small-time name-dropping

I was strolling through an art fair on Boston's north shore some years back and chatted with one of the vendors who turned out to be JOEY SANTIAGO!!!('s brother.)

He looked a lot like him.

My former co-worker’s brother has been Lenny Kravitz’s guitarist since 1991

Notable musicians whose musical offspring I have met:

Michael Schenker
Don Airey
Ted Milton of Blurt
John Bradley of The Specials

I did a moving job for Billy Corgan's wrestling company

I used to work with the wife of one of the fellas from Racey

I helped Laurence Fishburne find the tomatoes in a Whole Foods

I once saw an ophthalmologist who is the husband of former US commerce secretary Penny Pritzker

I used to see Trent Reznor at the dogpark when he was living in New Orleans. He had a Weimaraner. Also, he told my ex she "looked great" when she was about 8 months pregnant.

My mother drew John Wayne's blood when he had open heart surgery.

She said he was a dick and only wanted a man to draw his blood but none of the guys who tried to could get anything, so she ended up doing it and succeeded. He said something like "Ya did good".

She still thought he was a dick.

I helped Laurence Fishburne find the tomatoes in a Whole Foods

― pj, Monday, March 4, 2024 8:42 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i once was at a party in college also attended by laurence fishburne's son

I once watched two episodes of Perry Mason with Richard Wilbur.

when i was applying to universities in 1988-1989 i was also searching for a way to pay for them. so in the spring of april 1989 i drove from pittsburgh to the carlisle (pennsylvania) barracks to undergo a physical examination toward a us army rotc scholarship

(i don't know what i was thinking either)

the male nurse who performed the various tests looked and spoke exactly like deadpan comedian steven wright. and his nametag said WRIGHT. so at the end of it, 17yo me couldn't help but ask him if he were related to the comedian

he paused for a moment, then said 'never heard of him'

Matthew Barney’s production designer was my landlord and occasional housemate

housesat for the guy who styled Dame Edna’s wigs.

Think I’ve mentioned this before at one point, but as a toddler I was babysat by David Hasselhoff’s sister.

As a young teen, I was gonna be alone with my sister for the night, and my mom asked her son's college-age friend to hang with us / "babysit." I resented it, and was kind of nasty to him (like, "Why don't you just leave, we don't need you here!"). Anyway, he later became a Detroit-area rock guy of minor renown and a fairly robust discography – both solo and in a group with more famous guys. (won't drop his name, even here, lol)

today i met a builder whose daughter goes out with krs-one’s son.

krs-two?!

xp *her FRIEND's college-age SON (lol, mangled that)

duglas and chloe from bmx bandits came to look at our house when it was on the market a few years ago

A woman I work with is the daughter of Boney M's guitarist (Boney M in their pomp btw).

Steve Diggle out of the Buzzcocks once tried to chat up my wife in a bar.

I once shared a table at a pub quiz with Gaye Advert and TV Smith. They were in a different team though.

my wife went to school with jamie dornan but he was a couple of years younger than her and they never interacted

I’m starting up a new radio show with ILX’s NickB… I did some small-time name-dropping in the blurb for our show: https://www.totallyradio.com/shows/special-treatment#_DJ%20Profile

I met Overend Watts from Mott The Hoople at a quiz in a village pub; he was doing a sponsored walk from Land's End to John O'Groats. Ian Hunter had just approached him about reforming the band for a few gigs, but he wasn't sure if anyone would be interested. We all got very excited about it, and urged him to say yes. A few months later, after Mott's reunion gigs had been announced, Ian Hunter gave an interview to The Word, where he said that Overend Watts hadn't been too sure about the idea until he stopped off in this little village pub...

tl;dr: I reformed Mott The Hoople!

Not small-time in my book

Wow

Talk about a way to roll way the stone.

I had breakfast with Astrid Williamson.

Stayed up all night watching James Brown videos on Youtube with Jon Auer.

I snuck into a Blur gig pretending to be part of Radiohead.

