My Top 10 Chance Celebrity Encounters

I don’t know if I would necessarily describe meeting or having a chance encounter with a celebrity “lucky,” but it certainly makes for nice stories. When I was really young, I lived right outside San Francisco, CA and I had a few encounters that I don’t remember very well due to my young age, but are nonetheless pretty cool. Then in high school I worked in the stock room at a Pottery Barn in a very upscale Galleria (fancy malls are always called “Gallerias”) and that caused for a few more chance celebrity encounters.  Other than that, it has just been random occurrences in various cities. So without further ado, here are my top 10 chance celebrity encounters. Just about all of them are weird.

• San Francisco, CA, sometime in the 1980s – I was at a 7-11 with my mom and Ron Howard was there buying a pack of gum.  I don’t remember this, but my mom kept talking about Opie being at the 7-11.  Like I am going to know who “Opie” or Ron Howard is.
• San Francisco, CA, sometime in the 1980s – Now this one is WAY cooler than seeing Ron Howard, the ginger and his giant bald head.  At a stoplight, my mom and I were right next to Christopher Reeves, who was driving a Corvette.  Now, this would have been the height of his career and somewhere in the middle of the Superman franchise which clearly means we were not next to Christopher Reeves, we were next to Clark Kent.  Now this was about 25 years ago, but I am almost 100% sure he smiled at me, which would have been a huge deal to me.  Something else of note: I don’t recall learning that Santa wasn’t real, but I do remember figuring out that Superman wasn’t real and being crushed.
• Washington DC, 1997 – I was skateboarding somewhere in DC with some friends and we saw Allen Iverson walking out of some boutique or something.  This was back when he was the rookie of the year for the 76ers and had already made up a reputation for being a bit of a bad dude.  We skated over and wanted to see what was up but he didn’t want to give us the time of day, so being the 17-year-olds that we were, we started shouting, “Allen Iverson is RIGHT here!” and pointing at him.
• Silver Spring, MD, 1998 – When I moved back to the states from Germany, I had a pretty easy schedule because my school in Europe required more credits, so I just stacked up art classes.  I had a really good art teacher named Ms. Amini and she came into the class and stopped by my table and whispered quietly, “I just thought if anyone were to appreciate the fact that Chuck D from Public Enemy is in the library talking to students, it would be you.”  Uh, yeah!  I grabbed my skateboard out of my car and ran to the library where Chuck D was giving a talk about some national program called “Building Bridges.”  Who knows what he was talking about?  I waited for him to finish and then on my way out I got him to sign my skateboard and I was totally starstruck, like, weak knees and everything.
• Tyson’s Corner, VA, 1998 – I was working the stock room at a Pottery Barn and the guy in charge came back in the stock room and told us all that Mike Tyson was at Legal Seafoods right next to our store.  Well, there was NO way we weren’t going to pass up a chance to see Mike Tyson.  I am not really an autograph seeker, but Mike Tyson is much different.  So one of the guys I worked with, Dale, and I walked over to try and get a glimpse of the champ.   We started over and could see Tyson through the window eating with who I can only imagine being his “handler.”  We didn’t get 50 feet before Tyson looked at us, put his fork down, and gave us the finger.  He just flipped us right off.  We made 180° turn and walked right on back.  Tyson doesn’t give many second chances.  Strangely enough, this was right around the same time that Tyson got arrested for allegedly punching and kicking a man in the balls after a traffic collision who was ironically named Richard Hardick (there was NO way I was going to leave that one alone).
• Tyson’s Corner, VA, 1998 – Once again, I was at the Pottery Barn unloading some boxes. My mom was the manager and she came back and was all giggly and said that Rudy Huxtable was in the store buying stuff for college. Well, of course I had to look. But seriously? Big deal. It’s Rudy.  It’s not like it was Theo or Denise or anything.
• Memphis, TN, 2001 – Hahaha! This one is hilarious!  I was a fresh 21 year old in Memphis, TN for the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival and boy was I drinkin’!  I had wandered off from the festival and was up at one of the bars drinking whiskey and playing trivia and there was this really cute blonde with her hippie boyfriend there playing trivia as well.  I was making jokes and drinking and just playing like everyone else and somehow I struck up a conversation with the couple.  After about 20 minutes or so, they had to leave.  The bartender then came over and asked me who I was.  Huh?  I told him my name and he asked if I was a musician.  I assumed he was asking me because I was drinking pretty liberally, didn’t have a southern accent and had already started amassing a few tattoos.  I was wrong. He said, “Well, I thought you might be a famous somebody because you were talking to them.” I asked him who they were. “That was Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson from The Black Crowes.”I had NO idea.
• Leawood, KS, 2003 – Oh, my wife, Heather, loves this one! I was visiting my cousin at her job at hoity-toity delicatessen, Dean & Deluca when Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins walked in with his parents for lunch. He was very tall and skinny and sorta looked like Nosferatu. He was also very nice and obliged me with a hello. For seeming to be a bit of a control freak weirdo, he was very polite and nice to me.
• Little Rock, AR, 2005 - My roommate, Greg, and I drove down to Little Rock to hang out with my old Air Force friends.  Of course, we wound up at Midtown.  Midtown was my friends’ and my favorite dive bar. It was open from 8 a.m. to 5 a.m., served great bar food, had cheap drinks, live music and was the ultimate dive bar. This particular night was no exception. Adam Duritz from The Counting Crows was there partying it up with some friends.  I don’t know why or how this happened, but somehow, someone in my party (I won’t reveal the identity of the thief), swiped Duritz’s hotel room keycard right off his table and it went unnoticed. I am not sure, but I think the thief still has the keycard in his wallet.
• Overland Park, KS, 2011 – Just recently, when I was home from Afghanistan on R&R, Heather threw me a great Welcome Home party at a bar back home in Kansas City.  Our party had started to dwindle when Lou Diamond Phillips walked into our little reserved area to play pool.  He was so nonchalant about it that we all second-guessed who he was until my Aunt Beth just went and asked.  Sure enough, it was LDP.  Now, no one except my college roommate, Mitch, will understand the coolness that it was specifically LDP.  We made jokes about him constantly.  We would always talked about how a movie would be better if LDP was in it.  I even drew a picture of LDP with an alien head growing out of his and he was wearing a monogrammed shirt that said, “LDP.”  Weird.  Anyway, truth be told, he was an incredibly nice guy who was VERY into supporting the troops and happened to be in town because he was playing the king in The King and I at The Starlight.  So cool.  We even talked tattoos.  I wanted to convince him to get a huge back piece of himself as Chavez y Chavez from Young Guns fighting himself as Richie Valens from La Bamba. Oh well.

Meeting Lou Diamond Phillips in Kansas City