We all have at least one. We know somebody who knows somebody who used to date the famous guy from that TV show/rock band. Some people here on the Geek are actually famous (at least in our circles) and some people may actually be friends with proper famous people but that's not what I'm after here.
I'm looking for those extremely tenuous and completely pointless claims to fame. At some unspecified time next week (when I decide this has run it's course and when I get a chance to get online and check) I will award 10GG plus any tips this Geeklist receives to the claim to fame that I consider the most tenuous/amusing. My decision will be final. Obviously I am relying on you all to be well behaved and not tell any porky pies.
Incidentally when I thought of the idea for this Geeklist I looked to see if there were any similar ones around and found this one: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/11777 by Legomancer but I figured that was a while ago and I'd go ahead with this anyway. So sue me.
I'll start you all off with a few of my own....
Edit: I've remembered what gave me the initial idea for this list now - Chris Evans on Radio 2. Thanks Chris
I will now read through the many, many entries and will post a thread to let everyone know the winner.
In a self-referencing frenzy here is a link to the forum post where I declare the winner and my honourable mentions:
My girlfriend's former housemate used to live with a girl who was going out with Chris Martin from Coldplay when they were all at University (UCL in London for anyone interested). I have met the former housemate but not the girl that went out with Mr Martin. So close to fame. So close.
My current housemate's boyfriend used to go out with a girl who is now the latest girl to have been seen (and photographed with pictures in The Sun newspaper) coming out of Russell Brand's house. What makes this more amusing is that Russell Brand is currently starring in a film called Forgetting Sarah Marshall in which an average guy is trying to get over it when his girlfriend leaves him for Russell Brand's character. In real life however, it was my housemate's boyfriend that dumped the girl. Still funny though.
Oh and can anyone guess what my thoughts about Mr Brand are?
Definitely one that is more for the Brits here. My friend from University wasn't half bad at cricket and has in his time played for Northamptonshire and the Lancashire 2nd team. When he was at Lancashire he was there with a certain Andrew Flintoff (the Aussies may also have heard of him) and being around the same age he was in with a group of them that would go for nights out down the pub etc. On one particular night there were a bunch of them out and they all decided they would go back to Flintoff's house. My friend Tim was with a group that ended up getting back to the house before Flintoff himself and so they were waiting around for him to get back to let them all in. However, Tim badly needed a dump, and when there was no sign of Flintoff arriving back he took matters into his own hands and went into the back garden where he found a wheelie bin. He laid it down on it's side, opened the lid and proceeded to squat down and curl one out onto the lid, before then closing it and putting the bin back. So my third and final tenuous claim to fame is that my friend Tim has shit in Andy Flintoff's bin.
Well, I don't know anyone who knows anyone who's famous. However, my senior class in college (2005, UNC-CH) all got together and had the world's largest group spoon. 400 of us all laid out in the quad spooning in a giant circle. Mo Rocca from Comedy Central fame came to speak to the senior class and also had the honor of being one of the official witnesses for the Guinness World Records people.
My sister went to university with Howard Johnson III.
(Note to non-US readers -- Howard Johnson's is a chain of family restaurants best known for their orange-and-turquoise buildings and their ice cream sundaes.)
(Me? I've just worked on Nobel-prize-winning scientific research. That clearly doesn't fit the criteria for this list, though ;-) )
back when I was younger, better shape, and living at a higher latitude I played Ultimate Frisbee for a college the Boston area. I wasn't very good, just fast enough to play deep and run 'cherry picker routes'. But anyways, we were at a tournament in Amherst and while killing time (we got wiped in the quarters), met some guys from the Rude Boys.
Turns out they were based one town over from us and offered to come by and scrimmage if we'd provide the beer and chemicals First, ran some drills, then scrimmaged us against them (we got wiped pronto), more drills, then a mixed scrimmage of us/them. Great, great ambassadors for a wonderful sport. So yeah, I have in fact played against the BEST IN THE WORLD
My girlfriend used to work with the brother of Sam Levine (of Freaks & Geeks fame), and invited him over once upon a time. I'm a huge Freaks & Geeks fan, so I was excited to meet the dude, but he turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. He embodied the deadly combination of boring and chatty, and he had a tendency to make himself at home. The first time we hung out with him, he took his shirt off, loosened his pants, and spent the night. He also had a tendency to drop names of third-tier celebrities (e.g., Huey Lewis, of The News fame) that he had met through his brother.
