest teeth I have ever seen in my fucking life. Really nice guy, genius guitar player, but he makes Donny Osmand look like the dude from The Pogues.

Phillip Anselmo (Pantera, Down, Superjoint Ritual) is big, intimidating, and very VERY stoned. I passed him in a hallway and I think he asked me how to get somewhere in the building. His eyes flutter at half-mast with utter deadness in them. He wasn't a dick or anything, just indifferent. He said "thanks anyways" then turned areound and nearly walked into the closed door behind him. Not a guy you would ambush with a SuperSoaker for a prank.

Finally, my favourite: for being first in line at a Copps Colliseum show, I got backstage to meet Rob Zombie and co. Zombie was cool (and SKINNY. Fuck.), but met him briefly because the guy is a workoholic. No drugs, no booze, just black coffee and lots of it. His drummer Tempesta and bass player Blasko (hilarious guys) had us play a drinking game where we'd watch Italian horror movies and do a shot of Yager every time blood is spilled on screen. Watch an Italian horror film and you'll realize why this game is dangerous. Zombie's wife, Sheri Moon, is tall, pretty, profane, a real surfer-girl type. His guitar player Riggs I think is a bonifide psycho. He just fucked around with a huge knife and had a 10,000-mile stare in his creepy eyes. He said he was going to kill one of the radio guys. Yeesh.

 

I've met lots of celebrities (mostly but not limited to sci fi and soap people) in situations where it was intended for me to meet them - meet and greets, book signings, autograph signings, and one backstage pass. Given that a couple of times I made a total dork of myself even though I had time while standing in line to rehearse what I was gonna say, a chance meeting would probably be a disaster. The only one I've met that really stood out in an unexpected way was Malcom McDowell at a sci-fi convention held in a hotel. That old dude is sexy as hell. It just rolled off him in waves, I was in hormonal shock. A couple hours after I got his autograph, I happened to see him at the hotel pool with a couple of hot college age girls. Damn, I envied them.

I think there have only been three times I've seen a celebrity in a non-arranged setting and all were just glimpses - no opportunity to strike up a conversation. Coincidentally, all happened to be while on the clock when I worked at the State Dept. The first was when I was sent to take notes at a meeting on the Hill, and one of representatives seated at the bench was Sonny Bono. Another time I was on a business trip to NYC, and my coworkers and I passed by Matthew Broderick in the street. They didn't see him, and were pissed when I told them afterward, because I didn't point him out. I said that there was no way I could have done so without looking like a jackass. The last and most unexpected time, we were in the lobby of the FBI building waiting to get escorted inside, and I saw Robert Davi. This was when Profiler was still on the air.

 

I wish I could cut and paste my post from the RMMB about this same topic, but I can't, so here we are...

NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick built a bigass (22,000 sq. feet) house in the small town that I grew up in. Here is a shitty YouTube video of it on Cribs.
Anywho, my friend owned a small convenience store across the road from him and they became friends. Five or so years ago, Harvick held a celebrity fundraising event at his house where other NASCAR drivers raced go-carts in his $70,000 custom built go-cart track (its in the video). My friend was invited and I went with him. I met Dale Jr, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and other NASCAR guys who I can't remember. Now, I don't give a shit about racing, so these guys were just other guys to me and I talked to them like that. I guess they appreciated the fact that I wasn't starstruck or whatever, but we just shot the shit like I would with any other dudes. Hell, I think I talked to Jimmie Johnson but I don't know if I could pick him out of a lineup.

Coincidentally, Chris Daughtry recently built a house across the street from Harvick. I've met him once and he is a very, very nice guy. A few months ago I was at a somewhat local Starbucks and he showed up. He was just there for some overpriced coffee, yet he stayed for a long ass time signing napkins and other bullshit for a bunch of teary eyed teenage girls.

Whats kind of funny is that in a small town, Harvick looks just like everyone else, yet Daughtry stands out like a motherfucker. Short, bald, and wearing a lot of black leather doesn't blend in too well in bumfuck North Carolina.

 

Back when I was nineteenish and the Backstreet Boys were considered popular, they were in Denver for a show. I did not actually know this, as I didn't give a fuck about boy bands.

It was Halloween, my girls and I all dressed up in matching camo army pants, skanky tube tops and army boots. I am not sure what we were supposed to be, but we were FUCKED UP at some rave party at a now deceased club called Synergy. I ate three X tabs and a few mushroom caps. I was having a grand time.

Anyhow, we are all packed into this club and suddenly the deejay announces something about special guests and starts mixing some BB song. This is jarring to my buzz and I go to jump off the platform I was writhing on and basically land on Kevin Richardson. He was quite chivalrous and held me up when I nearly ate shit from my three foot dive.

I thank him and walk away, and suddenly all these girls were swarming me because I touched him. I found this profoundly stupid and we left soon after. Well, except our one friend, she went back to the hotel with the Backstreet Boys' choreographer. Slut.

