I met Ginger from Gilligan's Island. She had me bend over! But unfortunately it was just so she could write an autograph against my back.
I was about seven.
I was about seven.
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Bob Lee (QSC)
In case you missed it, I work for QSC Audio!
- Jul 3, 2001
- 12,668
- 2,036
- 67
- Disclosures
- Former Technical Communications Developer, QSC Audio
I met him and Herman Mathews (TOP's then drummer) at a drum and bass clinic in Connecticut once.
I met David Bowie prior to a tech rehearsal for his Sound+Vision tour at the Teaneck Armory in New Jersey. I was delivering a specially modded Sennheiser mic for a production idea they were considering but ultimately abandoned because it wasn't practical. One cool thing was that I was invited to stay for the rehearsal, so it was like having a private Bowie concert as they worked out sound, lighting, and projection cues. It hit me on the drive home to Connecticut that David Bowie was asking me questions about a microphone and how it should be used. Maybe Boris Becker will call me up asking for some tennis racquet tips.
I met, danced with, and got the phone number of Meg Ryan when she was a university student before she was famous. I went and lost the little slip of paper she wrote her number on. Damn, she was fun.
At the Grammys I've met Jeff Beck and congratulated John Paul White on a Grammy the Civil Wars won. I absentmindedly called him "Jack." Wrong White.
I was in a band with Randy Bachman's ex, Denise.
I've met a bunch of musicians of various degrees of fame at NAMM shows.
I've known a few locals that were somewhat famous. I had several beers with and did some cooking for Sidney "Hot Rod" Reynaud, one of the Cupcakes of Cookie and the Cupcakes. Charles Mann, who had a hit with Red Red Wine, and I worked at a casino together. Different departments, but it was a small enough place where everyone knew everyone else. We had several NFL players and a few WNBA players that would gamble there. I talked with Jo-El Sonnier (Cajun music, Grammy winner) after a Charlie Daniels concert where he was asked to play with them. He is a really nice guy.
I get autographs from backing bands whenever I can. Usually, they are surprised and say something like " nobody asks for my autograph, they want the stars'." Some are from Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Greenwood, Johnny Rivers, Village People.
I get autographs from backing bands whenever I can. Usually, they are surprised and say something like " nobody asks for my autograph, they want the stars'." Some are from Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Greenwood, Johnny Rivers, Village People.
I seem to remember LeAnn being a young singing sensation when she first started out. I little girl with a big adult sounds.
I honestly didnt know how young she was, but 10 seems like a bit too early to be touring.
What do I know?
Wiki sez
By age nine, Rimes was an experienced singer. She toured nationally with her father
My dad once bumped into Danny Glover in an airport. He was just headed to his gate and literally shoulder-chexked him and after yelled "Hey Danny Glover!" My dad is 6ft2 and a college wrestler so he is a big dude. Danny Glover did not respond aside from an "Oh!" after he ran into him. But my dad said Glover was a solid, big dude. But he steamrolled him hehe...
Back in the 90s I drove a taxi.
Musicians I had in my cab -
Steve Miller... Picked him up at a local guitar shop. He jumped in the back seat and started noodling on some sort of Irish instrument he bought that was similar to a Mandola.
Billy Peterson - Miller's bass player at the time... Separate fares... Hooked me up with tickets for the show the following night.
John McEuen
Mike Gordon... Same local guitar shop.. hooked me up with tickets to the sold-out Phish show
Dave Grohl
Peter Cetera
Insane Clown Posse - sans makeup
Other famous folks...
Art Linkletter
Jimmy the Greek
Stan "The Man" Musial.. Major League Baseball Hall of Famer
Gary Stevens... Hall of Fame jockey
Paul Hornung.. Hall of Fame running back for the Packers
Rock Scully ... of Grateful Dead fame (manager)
There's probably a couple more I can't recall at the moment.
Musicians I had in my cab -
Steve Miller... Picked him up at a local guitar shop. He jumped in the back seat and started noodling on some sort of Irish instrument he bought that was similar to a Mandola.
Billy Peterson - Miller's bass player at the time... Separate fares... Hooked me up with tickets for the show the following night.
John McEuen
Mike Gordon... Same local guitar shop.. hooked me up with tickets to the sold-out Phish show
Dave Grohl
Peter Cetera
Insane Clown Posse - sans makeup
Other famous folks...