People I rang up at the cash register when I worked at a bookstore:
Kathleen Turner
John Stewart
W.S. Merwin
Erykah Badu
Arlen Specter

I've met a handful of lowercase-f famous people but probably the most starstruck I've ever been was when Greg 'Principal Blackman' Hollimon showed up to a karaoke night and hung out and sang with me and my people.

Also, my most recent ex is Freedom Williams's niece. Things that make you hmmmm indeed.

One time, I saw Daniel Roebuck in deep conversation with somebody while standing outside the Party City in Atwater Village.

I used to regularly compete in bar trivia against a team featuring Jesse Bradford. I guess you'd say we were rivals since almost every week either we won or they would. However, their team almost always pushed the rules by having 7 or 8 people on their team when the supposed maximum number of members per team was 6. Our team was a consistent 4 people with an occasional fifth.

one summer day my Mom called me out of the blue to ask if I knew of the band Explosions in the Sky...I was like "yeah, how do YOU know of them?"...well apparently one of the guys from the band was staying in her building over the summer. she asked if I wanted to meet him, I said sure, he was nice but I don't actually remember what his name was (I don't really know them that well, oops)

About 20 years ago, was visiting the parents and was talking to a friend of my mom who had stopped by. She started bragging about her daughter in NYC, and how she was friends with a famous musician. So I took the bait and asked, and she said "wait", and started rifling through her purse, producing a stack of snapshots (ed note: wow, no smartphones). She flipped through pictures of a rooftop cocktail party, cursing slightly, cuz she could only find a picture of a bald guy from the back, but very pale and very bald. But it was enough for me to guess Moby.

your mom's daughter is Natalie Portman????

Once I was at a bar and an older fellow a few booths down bought us a round of drinks. It turned out he was Seamus Heaney.

Nice.

My partner's ex shagged a Bay City Roller.

Not so nice.

Maybe 15 years ago, I had a very nice post-show conversation with Paul Westerberg. It was one of the highlights of my music life, but you might be surprised how few people in the wider world know or care who Paul Westerberg is.

I rode the Toronto-to-Hamilton bus once with Ryan Gosling's sister.

Tavi Gevinson once babysat for us. iirc, she was pretty inexperienced and surprised my daughter could talk.

When I worked as a cashier in one of the cafeterias in Newark Airport about 30 years ago, I met Lars Ulrich (came rushing up seeming very...stimulated...and asked where the Taco Bell was) and Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, traveling together.

When I was in junior high, we had a very small study hall. The teacher pretty much just let us hang out and play records. One day I brought Rush's Hemispheres. She looked at the inside of the jacket and said, "Oh, I know these guys." Turns out she was from Canada and had een a high school classmate of Geddy and Alex.

*been

Paget Brewster let me cut in front of her in line at the grocery store once because i only had one item, and we made some small talk while waiting.

Miranda July overheard me saying to my kid at another grocery store, "I wonder where the string cheese is?" and she materialized from out of nowhere and pointed it out, -- "here it is" -- and then vanished just as quickly.

After the first big anti-Iraq War march in London I ended up in a boozer in Mayfair. I sat down at a table where Andrew Lincoln and his wife/ girlfriend and his parents were sitting and had a long chat, mostly with his parents. After they'd left and I was standing at the bar waiting to be served, Sean O'Hagan (Microdisney/ High Llamas etc) came in and we got talking. Then the bar got locked down by the police because they said there was a riot going on outside (there wasn't). So I ended up spending a few hours with Sean and his party while he regaled with gossip about Brian Wilson and Arthur Lee and bought me several pints.

When I was doing some animal-related work I got to hang out with Jane Goodall, Roger Fouts, and (interestingly) Linda Blair.

Music-wise, I often bump into Don Zientara, as well as Skeeter from Scream.

I once gave Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon directions. I also stood on Brian Eno's toe while leaving a Jon Hassell concert.

Notable musicians whose musical offspring I have met:

Ted Milton of Blurt

i have also met Ted Milton's son. He gets aroud, eh?

My partner's ex shagged a Bay City Roller.

in the early 1970s my mother taught a soon to be Bay City Roller, who was complicit in setting her classroom on fire.

It was while recovering from that toe injury that Eno came up with Discreet Music.