I'm a nice guy, so I tolerated him for a while. But every time he came over, he'd spend the night, and made himself a little bit more at home every time. Soon enough, I found myself forced to do things that I would never do intentionally, like watch Jay Leno. Also, he confessed his love to my girlfriend, and made a habit of hitting on her right in front of me.
But it was board gaming that put me over the edge. We tried to play a game of Risk 2210, thinking it would shut him up for a while. It didn't. He talked about nothing in particular throughout the whole game, and every time it got to his turn, I had to explain the rules again. After that, he would invariably make an illegal move that indicated he wasn't paying attention. After the first couple rounds of this, we formed an unspoken alliance against him and wiped him off the map because we were tired of explaining. Maybe it was bad sportsmanship, but this dude practiced bad person-ship.
Anyway, he kept calling, so we made up lame excuses for a couple of months and didn't tell him when we moved.
one summer early 1980's-when not in college, I was still involved in the Order of the Arrow (Boy Scout service organization), and the national convention was in my then hometown of Austin, Texas. We were the 'service lodge' and among other duties we got to chauffer (sp?) celebs around. I had the 'coolest car', my dad's 57 Chevy V8 4 door sedan, so I was on schlep duty when I got to drive at different times Miss Indian America (not bad looking, but a TON of makeup) and Miss Texas (Sheri Ryman, who would be 4rthrunner up in Miss America, but projected as the "ideal stats and background to win" which probably caused a backlash) (who was in fact good looking despite costume and make up).
The eldest son of my dad's former boss (from Houston) married a woman from Katy, Texas who was the best friend of Debbie Clemens, who is married to a certain baseball pitcher.
My mother had a good friend in college who ended up marrying a Kenyan. About 15 or 20 years ago, this friend and her son was back in the US and had dinner with us.
Their last name? Obama.
The son's name? Not Barack.
Yes, many years ago I had dinner with Barack Obama's stepmother and half-brother. Does that qualify me for my own secret service detail? (Actually, if I remember correctly, she had divorced her husband when they were over for dinner, so I met Barack's former stepmother and half-brother. But close enough.)
I was a classmate of Kinky Friedman's (of Texas Jewboy fame) sister in High School. Said sister actually was born on the same day/year as moi (and no, we never hooked up in any way shape manner or form).
Actually once met the Kinkster at the wedding of a mutual friend.
[edit]: other Austin and/or music meetings too numerous to mention
actually Massachusetts. A good family friend was the correspondence secretary (read ran the auto signature machine) for Governor Michael Dukakis. Briefly met the Govenor on a vist to her "office".
My senior year in high school Michael Dukakis came to our school for some kind of campaign thing when he was running for president. While waiting in the gym for him to come through and speak to us he came right through were my friends and I were standing. I guess I didn't move or show enough respect or something because I had one of his Secret Service Agents push me out of the way and then tell me that I had better "watch it". I have been a republican ever since.
My aunt's longtime SO was Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, back when Scott made a guest appearance on Babylon 5, in the episode Moments of Transition. My aunt played Scott's Minbari aide. According to family lore (although contradicted by some of Scott's public statements), Scott really wanted to play an alien, but the producers insisted he had to be recognizable. Scott was disappointed and was going to back out, but my aunt insisted that he still take the job so that SHE could play an alien.
yes, I honor the memory of my dear Mother with this classic Tanga offering. No, I have NO shame
anyways, my folks were into 'adventure/eco travel' way before it was cool. Mom was an R.N. and took supplies to help the local missionaries minister to the locals and teach effective sanitation/health practices. This was back in the 60's. Anyways, one trip found them in Venezuela and an ex-pat offered to take them to a waterfall that was worth the trip. the guide: a descendent of Stalky (of Kipling's Stalky and Co. fame). the falls: Angel Falls. AFAIK, Mom was the first white woman to ever see Angel Falls.
unrelated footnote: My great-grandmother AFAIK was the first woman dentist (in the early 1900s) in Russia, but that can't be anywhere near substantiated.