 

I can second this. He and I both got tattooed* in the same shop, aptly named Backwoods Tattoo (hoju is right, it's the middle of nowhere). My boyfriend (at the time) and I were good friends with the owner and his wife and were around the shop a lot. I came in about 10 minutes before his tattoo was finished and he was extremely nice.

*The 'Daughtry' across his shoulders. Dude has big wide shoulders.


In Pinehurst, years ago, I was sitting at a stoplight singing very loudly to a Faith Hill song - only to look to my left and see a limo with none other than Faith Hill and Tim McGraw in it - with the window rolled down (I guess they could hear me). They both smiled and said hi & I was so embarrassed (because I can't sing worth shit) that I could only get out a hi in return.

 

Sad how everyone said "this is just like the old thread" and missed the "Focus" part that made it different.

Focus: I'd like to meet Will Smith. He's my favorite actor of all time. When I was a kid I watched Independence Day and Men in Black 100 times. Sometimes twice a day back then.

If I he ever walked into a store or restauarant I was in I'd probably just start working lines in from those two movies until I got his attention. I'd just have to get two questions in before the convo ended. "Why Jada?" And "Why the fuck did you get into Scientology?" He's crazy free now.

I'd also like to meet Jennifer Aniston and blatantly lie saying "I think Angelina Jolie is a cunt." She's 40 and still killing it.

For curiosity purposes I want to meet Eddie Murphy and ask him what the fuck happened to him? Why all the kiddie movies and shit. Chris Rock has kids and he's still swearing his ass off, so that's no excuse.

Alt Focus: I met Mike Ditka at LaGuardia airport. He's taller than I thought he'd be. Some chich recognized him first and he decided to liquor her up and shoot the shit. Two people walked up to him and got his picture before I did.

I used to work at The Onion in Chicago where the A.V. Club is based out also. During this video concert series called A.V. Club Undercover got a chance to meet the Coheed and Cambrla guys, cool as fuck. Ben Folds was in the office (very small office), but was a douchebag and worked completely through a handler. The lead singer of FallOut Boy was there. Say what you will about about the band and music, but you couldn't even tell he was a celebrity. He walked in the office with his guitar, was polite, played his song, and shot the shit for awhile. The only person with him was his sister. No manager, agent or anyone. That's fucking awesome, then again it's Chicago and our paparazzi work is all done on twitter so there's that.

 

Focus: I always think about meeting a celebrity and referencing the most obscure thing they were ever in and telling them how underrated it was. Like meeting Pam Anderson and saying "I loved you in that beer commercial" or whatever. If I had to pick a celebrity to meet, it would probably be Marisa Miller. Maybe say something along the lines of "Your jugs were huge in Perfect 10." That's an ice breaker right?

Alt. Focus: I met Ronny Cox (Dick Jones in Robocop, guy who plays guitar and dies on the river in Deliverance, etc.) just down the road from my hometown. In addition to being an actor he is also a talented musician. He is friends with another local musician and they get together every now and then to do a small show here. I have mutual friends with the local musician, so I got invited to the show.

Before they played that night, my friends and I plus the musicians got together and went tubing down the Edisto River and just hung out. Ronnie talked about filming Deliverance and how Burt Reynolds was a Prima Donna and they did all their own stunts and a bunch of other interesting stuff. I really thought he would be tired of talking about it after all these years, but I guess not. He also mentioned that the year the movie came out, fans felt the need to send him every newspaper article of someone who died while rafting/canoeing a river that year. He said that was awful.

What is awesome now is seeing the movie on TV and telling people that I have been down the river with the guy in the "Dueling Banjo's" scene. I am also quick to point out that no one was ass-raped.

 

As a kid in Tampa, FL, there are infinite amounts of pro wrestlers. No idea why they all live here, but when I was 7 I wasn't questioning shit.

One day after Tae Kwon Do I walked into a McDonalds and saw the Big Show (then still in WCW and called The Giant) sitting at a stool eating a Big Mac. He was so huge that his body engulfed the stool and it looked like he was squatting on a giant metal rod. I didn't approach him but he wasn't in the mood to socialize from the looks of it.

Of wrestlers I have met, I have pictures with Eddie Guerrero and Randy Savage, the latter of whom I met a 2nd time popping zits in a Hilton bathroom. I've stopped at red lights next to the Undertaker, and met all the Hogans. Nick Hogan is a dickface.

FOCUS: Gotta echo Will Smith. When I grow up, I want to be Will Smith. Not 'like Will Smith' or have a career similar to him. I want to just be Will Smith, be the cool black guy in Men in Black. Luckily he seems cool enough that I could just walk up and say 'hey, big fan' and he would oblige and shoot the shit, no tricks necessary. I also have developed a Jennifer Aniston fetish in the last 3 months, so I'm curious why she's perpetually single. I feel like if I talked to her I would figure it out, maybe she's a huge bitch.