Have you ever espied someone famous, even if famous only among running afficianados, and in an attempt to greet them, acknowledge their greatness, let them know that you actually knew who they were, etc. totally screwed up? Called them by a wrong name, misplaced them, froze, stuttered, or spilled beer all over them(me and former PV WR holder Billy Olson).
Stories of brushes with greatness gone bad?
When I was 15 I ran into Toby Keith and he grabbed my boyfriend's ass looked at him in a strangely suggestive way.
Christophe Lemaitre banned blocked me from his YouTube channel over a Matt Shirvington joke.
When I lived in LA I hooked up with a girl (very rare). Turns out she was an auxiliary member of the cast of The Hills. Anyway, she told me this, and I asked what The Hills was. She never returned my text to hang out after that incident.
Another awkward thing regarding celebrities that happened to me was this: my girlfriend met Jason Gordon Levitt on a train to NY from Westchester and they hit it off, exchanged numbers, and she ended up cheating on me with him. Girl was a bitch.
One time when I saw myself in the mirror I tripped and fell, chipping a tooth in the process.
When I was 10, I met Charles Barkley. I took a picture with him, but I was wearing an Alonzo Mourning jersey...he looks incredibly annoyed in the picture.
LA wrote:
When I lived in LA I hooked up with a girl (very rare). Turns out she was an auxiliary member of the cast of The Hills. Anyway, she told me this, and I asked what The Hills was. She never returned my text to hang out after that incident.
Another awkward thing regarding celebrities that happened to me was this: my girlfriend met Jason Gordon Levitt on a train to NY from Westchester and they hit it off, exchanged numbers, and she ended up cheating on me with him. Girl was a bitch.
Wow, she must have been hot.
One time I was at a hotel in Miami for Spring Break, drunk, and seemingly, out of nowhere, Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day walks by, and I am in disbelief because I am seriously the biggest Green Day fan you will ever meet, at least I was. I mean I knew everything about the
band, knew their history, every song by heart,
I say loudly "Oh my god BIlly Joe Armstrong! I love your band/music! blah blah blah"etc.
And he just says, "F*** you." and keeps walking. I was seriously taken aback by this because I seriously thought I was being genuine even though I was drunk. It was kind of sad, and since then, I don't engage in hero worship whether it is an athlete, musician, or celebrity, and I basically think all famous people are complete jerks.
Former Green Day Fan wrote:
.... It was kind of sad, and since then, I don't engage in hero worship whether it is an athlete, musician, or celebrity, and I basically think all famous people are complete jerks.
It's not often that someone posts a classic logical fallacy as a closely held belief. Your experience, although memorable and disappointing at the same time, is not the governed or predetermined outcome of your next interaction with a celebrity, and certainly not every such interaction.
Be open to some good interactions with famous people and look up to some of them. A good many of them deserve a second chance from you, or more properly, a first chance.
Are you sure it really was Billy Joe Armstrong? You were drunk, after all. I mean, it could have just be some poor schmoe that's sick of being mistaken for Billy Joe Armstrong.
They're a punk band man, c'mon. F*ck you ought to be a damned compliment in most instances. Great story in any case, thanks for putting it out there. That goes for the guy that hooked up with the Hills chick too. That story is funny.
^^^Yeah, but this was during the American Idiot era, so by that time, they really weren't THAT punk.
Wise Guy wrote:
Are you sure it really was Billy Joe Armstrong? You were drunk, after all. I mean, it could have just be some poor schmoe that's sick of being mistaken for Billy Joe Armstrong.
He looked and sounded and dressed exactly like him, and my friend thought the same thing. It was so vivid; we just knew it had to be so.
bumped into Joe Montana once
Not Always From One To Many wrote:
Former Green Day Fan wrote:.... It was kind of sad, and since then, I don't engage in hero worship whether it is an athlete, musician, or celebrity, and I basically think all famous people are complete jerks.
It's not often that someone posts a classic logical fallacy as a closely held belief. Your experience, although memorable and disappointing at the same time, is not the governed or predetermined outcome of your next interaction with a celebrity, and certainly not every such interaction.
