This thread is about friends or family or even you, how you lived close by somebody famous or semi-famous. But it should involve residence, not where you met Sting in an elevator.

Emmett Kelly the famous clown lived up the road from my Grandma. The Yankee pitcher and later coach Mel Stottlemyre also lived up the road, in a different direction, and caught the school bus with my mom.

Wayne Carson the famous songwriter lived across the street from my best friend. He wrote The Letter, Always on My Mind, and a million other great songs. My friend had great stories about the Carson household; evidently there was some conflict there.

Cito Gaston the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays lived next door to my ex-wife's dad for many years. He was a good guy.

You don't have to dish the dirt, but colorful stories are encouraged. This thread is about the semi-famous folks who live close by.

I grew up great friends with former NY Giant and football broadcaster Pat Summeral's son. So I knew Pat pretty well. Even met John Madden though him. No real stories, he was a nice guy.

My friend's wedding had an after party at this one hotel bar in Philadelphia, where the Buccaneers happened to be staying to play the Eagles. It just happened that the bathroom was on the 2nd floor, so we wound up riding the elevator up and down with a lot of the stars(if you can call them that) on the Bucs. My personal highlight was the first time we were on their with 3 guys from the Bucs defensive line, each easily 6'4''+ and 300lbs, and my 5'10 friend says "Suck-a-NEERS!" They chuckled. We asked them if they wanted to party with us, they said, game tomorrow. We said we would cover the tab and still they declined. One of them had some piece of white trash who said, "Just like them not to party...but I could party with you guys." The door opened for our floor, I said, "No thanks." and we walked out.


The lead singer of smash mouth came to Tahoe a few times when I lived there. My now wife was a cocktail waitress at the worst casino in town where this guy liked to play. Her best friend was a cocktail waitress too, and came over to the area where the dude was balling it up at $25 a hand blackjack. The guy pulled her over by the arm and said, "Know where I can find any..." and puts one hand up to his nostril and makes a sniffing sound. She says, "Uh, no." He says, "Got a boyfriend?" She says, "Yeah, I do," and pulls her arm away. He says, "Too bad, because what I could really use is some p***y," as if her having a boyfriend would be the only conceivable reason she wouldn't have sex with this:

My boss is good friends with John Stockton having gone to school with him in high school, good enough that he was one of Stockton's invites to the hall of fame induction (although they probably have a lot of invites) and had drinks with him the night after.

Funny side-story that has nothing to do with famous people (directly): the induction program had an ad from the Boston Celtics saying "Congratulations to Hall of Fame Inductees...." and listed all the inductees except one.....Jordan. My hope is that it was on purpose.


Thought very briefly about knocking James for telling an elevator story when OP specifically said he wasn't looking for elevator stories, but those close encounters might be more interesting than "my grandma lived next to so-and-so" or my story.

I live in Hollywood, so I've got a bunch, but the 2 latest are also some of the weirdest.

#1. This guy isn't THAT famous, but he's been in 3 of my alltime favorite movies: Chasing Amy (gay black dude), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (same roll) and Dogma (Leader of the gang in the strip club). He's the manager of my apartment building. I recognized him when he first moved in and shoot the sh*t with him all the time, but I haven't told him that I recognize him.

#2. I'm at a birthday party last Sunday and was picked up by a friend who best friend was in the car. I know the other guy, but didn't know who he was. Turns out he's Charles Manson's kid. I didn't find out till the next day, but apparently after I left the party, he was standing up talking about how the "The world is changing man" and crap like that. Hearing about it afterward was hilarious, but was probably frightening at the time. One of the people who was there was saying it was like the "Mason DNA" was kicking in for a second, just not in an evil way.

1) I know Jason Werth from the Phillies from highschool......hes an a**hole, one of the biggest i know. I think ive made that clear on more than one occasion. Jason if you're seeing this because you're shallow enough to google yourself **** YOU!

2) My wifes friend has a son who is best friends with Alice Cooper's son... he practically lives at his house.

Just go up to him with a confused look and ask:
"What's a nubian?"

Hey_Porter, you've got a point, I'm flexible. I met both Truman Capote and Steve Landesberg while I was working as a salesman in New York City around 80 or 81. I almost ran over Truman Capote coming out out a news/stationery store on First Avenue, close to the UN. I said "Sorry," and he goes, "Oh that's all right." And I was stunned and asked the owner if it was really him, and he says, "Yes, he live really close, comes in all the time."

I saw David Robinson and Terry Cummings in a San Antonio mexican restaurant in the early 90's, but I didn't talk to them.

Steve Landesberg seems to have vanished from popular consciousness, but he was a very funny stand-up comic in his day.

He was buying 2 transistor radios at Radio Shack. Yeah, he was funny and sharp, I liked him.

She's not really well known unless you've been a long time listener to NPR, but I had dinner with Jackie Lyden and three others one night after a conference in Providence. Lyden, in addition to hosting numerous NPR shows and Weekend Edition, is the author of Daughter of the Queen of Sheba, a terrific memoir. I've also had the chance to meet a couple Poet Laureates of the US, Richard Wilbur and current Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, along with numerous other well known poets.


One of my former colleagues, though, had one real treat. He got snowed in at Nelson Algren's house when he was young and managed to insult Algren's wife. He mistook the wife for a maid and asked her to bring him a drink. She told him to get his own ****ing drink.

