Okay, I'll play Zysdale too, and every single word here will be true. Lame, usually, but absolutely true...
I played Little League and high school ball with Jack McDowell, former Stanford star and Cy Young winner for the White Sox.
I owned that fucker. Never mind that he was a couple years younger than me, which matters a whole lot at that age. He hadn't yet become the monster he became later.
Don't care. He didn't even start on my high school team. I owned him. So there.
I also beaned Barry White's terrified kid in Little League. Repeatedly. Flat out ruined him for baseball.
Lessee here, what else...
During MLB's strike season HOF-er Don Sutton played a little bit in a semi pro league, just to keep throwing. His team played my team. He started and I was my team's lead off hitter. I faced precisely one pitch from him. First pitch of the game, I lined a single off his left shin. He even rubbed it, and my team laughed at him for not walking it off.
That's not the only reason he doesn't belong in the HOF but it's plenty good enough reason.
In one day, in the same hotel, I once shared two separate elevator rides with noted 80s era comic Yakov Smirnoff and noted statesman Henry Kissinger.
Chevy Chase once ignored me after cutting me off on La Cienega, in Beverly Hills. He was driving something that looked like this...
...only it was much gaudier, with a bunch of header pipes sticking out the hood.
I once played played a couple games of pool with Judd Hirsch from
Taxi fame. It was about 1:00 am in a pool hall in Tarzana. I knew who he was. Surprisingly, he had no clue who I was. He didn't laugh when I gave him my best Louie DiPalma "Riiieger" impersonation. He just looked at me like warmed over death.
I once stood behind Kelsey Grammer at a concession stand at a SoCal drive in theater. He looked like he would've rather been
anywhere.
I once sat next to Gary Busey during "Les Miserables." He was completely blotto shitfaced. He had no clue where he was and when the show was over he half scared people to death with that stupid cane he was waving around in the lobby.
When I was a little kid I once helped Michael Nesmith of the Monkees feed a white rat to his snake. I was friends with his son and I was visiting their house. The kid asked me if I wanted to watch his dad feed their snake.
It wasn't until years later however that I found out who his dad really was.
I once pulled up alongside George Lucas. It was on Lucas Valley Rd, his
own street, of all places. I was on a motorcycle, he was in a black 745Li with a dent in the left rear quarter panel.
I once pulled up alongside MC Hammer on the eastbound I-80, in West Sacramento. I was on a motorcycle and he was in a BMW convertible. No Hammer pants. He did have pants on, fortunately.
I once sat one table over from Anthony Munoz and Roy Foster during lunch at Dr Hoggly Woggly's Tyler Texas Bar-B-Que, in Sepulveda, California. We were the only three people in the place.
Roy Foster can down a lot of fucking food.
I once sat one table over from Steve Garvey and O.J. Simpson and their
four blonde bimbo dates for the evening. This was at Spagos, on Sunset.
Garvey didn't say a word all night. His dates ignored him. O.J. was the life of the party. His red Ferrari's license plate read "Juice1."
I once had an actual conversation with Danny Bonnaducci and his Asian hottie girlfriend. We sat next to each other at the counter of a breakfast joint called Millie's Cafe, in Reseda.
Dude was really obnoxious to his girlfriend. He was cool to my wife and me but he treated his own girl horribly.
I once sat and listened to Yngwie Malmsteen talk about Randy Rhoads, in a house in Granada Hills. He was recuperating from crashing his Jaguar and I was tagging along with friends who were at the house doing a small drug deal.
Yngwie spoke very poor English back then. He didn't have much good to say about Randy as a player. He knew about him and he thought Rhoads was way overrated. He also absentmindedly shredded on an unplugged Les Paul the entire time he talked. It was like breathing for him.
Twenty years later, as I was sitting near the front of the stage at the Reno G3 show, Yngwie drilled me in the chest with one of his guitar picks.
I'm pretty sure it was just a coincidence.
I once talked with Joe Satriani and his drummer for about twenty minutes, following the San Francisco theater premier of the "G3: Tokyo" DVD. Satch thinks Holdsworth and Morse are incredible and he'd really love to have Holdsworth do a G3 tour but the promoters just don't think Holdsworth will put enough butts in the seats. He said he got along with Yngwie just fine but he sure wouldn't want to be in Yngwie's band because Yngwie thinks his band's entire backstage beer allocation is his.
Satch's drummer made it pretty clear that he thinks Yngwie's an asshole.
I once auditioned for Delaney Bramlett, of
"Bonnie & Delaney" and "Derek & The Dominoes" fame. I was again tagging along with buddies who were visiting a guy he was staying with at an apartment in La Crescenta.
