Name dropping

What rich and famous people do you know? I will add them on LinkedIn.

Ned Raggett

do they have to be both rich and famous?

not trying to brag but i did used to post on a message board with Karl Malone

I play tennis with someone who'll be picking up John Olerud's wife at the airport next week. You can't get much more connected than that.

I held a door open for Noam Chomsky one time

The Hudson Brothers (see wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hudson_Brothers) attended my high school. One of them married Goldie Hawn and later Cindy Williams! They had a TV show!

Of course, I never met any of them since they all graduated before I attended and I never watched their TV show, nor can I tell you any of the songs they recorded. But my H.S. classmates knew who they were and talked about them sometimes. Does that count?

Yes, I watched their show and know who they are and who their spouses and offspring might be and have heard a funny story one guy told about Ringo claiming Macca stole the headshake from him.

Inexplicably proud to be one of a handful of people on here who watched the Hudson Brothers' TV show.

I exchanged pleasantries with the nephew of Jim Backus at a job I had in the mid-eighties.

I love that one. What was that Letterman segment? "Brushes with Celebrities" or something like that? This has the makings of a "Quasi-Brushes with Quasi-Celebrities" thread.

Trying to remember what actual songs the Hudson Brothers had as a recording act and how high they charted. Seem to recall one called “Rendezvous.”

Not exactly a distinguished discography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hudson_Brothers_discography

I remember their window of name-dropping fame lasting even less than 15 minutes, but they were apparently releasing singles from 1967 to 1980.

almost had to buy a six-pack of heineken for dave brubeck, but one of my coworkers did it instead

all the famous ppl i know are broke

"I'd like a six-pack, please."

"Here--take five."

lol

Andre Agassi is my 2nd cousin but we've never met so i guess i don't really know him. nevermind.

all the famous ppl i know are broke

― the late great, Saturday, June 10, 2023 9:16 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Being famous and poor is cooler imo. Alas these people do not fit the strict criteria of the thread.

Not exactly a distinguished discography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hudson_Brothers_discography🕸

I remember their window of name-dropping fame lasting even less than 15 minutes, but they were apparently releasing singles from 1967 to 1980.

I love all of my completely unremarkable 'four degrees of separation from quasi-celebrity' connections:

-One of my work friends was roommates with Tom Clancy, Jr.
-I inherited a cache of comics from Michael 'The Pretender' Weiss
-I was in a relationship with the niece of Freedom Williams

There are others of equal unimportance that occur to me from time to time so I'm sure I'll have some more thrilling fodder for this thread soon enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm6TkQAh2wc

"I was in a relationship with the niece of Freedom Williams"--love that one!

My grandparents lived down the street from Kate Nelligan’s brother.

I've gone to a movie with someone whose grandparents lived down the street from Kate Nelligan's brother.

One of the characters in For Better or For Worse was based on a teacher at my high school

my second cousin once removed in law is jeremy corbyn's wife.

actually not once removed, - my aunt's ex husband's brother's daughter. 'second cousin in law' is definitely scraping the barrel though, especially as said legal relationship was dead and buried decades ago.

my grandma was second cousins with Walter Mondale

Ilx is teeming with name drops — what inspired this thread?

Name drops keep fallin' on my thread.

But that doesn't mean I'm gonna change my name from Redd

I’ll crosspost with Ned

One of my cousins was friends with Rachel Hunter (actress, model, tv presenter, ex-wife of Rod Stewart).

One of my maternal grandfather's close childhood friends was James Doohan, ie. "Scotty" from "Star Trek"

I met Rachel Weiss’s mum at Tesco

(Autocorrect sux, *weisz’s)

Or at least someone who claimed to be her mum, I believed her tho

My grandparents once took Aldous Huxley on a picnic.

I picked up Cleanth Brooks at the airport and made sure he got to the lecture podium without breaking a hip.

The Well Dropped Name

This is very niche but my mate is friends with Fred Moten and Fred has slept on his couch/in his spare bed a couple of times after conferences.

Ned Raggett

The accuracy.

When I worked in the travel industry, I went on a birding trip with Chr1s Packham. He was a dude, tbf. We 'bonded' not over birds, really, but Cormac McCarthy and Joy Division.

I went to school and grew up with EFL journeyman football player Chris Billy who is a legend in the region for scoring in a playoff final at Wembley and a very nice guy. Also much more horribly and not really a name to drop, one of Ireland's most horrific serial killers of this era, Mark Nash. I once had a ridiculous rolling all over the deck clown fight with him on a bus when he tried to mug me for my sony walkman. This was someone I knew from the age of 7 coming at me with 2 gormless goons backing him up and by some vagaries of chance he didn't win, not because I'm some badass, but because I was actually ready to die for that walkman! But the the thought that scares me more is - he might have just let me off because he either liked me or was just planning to finish me off at a later date.

