Famous people I have seen in-person:Andy Gibb, 1976: I was driving with my family in San Francisco when we heard on the radio that Andy Gibb was signing albums at Tower records. My sister shit her pants and insisted we go there immediately. There was a kajillion people there, so my sister got in line and my Mom waited in the car while me, my brother & my Dad decided to climb up the rock wall directly behind the singer. We could see the top of his head and that was good enough for us.
Bonnie Raitt, 1986: I stood next to her at a protest rally in Fort Bragg, CA.
Craig Montgomery, 1988: While walking down the street in New York City, Craig Montgomery was walking right toward me. He was a soap opera character on my Mom�s soap, �As the World Turns� that I had been watching with her for my whole life.
Metallica, 1991: On Castro street in San Francisco on Halloween. My roommate had posters of them all over her wall, so we recognized them. She shook their hands.
Mike Patton, 1991: The lead singer for Faith no More & Mr. Bungle. I actually got the nerve up to say something to him. He was shopping Haight Street on the same day that we were going to his concert with Faith no More (opening for Billy Idol, but we did not stay for Billy). I had just done a hot oil treatment on my hair, which I had never done before & it gave me this intensely greasy look. I looked like an ugly skank, but I went up to talk to him anyway. To my surprise, he gave me the time of day, so I decided to talk to him for as long as he would talk to me. It was horribly nerdy.
Mike Patton, 1992: We went to see his band, Mr. Bungle play & he stood next to me while the opening band was on. I kept �accidentally� bumping into him.
Ted Danson, 1992: I was in Fort Bragg, CA with some friends when we saw Ted Danson walking toward us coming up from the beach. He was there filming a movie, so we followed him into the town area. He went into a store, so I went in after him & just stood next to him. He tried ditching us several times & at one time was up on the hotel balcony looking down at us & laughing because he managed to elude us.
Mollie Sugden/Mrs Slocombe, 1993: Mrs Slocombe from the BBC show, Are You Being Served. She was staying in the Opera Plaza while her husband was performing in the SF Opera. I rang up her groceries several times, but was too shy to let her know I knew who she was & enjoyed her.
Tim Armstrong, Rancid, 1993: He was going by the Name Lint back then. There was a punk show at Epicenter in SF. He stood next to me during & kept touching me. At one point he wanted to climb up on something and used my shoulder to launch himself up. Very exciting.
Sandra Bullock, 1994: I got off work with my friend Blair at 11:00 PM. There was a large gathering of people in the SF financial district. He wandered over to see what was going on and found out they were filming a movie. We then noticed that Sandra Bullock was standing maybe 4 feet away from us. We acted cool so as to not be told to leave & we got to watch them shoot the scene (it was the one where she is being chased through a candlelight AIDS protest march).
Michael Stipe, 1997: Aimee & I were at Bauhaus Coffee in Seattle when we saw Michael Stipe standing on the stairway that led up to the upstairs seating area. He was being very obvious. Once we got our coffee, we went upstairs & sat across from him. He was writing furiously. Suddenly, he got up from his table, walked over to an unsuspecting patron & asked for a light for his cigarette. He hung around a bit longer, tore up what he was writing and left it in the ashtray as he left. We half wondered if he was working on lyrics, but did not want to be the ones to grab his ashtray contents. When I told a fried this story, he said that the exact same thing happened to him, but Michael went up to my friends girlfriend to light his cigarette & she did not recognize him, which seemed to irritate Mr. Stipe to no end.
Krist Novaselic, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2004: He is all over Seattle.
Bauhaus, 1998: While working at the Claremont Hotel, Peter Murphy stayed there & would hang out in the lobby, chatting with our desk staff all the time. For the Bauhaus reunion, the other members (Love & Rockets) joined him & all hung out in the lobby. I would just sit & watch them in non-belief.
Blur, Greenday, Cake, Robin Hitchcock, White Zombie, and countless other bands stayed at my hotel. I rode the elevator with Robin Hitchcock & giggled.
Tanya Harding, 2002: She was in town doing a car show & stayed at the Claremont. I hung out in the lobby until I saw her.
John Leguizamo, Eddy Izzard & Harvey Fierstein all stayed at the Hotel, but I did not get to meet any of them. DAMMITT!
Christina Aguilara, 1999: When Sasha & I were first dating, he invited me to his home in Wisconsin. We went to the Mall of America in Minnesota & Christina was performing there. Her first single had just come out, so she was very cutesy & pure. While in the glass elevator, we were directly behind her while she signed autographs after her show. I had never seen anyone so tiny in all my life. I felt like folding her up & putting her in my pocket.
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, 2001: In a restaurant in New York City with a group of her friends. John Stamos was nowhere to be seen. Members of our party kept walking by her table to get a glimpse. Sasha�s brother did not know what she looked like and said: �OK, where is this chick?� right in front of her, really loudly.
Kind of boring, but having only been to L.A. once, I think I did pretty well on the celeb front. There might be more, but I cannot remember. Who was the most famous person you saw in person?