brush with fame

tonight i'm heading out to a guide to visitors over at the uw bookstore. not telling a story this time though, so i can relax and just enjoy the show. although truth be told, i prefer the nights when i'm telling a story. i am kind of all about having an audience.

so the deal with a.g.t.v. is that people tell true stories on a given theme. they run about 15 minutes each and you don't use any notes. it's meant to be like telling a story to a friend, except that there's usually a paying audience. usually it's at the jewel box theatre in the rendezvous, but tonight at the uw bookstore it's free. whee! anyhow, the stories are usually pretty entertaining because it's a curated show, not an open mic deal.

tonight's theme is "brush with fame." i figured i could probably come up with a cobbled together story featuring exploits from my time in la, but i've done stories at the last two shows and figured maybe it was time for a break.

but i do have a very good brush with fame story that i do sort of wish i was telling tonight, so i thought i'd tell it here anyhow. it's known in certain circles as "the gary busey incident."

so this was probably a good six years ago when i was living in la and still speaking to my ex-friend tricia. tricia, robin (a former work friend), and i were hanging out in this supper club owned by some hollywood a-listers. i think sean penn was one. i don't remember who-all else the place belonged to. anyhow, it was the new cool place at the time. and it had a cigar room. this was back when cigars were all the rage.

for some ungodly reason, we were hanging out in the cigar room. we'd met some guys who were plying us with drinks and i was happy to imbibe. well, after a while, somebody points out gary busey a couple tables over from us. i kept saying that i was going to go over and talk to him, but somehow, the group managed to keep me in my seat. with the promise of more cocktails, i suspect.

eventually, we decide to leave and go somewhere else, and me being me, i have to go to the bathroom. as i'm leaving the bathroom, who is waiting in the vestibule but GARY BUSEY. well, none of my friends are around so i figure this is my shot. so i walk up to him and i go (loudly, of course) GARY! I LOVED YOU IN CARNY! and he goes, oh, thank you. (i think. i really can't remember his end of the conversation too clearly...) and this part of the story gets a little fuzzy. i just remember that my friends spotted me and rushed over to yank me away from g.b. and he was also trying to extricate himself from the situation. but i was determined to get in a last word so i said, HEY, GARY, STAY OFF THE MOTORCYCLES! before i was whisked away.

it was not one of my finest moments.

and it is not the reason why i don't drink anymore. but remembering things like that make me glad that i don't. oh sure, i'm still liable to say something stupid to somebody like gary busey. but at least i'll be able to reconstruct the conversation.

then again, my memory isn't what it used to be, so maybe not.