Chr1s Packhām phoned me when I was working in a bank call-centre, I enjoyed that his house name and street name both featured animals, he was fine, businesslike.

also spoke to:

Trev0r H0rn - was tetchy. and for good reason!

A A G1ll - sorry to say that he was very charming and friendly

David Beckham - it was just another guy called David Beckham.

My wife was on the nursing team of am HIV hospice in the 90s and she once answered the phone to Danny La Rue who rather rudely demanded to be passed on to one of the senior medical staff. She explained that she was unable to do that as they were all in a meeting, to which he barked the question "do you know who i am?!?". My wife said no and hung up.

literally no one. i think i saw dustin hoffmann out of the window of a bus once

this is me with Jon Pertwee at the International Garden Festival in Liverpool in 1984.

https://i.postimg.cc/WpnKvnQS/20230611-213255.jpg

We all knew Momus once.

He'd already left when I got here about a decade ago. unless I just don't know his username.

i post on the same message board as momus!

i have some 78s that came from r. crumb; i but i also have 78s from people who i consider to be more impressive like dick spotswood & richard nevins but they are less famous.

met loads of indie rock people but thats not very impressive tbqf.

Comics/SF cons and music festivals are good places to hang with people who are relatively famous in their field. I found a patch of shade next to Fred Frith and his family at New Music on the Mountain at Mt. Tamalpais. Chatted to Stan Lee in an elevator at one con, chatted to Jack and Roz Kirby in an elevator at another con. Went to FIMAV one year with a buddy and he wound up smoking pot with Anthony Braxton and someone from Wolf Eyes, but I had retired early because I was upset and stressed out from leaving my passport at home and wondering how I'd get back into the States. (I should have been happy about that!) I did ask Yamataka Eye if the seats next to him were taken at one of the shows at that FIMAV. Oh, and Isaac Asimov asked if seats next to us were taken and sat next to me and my wife at the big costume thing at Worldcon '89.

The best one I got was that my mom as a kid met and knew James Dean when he was a teenager before he left for Hollywood. Family’s had adjacent farms and he would go fishing at pond at her uncle’s place.

I had an uncle that worked as a tour bus driver that had all sorts of stories including doing Milli Vanilli’s lone US tour and all sorts of country and rock acts. He worked for years for Lyle Lovett, Oak Ridge Boys and Def Leppard among others.

He got me a back stage tour, crash in a hotel room working for the Who in their first reunion tour. I met Lyle Lovett twice getting free tickets at shows. He also got me free tickets to the scariest crowd at concert ever at Lynyrd Skynrd Hank Jr show. There was drunken fist fights breaking out all over the place.

I chatted to Kurt Cobain once after a gig. My dad was friends with Nick Lowe when he was at school.

He'd already left when I got here about a decade ago. unless I just don't know his username.

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 11 June 2023 bookmarkflaglink

An early example of cancellation.

I saw Ronald Reagan get shot on TV and was disappointed that he didn’t die

I've shared a smoke and a chat with both River Phoenix and Colin Farrell. Not at the same time.

Gloria Estefan is a distant relative. She came to some of the bigger family parties well into my college years.

nothing too hollywood unfortunately given that i grew up in yorkshire in the 70s.

- i ran alongside jimmy saville once, there is photographic evidence.
- the damned came into the pub my parents ran the day i after i saw them in leeds (wasn't there, mum said they were really lovely).
- i used to send fanmail to chrissy boy (madness), and then ran into him at an 'age of chance' gig. he remembered my letters, gave me his phone number and sent me a cassette of live madness recordings.
- went to a bbq with nightmares on wax.
- hung out with dick-n-dom a couple of times, ending up with one of my lads being on stage with them in front of thousands of people.
- my parents were friends with richard 'countdown' whiteley, and he used to come into the pub they ran in appletreewick.
- same pub that i grew up was recently featured in the ch5 remake of 'all creatures great and small'.

We all knew Momus once.

.. talking of Jimmy Savile, what's Momus up to these days?

- I lived a few doors along from Chas Smash of Madness, and was not only friends with his younger brother for a while but also received a mis-delivered copy of 2000AD #1 instead of the expected Roy of the Rovers, which I suspect was then re-delivered to its intended recipient - him. Wonder what that's worth now?
Addendum: Alvin Stardust later moved into the same street.
- I was intimidated by Tom Baker at a book signing in the 1970s.
- The Libertines used to shoot up smack in the toilets of the rehearsal studio I worked in before they were famous.
- I once had a chat in a graveyard with the guitarist of Gentle Giant. Nice guy!
- My sister went to school with Dido.
- The guitarist of 70s-era prog-folk band Spirogyra once glared at me.

