A couple weeks ago I caught the Fujiya & Miyagi show at La Vitrola. Four or five years ago I licensed a couple of their tracks for background on the overview videos for Cinemin Swivel and Slice, (just a warm-up for their “Uh” appearance soon after in Breaking Bad) and have loosely kept in touch since. Great musicians, great guys! I chatted with David and Matt after the show and, despite being a fan, I left without asking for a group photo. Partly I forgot, but partly I’m just not into the starstruck fan thing. But a memento would have been nice – oh well.
Likewise, a few weeks ago I hosted a casual patio happy hour with some old colleagues from my time several years ago at Airborne Entertainment/Mobile (loved that team!). It was a smaller group than years past but it was nonetheless a nice visit. Alas, none of us remembered to take a picture.
Then yesterday at Montreal ComicCon I was within a few metres of Hulk Hogan. I’m not really a fan, and they were discouraging renegade snapshots, but I suppose I should have captured proof of my proximity. Right? That’s the internet thing to do, yeah?
Anyways, these “incidents” reminded me of how bad I can be at the whole “pic or it didn’t happen” game.
My biggest fail was undoubtedly on my second visit to Montreal in 2001 (the visit that lured me into moving here). I’m a fan of Depeche Mode and I’d flown out to catch their Toronto and Montreal shows. On the day after the Montreal gig, while killing time downtown before my flight back, I bumped into the couple that I’d hitched a ride with a couple days earlier just outside the HMV (then still an epicenter of recorded music in the city). They excitedly informed me that none other than Martin L. Gore was inside – unnoticed and buying a tall stack of CDs. I did the fan-iest thing I’ve ever done and summoned the courage to approach him and… wait for it… thanked him for the music. He said “you’re welcome” and turned around and went back outside. When he exited, the couple asked for a picture with him and they handed me their camera. I snapped these shots (honest I did!)…
It happened fast because he understandably didn’t want to be recognized on the busy sidewalk as a celeb. He kindly shook our hands and walked off. Soon after, I remembered that I had a disposable camera (pre-digital days) in my pocket. Argh! I kicked myself the whole, long flight back home.
I did the same thing in 2004 when I organized Maisonneuve‘s first-ever launch event outside of Montreal, in Toronto. Called Bizarre Bazaar, the event was a small variety show format featuring a reading from the magazine, a stand-up comedian (the inimitable Mike Paterson), and some young band called Patrick Watson. It was Patrick, Simon, Robbie, and Mishka’s first gig in T.O. and a half-filled small room at the just-opened (and now quite trendy) Drake Hotel got an amazing show (grand piano and everything).
Kind of a historic moment considering the heights they’ve reached since. But again, I forgot to get a pic with the guys.
Speaking of Maisonneuve, without photographic evidence who would believe that we actually made the world’s biggest poutine. (And, yes, people ate it all up. There was a line out the door, in fact.)
Fortunately, not all my brushes with famous folks have gone unchronicled. In 2005 I was recruited (with seven other colleagues) by my Airborne boss Andy Nulman to be an extra in one of the sketches for the John Cleese Just for Laughs gala (which Andy was directing). I got to be Mourner #8 at Cleese’s fake funeral. That’s me at the back right.
What a rush! What was cooler, though, was meeting him backstage. We were well-dressed and in a line against a crowded hallway wall and, in unbreakable character, he somberly shook each of our hands, saying to each of us how sorry he was for our profound loss. I was grinning ear-to-ear; I wish there’d been a shot of that receiving line.
As an aside, and also undocumented, was our make-up room encounter with Drew Carey, who had a stand-up segment in the show. All of us extras were too nervous to approach him but, no matter, he approached us instead. Yeah, the big-time sitcom star approached eight lowly one-sketch extras and he couldn’t have been more warm and enthusiastic. Cool guy.
Sometimes the encounters are with famous places. Like the Paramount Picture lot…
[hmm, where did that shot go?]
Or One Infinite Loop…
In 2010, after many months of trying (for Cinemin), I finally wrangled a meeting at Apple HQ in Cupertino. It was cool to be in the mothership, to pass by Eddy Cue in the courtyard, and to experience the bright whiteness of the place. I remember being excited for the meeting but more than a little paranoid about entering the place with my (company-issued and outdated) Blackberry in my pocket. Such an imposter! Surely, there are geniuses whose job is simply to usher out the infidels.
Apropos of nothing, here is a shot of Shaq holding a Cinemin Swivel (in 2011). I didn’t take this photo but I squealed a little when it was sent to me. That was my baby!
During my WowWee years I would make the annual trip to Vegas each January for CES. In my first year there our booth was in one-half of the old Sands Convention Center. Curiously, the organizers put the kids toys exhibitors there (rather than in the main convention centers) just next door to the week’s other big event, the AVN adult entertainment convention. How surreal it was each morning to watch khaki’d tech nerds and scantily-clad starlets walk down the same huge corridor connecting Sands to the Venetian and Palazzo! Wish I had a pic of that.
One photo I’m glad I have even though it caught a rather embarrassing moment is this one.
That’s me on stage at Last Gadget Standing shouting at a toy robot – Joebot – to move. LGS is a popular high-pressure showcase event for 10 lucky finalists to demo their cutting-edge product in front of about 400+ media people. I wasn’t managing the robots line but I was one of only a couple company reps at CES that year, so I got assigned the pitch. The Joebot prototype was flown in from Hong Kong the day before and I was up all night studying its functionality – including then-new voice command – and crafting a 4-minute presentation of it. I was ready, but two things threw me off script. The first was that the presentation before me cleverly included a very convincing Johnny Cash impersonator to win audience votes; even with a cool robot, Johnny’s a tough act to follow. The second was the unknown engineering detail of Joebot automatically turning off his voice command microphone if there’s too much ambient noise – like, say, that of my voice on a ballroom PA system. Sigh. (Fortunately, I faked it by using a remote control hidden under the table – so it wasn’t a total disaster.)
Which leads me to what I consider to be one of the coolest “pic or it didn’t happen” photos ever: this one of my mum as a young girl, the lucky winner of a radio station contest to meet the real Johnny Cash.
Now that’s a special moment!
