College: Doc Rivers was the same year as me. Chris Farley was a freshman when I was a senior. My roommate from my freshman-junior years was the RA on Farley's floor. Farley was pretty much a douche, Rivers is one of the nicest guys I've ever known (still remembered me after 25 years when I talked to him during warm-ups at a Mavs-Celtics game). HS: Nathan Lane ("The Producers," "Birdcage") and Lorne Michaels are alum of my high school. Lane and my brother were classmates. Michaels and two of my cousins were classmates. My father grew up with former NBA coach Hubie Brown.
When I started at The University of Akron, there were these two homeless looking guys who would hand out fliers between classes for their shows at the Lime Spider or wherever else around town. Seemed to be nice enough guys, but I had to have thrown at least 10 of those papers away during my first couple years of school. Cut to 2011. Who's the musical guest on SNL? That's right. The goddamn Black Keys. My bass player's mother wins the NE Ohio award for freaky celebrity proximity, though. She originally lived in North Canton and attended Heritage Christian, where she was asked out by a young Brian Warner (aka the future Marilyn Manson), only to reject his scrawny ass. Fast-forward to her and her parents moving to Bath, a small, affluent suburb of Akron. Her next door neighbor--Jeffrey Dahmer, or just "Jeff," as he was known in his pre-cannibalism days.
I went to middle school and high school with the daughter of Gary Rossington, the guitarist for Lynard Skynard. I also went to high school with Dexter Fowler, who plays center field for the Colorado Rockies.
Shit, I can't believe I forgot this - I went to high school with the daughter of one of the original members of the Yardbirds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dreja
Larry Bird's son was a few years below me in grade school. Larry came to some school-wide event and was immediately swarmed by dozens of kids (and parents). As far as I know, he never came back. My high school class was full of ambitious overachievers, but the first one of us to make the news after graduation was the guy who beat up his pregnant girlfriend. He did some time in jail, but I think he's out now. Hopefully, my friend who got perfect scores on the SAT, the ACT and the AP Calculus exam- not just a 5, he literally got every single question right- will do something to overshadow that scumbag. My dad went to Columbia at the same time as the guys from Sha Na Na. He has a story about Chris Donald a.k.a Vinnie Taylor stumbling into his dorm room in the middle of the night while out of his mind on some potent drugs. Donald picked up my dad's guitar, played it for a good three hours, then left without saying a single word.
I went to grad school with Mindy Kaling's brother. How did we figure out that some random Indian dude had a famous sister? Because he fucking TOLD EVERYONE WITHIN 30 SECONDS OF MEETING THEM (and yes, it did check out). The guy is a total douche. I have never met a person more full of himself. In a presentation in one class I had with him, he claimed he was going to revolutionize the fertility industry (dude doesn't have an MD let alone PhD) and QUOTED HIMSELF. In bright purple bold font, and read the quote out loud, savoring every word. He literally went through our class hitting on every woman. Boyfriend, engaged, married, ugly, fat, hot, didn't matter. It got to the point where if anyone saw him heading for an undergrad, they'd give her the scoop (and nobody usually gave a flying fuck about undergrads). He is now trying to start, get this... a WINGMAN SERVICE. Yeah. On the positive side, one of my classmates from high school will in all likelihood be a US Senator. He comes from an influential political family, but instead of riding the coattails he's doing all kinds of very cool and worthy stuff to gain real world experience - has a Harvard JD and at the moment, he's in the Coast Guard. Wonky kid, but one of the most brilliant people I know. I wish it was my state he'd run from, honestly.
Carey Price, goalie for the Canadians, graduated from the other high school in my town. I think I met him like twice, but a bunch of my hockey-playing friends knew him well and a good friend of mine dated him in grade 11. I'm told he's a dick, but my friends might just be jealous of him, who knows.
A girl I graduated high school with has been in around 45 porn movies, not a porn star by any means though. I guess some of her videos include 50+ dude bukkakes. Before she got into porn I almost hooked up with her while we were drunk at a party but failed. Getting something to eat that night was more important. A guy I graduated high school with became a Rhodes Scholar for his work with alternative bio fuels. He was pretty cool, we were never close friends or anything but there was a mutual respect there and we'd talk sometimes. We were both in the "gifted" class throughout school. He got really smart and I sort of leveled off I guess. There's also been a handful of professional hockey players that have been through the high school I graduated.
This isn't really all that impressive, but my aunt and cousin went to high school with the former president of MTV. I have no idea what her name is, but knowing her got me on TRL once. This isn't all the great now, but when it happened it was kind of a big deal. If you ever see a video of Nick and Jessica on TRL the day that Newlyweds premiered, I'm in the front row, and my cousin is the first girl that Nick sings to.
Hmm, a friend of mine from college is currently on the Bachelor. Unfortunately she isnt one of the crazy ones, nor does she seem to be a front runner. I would love to see her face all over People or US Weekly if she had made the final couple girls. The lead guitarist and the drummer of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_City are good friends of mine from college. I was in a band with them, and subsequently left, that ended up becoming Powerspace which morphed into Bad City. They aren't that big yet, but they opened for the Smashing Pumpkins last summer and are signed to Atlantic, which is significant enough. Also went to college with her, Kate Voegele. She is signed to Interscope and was on One Tree Hill for a few episodes. My musical claim to fame is when I was a Junior, right before she got "famous", I played a benefit show my friends put on at one of the uptown bars. She also played, but I was the headliner, so she opened for me. I still have the framed flier. But she is making records in Hollywood now, and I work for a living, so I guess she wins. Oh yeah, she wasn't hot. Decently cute, but nothing special. The magic of Hollywood. She was dating a friend of a friend for almost 2 years when she got signed. She dumped him 2 weeks later. So whenever girls always complain about athletes or so and so getting famous and dumping their HS sweethearts for hotter chicks? It goes both ways. George Karl's son, Coby, was a year older than me in HS. I had a couple classes with him. He was the "star" on our HS team, but really he used to just jack up 3s and take advantage of the fact that he was 6'5 and a guard, which in suburban HS ball is a big deal. He played at Boise State and with the Lakers for awhile, which is shocking to anyone who saw him play in HS. George Karl, at the time coaching the Bucks, used to come to his games and sit by himself. Really nice dude. If you went up and wanted to talk basketball, he would sit and break down the game like a color commentator, pretty fun for a 16 year old kid. Oh, and a kid I used to play soccer with, disappeared from college, was missing for 2-3 weeks and his body was found in New Mexico. Apparently he lit himself on fire? Sad story, as apparently he mentally lost it. Nice dude, incredibly smart, just a bit off.
Sort of a stretch, but when my dad was doing his PhD, there was a professor in his department who contributed quite a bit towards inventing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). My dad tells me he and his fellow PhD candidates all thought he was a bit of a nutbag.
My old band opened for Tokyo Police Club, who were some of the nicest guys I've met when doing shitty shows. their durmmer loaned us a snare after ours broke.
My dad was best friends in high school with Gabe Newell, the guy who started Valve. Half-Life, Counterstrike, Portal, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, all those games. He was over at the Newells' house almost as often as he was in his own. Gabe decided to put his life savings into Microsoft when it was a startup and urged my dad to do the same. My dad, being risk-averse and stingy, declined and probably kicked himself in the face again and again as he watched its stock price go up. Whoops.
Played football against Kellen Moore from Boise State in high school. We were "rival" schools, but it wasnt much of a rivalry game because they beat our ass all the time.
I played on a middle school basketball team with Alex Gordon (3B/OF for the Royals) and Barrett Ruud (MLBer for the Buccaneers), also lived on the same dorm floor as Barrett freshman year in college.