Oh yeah, iirc Robert Goulet was briefly a lodger of one of my great-aunts

my sister in law cleans Mr Bean's house. he is lovely, apparently

I was in a performing troupe with Mandy Moore.

Her headshot was in the lobby during a show I did.

However she wasn't there that night and had just put out her first single, so I didn't actually meet her ever.

I don't know famous people.

I should say that what I remember about Estefan was a thoroughly charming person who didn't take her fame seriously and was a sharp mimic after a couple drinks.

I mean, she recorded this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W097qvUTgk

Melanie Lynsky’s dad was my doctor twice when I had to go to hospital as a little kid, and he was a complete dickhead

been to house parties with prince joffrey

Once dated a girl who claimed her mother went to the same dentist in the 70s as Salvador Dali, that's a weird lie so must be true

But my biggest name drop is that I was in a bar band and one of our biggest fans was the daughter of John Larroquette

I love all of these posts

I’ve met a few people who are semi-famous in the arts/music world: Michael Tilson Thomas (SF Symphony), Joan Jeanrenaud (of Kronos Quartet), and the visual/sculptural artists Jenny Holzer, Bruce Conner, Charles Ray, Joel Shapiro, Gerhardt Richter, Christopher Wool, Cady Noland, Robert Hudson, and Robert Arneson.

The famous artist I spent an entire day with was Jeff Koons. He drove my friend and me from his studio in northern Italy to Munich. This was during the time he was involved with Ilona Staller and was conceiving the works that became Made In Heaven.

i was on a message board with suzy

Some bands I like to name drop
And one of them is rem

Lol mookie

I brought food to Miss Yvonne, and Ally Sheedy at separate times circa 1990, when i was a sever at a spa in palm springs

My brother was friends with/fucked one of Casey Anthony's friends (who is featured in the latest documentary) around the time THAT was happening, so he got a call from the press asking him what he knew about Casey.

Which was

Nothing

Oh. I sold haruki murakami some records, probably close to 20 years ago, when I was working in a record shop. Henry Rollins too, but mail order.

My dad stole the Lindbergh baby

My dad was the Lindbergh baby

In the early 80s my dad was in a locally popular new wave band with Ellen DeGeneres' brother. They made a music video that was directed by a young LSU film student named Steven Soderbergh.

i saw Matthew Barney's butt in person ... he was about 30' above me so it isn't like i had a very impressive view

calumerio at 11:48 11 Jun 23

my sister in law cleans Mr Bean's house. he is lovely, apparently

I once went to Noel Edmond’s house in the 90s with my grandad, who was a delivery driver. Noel had a life size Mr Blobby in his living room.

that was mr blobby

Ok not exactly rich and famous but I too want to brag about my encounter with an artist:

Luigi Serafini, of Codex Seraphinianus fame, gave me and my husband a private tour of his studio in Milan and took us out to lunch. Then gave me a miniature Codex cookie from a tour he did in China. Later on, he gave us a pretty good price for a small piece of original art. And we got invited to come back and see his studio in Rome next time.

One of the top 3 best experiences of my life.

As a waitress in the 2000s, in the same city as Weta Studios, I met
Stanley Tucci
Seth Green
Matthew Lillard
Dax Shepherd
Giovanni Ribisi
Timothy Spall

A couple of years ago my daughters and I stayed in a youth hostel association hut on the South downs and our next door neighbour was ILx fave, John Harris.

Ok not exactly rich and famous but I too want to brag about my encounter with an artist:

Luigi Serafini, of Codex Seraphinianus fame, gave me and my husband a private tour of his studio in Milan and took us out to lunch. Then gave me a miniature Codex cookie from a tour he did in China. Later on, he gave us a pretty good price for a small piece of original art. And we got invited to come back and see his studio in Rome next time.

One of the top 3 best experiences of my life.

― just1n3, Monday, 12 June 2023 08:07 (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

okay, this one, finally, I am slightly envious of

Past ilx celebs: Dorian L (cancelled), Jess H, Drew D, Max R.

Geir Hongro (huge in Norway)

I got mildly hammered with Barry Burns of Mogwai a few years back. And Rowland S Howard once came to a benefit I put on with Underground Lovers. Oh and I did a lyrics book for Vince from the UL but I’m not sure if that counts as globally famous.

My Dad taught at Nairobi UNiversity alongside Ngugi Wa Thiong'o though i think he was teaching maths. Then went onto be a minor player in NASA I think during the moonshot, though may have been just around the time.
He'd gone to college around Kisumu with Barrack Obama's birth dad. I think he and his 2nd wife remained in contact with Obama as he grew up. THat 2nd wife had been related or best friends with Tom Mboya's family so was around them a lot.

My mum had been a temporary secretary for Pete Townshend and Harold Pinter.