Be open to some good interactions with famous people and look up to some of them. A good many of them deserve a second chance from you, or more properly, a first chance.
Dude had his spirit crushed. Let him suffer, you pompous ass.
Interest Ed wrote:
Dude had his spirit crushed. Let him suffer, you pompous ass.
I'm not sure what you think pompous means, but I do suspect that pompous people enjoy calling other people names, as you did me. I also suspect that pompous people think that just letting someone else suffer is desirable. I think that's an odd way to treat other people, considering who you let suffer, or who to instruct others to let suffer.
The guy had one bad experience. It doesn't need to cast a shadow over his future, or his faith in others.
Trick-or-treated at Steve Young's house. He was giving out a box of powerbars to every kid because he was sponsored at the time and I'm sure had waaay too many.
Then went down the street to where Steve Jobs lived. He wasn't even there to hand stuff out and the person who was there just cave out one measly pack of smarties. Pathetic...
Steve Young is a member of the Moron Cult.
Steve Jobs is a member of the Islam Cult.
I met baseball pitcher Tom Seaver at the pool when I was about 10. I was a huge Reds fan, and asked him for his autograph. He said, "Not now, I'm kinda busy." He was sitting in a lounge chair reading the newspaper.
About an hour later, I ended up kissing his daughter, Sarah, underwater (Tom and Sarah were in Dannon yogurt commercials in the early 80's). It was my first kiss. And it was good.
I didn't get his autograph that summer day, but I did get something much more wonderful. I got the gift of love.
When I was a kid I lived in Atlanta and would often see pro wrestlers. Almost always, I just ignored them, but...
I was walking to the arcade in the Omni International complex (the hotel/mall next to the Omni arena) and saw Buzz Sawyer (old school wrestler/legit tough guy) at a pay phone. He was livid and screaming into the phone, "Goddamn it, I'm in the Cincinnati airport. I'll be there tonight." There were several iterations of this and it seemed that he was likely booked for a wrestling show somewhere in Kentucky that night. I was maybe two yards from him and yelled, "The weather sure is nice in Atlanta today." The look of pure hate on his face as he turned around was terrifying. I was fairly confident he would have punched me if I were an adult instead of ten years old.
Similarly, but positive. I was in the Atlanta airport with my father on an up escalator. Ted Dibiase was on the down escalator completely incognito. This was during the initial huge phase of his Million Dollar Man gimmick. I pointed at him and said to my dad, "Hey dad, it's the Million Dollar Man Ted Debiase." Debiase turned to me, acted totally in character and gave a trademark scowl/smirk at me.
So this is a story about a friend of mine, but nonetheless it is quite funny.
So my buddy was in the airport and saw Christopher McDonald, aka Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore, with his wife and kids. As he walks by, my friend says something to his friends to the effect of "Hey, it's Shooter Mcgavin, etc." So McDonald turns around, comes up to him, and just starts freaking out, saying stuff like "I've done all these award-winning movies, and all I ever here is Shooter this, Shooter that."
This guy is naturally taken aback, and McDonald turns around to walk off with his family. As my friend stands there in stunned silence, Mcdonald turns around, shoots the finger-guns at him and goes "Shooter!" Just like in the movie when he makes his putts.
I have two stories, one of which was not really a disaster.
The boring one is once, after I had warmed up for a Road Mile in California I ran to a porta potty. I opened the unlocked door and discovered that somebody was in it on the toliet. I said sorry and shut the door, trying not to look at the person. I waited a moment and the individual finished and left the porty potty. Only then did I discover that it was Regina Jacobs.
Years later I was running south on Yonge street in Toronto after running on the Beltline trail. I ran past the building that houses MTV Canada's studios. Pedrestrian traffic choked out my way of travel and I tried to dodge people so that I could make it to the next intersection. I accidentally bumped somebody hard in the shoulder almost knocking them down. I stopped to apoligize and discovered that the individual I had bumped was Nikki Sixx.