Art Linkletter
Jimmy the Greek
Stan "The Man" Musial.. Major League Baseball Hall of Famer
Gary Stevens... Hall of Fame jockey
Paul Hornung.. Hall of Fame running back for the Packers
Rock Scully ... of Grateful Dead fame (manager)
There's probably a couple more I can't recall at the moment.
I sat in Shirley Muldowney's dragster once. She wasn't traveling with it.
Was in the same nearly-empty room with Big Al at the Unser museum. Thought about asking for an autograph, but decided that here's a guy who might want to just go about his day without being pestered, so I smiled, mouthed "thank you," and moved on.
I had my own 15 minutes a few years ago. I did something rather rare and nifty, and it was a bit of a big deal in a limited way. I only got stopped by one stranger on the street ("aren't you...?"), but among people who were in that interest group, and with people who knew me, it was kind of a thing. Being known for that was cool, but toward the end of the hoopla I was glad to talk about something else. It gave me the tiniest glimpse of what it would be like to be famous or well known, even for the best possible reasons, and I didn't need to experience more to know that it would get old, and life changing in negative ways.
Was in the same nearly-empty room with Big Al at the Unser museum. Thought about asking for an autograph, but decided that here's a guy who might want to just go about his day without being pestered, so I smiled, mouthed "thank you," and moved on.
I had my own 15 minutes a few years ago. I did something rather rare and nifty, and it was a bit of a big deal in a limited way. I only got stopped by one stranger on the street ("aren't you...?"), but among people who were in that interest group, and with people who knew me, it was kind of a thing. Being known for that was cool, but toward the end of the hoopla I was glad to talk about something else. It gave me the tiniest glimpse of what it would be like to be famous or well known, even for the best possible reasons, and I didn't need to experience more to know that it would get old, and life changing in negative ways.
Bob Lee (QSC)
In case you missed it, I work for QSC Audio!
- Jul 3, 2001
- 12,668
- 2,036
- 67
- Disclosures
- Former Technical Communications Developer, QSC Audio
On the Beatles side, I've met and gotten to know Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott mainly through the Audio Engineering Society (AES).
And I met Sir George Martin at an AES convention in London eight years ago. I was the secretary of the AES back then, and the board of governors had voted to award him an honourary membership. Part of my job was to notify award recipients, so I'd had to do a bit of detective work to find out how to let him know. Through Google searches and digging about I finally found a guy whose email address strongly suggested an affiliation with AIR Studios, so I reached out to him and told him the situation. He replied that indeed he worked for Sir George and would be glad to intiate contact. So at the convention we scheduled a ceremony for him to receive his award (he wasn't available for the opening ceremony, where we normally give out all the awards). As AES secretary, I had my signature on the ornate certificate presented to him. So in addition to meeting him and shaking his hand and exchanging some pleasantries, I snapped a nice photo of Sir George proudly holding his certificate in front of him with my signature in the lower right corner. After that I always joked that George Martin had my autograph but I didn't get his.
And I met Sir George Martin at an AES convention in London eight years ago. I was the secretary of the AES back then, and the board of governors had voted to award him an honourary membership. Part of my job was to notify award recipients, so I'd had to do a bit of detective work to find out how to let him know. Through Google searches and digging about I finally found a guy whose email address strongly suggested an affiliation with AIR Studios, so I reached out to him and told him the situation. He replied that indeed he worked for Sir George and would be glad to intiate contact. So at the convention we scheduled a ceremony for him to receive his award (he wasn't available for the opening ceremony, where we normally give out all the awards). As AES secretary, I had my signature on the ornate certificate presented to him. So in addition to meeting him and shaking his hand and exchanging some pleasantries, I snapped a nice photo of Sir George proudly holding his certificate in front of him with my signature in the lower right corner. After that I always joked that George Martin had my autograph but I didn't get his.
Bob Lee (QSC)
In case you missed it, I work for QSC Audio!
