Your claims to embarrassing or minor fame

"one CNN in" = "on CNN"

My band was on Request Video, a local MTV-substitute in the 90s.

I've been behind the scenes in a few films as crew in the 90s.

I got cast for the reality TV show "Dream House" on A&E in 2003 and had to turn them down to accept a new job.

just out of interest, which one was it?

-- C('ing on)urt1sss (curtis.stephens@gmail.com)

CNNing on your TNNs?

I hope these qualify as "minor" enough.

I was part of a crowd scene in Restless Natives, but I haven't seen myself, so think even my attempt at being an extra was destined for the cutting room floor.

(it so should get a DVD release! I love it, and not just because I am maybe in it)

There was a somewhat poor article about my band in a recent issue of hippie-mag Dirty Linen.

(x-post)

When we were leaving one of the production crew said it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen, while another one, obviously not so impressed, tried to kick me up the arse. And for a few weeks we became Norfolk's most famous homosexuals, behind Steven Fry obviously (though not literally).

Neither of us are gay, by the way.

I was the kid caught in the hot-box between home and third, for those keeping score.

I did a short voice-over for a CBC documentary on rural China. I was the translators voice for a peasant farmer. I never saw it though.

I'm in the video for INXS' "Devil Inside" - towards the end of the song there's a very brief shot of a line of people standing against a wall. It's actually a line of people (including me) waiting to get into the midnight showing of Rocky Horror at the Balboa Theater (the video was shot at the old Balboa fun zone across the street)

At age 11, I sang the boy soprano solo in Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

In high school I was an audience member on BET's Teen Summit. They wanted some white kids because they were doing a show on racism or diversity or something like that. I made a comment and sounded dumb.

SHUT. UP!

Also I ended up on the cover of the weekend section of the Newark Star Ledger once, and since I was wearing a WFMU t shirt at the time, my picture ended up hanging on the bulletin board on the 3rd floor of the station for way too long.

They're wearing tuxedos in it. I think it might've been "Keep On Loving You," but might be wrong.

She didn't. This would be one of the embarrasing claims here.

I was shown in a crowd shot back in 1990 for a local news report about the local symphony's concerts for children.

I got interviewed for a news program in Tyler, TX, after seeing DD at the Starplex back in 1999. I have no idea whether or not that program ever showed that interview.

And I've had a letter run in the local newspaper's "letters to the editor". Again, I haven't a clue as to where any of the copies of said newspaper are hanging around.

http://www.patheticgeekstories.com/archives/page1/2-fatkids.html

obv. nothing to do with beating cancer.

Also my dad was a contestant on ITV's "Winner Takes All", taking home no money, just a Yorkshire Televison tie after getting 4 from his 5 right while his opponent got all five. I have just about forgiven him (albeit not Tarby).

I gave an ill-advised vox pop interview after a B&S show at the Brixton academy in 2002, complete with photo and stupid quote, that appeared in the Observer. I also gave a filmed statement to the weathergirl from channel 5 last fall on Britney's hasty vegas marriage (saying that I didn't care, basically) but I didn't tune in to see if it was broadcast. People often ask me to do those things--usually I turn them down, since whenever vanity wins, I end up looking as stupid as I deserve.

I've been in the paper some other times, once for being in a nasty car crash on cape cod. There was a photo of the car, but not of me, thank goodness.

My picture was in the local paper on a story about.....the effects of used cds on the record industry? I can't remember. I was just shopping at the store.

Like a lot of people around here, I have been played (as part of a band) on Radio1 by Steve Lamacq and the late John Peel, and have had about half an inch of column space in most of the old major music rags.

Recently, I have been an extra in this film: http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilms/catalogue/browse/?id=D5D44D521b45825D1EpYr3565019 although I'm sure my wonderful appearance as 'Girl Walking To The Toilet #2' and 'Girl Standing By The Stage Getting Into I Am A Sock' will be cut out.