[edit]: My entries are sandwiching the entry of the creater of TradeMaximizer. I've participated in trades that used Trade Maximizer
Mine was the first email address ever printed in the San Francisco Chronicle.
How I know this: After I filed my column (over a 1200 baud modem! This was in 1995!), I got a call from one of their systems people. "Your column contains an @ sign," he said. "Is that really necessary?" Yes, I said, it's necessary, is that a problem? "Well," he said, "I'm going to have to change the typesetting program's configuration to support it. We've never had to print one before. Are you sure you need it?" Quite sure.
- I once spent four hours in a car with Mortimer Adler.
- An ex-girlfriend of mine was at a party in Washington D.C., talking with a woman her age about music. When my ex mentioned how much she loved Bill Evans, the woman brightened and said "I'm Debby."
- When I was in high school, I came to know both Michael Medved and the young woman who would shortly go on to be known as Little Oral Annie, both of whom were a year ahead of me.
- Speaking of high school, my high school calculus teacher's father was Arnold Schoenberg. And my high school sweetheart's father was Jessica Lange's accountant.
- Michael Chabon rented my family's house in Maine for the summer a couple of years back.
- I was described, in the weddings section of the New York Times, as having "gravitas."
- A friend of mine claims credibly that he was in the room when Robert Zimmerman learned how to pronounce Dylan Thomas's first name.
- My grandfather made a management-training video with John Cleese.
- I have eaten a burrito with Nicholson Baker.
- Kevin Reynolds, director of Waterworld, dumped my ex-wife's best friend for Patsy Kensit.
- Speaking of my ex-wife, when she was the receptionist for Berlitz in Beverly Hills, she asked a young Italian woman who was taking English lessons what she did for a living. The woman replied, rather haughtily, "I am George Peppard's mistress." Oh, and the guy who rented the office above my ex-wife's former boyfriend's father's cutlery store: L. Ron Hubbard.
- I'm directly responsible for Rob Poor becoming the bass player for The Loud Family, though I didn't know this until I read it on his web site.
- Though my circle of friends is very small, it includes two people who are licensed to operate a nuclear reactor, and two of the three creators of Diablo.
- Though I haven't slept around all that much, two of the women I've had sex with (in two different states) subsequently ran unsuccessfully for their state legislatures.
- A woman I know was at a small club in Georgia rocking out to a local band. Between sets, the lead singer said, "I've been watching you. You dance like you're from another planet. What's your name?" "Claire," she said.
- I once worked with someone who was in the office down the hall from Harvey Milk and George Moscone when Dan White murdered them.
Other claims to fame:...Mortimer Adler, Bill Evans/"Debby", Michael Medved, Little Oral Annie, Arnold Schoenberg, Jessica Lange, Michael Chabon, Robert Zimmerman, John Cleese, Nicholson Baker, Kevin Reynolds, Patsy Kensit, George Peppard, L. Ron Hubbard, Rob Poor, "Claire," Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Dan White, Mike Mills...
I've highlighted the names I recognize. Tenuous, indeed.
Some of the others are known. Harvey Milk was a gay SF politician who was assassinated back in '78 or so - and George Moscone was the mayor of San Francisco assassinated with Milk, by Dan White. Mike Mills - REM bassist. Little Oral Annie - porn star. Mike Medved - a commentator of some sort. Robert Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan.
Other claims to fame:...Mortimer Adler, Bill Evans/"Debby", Michael Medved, Little Oral Annie, Arnold Schoenberg, Jessica Lange, Michael Chabon, Robert Zimmerman, John Cleese, Nicholson Baker, Kevin Reynolds, Patsy Kensit, George Peppard, L. Ron Hubbard, Rob Poor, "Claire," Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Dan White, Mike Mills...
I've highlighted the names I recognize. Tenuous, indeed.
Bill Evans is/was a famous jazz pianist who wrote and performed a jazz classic, which I have had the privilege to have played myself, entitled 'Waltz for Debby'. To me it was the most exciting entry on his list.
Not many people know that "Waltz for Debby" was written for a five-year-old girl. (Fewer, I'd guess, than those who know that "Re: Person I Knew" is an anagram of Orrin Keepnews.)