I was in a class once with Derek Guyler's grandson and I think at one point with Wilfred Hyde White's. Peter Perret went to school for a while across the road from my grandparents' place.
Bark Psychosis went to my school a few years behind me. I later hitched most of their first tour.

We lived in a neighborhood once where we were in regular contact with Baden Powell's widow when i was a very small child.

I once slept in the same room as the undercover cop Mark Kennedy I hope I kepthim awake by snoring. Still not sure what he was doing traveling with a group of activists from Iceland who were trying to keep the centre of the island from being flooded for aluminium smelting or something. I thought he was supposed to keep himself busy undermining activism in blighty and harassing women etc.

I worked in a post-production studio for 21 years and could name-drop for England but I once spent a lovely afternoon with Olivia Harrison doing some sound-editing work on an animation that appeared on a GH box set a few years back.

We were chopping up various George tunes and I got to nerd out with her about how great some of the remastered tracks on Wonderwall sounded, she was really cool.

Steve Diggle out of the Buzzcocks tried to chat up my wife in a bar in London.

definitely hung with Corpsegrinder a few times but he's 'famous' on a very small scale

"Even better, I can show you why we chose the name"

xp

The most entertaining celebrity I've ever met is Gene Simmons.

I did "meet" Mojo Nixon once, he was completely off his head. Coked to the gills, or at least did a spot-on impression of being in that state.

I’ve known quite a few somewhat famous visual artists and writers, but that’s sort of niche stuff. The big one for me is that I was in the same friend group as Lena Dunham in college.

I am in a band with Jorma Kaukonen's son.

I went to high school with the Cheney sisters, and Strom Thurmond's daughter was in my AP Government class.

Many years ago I worked for/with Roger and Christine Stevens - not household names perhaps, but he was a theatrical producer who had owned the Empire State Building, chaired the Adlai Stevenson campaign, and founded both the American Book Awards and ther Kennedy Center. Through Christine's animal welfare work I met Jane Goodall.

Another musician I sold records to its: jello Biafra. Very annoying and high maintenance

I never met him, but knew a lot of people who went to high school with him in Boulder. They would agree with your assessment.

I also have a close friend who went to high school with Marjorie Taylor Greene. "Completely unremarkable."

Friend of a relative used to work for Bryan Ferry, apparently he's v. odd.

I once had to tell Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong that I didn't know where they could find any weed in the local area, sorry.

My brother left a school chum's birthday party early, thus missing an appearance by Ray Davies who turned up to sing a few songs to the kiddies. No idea how that came about tbh (other than that it was in Muswell Hill).

I chatted with Jim Reid once without realising it was him, he's OK actually if somewhat introverted.

I stood near Nick Cave at a Crime & the City Solution gig at Subterania, but not that near.

jello Biafra. Very annoying and high maintenance

Have also heard this.

Idk if this is controp or not (I don’t believe it is) — I don’t think offspring of (rich/famous person) is eligible for name dropping. I have many personal reasons for feeling this way, primarily that they did not ask to be related to a famous person and therefore should be left alone/not gossiped about. This may be one of my most conservative beliefs? Not here to argue but to suggest we leave those people alone.

If they seek the public eye (Liz Cheney) that’s different. If they don’t, they deserve to make their way in the world without being forever tethered to their relationship to a famous person.

I met Neil Gaiman’s cat a few years ago, nothing but good things to say about her.

Friend of a relative used to work for Bryan Ferry, apparently he's v. odd.

Spill!!!

Wyatt Russell (Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell's son who is now also an actor) went to the same high school as me for a couple of years. I never really interacted with him cause he was two years below me, but we would get out at noon every Friday and Kurt Russell would always pick up Wyatt on these days. One semester I had chemistry class that overlooked the parking lot at the end of Fridays so I always got to see Kurt Russell roll up in his classic car, usually 30ish minutes early, and just post up in rose tinted sunglasses smoking a cigar while waiting for his son to get out of school. He was very friendly and would say hi to everybody on their way out of class so I had a routine of saying Hey to Kurt Russell weekly for a year or so.

I also went to college with Leelee Sobieski and we took a small and strange class called "Unpublishable Writing" together at one point. During class breaks, she would always offer me one of her very fancy and expensive seeming cigarettes and even though I didn't really smoke, I would take them cause they tasted good and then I had an excuse to chat with a pretty celebrity. One time, I saw her on the street with a bunch of her friends late at night and since they were on the other side of the street I didn't bother trying to say hi or anything since they looked busy. Next thing I know, she is yelling my name and running across the street and she gives me a big hug and a sloppy kiss on the cheek. She seemed a bit drunk, but it was still something of a life highlight for me.

I peed next to Kurt Russell in a bathroom in a restaurant in Santa Monica in 1989.

Chubby Checker thought he recognized me from somewhere. The twist in this case was that he was mistaken.

