Encounters with Famous People

I decided it would be fun to make a list of famous people I have met in my life. As I compiled the list, I realized that I had to first decide what constitutes "famous", and second what constitutes "meeting" someone. So, for the sake of this list, "famous" means that the person is a national figure. So, current Oklahoma governor Brad Henry, and past Oklahoma governors, Howard Edmondson, David Walters, and George Nigh did not make the cut. Sorry guys. "Meeting" someone means that words were exchanged between us. So, by this definition, being on the front row of a Who concert does not mean that I have met Pete Townshend, nor does catching Stewart Copeland's drum stick at a Police concert count as an adequate exchange. Asking Bono how he was doing and having him reply "fine", however was a meeting. Finally there are two people that have been nationally famous for brief periods of time that I left off of the list but it was difficult. They are Washington attorney John Dowd (Pete Rose prosecutor, the defender of John McCain in the Keating Five debacle) and former Penn Square Bank chief lending officer Bill Patterson, who at one time was blamed for nearly destroying Western civilization single-handedly. So now the list of famous people I have met:


Singer/Songwriter Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. We have several mutual friends here in wonderful Oklahoma City. I met him at a wedding.


U2 Before they were famous they played in a small bar in Oklahoma City and I chatted briefly with them between sets.


The late great Shirley Hemphill from the T.V. show What's Happening. I met her when I worked as the assistant manager of Joker's Comedy Club in Oklahoma City in 1982/83.


Olympic Gold-Medalist Gymnast Shannon Miller. I met her at the home of my boss just before I was hired to be a stockbroker in 1990.


Actor/Comedian Robert Wuhl. Another encounter from Joker's.


Singer/Songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard (Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother, Home With The Armadillo). We met at London's Heathrow Airport in 1997. He was with Terry Ware, a musician from Norman, Oklahoma that was a friend of my aunt's.


Pat Paulsen. Another Joker's performer.


Actor O-Lan Jones. We met in San Francisco after a comedy improv performance in which she was cast. She has been in many movies, and is also famous for being Sam Shepard's ex-wife.


Mickey Rooney. We met at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport - a very nice guy.


LBJ - we met at the funeral for former Oklahoma governor/senator James Howard Edmondson. I was seven.


Jenny Jones. Can you believe she had a career in stand up comedy before she went on to become whatever it is she became? I can't believe it either and I saw her perform (at Joker's).


Nationally famous black republican J.C. Watts. We met when he was just a locally famous former OU quarterback.


James Garner. I met him when I was a kid and he was a huge star. He really impressed me by being a normal nice guy.


Former FEMA Director James Lee Witt. We met at DFW Airport. Very nice guy.


Graham Nash. We met in front of the Sheraton in downtown Oklahoma City just before a CSN concert.


Test Pilot Scott Crossfield. We met on a plane and had one of the most entertaining conversations of my entire life. One day I'll write about it.


Chelsea Clinton. I ran into her leaving a Broadway play. She's got her dad's charm.


T.V. Personality Byron Allen. Not the high point of my time at Joker's.


Comedian Bill Hicks. He may have been the high point of my brief career in the comedy club biz. Without a doubt, he's the most talented comic I met while working at Jokers. He died a few years later but he still has a cult following today (deservedly so).


Former OU Head Football Coach Barry Switzer.



And last but not least, Al Franken. We met at a convention I attended where he was the after-dinner speaker. There is a good story about what happened after we met that I'll need to write about some time.

Thats it. If I encounter any other famous people, I'll let you know. I know how important this stuff is in our fame-worshipping society.

Why am I unhappy?

More wisdom from the sages:

"Anguish emerges from craving for life to be other than it is. In the face of a changing world, such craving seeks consolation in something permanent and reliable, in a self that is in control of things, in a God that is in charge of destiny. The irony of this strategy is that it turns out to be the cause of what it seeks to dispel. In yearning for anguish to be assuaged in such ways, we reinforce what creates anguish in the first place: the craving for life to be other than it is. We find ourselves spinning in a vicious cycle. The more acute the anguish, the more we want rid of it, but the more we want rid of it, the more acute it gets."
--Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs

Bonnaroo Part 1

I am planning to spend a short summer vacation at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. My daughter, Olivia and I will be driving out there and camping out. It should be a great time. My favorite rock band, Radiohead, is headlining the show. I will also be enjoying Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Ben Folds, and some other lesser known bands that should be really good. Olivia is most looking forward to seeing The Streets perform, although I can't handle much rap, even when it is with a British accent.

The festival has a design contest every year. If someone submits a graphic design and the show producers decide to use it in any way, then the festival is free. Being the renaissance man that I am, I took a chance and submitted my own design for the contest:


I should find out whether or not it wins at the end of this week. Wish me luck.

Why do all my relationships fail?

In this and future blog postings, I will be sharing wisdom that has helped me survive the trials and tribulations of everyday life. I will begin with the answer to the immortal question: Why do all my relationships fail?

"If in your relationships you experience both "love" and the opposite of love -- attack, emotional violence, and so on -- then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your "love" has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego need for a more complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily meets. It is the ego's substitute for salvation, and for a short time it almost does feel like salvation.

But there comes a point when your partner behaves in ways that fail to meet your needs, or rather those of your ego. The feelings of fear, pain, and lack that are an intrinsic part of egoic consciousness but had been covered up by the "love relationship" now resurface. Just as with every other addiction, you are on a high when the drug is available, but invariably there comes a time when the drug no longer works for you. When those painful feelings reappear, you feel them even more strongly than before, and what is more, you now perceive your partner as the cause of those feelings. This means that you project them outward and attack the other with all the savage violence that is part of your pain. This attack may awaken the partner's own pain, and he or she may counter your attack. At this point, the ego is still unconsciously hoping that its attack or its attempts at manipulation will be sufficient punishment to induce your partner to change their behavior, so that it can use them again as a cover-up for your pain.

Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to -- alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person -- you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever."
--Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now