I was interviewed on London Tonight about the pros and cons of ex-So Solid Crew & current low-brow TV celeb MC Harvey joining AFC Wimbledon (though, I must add, they only spoke to me after first approaching my chaperone that day, the much more photogenic Marianna LCL).

I was part of a boy's choir which sang on the album "The Animal's Christmas" by Art Garfunkel & Amy Grant. 6 days work, £150, and it was recorded in the church at the top of my road. Not bad when you're 10. Mr Garfunkel was very nice, as was Jimmy Webb.

I had my photo in the nme after Glastonbury 95 as I was looking one way in the middle of the crowd while everyone else was watching the band. It's not a bad photo, apart from the fact that I'm wearing some awful crusty hoodie.

Got interviewed by CBC Radio after some show at Richard's, I was on like 6 hits of Xanax, and I don't remember what I said. I met this couple at the show and we exchanged phone numbers + email addy's - later the wife emailed me and said they heard the interview, and that it was more or less intelligible.

My local profile got pretty big this year, but I don't enjoy this fact at all right now - it's very difficult to isolate myself and settle things down when at every corner and page of local media turned I'm constantly reminded of people, places, and stuff I'm trying to take a break from.

when i was 2 my family did a TV advert for the multiple sclerosis society with frank bough, which i have a super 8 reel of somewhere. its hilarious - my mum is stick thin and has hair like bob dylan, while my dad talks to frank about the effects of MS sat in front of a cassette rack full of pirated tapes of friends' record collections. it was supposed to open with a shot of me and frank playing football (frank announced the football scores back then), frank soberly addressing the camera with something ghastly like "Stevie can't play football with his dad", but i was prone to convulsions at the time, and sure enough, by the time frank was ready to shoot the scene my temperature had hit 104, i was comatose and being rushed to hospital. but the crew had managed to film some footage of me playing with sticklebricks to insert later.

i've chaired a couple of discussions and attended panels in the past, but genuinely hate to do so - i get terribly embarrassed, and worry that people think i'm getting ideas above my station or positing myself as some authority. i'm even mostly uncomfortable with the realities of being a college lecturer for the same reasons, but somehow manage to amble through. i really am quite hysterically shy, but am always fighting against it and forcing myself into such situations. on friday, at the Loose Lips show, Craig from Todd dedicated the gig to me and steve by name, for being "fucking champions and giving a fuck". i was *hugely* touched, but also *hugley* embarrassed, especially when my drunken D partner started yelling "He's talking about you! Put your hands up!"

okay, i could've phrased that better.

I lent the tapes to a friend of mine like 7 years ago and I don't think she ever gave them back. They're probably lost forever.

Also did a couple of interview on CBC radio about the Montreal music scene. Always nice to get that email from someone on the other side of the country who hasn't heard (literally and figuratively) from you in years.

And Stevie, I'm a university lecturer who felt the same way about getting up in front of a classroom. A bit of practice, a few stiff drinks (before and after) and you'll be fine.

I wrote the liner notes for a John Fahey CD reissue. I felt kind of famous for a while after that, although the number of people likely to notice that feat is even smaller than for the stuff I usually do.

I was quoted in an NYT story by Jayson Blair after I clearly specified upfront that I would speak to him only "on background." He got the lion's share of the attention there, and that's fine with me.

I used to do college radio, and later worked on a long-lived freeform rock radio show at an NPR station in the Southeast. Pretty big stick too--covered most of the region. Again, maybe a hundred people really cared, but I was walking down the street talking to a friend once and a guy who had passed us going the other way stopped and called back to me, "Do you work on Unradio?" That made me feel famous all the way to the party we were heading to.

this is the last time
I will mention this sad fact,
I swear to jesus.

Other than that, I DJ'd for a ridiculous amount of time at uni radio in B*rm*ngh*m. At the end of my last programme, I wrote the names of all the other programmes I liked high up on one of the walls in the studio in board marker. I'd imagine that either they've not noticed it yet or they've painted over it.

