Daily Writing Prompt: Famous Folk

On November 13, 2025November 13, 2025 By StevenIn Life At Home2 Comments

Daily writing prompt

Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?

I’ve had the good fortune to work in some really interesting places that might draw famous people out. For a number of years, I worked in a venue that did concerts, an 850 seat space with a little stage which shared a building with a popular comedy club. For a different number of years, I worked in radio. My degree is actually in radio/television, and I’m utilizing it in the fine, fine world of Internet technologies, because radio is a difficult space in which to make a career.

But I digress- this post isn’t about careers in broadcasting, it’s about famous people, and who I may or may not have met. I’ll list some of the fun ones, without getting into the details of where or when I met them. Mostly. And I’ll leave out convention meet-and-greets, because I’d be here all night writing more.

Ben Folds – This was in the early days of his band, Ben Folds Five, and I didn’t know who he was yet. I’m the sort of weirdo who will sometimes talk to people in whatever space I find myself, and he was good natured about idle chit-chat from some random dude in the men’s room. I have more than one story about meeting famous people in rest-rooms, and this was the first one.
Jimmy Buffett – I met this man twice, once when he was just going about his business, and the other time when he was doing a grand opening of one of his restaurants with a requisite live show. I did not find him to be charming or kind, and since it’s generally considered impolite to speak ill of the dead, I’ll just leave it there.
Michael Winslow – You know, the guy who did all the sound effects in the Police Academy movies. In Spaceballs, he lost “the bleeps, the sweeps, and the creeps.” He was in town to do a comedy show, and he was making his noises even while offstage. He’s a very funny man.
BB King – What a nice, nice man. He was meeting people after his concert, sitting in the front seat of the tour bus, and he took the time to chat a bit. Just a really nice guy.
Weird Al Yankovic – Another meet-and-greet after one of his shows. He was exhausted from putting on one of his very frenetic concerts, but nice to everyone who lined up to meet him.
Sugar Ray Leonard – I bumped into him in the hallway. That’s it, that’s the story.
John Hodgman – This is the second “met him in the restroom” story. It was in a pub. In Edinburgh, Scotland. He was much less chill about being talked to in the restroom than Ben Folds, and honestly I don’t blame him. Americans abroad are a risky bunch.
Lisa Loeb – Another one who was also very nice – she talked to the people working the venue for her show and took a genuine interest in them. And she made little abstract doodles on a notepad while she was on the phone.
Marsha Warfield – Also while she was in town to do a comedy show. A lot of the comedians who I met during this gig were really genuinely nice people.
Paulie Shore – He was not genuinely nice. Maybe he is now. Maybe I caught him on a bad night. This was the 1990s, so he was in peak The Weasel fame, so maybe that was a factor. Some people say he’s kind to his fans, but that wasn’t my impression.
Dennis Wolfberg – This one is kind of a deep cut. Dennis is known for playing Dr. Irving “Gooshie” Gushman on the original Quantum Leap series, but he was also a stand-up comedian. And before that, he was a teacher. When Dennis came to town to do comedy, I was sent to pick him up from the hotel and bring him to the venue, and we chatted a little bit on the drive over. At the time, I was thinking I might wind up being a teacher, and he was enthusiastic about me going in that direction. Sadly, he passed away from cancer about two years later, at the age of 48. I hope I didn’t disappoint him too badly.
Three fifths of N’Sync – The year was 1999. It was a special event run by Lucasfilm to do a media preview of the BRAND NEW Star Wars prequel movie, The Phantom Menace. Our tickets had holograms on them. I didn’t know who the individual members of N’Sync were, so I couldn’t even tell you which three members were in the restroom with me. And oh yeah, it was another “famous people in the restroom” story. Just this once, I did NOT try to strike up a conversation.

There have been more than this list contains. I’ve led a fairly weird and interesting life.

Have you ever met someone famous? Or infamous?

A Photo An Hour – March 23, 2019

On April 12, 2019April 11, 2019 By StevenIn Life At Home3 Comments

Photo An Hour is a link-up that I’ve seen Bev do a bunch of times, and she always mentions linking up with Louise and Jane, who I don’t know. The premise is simple- you take a photo each hour and post it in real time.

I haven’t ever done a Photo An Hour before, but the March Photo An Hour happened to fall on the Saturday of Spooky Empire, which is a great little convention- not as big as a ComicCon or MegaCon, but still with enough interesting stuff going on to warrant a day out of the apartment. Spooky happens twice a year in Orlando, and while the predominant focus is horror, there’s plenty of sci-fi and other genre representation. For example, last year they had an Animal House panel- screwball college comedy is hardly horror. In accordance with tradition, I went to Spooky with my friend Lorrie.

