Last night I was watching yet another hilarious episode of the Simpsons and I started thinking about the time I got to meet Harry Shearer. In addition to being the bass guitar player ‘Derek Smalls’ in the mock/rock group ‘Spinal Tap’, Harry is the voice for tons of Simpsons characters, including Mr. Burns, Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Otto Mann, Reverend Lovejoy, Lenny, Kent Brockman, Dr. Hibbert and numerous others.
As it turns out Harry happens to be good friends with one of my friends, Dave Malone. They both live in New Orleans and Harry has sat in and played bass with Dave’s band The Radiators a few times. On Tuesday, April 26th, 2005 I flew from Minneapolis, MN down to New Orleans for the Jazz & Heritage Festival that is held there every year during the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. I had been going to the Jazz Fest each year since the mid-90’s and it is the greatest collection of music and fun you could imagine in the coolest city in the land.
So that first day in town I checked in to my hotel room at the Sheraton on Canal St. which is next to the French Quarter. I had a fairly early flight down from Minneapolis and my running partner for the week Mike Murphy was not due into town until the next day so I decided to spend the afternoon walking around. It was a beautiful sunny day and I heard there were some bands playing at a day festival in Woldenberg Park which was just a few blocks away on the Mississippi riverfront.
The plan for later that night was to meet up with Dave for the 4th annual ‘Ponderosa Stomp’. It was billed as a “Celebrating the Unsung Heroes of the Blues, Soul, Rockabilly, Swamp Pop and New Orleans R&B" concert. It was a dream line-up featuring the sonic rumblings of Link Wray and dozens of other old famous musicians and pioneers of rock and roll. It was being held at the Rock ‘n Bowl, a kickass old bowling alley that is also a music venue. Dave told me Harry Shearer was going to join us so it would be the three of us. No way! I was psyched to meet one of my heroes, plus Dave had us on the guest list so we did not have to worry about tickets.
So I got to the park and was hanging out at the riverfront festival, listening to music and having a Turbo Dog beer. Then I ran into my buddies Tommy The Freak and B-Dog from Minneapolis who were also there for the Jazz Fest. I decided to call Dave to let him know I was in town and to make plans for that night. Just as Dave was telling me that he had been trying to contact Harry but could not get a hold of him, B-Dog nudged me and pointed to a guy on a bike. It was freakin’ Harry Shearer slowly riding right by us on his 10-speed all decked out in his helmet and riding gear. What were the odds?
He headed to the backstage area of the festival and I said: "Holy crap, hang on Dave!" I ran after Harry but he slipped past the guards and disappeared backstage. So I walked up to the guards and without slowing down I held up my cell phone and mumbled something about how I had an important phone call for Harry Shearer. The two guards just stepped aside as I walked on through. I have learned with backstages that as long as you act like you belong there, you can oftentimes get there.
I looked around, spotted Harry and walked up to him with my phone in hand and said: "Hey man, I've got Dave Malone on the phone for you.”
He looked down at me with this weird, puzzled look and I could just see him thinking to himself: "What the f*ck? Who is this guy, how did he know I'd be here, and how did Dave know I was here?" It was hilarious. I handed him the phone and he looked at it like it was a bomb or something, but when he finally put it to his ear and cautiously said "Hello?" he realized it really was Dave and they talked for about 5 minutes.
It turned out something else had come up and Harry unfortunately would not be able to make the Ponderosa Stomp concert with us. So I did not get to hang with Harry that night, but I did get to talk to him for a little while backstage at the riverfront which was pretty fun. I was tempted to ask him to record an answer message on my cell voicemail...something from Mr. Burns or Otto Mann but I restrained myself. He was a very cool, friendly guy and that is how I got to meet one of my heroes while down in New Orleans.
And although Harry could not make the evening's festivities, I still got to hang out with Dave all night, who is not only one of my best friends but also a hero of mine. I knew him as the guitarist/singer in my favorite band the Radiators for over 10 years before I finally got to meet him and forge a lifelong friendship. With the break-up of the Radiators in 2011 and us living on opposite ends of the country I do not get to see Dave that much anymore and that sucks, but we still manage to stay close. He is not only an incredible musician, but he is a good person, he is hilarious to be around, and he is one of the coolest dudes you could ever hope to meet.
Another hero of mine that I sort of crossed paths with is a famous black actor named Danny who has my last name (think ‘Lethal Weapon’). It was December of 2000 and I was in San Francisco, CA for 3 nights of the Radiator’s New Years Eve run of shows there at the Great American Music Hall. Ever since the Grateful Dead had stopped doing New Years Eve shows, starting in 1992 I replaced the Dead with the Radiators for my New Years Eve entertainment, wherever they were playing. Over the years I have gotten to seen them in New Orleans, Denver, Minneapolis, New York and San Francisco on New Year’s Eve.
So it was December 29th and I had flown in from Minneapolis. I had just checked into the Miyako Hotel where I was rooming with my friend Dirty Dan who was flying in later that day from Madison, WI. Then I ran into my friend Penny McCartney in the elevator who had flown in from Denver and was also staying in the hotel. She said that she had just run into the famous actor Danny down in the lobby! She literally ran into him as she turned around in the lobby and smacked right into his chest. Penny is as smart and witty as she is beautiful, and ever quick with an hilarious line she looked up at Danny and said: “Mister?” (from the movie ‘The Color Purple’). They both burst into laughter. It turned out he was in town and staying at the same hotel for the weekend. Cool! I hoped that I would get to see him at some point and say hi.
