CELEBRITIES
My dear friend Bette Midler once said to me, “Gary…never be a name dropper. No one likes a name dropper.”
Tough.
I have had a pretty cool life in that department, working with and rubbing my shoulders with some pretty shiny shoulders. Working with people like that ALMOST elevates you to their level except for the fame, the money or pretty much every other measure of self worth.
It’s the brush-bys that stand out. The famous people you sort of meet in strange ways and odd places that stand out in your memory.
Such as:
I was working in the studio at CBS in New York City on the 7th floor. I was told that James Taylor was working on the second floor. Where the vending machines were. That pretty much tells you where this is going. I lurked (yes, lurked) around those machines every second I wasn’t needed in the hopes I would see him.
Finally he walked out the studio door, looked at me lurking, and this was the exchange:
“Hey, is there a bathroom on this floor?”
My response: “Yes. Just go up those stairs”
See the wondrous part of that exchange? If the bathrooms were on THIS floor then why would he need to go upstairs? Get the comic symmetry? Let’s all take a moment to imagine the look he gave me… followed by a sigh and finally a resigned walk to the stairwell.
I once ran into a friend in a lobby who was standing with Sting. Mr. Sting. The Stingster.
He said “Oh, Sting, this is Gary Burr, a very successful songwriter here in Nashville.”
Sting looked off about seven feet to my left, held out his hand and said, “Oh…hello Jerry.”
I was working with my friend Mark Hudson in LA and got to his studio only to be told that he was having breakfast across the street. Always one for a free meal, I went to the café and found him breaking bread with Ozzy Osbourne.
Introductions were made. I had barely sat down when Mark stood up and announced that he had to go to the men’s room.
“Hey Ozzy….tell Gary that story you told me about your assistant and the car.”
Hudson left and did not return for fifteen minutes while Ozzy proceeded to tell me this hilarious story. I think it was hilarious. I could not understand a word he said. Granola was flying out of his mouth and into my eyes while he stuttered and sputtered like a small watercraft having a seizure. I had to sit nodding my head like I understood ONE word, till Hudson came back with a smile on his face. Cruel man.
And lastly:
One fine sunny day I was clothes shopping at a high end store on Melrose. I say shopping because I was never going to buy. A T-shirt was $700. I was with a friend and was about to go into a dressing room to try on a pair of jeans that would have cost more than a new Prius. I had my back to the dressing room and was talking to my friend. I held open the dressing room door, not looking behind me, when I saw his face get weird. Weird and red. I let the door swing back shut and asked him what was wrong.
He said : “Heather Graham was in that dressing room naked.”
Okay, I didn’t officially MEET her…….