Aurelio, loving your pics from China!
I haven’t read everyone’s comments as I’m over extended these days… will check in again soon.
Good luck to others applying to NYFA, too.
xoxoxooxooxoxxo

Tom – Ha! You nut.

Here is where I should admit to being totally phobic about massage. No one touches my neck, the backs of my shoulders, or my feet. I have a super-violent fear response. My brother is similar. He used to date a massage therapist (probably the prettiest girl on the planet, and Mr. H agrees), and she could never once give him a massage. Now, all that said, I am absolutely nuts about having my stomach touched, especially with a mouth. I’ll stop there.

Here are my Top 5:

1. I met Hobo Kelly, the host of a 1960s children’s TV show, at a Newberry’s in Santa Ana, California when I was five. I shook her hand and asked her how she knew everyone’s birthday. She told me it was magic. I’ve been searching for that kind of magic ever since.

2. I met Elvira without her gruesome garb in the women’s room backstage at the Grammy Awards in about 1984. She is a redhead by birth and one of the most naturally beautiful and smart women I’ve ever met.

3. I did a spot interview with one of my childhood heroes Joan Baez backstage at the Grammy’s. I was star-stunned in her presence and couldn’t think of any weighty questions to ask.

4. That same year I tried to connect with Bob Dylan, but he was rushed through the interview stage before I could give him my card.

5. I was a talent escort for the Academy of Country Music Awards and attached to Reba McIntyre. She was the nicest, most down-to-earth woman and chatted with me like we’d known each other for years. Later that afternoon, while I was dressed in a gown for the broadcast awards, Loretta Lynn and Naomi Judd both told me they liked my dress.

I’ve met quite a few celebrities through the years, but except for a few creeps (who shall go unnamed), most of them are just folk like you and me.

Tom – Who loves you?

And yes, you are near 100% on your football picks. Just always pick my team to win and I’m happy. You KNOW I’m a sore loser. (And don’t tell me I’m a sore winner, too. I hate that.)

Fun list you have. I used to date the son of one of Count Basie’s trumpeters.

Sarah – Never to late to play! Here’s a link to Tan Ajahn Buddhadasa; he’s worth checking out. The dream is sweet!

5. A high five by Ted Koppel after graduating from college (he was the commencement speaker).

4. A strange serenade from Heath Ledger while on the set of a certain superhero movie filming in a certain big city this summer. Heath was in full makeup and wardrobe, in full character, and he was strolling by to set up for a shot. He was very slim and had a pronounced slouch (he looked from the side almost like a question mark) and he was singing some dirty-sounding little ditty under his breath. As he passed by me, he slowed down, made eye contact and sung a little louder, as if he were doing it just for me. As he passed, I was thinking, Geez, Heath ain’t got no ass, since it seemed minimized to nonexistence by that question-mark slouch and his general slenderness.

3. The Famous Chicken. During the 2006 annual trip my brother and Dad and I take to Cincinnati to see a weekend of ballgames, we stopped in Indianapolis to catch a minor league doubleheader. To our delight, The Famous Chicken, the greatest baseball mascot of all time, was there doing his shtick, which is still great after more than 30 years. I had him sign my baseball cap (with both his real name — Ted Giannoulis — and as “The Chicken”), and we all had our pictures taken with him biting our heads. I think Sue’s seen the picture: I look like an 11-year-old again.

2. Harry Caray. The Hall of Fame announcer and renowned lush and all around great guy. I was a reporter for a daily paper and I got the press pass to Wrigley for one day back in 1988. I brought my dad along as my “photographer,” and we went down on the field to watch batting practice up close. Harry was just wrapping up his pre-game interview with the Cubs manager, and we stopped him to say hi and that we knew his good pal Pete Vonachen in Peoria. Harry says, “Heeeey! Good ol’ Pete — did you know he always keeps a divorce lawyer on retainer because of me?” He chatted with us for about 10 minutes, until the WGN folks said, “C’mon, Harry… c’mon, Harry.” Harry was not particularly tall, and his fingers were short and stubby like those of my Uncle Paul who has Down’s Syndrome. But he was as genuinely nice and garrulous and a little bit drunk-sounding as you’d ever imagine.

1. Count Basie. I was 17 and was going to my third concert of Count Basie and his Orchestra, this one in a college gymnasium. I was wondering aloud during the intermission if they’d be playing my favorite Basie/Fred Foster tune “Blues in Hoss’s Flat,” so my dad told me to go down and ask. Since Basie’s longtime rhythm guitarist Freddie Green was already sitting on his chair, I went over and asked. Freddie looked up at me sleepily and said, “I dunno. You’ll have to ask HIM.” He pointed over by the door. “Him” was, of course, Count Basie. Short, built like a bowling ball. I went over to him and asked the same question. He gave me one of those exaggerated, slow up-and-down looks that says, “Who the hell are YOU to make a request?” Then he smiled and said, just as slowing, “I’ll see what I can do.”

I thanked him and stumbled back to my seat, realizing my question came across wrong and knowing that the Count went to his grave thinking I was just some sunburned, uppity white kid.

1. Robin Williams – Met him at my college, Univ. of Puget Sound, chatted with him, showed him around the ‘press room’ that is, the little room behind the auditorium.

2. Urula Hegi – She was my thesis adviser before she was scooped up by Oprah and made a ‘Book of the Month Club’ selectee; then she moved to NY, of course. Isn’t that where all the REAL writers go?????

3. John Wayne – Okay, that might be the coolest famous person I met except that I was only 7 and I didn’t know he was famous; only that he was tall, very tall and I ran into him and I went to one of his houses for a birthday party for his daughter Marisa and we rode on a pony. And my mother taught at the school where I went to school where he sometimes dropped off Marisa and we would see him there on occasion but not often enough for me to apparently know that he was famous.

4. Tan Ajahn Buddhadasa – Okay, this is probably the most amazing person I met though he died in the 90s. He was my monastery teacher in Southern Thailand at the amazing Suan Mokkh monastery in 1987. Being in his presence was one of the most calming experiences of my life.

5. Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, and Michelle Pfeiffer – So, about twice a year for the past 10 years, I’ve had a dream that I am at lunch with Susan, Meryl and Michelle, and we are chatting and laughing and having the best time together and while I really haven’t met them, the dreams are so incredibly vivid that I would swear to you I have. If I ever see one of the in an airport, I’m worried that I’d rush up to them, give them a big hug and ask them how they are doing since our last lunch because I always catch them up on my life during those dates!