I have never had my picture taken with anyone famous.
When I was in Junior High and elementary school, the Long Islanders hockey team used to play charity softball games in Huntington. I think I met some of those guys and got autographs, long since thrown out by my mom, I'm sure, in the boxes of shite I left behind when I split for college.
When I was in college we went to see Peter Gabriel, and I managed to get a ticket on the floor, in about the 10th row. I went with college Brian Boyd, Gregg, Dave (who scored these amazing tickets for us) and my friend Michael Green, who now lives in California and unfortunately had an accident a while back leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.
Brian, Dave and I were down on the floor grooving to The Gabe, as he was known to us at the time, when Mr. Pete does his patented trust fall into the audience, arms wide open, to be caught by the worshiping masses, as Tony Levin led the band onstage through the nearly orgiastic "Lay Your Hands On Me" ending.
So there we were, with the Man, The Myth, The Legend, The GABE coming our way, feet first. We're standing on stadium folding chairs, and I don't remember the exact words of the discussion, but the events and discussion went something like this:
Me: "Shit! He's coming this way!!!!"
Dave: "Oh my GOD I can't believe this!!!!"
Brian: "Where is he. WHERE IS HE!!!!!"
Dave: "I'm going to TOUCH PETER GABRIEL! Gah! Blurgh! Mahdfh !!! adafas;dkn! Basdofjasdfnaksdfnak;dfn;asdkfn; na;sdnf gaahaahhahhhhhhaaaaa!!!!!"
Me: "Look out!"
Dave sort of lost his balance, freaking out I think, and managed to grab hold of, not sure why or how, the Gabriel Family Jewels. The Gabe flinched hard in response, a big flinch, and kicked Brian right in the face.
Now, you need to know about Brian here. Brian wears glasses. Not your usual glasses. These are the thickest glasses ever made. Glass thick enough that you would mistake it for the lenses of the telescope in the Hayden Planetarium. Brian is near to blind, which is why he was yelling "Where is he," cause he couldn't rightly see the man.
With Brian pretty much on the floor, I gently took Pete's very small feet in my hands, marveled at how damn seriously small they were, jumped to the natural conclusion associated with the size of the aforementioned family jewels, and watched as Peter passed back into the crowd, following his progress, and stunned that I held The Man's feet.
"I can't believe I held his feet!" I whispered, awed and amazed.
"I can't believe I grabbed his weiner..." Dave said.
When we didn't hear from Brian, we both snapped back to reality, aware that our friend wasn't standing there contemplating held body parts.
So we jumped off our seats and down to the floor.
Brian was crawling around looking for his glasses, which had obviously been sent into orbit and landed somewhere in the stadium, and we joined him in the search.
After about 10 minutes, we still had not found them, and the arena went pitch dark. "Lay Your Hands On Me" ended, and they went into a version of "Sledgehammer" with lasers and very little lights otherwise. We were trapped under the seats of a throbbing crowd, blind Brian, and confused still feeling guilty Dave, and me. Aw crap.
An usher came over with a flashlight and Brian explained the situation, enlisting his help... I remember trying to get up from the floor, miles from my seat it seemed, thinking of how it would be to be trampled to death by fans dancing to a song about sexual innuendo. Thinking of the Who concert that resulted in the deaths of a bunch of fans. Thinking I would die a similar death.
The usher found Brian's lost specs, we got back to our seats, Brian was quite all right. And for the next few days I bragged "I held Peter Gabriel's Feet!" Brian bragged, "I got kicked in the face by Peter Gabriel!" And Dave, well, Dave would admit to being there but would only admit to good friends that he grabbed the willie of the Gabe, but it wasn't a gay thing. It was all a good laugh.
Sigh, the fun of my youth.
Aside from that brush with greatness, I used to work at an Au Bon Pain bakery cafe in Boston, right in front of the Channel 7/WHDH studios in town there, and waited on the local news folk, Harvey Leonard, Todd Gross (he's really really short, for those of you local people), and Edie Tarbox, who now is known as E.D. Donahey on Fox & Friends. She was an incredible BITCH, and someone who caused me to audibly groan upon the sight of her.
ABP had a soup, Tomato Florentine, and it was one that we rotated through the week... Beef Veggie, Veggie soup, Chicken and some shit... and we always had Cream of Brocolli. Edie, excuse me, E.D. would come in and want Tomato Florentine, and she'd get bent out of shape four ways to Sunday if we didn't have it. As the manager, I'd be the one to suffer her wrath, her bitchings. "Why don't you have it every day?" Uh, because we don't. Go to hell. Get a recipe. Make it yourself you lazy cow. And she filled out suggestion cards, which would go to HQ across town and they would circular file them I am sure.
She's super famous now, and I'm sure she's terrorizing some sandwich shop clerk somewhere in NYC now that she's a friggin big wig on Fox news. Good riddance!
Enough for one Day! Must work!
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