Buck Dharma's daughter did a short internship in the studio I worked at a long time ago, she was really nice, and tiny.

my Mom lives in a condo and I took the kids there once to feed the cat while she was out. on the way out of the building one of them knocked over a small package and stepped on it, crushing whatever was inside. the package was addressed to Sam Dekker, ex-NBA player who is currently playing for the British Basketball League. not really sure how I should have handled that situation!

Mel Brooks and Anne B. were regular customers at my parents' old restaurant. That's prob my fave sorta connection to a famous person/people.

Idk if this is controp or not (I don’t believe it is) — I don’t think offspring of (rich/famous person) is eligible for name dropping. I have many personal reasons for feeling this way, primarily that they did not ask to be related to a famous person and therefore should be left alone/not gossiped about. This may be one of my most conservative beliefs? Not here to argue but to suggest we leave those people alone.

If they seek the public eye (Liz Cheney) that’s different. If they don’t, they deserve to make their way in the world without being forever tethered to their relationship to a famous person.

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, June 12, 2023 10:45 AM bookmarkflaglink

i think this is reasonable. plus it's the name dropping famous people thread, not the naming relatives of famous people you know thread.

(not to mention if you happen to be kin of a particularly monstrous person and you yourself have distanced yourself from them, you still wind up being harassed, threatened and doxxed as if you are your father/mother/relative)

Probably a topic for a whole separate thread, but there is a dermatologist here in Atlanta whose father participated in the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. He has a thriving practice, but I have to imagine that's the kind of legacy you want as little to do with as possible.

See also David Berman (who I have had 0 brushes with only mentioning him as someone who preferred not to be affiliated w a close relative)

I just want to say that I love, despite there being famous people on this board and other people on this board who know and have legitimately spent time with famous people, that almost all of these are like 'my cousin's podiatrist once had lunch with George Segal'.

I peed next to Kurt Russell in a bathroom in a restaurant in Santa Monica in 1989.

― henry s, Monday, 12 June 2023 14:52 (one hour ago) link

I forgot about bathroom encounters! I peed next to Twiggy Ramirez once and ran into the kid who played Randy on The Wire and a bunch of his friends as they emerged from a cineplex restroom. The latter was one of my more starstruck moments.

Lol mookie

― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, June 11, 2023 8:42 PM

I did karaoke with Principal Blackman once. That was definitely my most starstruck moment.

I peed next to Kurt Russell in a bathroom in a restaurant in Santa Monica in 1989.

I would absolutely not be able to

Andre Agassi is my 2nd cousin but we've never met so i guess i don't really know him. nevermind.

― carthage marine park (Deflatormouse), Sunday, 11 June 2023 01:36 (yesterday)

When I was a young teenager I went to a tennis tournament in Atlanta and Agassi was playing on his birthday. There was this huge birthday card that fans could sign and I wrote happy birthday, signed Peter Goesinya

I peed next to Kurt Russell in a bathroom in a restaurant in Santa Monica in 1989.

― henry s, Monday, 12 June 2023 14:52 (one hour ago) link

damo suzuki's wang

I peed next to Kurt Russell in a bathroom in a restaurant in Santa Monica in 1989.

treeship, in my eyes you've made up for doing the 'cancelled' thread by doing this one, thank you

Buck Dharma's daughter did a short internship in the studio I worked at a long time ago, she was really nice, and tiny.

― MaresNest, Monday, June 12, 2023 11:20 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

in September i saw BOC play 2 nights in a horrible venue in midtown with mandatory Oktoberfest-style seating, so you had to crane your neck sideways to look at the stage. on the first night i got there late, and while doing the rounds looking for a seat i accidentally stepped on Buck's foot, hard. i hadn't noticed him. he was standing there talking to a friend, and didn't react. but i could not believe how small he was. he is a *tiny* human, i'm 5'9" and i tower over him. i didn't even manage to apologize, just stood there dumbfounded thinking "omg, you're so... short".

When Eddie Muller and Foster Hirsch bring Noir City to AFI Silver, I hang out with them. I also know a number of silent film accompanists/archivists/aficionados, but since Morbs died I may be the only person here who cares.

Since we're mentioning experiences of our parents, I can definitely state that my mother held an umbrella over the head of Robert Frost as he walked to his car in the rain after speaking to a group of college-aged aspiring writers. This was in 1940 iirc. She was thrilled. I doubt he was.

Re: the Kurt Russell peeing adjacency

I got in the batter's box first, and didn't know I was peeing next to the Computer That Wore Tennis Shoes until I was shook and done. Stage fright averted! I walked out into the dining room and Goldie Hawn was sitting at a table. (Not even a good one, as I recall.)

my brother in law went out with Natalie imbruglia

One of The Coral pushed me over on the way home from school once (when we were both teenagers - I was a swot and he was a bit hard).

a friend blew Willie Nelson

we think

A kiss?