- Jul 3, 2001
- 12,668
- 2,036
- 67
- Disclosures
- Former Technical Communications Developer, QSC Audio
Another notable time in my stint as AES secretary was when I notified Phil Ramone that the AES BoG voted to award him the Gold Medal, which is the highest honor in the organization. I sent him an email (we had his address on file since he was a member, unlike George Martin), as well as emails to all the other various award recipients, but I figured his email was probably heavily filtered and it might not get through. So I looked up his member info in the database and got his phone number. I called, and someone who works for him answered the phone. I explained that I was calling on behalf of the AES and that the AES BoG had awarded him the Gold Medal. I added that I'd sent an email notification and wanted to make sure the info got through. I thought the guy would just say thanks, I'll pass that along to him. But instead he said, "Oh, Phil will be delighted to hear that! He loves the AES and we support it in any way we can. Here, I'll connect you so you can tell him." And he patched me through to Phil Ramone. He sounded very pleased at my news, and we had a very nice friendly chat for about 10 or 15 minutes. It was very cool.
Last winter I knocked back a couple of beers and shots with Chief Petty Officer Rob O'Neill. That man can drink!
I noticed him and extended my hand and thanked him for keeping my family safe. He pointed to the bar stool beside him and told me stories for a while.
He had someone send me an autographed copy of his book. An amazing individual.
I noticed him and extended my hand and thanked him for keeping my family safe. He pointed to the bar stool beside him and told me stories for a while.
He had someone send me an autographed copy of his book. An amazing individual.
I used to work as an artist liaison. From picking them up at the airport, to keeping them sober, to finding their favorite brand of mandolin strings in the middle of Austin. I could go on for days about some of them- Greg Koch was so funny he had the entire staff of a big restaurant standing around our table, in stitches. Some famous drummer's bar tab was so big we maxed out my, and the Pearl Drum artist liaison's expense account before the show.
Before it became a movie, my favorite aunt took me to see The Wiz at Music Center in downtown LA. We sat roughly in the middle of the row.
When the performance ended and people started to clear out for some reason we stayed put for a while. When we finally got up, I ran down the row without looking in front of me (some things never change) and crashed into a long pair of legs.
I looked up and it was Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen). With that gracious, gentle manner he said "'scuse me, son". He looked like he was ten feet tall and I was too stunned to say a word. Later I learned that he was originally cast to play the Tin Man in the original film version of the Wizard of Oz.
When the performance ended and people started to clear out for some reason we stayed put for a while. When we finally got up, I ran down the row without looking in front of me (some things never change) and crashed into a long pair of legs.
I looked up and it was Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen). With that gracious, gentle manner he said "'scuse me, son". He looked like he was ten feet tall and I was too stunned to say a word. Later I learned that he was originally cast to play the Tin Man in the original film version of the Wizard of Oz.
This one is a little different, plus it's kind of a long post. It also contains nerdy science stuff so give it a pass if this isn't your thing.
In May of 1985, cosmologist Stephen Hawking gave a public lecture at Fermilab (Enrico Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) in Batavia, Illinois to about 150 audience members, mostly made up of other scientists. At the time, Hawking was well known by his colleagues as being among the top level of physicists, but was relatively unknown by the general public. He had yet to write his best selling book, "A Brief History of Time" and was known for his groundbreaking theories on black holes and singularity theorems.
Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems - Wikipedia
The subject of his lecture was his proposal that that there was no singularity at the beginning of the universe, contrary to the accepted Big Bang models of the time. This revision followed from quantum mechanics, in which general relativity must break down at times less than the Planck Time, hence general relativity cannot be used to show a singularity.
He further suggested that in the far distant future, the universe would stop expanding and then begin to contract again, under gravity, and eventually return to a state identical to the original Big Bang. He predicted mathematically that this contraction would be symmetrical in time to the earlier expansion, and that time would run in the negative direction with every event in the history of the universe repeating itself backwards.
I was a junior in high school in 1985 and something of a science geek. Our school "physics club" informed us about the lecture and a few of us attended the event at Fermilab, which was only about 20 miles away. We took seats in the back of the auditorium and waited until the scheduled start time for the lecture. Only about 1/3 of the 500 or so seats were filled. I remember Nobel prize winner Leon Lederman was there. One of my friends said he recognized a couple of other famous scientists but I didn't know who they were.
Suddenly a hush fell over the crowd and I watched in astonishment as a very frail man was being carried down the steps of the aisle to our left like a sack of groceries and unceremoniously dumped in the wheelchair in the center of the stage. Stephen Hawking had arrived.* One of his assistants settled him in and he began to speak.