I went up to my room and was unpacking my luggage and settling in to the room when my room phone rang. Hmm, maybe it was the front desk…or maybe it was Mitch Manson or Jon Kreutzmann or Jeffy S. Thompson or Dave S. Thompson or one of the many friends I knew who were staying at the hotel calling to say hi. I picked up and said 'hello' and a friendly guy on the other end said: “Hey man, how’s it going?”
“Great! Who is this?” I said.
“Felix! What’s up?”
Well that was weird. Cool, but weird. I had just been in New Orleans two weeks earlier with my buddy Ernie Hagen to see the Radiators at a great place called the Maple Leaf. A guy named Felix had put on the shows there and it was a spectacular 2-night long party. I met Felix for the first time that weekend and he was a great guy. We talked for a bit but it wasn’t like were suddenly great friends or anything. So why is he calling me here in San Francisco? Ohh, he must be here too to see the Radiators I reasoned. When we talked in New Orleans I must have mentioned to him that I was coming to San Fran. What a great guy. We had only talked for a little while a couple weeks earlier and now he was reaching out to me and must want to hang out…cool!
So we talked for about 5 or 10 minutes, but it was an incredibly strange phone call. First of all, he didn’t really sound like Felix. He sounded more…kind of black. And when he asked how it was going in the ‘city’ I of course assumed he meant Minneapolis so I said it had been a pretty cold winter and we had just got some snow a few days ago. He just laughed strangely, like I had told some sort of weird joke. He asked what I had been doing lately and I told him and he seemed puzzled...like it was strange that I had been ice-fishing. I asked him what he had been doing the last couple weeks and then I was puzzled...he had just been in New York seeing some friends about shooting a movie?
Something was not right and I started wondering if this was a different Felix? Do I even know this guy that I had been talking to for 10 minutes?? At the same time I was thinking that, Felix must have started to wonder too because we both suddenly stopped the conversation and I said: “Is this Felix from New Orleans?”
“No, this is Felix from Los Angeles. Is this Danny?”
Holy crap, suddenly it clicked. He thought I was the famous actor! We both have the same last name so the front desk must have rang the wrong room! I explained that I was just some guy from Minneapolis not his famous friend Danny…and that I had thought he was my friend Felix from New Orleans not Danny’s friend from L.A. We both laughed our asses off when we realized we were two total strangers holding a conversation together for 10 minutes. I told him to tell Danny ‘hi’ for me if he ever got a hold of him and we laughed some more and hung up. I never did run into the real Danny that weekend, but I did get mistaken for him which was nice in a way.
Another one of my heroes that I had a chance to meet was Dan Aykroyd. I had read in the paper that on Saturday, 3/21/09, Dan Aykroyd was going to be at Haskell’s Liquor Store not far from my house in Plymouth, MN. He was promoting his own line of wines, as well as Crystal Skull vodka. I had to go. It was from 1-4pm and when I got there at noon with my buddy Frank The Tank we were probably 200th in line out in the parking lot. The scene was like a huge party, with people drinking in line and lots of folks dressed up as their favorite Aykroyd movie character. There was even a exact replica of the Ghostbuster’s car the Ectomobile, owned by four fans all dressed up as the Ghostbusters.
A little before 1pm the Crystal Skull vodka truck pulled into the lot with Dan riding shotgun and everybody was buzzing with excitement, and also from the free booze they were handing out in sampling stations along the way in line. By the time we actually started moving around 1:30pm the line was down the street, around the corner and out of site. I finally arrived at Dan’s table around 2:30pm and I was feeling pretty good from sampling the numerous beers, wines, vodkas and whiskies they had available.
I had a lot of time to think about what I would say to him before I got to his table and I wanted it to be something different. The line snaked throughout the store and you could see/hear everybody talking Ghostbusters and popular stuff like that with him. He was being very friendly with everyone but I was sure he was bored with all that and I wanted to be different. So when I got up to the table I leaned in and said: “Closing of Winterland, 1978.” As I said he had been very friendly and smiling and obliging picture takers, but at the same time he was keeping it moving because of the hundreds and hundreds of people waiting. But when I said that he suddenly stopped autographing bottles, got this huge grin on his face, put down his pen, looked up at me and said: “Where you there?!”
I told him I was only 12 at the time and didn’t start following the Grateful Dead around till a few years later, but that I had watched the DVD many times. (It is from the 12/31/78 Grateful Dead show where they closed the historic Winterland Theatre in San Francisco and the Blues Brothers opened). He then started telling me what an awesome night that was, but that he was tripping out of his gourd on acid because the Grateful Dead had dosed him without telling him. He said they were notorious for that and he should have known it would happen. He said it was great and he had a blast, except that when he got out on stage he was so high that he almost swallowed his harmonica when he first started playing it.
He then proceeded to give me recipe and food ideas for each of the wines…something about scrumptious little tiny baby lambs with the Chardonnay and succulent filet mignon with the Cabernet. At first I couldn’t tell if he was serious or if it was a comedy bit or maybe both. He had slipped into that same voice he used in Saturday Night Live when he was doing a fake commercial for the Bass-o-Matic or something. It was hilarious and he had me cracking up. It was all so worth the wait.
I scored a signed poster, signed bottles of his Chardonnay and Cabernet and the Crystal Skull vodka he was promoting, but more importantly than that I got to talk to a really cool dude. In that short time he made me feel like we were friends and I kept thinking I should invite him out to do something that night. I really wanted to hang with him but of course I didn’t say anything. I finally forced myself to leave, but I had a great time meeting another one of my heroes. This casual conversation with a super-star just further cemented my knowledge that heroes are real people too.