Okay, so years back I had to record an interview between D@vid Fr0st and Gene Wilder, for an inflight radio series he was doing.

I was so excited to meet Gene, I just wanted to tell him how much I adored Gilda Radner but didn't have the guts.

He was doing some sort of one-man show in a theatre on Shaftesbury Ave (iirc), and insisted that we come to his dressing room to do the interview rather than in studio, which was only about a 10 min walk away, but whatever, I was despatched with mics and DAT machine.

We got there and we were ushered into a rather ordinary dressing room area and told that he would be along soon.

In one corner was a toilet which was really just a simple partitioned-off, plasterboarded room and not at all soundproofed.

Well, our interviewer decided he had to pee for all of us to hear, very clearly, including GW who had arrived in the middle of all this, we were all horrified, eventually DF appeared oblivious and said his hellos, shook hands.

I used to go out with an air stewardess and went on a few trips with her. One Christmas, we flew to Sao Paulo and, on the return flight, I got upgraded to first class. Nick Cave sat two seats away from me the whole flight (which is quite far away in first, but still). He drank two bottles of red wine and must have smoked twenty cigarettes. I didn't say a word to him because I just didn't know what to say. The woman between us was completely oblivious as to who he was, but I would occasionally catch bits of their conversation. I heard him talk about visiting his 'muse' in Brazil, and, at one point, being asked if he released his song with Kylie 'into the charts'. He seemed quite charmed by the whole thing, tbh.

I also used to go out with Michael Apted's niece.

Because I am above such thing, I shall let someone else make a 7 Up joke

i peed next to Mathieu Amalric at an orchestral concert

and i stood next to Bobby Zamora in the showers at a gym

I peed before Pete Sandoval at a Terrorizer show.

I peed on Richard Belzer but he asked me to

i'm so desperate to pretend no one else exists when i'm using a public restroom facility, i doubt i would recognize a close relative let alone a celebrity

xp lol

Twice, I had better seats in a theater than Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed.

not very nice to sit in their seats and refuse to move

I offered a lap

"whatcha gonna do...write a song about it?!"

Leaving aside interviews with some famous and famouish ppl from college days, I've only hung out a few times as an adult with one sort of pop star, that's it.

I offered a lap

― Hideous Lump

...

i offered a lap dance to laurie anderson and lou reed

But I didn't see
That the lap dance was on me

i saw Matthew Barney's butt in person ... he was about 30' above me so it isn't like i had a very impressive view

― sarahell, Sunday, June 11, 2023

I remember that

I'm vaguely related to Elle King through various marriages, she's my uncle's stepson's stepdaughter. Met her once at Thanksgiving when she was a teen.

Back in the 90s, my band spent an evening with Chris Cornell, went to dinner with him and watched Barbarella and drank beers with him. We also hung out with the assorted members of Morphine at various points, and I once met Even Dando when he was tripping on mushrooms.

Some famous-ish people I knew from college include Rashida Jones, filmmaker Andrew Bujalski (also most of the cast members of his earlier films), and Spark founder, Bishop Allen guitarist, and OK Cupid blogger Christian Rudder.

oh, I forgot high school. I was at the same magnet accelerated classes place as one of the pinterest founders and one of the people who was contesting the crispr-cas9 patent

Working at a small Miami Beach bookstore in 2001, I'd several stars: Barry Gibb, a sequoia in the history section reading for several hours; Thomas Harris of The Silence of the Lambs fame in a Panama hat; Brett Ratner after a coke-fueled evening buying thousands of dollars on Taschen coffee table books.

But Iggy Pop was the best. On a Monday evening he and his girlfriend would case the store as if they owned the joint: she dressed like a model, he barefoot and in tatty jeans. Those saucer-sized eyes complement his height. One night he asked for The Corrections, the hip book at the time. We had no copy -- Franzen was hot. The protocol at the time was to call our Coral Gable store to ship a copy over. When the employee at the other end asked for a name, I froze.

"Keep it under Osterberg, J.," I said briskly.

Looking back at Iggy, he winked at me.

He walked out having spent several hundred dollars on fashion magazines, Nietzche, Goethe's Italian Journey, and some Steiner thing.

I think the one that I'm most *proud* of, or whatever, is that my grandmother was friends with Howard Zinn, and I had dinner with him a few times.

classic Iggy

I got wasted with Dimebag Darrell once when he stopped in the pool hall where a friend was working on a weekday afternoon. I quit drinking shortly thereafter and missed out on the nights he came in and then took a crowd back to his house. Pretty sure that was the last celebrity I met.

I peed next to Kurt Russell in a bathroom in a restaurant in Santa Monica in 1989.

I would absolutely not be able to

― jmm

me either

When I was in college, there was a rumor that I slept with Allen Ginsburg.