This was just a few months before he lost his voice so he could still vocalize, but he needed an interpreter for his audiences to understand his words. He outlined his proposal about singularities and time symmetry and I discovered that the first two sentences would be the last ones that I would understand for the rest of his talk. His assistant wrote a multitude of equations on the board that were almost entirely Greek letters and other, unfamiliar hieroglyphs. Occasionally, the scientists in the audience would simultaneously get excited and start murmuring among themselves as Hawking made some point that apparently impressed them. My friends and I had no idea what was going on. After the lecture, Hawking answered questions from the audience and I didn't even understand these questions, much less the answers.
Despite that, I enjoyed the opportunity to be present there and only appreciated the significance of the event after Hawking's book came out and even years later when I leaned enough about cosmology to realize that this lecture was a significant milestone in the field of cosmology.
Interestingly, Hawking changed his mind only a year later and dismissed the idea of time running backwards. He is also now unsure about whether or not singularities exist as infinitely small and infinitely dense objects or if they have a finite size and density. Physicists are still debating this question.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
* The lecture hall had no provision for wheelchair access and no one had thought to check. When it was realized that the only way to reach the stage was down the steps between rows of seats, his two scientist friends accompanying him suggested they carry Hawking and his wheelchair separately. Hawking refused, claiming it was too undignified. His friends concluded there was no alternative so the picked him up out of his chair and carried him down the stairs despite his protests.
In May of 1985, cosmologist Stephen Hawking gave a public lecture at Fermilab (Enrico Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) in Batavia, Illinois to about 150 audience members, mostly made up of other scientists. At the time, Hawking was well known by his colleagues as being among the top level of physicists, but was relatively unknown by the general public. He had yet to write his best selling book, "A Brief History of Time" and was known for his groundbreaking theories on black holes and singularity theorems.
Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems - Wikipedia
The subject of his lecture was his proposal that that there was no singularity at the beginning of the universe, contrary to the accepted Big Bang models of the time. This revision followed from quantum mechanics, in which general relativity must break down at times less than the Planck Time, hence general relativity cannot be used to show a singularity.
He further suggested that in the far distant future, the universe would stop expanding and then begin to contract again, under gravity, and eventually return to a state identical to the original Big Bang. He predicted mathematically that this contraction would be symmetrical in time to the earlier expansion, and that time would run in the negative direction with every event in the history of the universe repeating itself backwards.
I was a junior in high school in 1985 and something of a science geek. Our school "physics club" informed us about the lecture and a few of us attended the event at Fermilab, which was only about 20 miles away. We took seats in the back of the auditorium and waited until the scheduled start time for the lecture. Only about 1/3 of the 500 or so seats were filled. I remember Nobel prize winner Leon Lederman was there. One of my friends said he recognized a couple of other famous scientists but I didn't know who they were.
Suddenly a hush fell over the crowd and I watched in astonishment as a very frail man was being carried down the steps of the aisle to our left like a sack of groceries and unceremoniously dumped in the wheelchair in the center of the stage. Stephen Hawking had arrived.* One of his assistants settled him in and he began to speak.
This was just a few months before he lost his voice so he could still vocalize, but he needed an interpreter for his audiences to understand his words. He outlined his proposal about singularities and time symmetry and I discovered that the first two sentences would be the last ones that I would understand for the rest of his talk. His assistant wrote a multitude of equations on the board that were almost entirely Greek letters and other, unfamiliar hieroglyphs. Occasionally, the scientists in the audience would simultaneously get excited and start murmuring among themselves as Hawking made some point that apparently impressed them. My friends and I had no idea what was going on. After the lecture, Hawking answered questions from the audience and I didn't even understand these questions, much less the answers.
Despite that, I enjoyed the opportunity to be present there and only appreciated the significance of the event after Hawking's book came out and even years later when I leaned enough about cosmology to realize that this lecture was a significant milestone in the field of cosmology.
Interestingly, Hawking changed his mind only a year later and dismissed the idea of time running backwards. He is also now unsure about whether or not singularities exist as infinitely small and infinitely dense objects or if they have a finite size and density. Physicists are still debating this question.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
* The lecture hall had no provision for wheelchair access and no one had thought to check. When it was realized that the only way to reach the stage was down the steps between rows of seats, his two scientist friends accompanying him suggested they carry Hawking and his wheelchair separately. Hawking refused, claiming it was too undignified. His friends concluded there was no alternative so the picked him up out of his chair and carried him down the stairs despite his protests.