He smoked pot the whole time and he had me audition for his upcoming European summer tour. He literally plugged a Strat into this guy's home stereo, rather than into a guitar amplifier. I played, he said I got the gig, then he fell asleep on the couch.
Never heard from him again.
One time I was at a guitar store on Ventura Bl, in Sherman Oaks. Some guy had his back to me and he was sitting on a bench, facing the wall. He was holding a guitar, tuning it. I sat down on an adjoining bench, my back to the guy. I started testing a Fender Twin Reverb. A few moments later this guy starts comping chords beneath me, giving me some rhythm guitar for the bluesy soloing shit I was playing.
After a few minutes of it we just sorta wound it down together. We turned around to face each other, both of us laughing over our cool little jam.
"Sounds goood, maaaaan!" the guy said, a big loopy smile on his face.
It was Joe Walsh.
"Uhh...thanks." I meekly responded. I bailed, immediately.
I once had Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden basically sell me my first ever guitar. He was at a guitar store in Sepulveda talking to the owner and I was in there checking out these Aria guitars, which were these cheap starter guitars. The owner was showing Dickenson this new batch of black "Pro II" Arias he'd just gotten in so Dickenson played one for a minute or two.
When he was done he said, "Nice guitar."
The owner said to me, "See?"
I bought it. I'm sure I way overpaid for it. Btw, Bruce Dickenson is about the same size as a lawn jockey.
One time Allan Holdsworth brought me up on stage in a little jazz club in Hollywood, following the second of two shows I'd attended. He spent a good twenty minutes walking me through his stage set up, including his crazy "SynthAxe" guitar rig.
Incredibly gracious man, to take it upon himself to do that for some stupid twenty year old star struck kid. It was like the Joe Greene Coke commercial.
I once had lunch two tables over from Yoko and Sean Ono, in Agoura Hills. Sean never spoke, Yoko never shut up.
When I was a little kid I got grounded for a week by my parents for calling Los Angeles Rams running back Les Josephson "the worst running back in the league," at a YMCA awards banquet.
He was the guest speaker and once he was done with his little speech he fielded questions from the audience.
I hated the Rams. So, when there was a break in the questions I stood on my chair and I raised my hand. My mom thought it was adorable. Les Josephson pointed to me. In the dead silence of the cavernous hall I asked him that question..."What's it like being the worst running back in the league"...loudly.
To this day my mom still maintains that that was the single most embarrassing moment of her life.
A couple years ago I was at Gary Brawer's shop in San Francisco, getting some PLEK work done on a guitar. The day I came in to pick it up Gary was standing there at the counter, talking to James Hetfield and Neal Schon. They were talking about Satriani's latest crazy airbrushed guitar, which Gary had up on his PLEK machine.
When I showed up Gary called me over and introduced me to Hetfield and Schon and then he showed them my guitar. It was this one...
Schon sounded like a total hippy burn out when he said, "That's the most bitchin' quilt I've ever seen. Love the green, dude."
When I worked for the L.A. Times I collected at the door from Rog, Rerun
and Shirley, from "What's Happening."
They all lived in different apartments spread out around Burbank.
Shirley was happy to have someone recognize her. Rerun was just a big, happy clown and he always paid in cash. Rog's check bounced, I later learned.
I also collected from Batman, Adam West, the gay one from the TV show. What a sad little queen. He was also living in Burbank.
Dano Plato, too. She was wearing a ratty blue bathrobe when she answered the door to her condo in Chatsworth.
She offed herself less than a year later.
When I was maybe seven years old I attended a Lakers basketball camp. Happy Hairston, Gail Goodrich and Mel Counts showed up. Wilt didn't.
I got a little certificate which said I had the "best outlet pass" of the camp; I got another for having the "best left handed layup skills."
I was the only left handed kid in my group.
During MJ's final year in the NBA with the Wizards I once shared an elevator ride at Arco Arena with Kwame Brown. The guy's forearms were as big as my head. Still, there I was with him in an elevator, along with some other Wizards player whose name I can no longer recall. I was heading up to the buffet and Kwame and this other player were just riding the elevators, goofing around. Kwame was just being a kid, enjoying life as an eighteen year old in the NBA. He was in full uniform, screwing around two hours before the game.
Before I grabbed that elevator to go get dinner I spent a few minutes checking out MJ practicing. He was down on the floor, working with an assistant coach of the Wizards. They were all alone. They were thirty feet from the basket, working on MJ's back to the basket drop step.
MJ...two hours before game time...bad knees and all...in his final season in the league...working on his own on something as mundane as a back to the basket drop step.
Pretty much, there's the difference between MJ and Kwame Brown. Pretty much, there's the difference between MJ and the rest of the inhabitants of planet earth.
