TaliaMana
Peregrinas
IndianRaj
Just a Small Town Girl
A View From the Waterfront
Southern Expressions
Mad Scientist Matt
Organized Chaos
At Home, Writing
Writing From Within
Pass the Torch
BCOM
Fireflies in the Cloud
Sounds of Serenity
Kappa no He
Infinite Vanity
Gillian Polack
Of Chapters and Reels
Curiouser and curiouser
The Road Less Traveled
Livien
Before me in the line up was Sounds of Serenity. Here, Melissa blogged about how for the past five years she has enjoyed attending sci fi cons. I've never been to any kind of convention myself but would very much like to. Imagine the people-watching you could do! Not to mention meeting all those famous types. And boy has she really met some famous types! Jamie Bamber, Michael Jan Friedman, Chris Judge, Conner Trinneer! Me? I spent two days thinking about it, and my brushes with fame come to the grand total of...five. And I bet only the last two are well known to the general public.
①My first big 'star' was Henry Rollins back when he was in Black Flag. Yea. This is what he looked like then.
The extent of our conversation went something like this:
(he was coming out of a phone booth and saw me and my then boyfriend)
Him: "Yo! Going to the show?"
Me: "Wouldn't miss it!"
Him: "Cool."
I was ecstatic.
②Various Sumo dudes. Here I am with Koto no Waka.
I'm pretty sure no one knows of him. But he was fairly big (ahem) in his day. No longer around (retired, not dead). I actually got to talk to Konishiki (the enormous Hawaiian wrestler). Here's a picture I took where he's a tad perturbed at the camera man beside him.
He no longer fights anymore either. Does children shows. Looks like this:
③Carmine Appice. Drummer from vanilla Fudge, Cactus, BBA, Blue Murder. This meeting was absolutely HUGE to me, you can imagine how shocked and devastate I was to learn that the disk that had all the pictures of us is now corrupted. I am currently scouring the hard disk of my old computer to find them and will get them on here when I do. We got along soooo great. There was even a kissy-kissy pic. Um, he didn't look exactly like this in the kissy-kissy photo, he's a bit more...mature these days.
④ and ⑤ were the big-biggies though. Viggo Mortensen and Karl Urban. We're talking Lord of the Rings, Aragorn and Eomer.
My good friend called me one night and left a panicky, indecipherable message on the machine. A few hours later we left our family and were on a night bus to Tokyo. We stayed in some fancy-shmancy hotel and woke early to stand in line with the three hundred other Viggo fans (Karl was a surprise, he wasn't even supposed to be there). And man we just barely made it. We thought we were early leaving the hotel at five thirty for getting entrance tickets that are going to be handed out at ten. We arrive to find that already 262 fans are already in line! (many from the night before). We jump onto the tail which runs several blocks away and through a park full of homeless men and two more people come up behind us and the security guy stops the line. No more! and starts sending the hundreds of fans that come after that back home. Some came as far as the southern islands of Japan...sorry, you can't get in. That was painful to watch. Needless to say, being last in line we ended up getting all kinds of gifts to give to Viggo. These were real die-hard fans.
It was all day standing and all night standing but eventually they opened the doors and we got in--all 266 of us. The guys were so incredibly nice. Gave us all chocolates, drank Australian beer, stood on the chair and sang (well Karl did). You know it's hard to be cool when you're munching a gourmet truffle grand mariner. I tried though. Karl was super personable and we chatted so long his manager lady-chick came and pulled him away. But not before he could give me some music recommendations.
The one thing I came away with at each of these meetings was the intense desire to work harder, to learn more, and to be 'famous' myself. Oh, maybe not standing on a pile of dirt wearing a silk thong, but doing what I do. Sometimes I think it would be nice just to be a little famous. And then othertimes I ponder what it would be like to be crazy famous.
You'll all get your autograph...just form a single file line!
Next up on the chain is Infinite Vanity.
Labels: awchain
16 comments:
Sumo dude. Love it!
And how come all you AW-ers have met all these famous people?? Even I recognized Mr. rugged handsome-guy from Lord of the Rings.
I haven't ever met anyone remotely important.
Sniff.
I need to get out more, maybe;)
Despite their girth those sumo dudes all have this odd majesty to them. Quite interesting.
I totally feel the same with 'getting out more'. I've become quite the hermit these past few years. \(^0^)/
What's the name of that kids' show the Sumo dude does? That is awesome.
I've met some famous and semi-famous musicians, but that's about it. I did see both Wesley Snipes and Rue Mcclanahan at the airport.
Oh! And I worked at Target, and during the grand opening they had Alice Ghostley there. I had to babysit her while our manager made all the employees get her autograph. She played Bernice in Designing Women.
It's still not letting me post comments using my blogger account. Grrr.
Oh wow... I will trade any of my stars ('cept for Jamie :P) for one of your moments with Karl Urban. Great post!
Matt: I had to google Alice. Cool! Babysit, that's classic.
The kids' show is called Nihongo de asobou, Let's Play in Japanese. Here is the HP.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/kids/program/nihongo.html
Serenity: Karl was Ahhhmazing. I'll share! He let me hold his hand. Well, actually, he was letting me read the Japanese he had written on his palm...so it wasn't Really holding his hand, but darnit, I sure tell everyone I did!
I really envy you meeting Karl Urban and Vigo Mortensen. I rather suspect I am going to rack my brain the rest of my non-famous day trying to work out if I have ever met anyone famous. I suspect the only thing I will find is that I went to the same school as Kylie Minogue. I was in Year 12 and she was in Year 7, though, so that doesn't count. I *am* the most famous person in my loungeroom today, though, which *does*. If there was anyone else in my loungeroom at all, it would count for more.
hmmm Mr. Mortensen and chocolates..it was all a dream right? no, wait...oh yeah..that's my dream!
That is so cool! I have never met anyone famous yet..but when you get there, I am so gonna use you as my famous person story :)
Gillian: I think it is so neat when people go to schools that produce celebrities. Not mine. Mine was lucky if it produced graduates.
Bk30: You are a sweetheart. I'll be sending you a box of chocolates and Viggo's address for the kind remarks.
And did you guys know that Viggo has his own publishing company?? I used that as a conversation starter. My friend (the one who discovered he was coming) was the one who told me about it. Just google Perceval Press. That's him!
I wondered what happened to retired sumos
Hey, is that Simran in the crowd that's rushing the gate in the last picture? No steel barriers :)
They are some cool meets. I'd love to see a Sumo match, never mind meet one of the wrestler guys. :)
My mother would envy you so much ;) I kinda do too!
I'm so jealous about Henry Rollins. The LotR guys are hot, true, but Rollins rocks. :)
(Also, I'm pretty sure that -- like Viggo -- Hank has his own publishing company. Don't know much about it, though...)
I am jealous - you've met so many handsome celebrities! My problem is that I'm not a very good conversationalist. I would probably just stand and stare like a dummy.
Viggo! *swoon* Oh, wait, don't tell Fahim that....
Well I've met a lot of the LOTR guys but that's because I'm from NZ. But,,, I've never had my photo taken with anyone famous - WOW~
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