Actually I did help organize a reading by Mr. G. (in my capacity as vice president of the English Club lol). But I barely spoke to him. I think I asked a dumb question and he turned away toward the cheese and crackers.

It turned out that another young man (with the same first and last name) had driven the poet to and from the airport... and it was THAT gentleman who allegedly/possibly slept with him as well, I dunno and it's none of my business.

All I'm saying is: there were rumors, there were allegations...

I served Dale Winton half a pint of Guinness in the Staines branch of Wetherspoons. Bleak doesn't cover it.

I think I've told most of these stories on ilx before but:

-walked by the guy who played tv's Coach in the Atlanta airport
-walked by Thom Yorke in Oxford; he gave me a look that I understood to mean "I know you recognize me, so fuck off"
-did a study abroad program with this guy (and we were in a two-person tutorial together): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/a-suspense-novelists-trail-of-deceptions
-gave directions to the Whitney Museum to Daryl Hannah while on my way to the Whitney
-then, weirdly, saw Jude Law & Sienna Miller in the Whitney
-was opening the door to the Music Box in Chicago when a woman wearing bright orange pants did the same thing, touching my hand. She immediately walked away; my friend told me "that was Joan Cusack"
-had jury duty the same day as Oprah Winfrey. I was only near her during the lunch break, where she was surrounded by a phalanx of cops, but it was a surreal experience, mostly due to the intensity of everyone's starstruck-ness around her (e.g., everyone sat facing her in the cafeteria). I honestly pitied her a little

Apart from the fraud guy, I don't think anyone I've known has gone on to become (in)famous. I have known a few quasi-famous artists and academics, but no one I think really counts in the larger world.

When I was a toddler my parents lived near David Hasslehoff's family. He'd already long headed out for his acting career and was working on The Young and the Restless, but his sister babysat me a few times.

ooh I was walking quickly down a sidewalk in Montreal (very hungry) and almost ran over a woman leaving a yoga studio. it took me probably twenty feet to think “wait she looked familiar” to turn back and realize it was Naomi Watts

if I’d accidentally run into her it wouldn’t have turned into a romantic comedy but I can always dream

Neando I was gonna say it sounds like you dodged a bullet with Darrell there, but thought better of it

I think I've mentioned all of these elsewhere on ILX...

My Godfather's cousin is General George S. Patton. For real. What this really meant was that my parents' real estate agent's cousin was the General - but Nelson & Hildy were family friends and remained so for the rest of everyone's lives. Guess who saw the George C. Scott movie in the theaters when he was five?

After my dad graduated from Cornell in 1939, he enrolled for a year in the writing/dramatic arts program at Howard College (now called Samford) in Birmingham, Alabama. His roommate that year was future character actor/Sam Peckinpah regular R.G. Armstrong - thirty years later, they were still in contact but at the letter or phone once-or-twice a year friend level. Bob made 80 movies - all through the 1970s, I'd see him shoot people, get shot, be evil, and my mom would always nudge me with "that was your dad's college friend."

My brother-in-law's father was the writer of "Tijuana Taxi" and played in both of Herb Alpert's bands: The Tijuana Brass and the Baja Marimba Band.

My first physics professor in college was part of the Manhattan Project and won the Nobel Prize for discovering the neutrino.

I went to high school with disgraced Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow. Science fiction writer John Scalzi started at the same school the year after I graduated, but somehow we met and are happily friendly.

When The Muffs starting playing gigs around LA again in 2014, me and Ms. T just started seeing them whenever we could. A lot. Impossible to have a bad time. ("What are we doing tonight that's so much more important than seeing The Muffs?" was a common phrase). At one of those gigs, Kim Shattuck asked us to watch the merch table for them after someone flaked and suddenly we were doing Merch For The Muffs for most of their LA shows for the next year or so. Being around Kim, Ronnie, and Roy was like being in a insanely raunchy and funny cartoon - Ms. T and I going home just laughing our asses off. The world sucks without Kim in it. (BTW, Kim was also incredibly knowledgeable about LA real estate and helped us find the place where we're at now).

-walked by Thom Yorke in Oxford; he gave me a look that I understood to mean "I know you recognize me, so fuck off"

I was walking along a street in Dublin and saw a guy walking towards me who I recognized. He kept looking at me while I went through "did I go to school with him? No, he's too old" and "did I work with him?" and "should I say hello... oh wait that's Daniel Day Lewis!" And obviously whatever face people make when the realization hits them is amusing to him, because the smile got wider and we both nodded as we passed each other and continued on with our respective days.

It was like he was willing me to realize it before he passed by, and he was pleased when I finally did.