(The detail missing from this story is that this was the church choir.)

And, uh, I've opened for Dalek and Boyracer. Pretty minor claims to fame.

I was in the local paper a few times due to teenage drama stuff. I've also been on local TV and radio for this reason.

Here is a link to my phantom book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1860744710/026-2729251-7068401
I was supposed to write it, but the structure of the publishing company changed and it didn't come off, but is still available for pre-order on several sites. I have not written a word of this and never will.

There is a picture of me on the inside of the Landing album "Oceanless"

I have the same name as the guy from Tangerine Dream.

Not sure anymore, but I believe I was thanked in the liner notes of an album by a band from Baltimore called Monkeyspank back in, like, 1990 or so.

I got thanked on a coupla CD booklets, too, now that you mention it, but nothing as fun to bring up as Monkeyspank.

Me and my sister had a holiday snap of us holding our Snoopy dolls printed in the Hornsey Journal.

I once had my picture printed in Melody Maker, but my face was obscured by so much hair you couldn't tell it was me.

A band I was in supported Mogwai before they were famous. They were rubbish.

Age 4 1/2: Diagnosed with cancer after going to emergency for bite received from neighbour's Alsatian. Given three months to live by worried doctors. My mother argued a bit. First child in medical history to be given combination treatment of radiation, chemo and surgery (mom good arguer; I am even better). Surgeon who operated on me later became head of pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic.
Age 5: published in Minnesota poetry anthology as youngest person - my school forwarded the poem.
Age 8: My Bluebirds troop goes on Mpls. local kids' TV show Clancy and Willie (scout/campfire kids on benches a la Howdy Doody, it died in 1980). I am selected to stand and wave because I am the Birthday Girl. The fucker Willie Ketchum makes a joke about my surname so the wave turns middle-finger ON AIR 'as if by accident'. Argumentative mother later names new pet poodle Willie. Circle squared.
Age 10. Engaged in battle of wills with closet lesbian 5th grade teacher who is spinster heiress to local grocery fortune; basically the MN version of the Sainsburys. She hates me to the point I'm gonna flunk but HALLELUJAH we take standardised tests and I get the highest English score in the state and second in Maths (I hate actual maths classes). Grudgingly she hands me something she has been hiding for two months - a prizewinning horse drawing I submitted for a statewide competition.

More later, Ethan et Minna visite.

My father, now retired, was a major muckety-muck for a large brokerage firm that shall remain nameless.

A letter I wrote to Bellmore Life in 1981 won my mom the second-place prize in their "Mother of the Year" awards.

Same article, same source of post, same not-thrilled feeling.

I made a film that played in 15 or so festivals, the farthest one was Norway. I thought that was cool although it went nowhere.

When I put on a disasterous film festival I got a page in the local paper.

A friend of mine had me help make his cable access TV show that he wanted to sell to a network. It got a bunch of local news articles, and a TV spot where they filmed me talking about some junk. The show was crap and went nowhere.

Right now a local alt paper has a 2 page article I wrote. Woopty woop, but it's the first thing I wrote that anybody saw fit to print, besides letters to the editor.

hahahaha, er, sorry. *smirk*

I've never really done anything along these lines. Reading the bits above I suppose the only things which I would count would be a couple of liner note mentions, regional bylines, extra in The New Guy and newspaper stories for academic goodness. So lame. Ohh, and the sound of my bong was featured prominently in an album by the Asylum Street Spankers and I later discovered it was then sampled in a club remix of a regionally-popular rap artist. which, I dunno, thought was cool.

but i think good ol' amy's back in public life now? a columnist or something?

I think it's interesting, fwiw.

I am thoroughly unremarkable. I've never had any sort of media attention at all, which is probably a good thing...

except for a brief spell back at NYU where i mainly saw her at parties (and i do remember her complaining to me about the editing of the show and suchlike at that time) the last i saw of her was approriately enough on TV, on a real world vs. road rules show, where she was bungee jumping off the seattle tower thingy, circa 99

I once had my picture printed in Melody Maker, but my face was obscured by so much hair you couldn't tell it was me.