I’m not aware of any particular rules for the Photo An Hour, but I set one guideline for myself: I would start at 9am and end at 9pm- twelve hours is enough of my noise.

9:00 AM – I started off the first hour with a quick nosh to get the day started. I don’t usually get super hungry first thing in the morning, so I tend to go light until I’ve been up for a while. Some cold sweet tea and a Zone Bar was enough to get me out the door. Side note: Sweet Leaf is my preferred caffeine infusion. They recently changed their formula to reduce the sugar, and I was super relieved to not hate the new version.

10:00 AM – We arrived at Spooky Empire, and sifted our way through the lines of waiting people to find the table where we could pick up our wristbands for the day. On our way back out, we spotted some really great cos-players. I kinda want the Joker’s suit.

11:00 AM – Just before entering the merch room, we took advantage of a super silly photo cut-out.

12:00 Noon – We started off the noon hour in the autograph room with Carel Struycken, my favorite 80s/90s tall guy. He was in just about everything for a while, from Star Trek to Ewok adventures to Lurch from the Addams family.

1:00 PM – Frankenberry has obviously been hitting the gym. Seriously, though, I applaud the creativity here.

2:00 PM – One of my favorite things at any convention is cosplayers who have done something out of the ordinary, something clever and creative. This evil Wonder Woman, for example- her consort (not pictured) was a Marvel Zombies version of Captain America.

2:00 PM Alternate – I also snapped this picture in the 2:00 hour, but I posted the other one on March 23rd. I wanted to include this one here though, because what other use could I possibly have for a Hellraiser-Deadmau5 crossover? This costume was really amazing. And kind of funny. I wonder what you’d call him… Maybe Pinmau5?

3:00 PM – At 3, we attended the E.T. Panel featuring Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, and Matthew DeMeritt who was in the E.T. costume. See, I told you it wasn’t all horror at Spooky Empire. Dee, Henry, and Robert are in the photo. Matthew DeMeritt was a little too far off to the left, and I’m afraid my pictures of him aren’t nearly this clear.

Side note: I love hearing stories of behind the scenes stuff from the filming of things I love. I find it to be super entertaining and super interesting at the same time. That’s why the panels are my favorite things at any convention. (Followed closely by the costumes and the merch rooms, naturally.)

4:00 PM – Back in the merchandise room, we accidentally stumbled into the Upside Down. She’s got the Eleven glare down.

5:00 PM – Time for the Christina Ricci Q&A panel. We had managed to see an Addam’s Family panel earlier in the day, which included Carel Struycken and Jimmy Workman (Pugsley,) but which did not include Christina Ricci or Christopher Lloyd, who were both in attendance that day. I suspect they didn’t join for scheduling reasons, but maybe it was to prevent the panel from overcrowding, since both Christina and Christopher Lloyd had their own separate panels later.

6:00 PM – After Christina Ricci’s panel, we left the convention and schlepped over to Red Robin for dinner and some refreshments.

7:00 PM – I had to cheat for the 7:00 hour because I was mostly driving for the entire hour. Instead of dangerous highway photos, here’s my dinner from the previous hour. The burger was delicious and amazing. The french fries were… lackluster. The nicest thing I can say about the fries is that they were really large.

8:00 PM – After we got back to the apartment, I did a quick scan of the paper photos from the day’s photo ops so that we have a digital copy. This is the photo with both Christina Ricci and Christopher Lloyd, opened in Photoshop after scanning.

9:00 PM – I closed out my Photo An Hour day with dessert. It was a long day, and my sweet tooth would brook no further delays.

The next Photo An Hour is on Saturday, April 27th, 2019. If you want to play along, simply take one photo every hour and post to Twitter or Instagram using the #photoanhour hash tag. Alternately, save your photos and write a blog post afterwards. I may very well do the blog-later option, because I’ll be in Chicago that weekend!

Have you ever been to Spooky Empire? What was your favorite panel or cosplay?

Madame Tussaud’s Hollywood

On July 18, 2017January 26, 2020 By StevenIn Domestic Travel2 Comments

Are you still with me? We only have two posts left from the Los Angeles trip, and these last two are pretty fun. Whenever I wind up in a Tussaud’s wax museum, hilarity ensues. With little commentary, I present many pictures of us goofing around with wax dummies:

Wendy and Joan Rivers.