I gave Paul and Linda McCartney's kids (just Heather and Mary, I imagine) all my Opal Fruits; Phoenix Cinema, Wallasey, early '72? Bedknobs and Broomsticks was showing. The Macca clan was on our row.
Obv I don't remember this, and it's just become family lore. I also don't really remember Rod Stewart (and other less stellar folks) playing a charity football match at our local ground (like, 30sec walk from our front door) in '75, though there's photographic evidence of that, but no idea what happened to all the autographs I collected.

I went to school with some minor TV/music ppl, and I used to see (and occasional have fleeting interactions with) celebs when I worked in Soho, but those two phantom '70s non-memories are the ones that always come to mind.

It was like he was willing me to realize it before he passed by, and he was pleased when I finally did.

― trishyb, Wednesday, 14 June 2023 11:34 (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

very DDL ebergy i feel

good ebenig

I spent part of an afternoon house party day-drinking with James Murdoch once

Previous ILX name droppers:

Accidental Encounters With The Rich and Famous?
Why is there no ILX celebrity sighting thread?

brushes with greatness (again)

Some famous-ish people I knew from college include Rashida Jones, filmmaker Andrew Bujalski (also most of the cast members of his earlier films), and Spark founder, Bishop Allen guitarist, and OK Cupid blogger Christian Rudder.

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Monday, June 12, 2023 5:53 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I have often wondered as a sometime Bishop Allen fan... what does Christian Rudder do now? No longer involved with OK Cupid, I think, no Bishop Allen music in a while, no more books... does he just hang out being rich?

I saw Cat Power with Brent Musburger's sister-in-law.

(I've actually interacted a bit with Brent Musburger's brother's family but that example just struck me as particularly funny for some reason.)

xxp

I have no idea, but hanging out being rich is certainly what I would do.

It turned out that another young man (with the same first and last name) had driven the poet to and from the airport...

Must have been Ye Sad Puffin?

On the "kids of famous people" tip, I went to school with Juan Thompson. Very smart guy. I got the impression that he didn't have much of a relationship with his dad.

(By "school," I mean college. Juan also dated the ex-girlfriend of a friend of mine. They had kind of a masochistic triangle, as the exes were still "friends.")

I was in high school religion classes with the Catholic priest who got caught in the act of filming himself getting pegged by two satanist dominatrices on the altar of his church a couple years ago. Well done, Travis.

Random encounter reminded me that large professor was a regular at the record shop I used to work at

But how could I forget my fave??? Shortly after his release, sending some records to John hinckley.

Random encounter reminded me that large professor was a regular at the record shop I used to work at

But how could I forget my fave??? Shortly after his release, sending some records to John hinckley.

How to win friends and influence people

I sat next to the guitarist from the Honeycombs' son for the first 2 years of middle/high school.

I was on a bowling team one night : Treach from Naughty by Nature and a couple of friends vs the girlfriends.

I brought a very lost George Clinton up to my work one afternoon so he could use the phone and find his hotel.

Got a couple if sharing lanes for bowling counts:
Donald Faison and his family were a delight to share a lane with, they were very friendly and we were both throwing high-fives back and forth whenever anyone got a strike.
On the other hand, shared a lane with Wanda Sykes and a bunch of people I did not recognize. Although the rest of her group seemed personable enough, Wanda gave off radioactive "I see that you recognize me and there is no way in hell I want to talk to you" energy, which I respected tbf as I wouldn't want to talk to a 20-year-old me about Pootie Tang either.

i was just saying to my good friends julie goodyear and yung gravy the other night that namedropping is a bit déclassé

Jonathan Richman totally just asked me for a ride home

I sat next to former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed one night at a Hawks game (he was still in office at the time). We high fived.

I ran into Scott Ian from Anthrax in the pit at a Fear/Elvis Hitler/the Dwarves show.

Anthony Bowie of the Orlando Magic came into the Steak n Shake I was working at in high school.

He made fun of me because my shoes weren't non-skid and I kept slipping.

I went to art school with Keith Haring.

The band I was in opened for Squeeze, Duran Duran, and Gary Numan.

I guess my boyfriend at the time and I shared a cab ride with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon in 1980ish, to some loft party in Soho, but I didn't know until years later that was who they were.

wow, the Haring namedrop will take some beating!

My mum told me my grandma once unceremoniously kicked a drunken Charles Haughey out of their house when he got too tediously drunk and loud. I'm not sure if I completely believe the story, but it's probably not that incredible because my grandfather was a fellow alumni of his at Trinity, he just sort of landed a bit lower than him!

the bowling lane naughty by nature vs the girlfriends scene is giving me life for some reason

XXP - Wow doo dah!! That's some namedrop indeed, were you part of his wider circle of downtown friends perchance? That was a fascinating period.

Nah, this was in Pittsburgh. He started later than me, we weren't in any classes together.

My boyfriend was high school friends with a guy who was in the Coachmen; we had gone up to New York to visit him, he took us to rehearsal.