Snap! I bet there are dozens of ILXors who could say the same thing, though.

Matt and Dan, I was once renowned as "guy photographed peeing out of first floor window" at a party (I couldn't find the toilet, found myself in a dark room full of junk, couldn't get out, thought "what the heck" and peed out of the window as two people with a camera were walking past).

I used to go and see my Dad in the London Marathon a lot (I think he did it about a dozen times) and the camera would find my sister and me most years, usually around the Isle of Dogs where the crowds were weedier. You had to freeze frame the video, but there we were.

My Dad was the first person to cross the line in fancy dress one year. He was a fairy. David Coleman got his name wrong.

Ha! Second Gene-related minor fame alert: I was once a guest on an abysmal show on Live! TV (rubbish tabloid cable channel) called "The Vinyl Frontier", which was presented by Lynsey de Paul and concerned itself with being a pop memorabilia version of The Antiques Roadshow. For valuation by a nice bloke from Record Collector magazine, I brought with me:

A numbered limited 7" of Gene's "For The Dead" signed by the band
An original mint-ish condition gatefold vinyl copy of Bowie's Aladdin Sane
The Wit & Wisdom of Ronald Reagan on vinyl (it's blank, and thus a curio of sorts)

They thought my stuff was all shit (it was) and made me pretend to own an unused Michael Jackson ticket stub instead. Oh, except for the Gene single - that was valued at a mighty £6 iirc. I look like a solid plank of terrified wood at all points.

Oh, I was also in the Melody Maker being interviewed about having 'the most rock'n'roll chalet' at the Bowlie weekend. I told a story about how we bent some spoons! (Not with psychic means, but hands, yes, our own twee hands.) Refused to get my picture taken, though, so they printed one of B3n Cl4ncy hiding under the duvet with a can of beer raised aloft.

At least I think that's how it went. Unfortunately my memory isn't that good, as I consumed mountains of ALE with Tim Hopkins, Tag, Chris Leonard and others.

i've had "sexual relations" with at least three women that have appeared on either change of heart or blind date.

my girlfriend was a child actor.

i have taped multiple appearances for tv pundit shows and i've never been used on-air.

I've been on TV once, as a child I had to ask a question on a kids gameshow, I lost the chance to actually appear on the show as a contestant after we did loads of tests and all kept doing really well and it ended up in a draw. I was crying for ages I remember! My sister took me aside and said "you think this is bad now but when you're older you'll be so glad you didn't do this". She was right!

Other than that I don't have many claims to fame. Not yet : )

Although a good friend of mine is the son of the actor, Brendan Gl*eson. I got sick on his floor once. I'm making a cd for his ex-girlfriend right now.

I was on GTV news here back in April; around the same time I ended up in Ghana's answer to Hello! photoed flirting heavily with an older sometime-friend.

Katherine Jackson (MJ's mum) came round for Scrabble once. I immediately abstained from playing. She's good.

I've had "sexual relations" with someone who would later be nominated for an Oscar. But I don't think that's much of a claim to fame for me. Not compared to the Moose Jaw thing, anyways.

It's normally a backhanded admission by the user of the quotes that they're embarassed to admit their participation in said relations. Or they're no longer sure it actually happened.

Years and years later, I slowly realized that the dude probably wasn't Grizzly Adams at all. Every once and awhile, I'd ask my grandfather who that guy was, and he would tell me that he had no idea what I was talking about. "You know, stocky guy with a big bushy beard?" "Yes, I know who Grizzly Adams is, but I never had any friends who looked like him."

