Project One, Andrew Damiter

When it comes to celebrity encounters, my family and circle of friends aren’t exactly full of exciting stories. Some don’t have any stories. This is not to say that there is a lack of celebrity-centered conversations, but there are few stories that involve actually meeting a celebrity. If I was going to gauge reactions to celebrity encounter conversations I was going to have to meticulously plan my approach. I only have one story in my bag of tricks and it probably wasn’t going to work with everyone, meaning I was going to have to steer conversations towards my subjects’ stories. Or I’d just lie.

I decided to start with my father, since he had a direct connection to my one and only story. Both of my parents were die hard Moody Blues fans for many years and would drag both myself and my sister to the occasional concert. For those not in the know, the Moody Blues are a progressive rock group out of England. They’ve existed since the dawn of man and continue to add backup singers and new musicians to their ensemble like spare parts for their aging bodies. In the mid ‘90s my family and I attended a concert in Atlantic City, New Jersey and came face to face with a member of the band.

Surely my dad would recall meeting Graeme Edge, the band’s longtime drummer, in an elevator the afternoon of the concert. In fact I got my chance shortly after finalizing my plan of attack. The phone rang as I was sitting in my room, and it was my dad calling to ask me to check the score of the Phillies baseball game. He was at work that night, as he plays in a band that caters to resorts, and had no other way of checking. I looked up the score for him and then began to probe. Being blunt was likely to work best, so I asked him straight out if he had any plans to see the Moody Blues in concert again as I had recently read they were touring. He paused. This was going to be painful.

He said he hadn’t thought about it and would look into it when he got home, which meant that he would forget about it the moment he hung up the phone. He quickly asked where I had heard that and a simple reply of “the internet” quenched his curiosity. I could tell I was losing him so I sighed and dove in and asked him if he remembered that time we met the drummer in the elevator.

“Oh, you mean when your sister got scared and he chased her out of the elevator?” he said. “Yes dad, that time,” I said back. “Yes, I do,” he replied. “What about it?”

Thanks dad, you’re a big help.

I had one more trick up my sleeve. My dad is an elementary school teacher in New Jersey and he was recognized for his excellence some years ago on a televised award show with a vast number of other teachers. Actor Edward James Olmos just happened to be handing out the awards. When my dad went up to take his award, Mr. Olmos reached out his hand and said “Congratulations, Andrew.” My dad, stunned, looked at him and sheepishly replied, “How did you know my name?” Without breaking his smile, Mr. Olmos replied though the side of his mouth, “You’re wearing a nametag.” As embarrassing as getting chased out of an elevator by an aging drummer? I hoped so.

Mr. Olmos also stars on the television show Battlestar Galactica, which I am a big fan of. My dad is aware of my enthusiasm for the show, so I thought I could use this as a transition. I asked my dad if he planned to catch any of the Battlestar reruns when they came on, as I had been pushing the show on the family for awhile. He replied with a slightly confused no. He wasn’t getting the hint, so I helped. I recalled the time he encountered Mr. Olmos and likened it to my sister’s awkward encounter. “I guess,” he said, and I sighed and told him I had to get ready for bed. Experiment one unsuccessful.

Next on the list were my roommate and his girlfriend. My roommate is my second cousin and I’ve known him for most of my life and I’ve been friends with his girlfriend for a decent amount of time. How would I start a conversation that would eventually lead to a discussion of my encounter with the drummer of the Moody Blues? And even if I did get there, would my roommate even react? His parents were obsessed with them and because of this he grew to hate them with a burning passion. Armed with my arsenal I charged in.

The two of them were sitting around the table in the dining room of my apartment, both plugging away on their computers and paying no mind to me as I walked from my room to the kitchen, as I tend to do when I need to get more water. It was growing late, nearing midnight, and I felt their minds would be weak enough to allow my random, off-the-wall thoughts to hit them hard enough to spark an amazingly in-depth and informative conversation. I started off simple, getting my water and coming back to sit down at the table, mentioning how I was bored and I wanted them to entertain me. I asked them to tell me about their days, and I glazed over as they did.

The conversation jumped from work to school to when was the next time we were going to go out drinking. I squeezed in a few stories about previous drunken escapades, setting the stage for future stories. Pleased with the groundwork I had laid I excused myself and went to my room to hop on my computer and check my email. After a minute I trekked back through the dining room and towards the kitchen. When I got near the kitchen I stopped, turned and simply said, “So did I ever tell you guys I met Graeme Edge once?”

They both looked at me blankly. They were confused. I told them who he was and my roommate shifted his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and uttered a “So?” as unenthusiastically as he possibly could. I looked towards his girlfriend and she appeared equally unexcited. I escaped into the kitchen to plan my next move. The next step was obvious: lie. I pulled a name out of the air and turned back towards the dining room with newly gained confidence and, of course, a full glass of water.

“I met John Petrucci once too.” Mr. Petrucci is the lead guitarist for the band Dream Theater, a band both my roommate and I greatly enjoy listening to. He gave me a very questioning “When?” to which I quickly recanted that I bumped into him at the last concert we went to as I was walking around by the stage and he, my roommate, was in the bathroom. “No, you didn’t,” my roommate replied, and the conversation was dead.

What does this say about how people react to celebrity stories? If my little group is any indication, everyone couldn’t care less and the high status given to celebrities is slowly disintegrating around us. Of course this is not the case, as I apparently live around the most stone-faced people on the face of the earth. Try as I might, they were no more impressed by my stories of celebrity encounters than my ability to read baseball scores off the Web. Or perhaps I just don’t have very good stories. I guess it’s time to start stalking celebrities for new material.