When I was in graduate school, I took a class with a woman whose brother played the role of the guy who got thrown through the gun display case glass in that scene in Demolition Man.
I eat lunch almost every week with the nephew of David Huffman, the inventor of the Huffman Coding algorithm.
In computer science and information theory, Huffman coding is an entropy encoding algorithm used for lossless data compression.
...
Huffman coding today is often used as a "back-end" to some other compression method. DEFLATE (PKZIP's algorithm) and multimedia codecs such as JPEG and MP3 have a front-end model and quantization followed by Huffman coding.
When my favorite high school English teacher was a baby, her babysitter was Al Capone's wife.
I was responsible for a large grape jelly stain on the carpet of that English teacher's classroom. She had me sign the stain with a Sharpie. Given how much funding public schools get, my signature is probably still there.
I have been on a highlight reels of SportsCenter twice:
In the mid-90s, my brother was an offensive lineman for Syracuse. I swapped my corner end-zone seats with my parents' "Parents Section" 50 yard line seats. I ended up sitting next to Donovan McNabb's parents (including Mrs. McNabb of Chunky Soup commercial fame). Nice people, both of them--chatted with me the whole game. Anyways, McNabb had a helluva game as he often did those days and the ESPN highlights kept showing footage of his parents cheering in the stands with me right next to them.
I graduated Seton Hall in December of 2002 but didn't walk until the end of spring semester '03. Our graduation was held in the Continental Airlines Arena in the Meadowlands on the same day the Devils were to play the Ducks in the Stanley Cup Finals. That night on SportsCenter, they showed a time lapse movie of the graduation ceremony, conversion to a hockey rink, and game. Granted, I was only about a pixel high on the screen, but still, there I was in a seat located on center ice.
In 1995 my band played at The Memnoch Ball. This was a Halloween blowout at the old St. Elizabeth's Orphanage in New Orleans, the then home of author Anne Rice. Two notable celebrities in attendance were a young Kirsten Dunst and Courtney Love.
Quote:
On October 28, 1995, Anne Rice invited the fans into her world. The Annual Gathering Of The Coven of Anne Rice's Vampire Lestat Fan Club was rechristened The Memnoch Ball and was held at St. Elizabeth's Orphanage in New Orleans. Crowd estimates went as high as 6,000 and the party was featured in People Magazine.
I'm the one playing guitar as a Droog from A Clockwork Orange.
After the party at St. Elizabeth's there was an after party at the music club Tipitina's where all the music acts played extended sets. During our set a very drunk Courtney Love stood right in front of me the entire time. Afterwards backstage she came up to me and started chatting me up. She told me about how her and " my huband, Kurt (who had killed himself just a year earlier) loved that movie (A Clockwork Orange)." She also told me that "my husband, Kurt, had an amp just like that one." For most of the rest of the evening she was in my ear. Finally, her and her girlfriend (equally loaded) cooked up a stunt to go out onstage between bands and flash the crowd. She asked me, "Do you think I should do it?" I told her "No." They did it anyway.
As she left that night she gave me a flower she had gotten from somewhere. To this day my bandmates kid me about the night I could have had Courtney Love.
She has one friend that would get a group of friends together to go to the ball every year. My wife went to about half of them with her.
I couldn't find a pic of her that year, but this is her and My middle child in 1996
2 of the years she was the designated driver due to pregnancies. One of the 'sober' years she was helping a friend out, when someone pushed them aside and stepped on our friends foot. My wife cussed the person out for pushing them around and not even saying excuse me, before she turned around and noticed she was cussing out the host. Who of course just kept walking ignoring them anyway.
I've got a great-great-great something-odd grand uncle by the name of Nathan Hale
I was going to include being a descendant of William Whipple, one signatory on the Declaration of Independence, but he was in no way famous. His signature is barely readable even on a good print (and it explains where my own indecipherable script comes from).
Posted Tue May 13, 2008 7:42 pm
First, ran some drills, then scrimmaged us against them (we got wiped pronto), more drills, then a mixed scrimmage of us/them. Great, great ambassadors for a wonderful sport. So yeah, I have in fact played against the BEST IN THE WORLD 
They did it anyway.