I'm still confused. Nice guy, though.

interviewed on phone by Neil Strauss for New York Times front page story on popularity of bootlegs, also by ILM's own Janus for Danish radio (dread to think how i sounded) and MTV

full page ad i designed (cute 'new media industry = Pacman' motif) published in a popular new media mag

good ones:

DJ'd on XFM for 20 mins - 'blue peter' job tho i'm ashamed to say, was also asked on air about Busta Rhymes 'Light Yo Ass On Fire' ("ooh yes I'm definitely feeling that one!" or words to that lame effect, heh)

the ones that got away:

turned down two invitations to feature on a panel discussion at music conferences in New York and Milan. i am a goat.

Oh and also how did I forget that I was interviewed by Japanese MTV after a Charlatans gig (token gaijin, natch), and DJ'd for a few months in Tokyo, getting recognised around town for the first and only time which was bizarre.

I reviewed Throwing Muses and the Sundays for Record Mirror yonks ago, and you may have seen my 13-page tennis review of the year 2003 on Ceefax last Xmas which the bastards took off after just four days.

this led to all my local bartenders teasing me and giving me free drinks

Wait, what? What had you done to prompt that comment from him?

(stretches out them old, weary, typed-out knuckles for ol' storytime...)

Allrightie, back in 1982 or 1983, my folks thought it would be "really cute" if I went on a game show. Being a fan of game shows at the time, I was quite excited. And living in westside Los Angeles, there were plenty of easily driveable opportunities to do just that. Unfortunately, there was only room for a taping of a pilot of a rehash of "The Dating Game". At that point, I became more apprehensive, but my folks goaded me into doing it, saying "Oh, come on! Didn't you always want to be in TV?"...

Don't ask me why, but given the scarce amount of participants, I somehow made it past the screening processes, being shy and socially inept for an 11-year-old and all. Fast forward to day of taping, skipping all the silly details in between..

Taping happens, blah blah. It's looking pretty obvious that Bachelor #2 (me) was obviously cast as the token "dork" bachelor, as the wishy- washiness of my answers would make Charlie Brown seem like Mr. T.

Anyway, the bachelorette. Oh yes, the wonderful little prissy princess that was the bachelorette. Keep in mind -- valley girl has struck it BIG in America as a big trend -- so out comes our little Tarzana sweetheart... introduction is made, etc. etc. etc.

Her name: Tunia Flambe.

Yes. Pronounced "Toonya Flambay"... Single hair clip, glittery shoes, fake gum chewing maneuvers and all... but with a disingenuous Tina Yothers quality to her.

I refuse to go into detail on what may still possibly be the most embarrassing moment of my life, but I do remember one of her questions to Le Bachelors: "Ok, so like we're going out getting ice cream.. and, like, this BIG DUDE, like, comes and threatens to steal me away and make me his.. would you, like,.. fight for me?"

Well, obviously, I didn't win.. that, ahem, lucky honor went to the Jason Hervey/Jason Batemen/Ricky Schroeder wannaba guy to my left. But of course, what's the staple consolation on any episode of "The Dating Game"? Right, you have to walk over, have some announcer guy bellow out a cheap 17-word bio on you, you walk over and hug the bachelorette.

Well I did that. Except that the hug was obviously too ambitious, as she slightly jerked, quickly whipped her hair back, and made a little "I'm annoyed" breathing sound, followed by "like... my hair."

The pilot never made it to TV. The next version (that would have Jeff MacGregor as the host) would actually become popular, but not mine.. which is easily the best thing to result from all of this.

That would end my fascination with valley girls for a long time to come -- until I'd realize, years later, that Moon Unit Zappa was still a cutie.

I'm more surprised that this wasn't a Roger Fidelity post.

I was riding the other way, home from work.

It's normally a backhanded admission by the user of the quotes that they're embarassed to admit their participation in said relations. Or they're no longer sure it actually happened.

Well, the one guy was fun and I still call him regularly. The other guy was fun too but then we grew apart in part due to my neurotic behavior and THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED TO HIM, the details of which are not really appropriate to share here. I'm not embarrassed about the sex involved, either way.

No, it was some journalistese for "namedropping," or something. But I guess my name isn't big enough to namedrop, so this is the verb the reporter came up with.

!!!