John Cole, John Irving has a couple of good anecdotes about Algren in his memoir Saving Piggy Sneed. They were both at Iowa together, Irving as a student.

No, no more residence requirement, that's off. Anyway Irving wanted to study with Algren, but Algren hated his writing and said no thanks. And then they met later, and something happened funny, I can't remember.

Which doesn't make it any less funny (in my mind) that you said "this doesn't include elevator encounter stories" and the second post is literally an elevator encounter story.

Another minor one: in college my wife (girlfriend at the time) was head student manager at the athletic center on campus. Aaron Brooks' (starting point guard for the Rockets) older brother worked for her, and Aaron (who was still in high school) would always sneak in for pick up games or just to hang out and she would have to kick him out. I didn't find this out until 8-9 years later when we were watching a basketball game and Brooks was on and I said "hey, you see that guy? His older brother played for Seattle U" and she figured out who he was.

Heh yeah, we're just sharing stories and talking though, what the heck, whittlin' down at the country store. Transgression is almost always ok by me.

Friend of mine has done very well and owns a Golden Age Stradivarius violin. He had a concert at his house and prior to the music, he introduced me to his friends Joe and Alice. Older couple, very lovely. I asked Joe what he does, he says he's retired. "What did you do before you retired?" "I was a grocer. But now, to keep myself busy, I am on the board of directors of True Religion."

I look this guy over. He's the worst dressed guy I've ever seen. Bar none. I politely ask him how a grocer came to be on the board of directors of True Religion. He says he has had some experience in opening retail stores, "so they thought I might help them when they decided to open stores."

The music is about to begin and I approach my friend. My friend says "do you know who you were just talking to?" I say "Joe." He says, "Yeah, that's Trader Joe of Trader Joe's."

A grocer.

Andy, nice story

And yea yea to my elevator story I figured it would be a touch more interesting than just stating that Mike Richter lives next to my friend's parents(which he does!!).

Also, played poker with Toby McGuire(sp). he wore a hoodie and had a funny beard.

James282, you're a good Lounge poster. You should start some threads of your own.

Andy,

"has done very well" may be an understatement when you're talking about golden age Stradivari.

I was the only bass player Pussy Galore ever had, so I suppose playing rock and roll music with Jon Spencer (of Blues Explosion fame) qualifies, even if it was only for six months, and even if we didn't exactly get along so super. I had a fairly substantial drug and alcohol problem at that time, and I guess that wasn't a great fit for a band called Pussy Galore.

Go figure.

Late October, maybe '97 or so. Was golfing early one morning at Juniper Hill GC in Northborough, MA. My friends & I loved playing early. Get out while it's quiet, be done before 11, still have the afternoon free.
This day we were the 4th group out, and we're making good time. Come to the 9th hole, a short par 4 (300 yards), dogleg left around and down a hill. From the tee, you can't see the green, but it's definitely drivable for long hitters (which we aren't).
So we get to the green and are putting out, when a ball comes over the hill, catches the slope, bounces a few times in the fairway and rolls onto the green. Ball actually comes pretty close to going in before running about 20 or so feet past the hole.

On the one hand we're pretty impressed at the shot, on the other we're annoyed and slightly upset that someone would hit into us without so much as a courtesy 'fore'.
So we wait. If they are in that much of a hurry, they can play through (plus we wanted to see if he'd make the putt).

Around the corner comes this short little scraggly looking guy, maybe 130 lbs soaking wet. Looks like he's seen the bottom of way too many wine bottles. Stringy black hair, sunken eyes, really almost sickly sight. We're waiting for some 6'3" country club type to follow, but no, just him, playing alone.

As he get's closer I realize it's Alice Cooper. He was in town that week to do appearances at SpookyWorld. He apologized profusely, didn't know we were still on the green. Signed my hat, shook hands, and played the 10th with us before continuing along ahead of us. By the time we got to the 12th tee, he was nowhere in sight...

I used to live with a semi-famous B actress, but she was also in and starred in several well-known blockbuster movies. One ex was a protege to a famous director. My friend (and almost-wife) was a maid for a family the lived a few houses away from Jim Carrey and John Travolta. She was the housekeeper and cooked for Simon Cowell several times. I live right around the corner of Dave Chapell's Hollywood condominium. I rebuilt an apartment for a well-known producer who ended up having a restraining order against the Black Eyed Peas.

My best friend the last few years I was in Columbus Ohio was really good friends and played in several bands with Dwight Yokum. He was always telling me how Dwight was an idiot living in LA starving and living on Chip dip and stuff like that. Next thing you know there he is on the Country Music awards show.

Also, I know this guy who was a big shot Porn Director. He has many good stories.

daveT, was he afraid the girl was going to sneak in, put his pants on, and piss in them?

I think the world of Dwight Yokum and his music. Him and Steve Earle sparked my interest in country music in the mid 80's. He's a damn good actor too, great in Slingblade, a movie I love.

I used to play poker with Jon Favreau pretty often in NYC.

I played poker with Michael Phelps a little over a year ago at the Bellagio. It was a game smaller than that usually played in Bobby's Room, but he wanted the security so we played there.

Let me know who here hasn't heard my:

Jack Nicholson story
Kurt Russell/Goldie Hawn story

I'd link them but for some reason, I can't find 'em.