STATUS: It’s late at night. That should pretty much sum it up. I’m back in Denver though.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? MIDDLE OF THE ROAD by Pretenders
If you are going to have a brush with the famous, it helps to know who they are.
This is a completely non-publishing blog entry so feel free to skip it. I just thought you folks would get a kick out of this story. I’ll be back to talking about agency agreements tomorrow.
On my trip to St. Louis this week, I brought Chutney on the plane with me. She rides in the cabin with me and she’s a great traveler so it’s fun and easy. On my return trip to Denver, I arrive at my gate only to discover that the plane is delayed. Never a good thing when traveling with a dog but I notice a gentlemen softly strumming a guitar. Chutney loves music so I decide to sit near the guitar player for the mellow, calming effect. Worked like a charm. Chutney curled up and went to sleep but not before a gregarious fellow came over to chat. He had to meet her because he had just adopted two rat terrier brothers. I got to see the family pictures on his Mac and everything.
What can I say, Chutney is such a guy magnet.
So he goes back to strum on another guitar and it starts to dawn on me that several guys in this traveling party are quite musically gifted. But hey, I’m working on my computer and Chutney is certainly benefitting from the music (and the attention) so although unusual, I don’t think much about it. Then several young people approached the guitar strummers to ask for autographs.
Yes, I’m a little slow on the uptake. These guys I’d been casually chatting with are famous musicians and even if I had no clue as to who they were, others obviously did.
So here are the fellows I let pet Chutney while waiting for our plane at gate A18 in St. Louis.
I’m off to download some of their tunes onto the iPod so that I won’t be accused of living under a rock or something.
How funny!! It pays to have an adorable dog, eh?
ROFL! We discovered STI because of some background music of theirs that NPR used a few years ago. Took my husband mulitple emails and phone calls to our NPR station to find out who they were.
That is too cool! Nothing breaks the ice like a dog.
Well, I didn’t know who String Cheese Incident is either, so don’t feel bad.
Don’t feel bad. I don’t know who SCI is either, but then again, if they don’t rap and have giant bling dripping from their fingers, I wouldn’t know em either.
Heh, don’t feel bad Kristen. I had no clue who they were either. It’s not like you sat down next Maroon 5 or something.
On a more writerly note. Have you ever read a book (that you liked) that used multiple first person pov’s?
JDuncan
Oh, good – I’m not the only other reader who doesn’t know who they are.
While working at a recording studio recently, I met Kevin Mahogany – no idea who he was (I don’t listen to jazz).
My boss, the studio owner, didn’t know either. Once he found out, though, he made sure he had his picture taken with Mahogany.
Oh, man, my sons will be dying when I tell them about this. They’re huge SCI fans. (SCI is a great blue-grassy jam band.)
Interesting story, but I have a question. Do agents take the highest bid or if the author has one publishing house they really want will they take this into consideration?
Kristen,
It was a pleasure meeting you briefly at NASFiC. Perhaps some convention when I’m not on 18 panels, it’d be fun to sit and visit for a moment. *grin*
Well, I’ve heard of them, but I wouldn’t recognize them in the airport or by listening to them play either.
Heh. Who knew SCI flew instead of toured in a bus?
*waves* It was good to meet you at NASfic.
—L.
Count me as another who has no clue who SCI is.
And, yes, dogs are definitely magnets – for all sorts of people. 🙂 Just ask our 2 big Malamutes. People in town know their names better than they know ours.
~jerseygirl
jduncan,
“The Historian” uses multiple first person POV, though in more of a story within a story kind of way. I’m about half way through it now…
OMG! OMG! OMG!
The CHEESE!
They are way cool. We discovered them last year–this is their last year touring, supposedly they’re breaking up. They’re in the tradition of the Grateful Dead, except…they are great musicians in concert.
They will play 2 hour sets *without stopping* between songs, segueing smoothly into one song from another. Incredible, incredible band to see live.
We couldn’t get tickets to their local performance so we bought tickets for Berkeley and flew down there to see them at the Greek Theater.
I would love to be as adept a writer as they are musicians.
Too funny!
I once watched a show about REM with great fear because they were talking about funny incidents that happened on the road. I knew I had been involved in one.
When they came to the Erwin Center in Austin in about 1989, I was a brand new employee working the freight elevator, which goes from the dressing rooms to the upper stage. I was nervous and anxious examining everyone’s back stage passes.
Then along comes several guys with NO PASSES! I threw them off the elevator and closed the door. When they beat on it, I went up to another level to avoid them until hopefully they got caught by security.
Yes. It was the band. REM. Late for their own show. When the elevator came back down, their manager was with them.
They never told anyone, I don’t think, as I never got called on by my bosses. And they didn’t mention it on the TV show. Whew!
I’d never heard of them either. My sister, many years ago, was flying to somewhere and talking to the group of guys around her.
She asked what they did and they replied, played in a band. She then asked if they played local or if they ever had the chance to travel and play in front of large audiences.
The one guy with slightly long curly hair then said to her “You don’t know who I am or we are, do you?” She simply said, “No, I don’t. Should I?”
At which point Kenny G pulled out a cd, autographed it, and handed it to her.
She said to me later that would have been a great time for a black hole to swallow her.
Don’t feel bad, Kristin. If they had been aspiring writers, they would have felt bad for not recognizing YOU!
These things are so much fun when they happen.
In late June, boarding a shuttle bus at the airport(Lisbon to London flight), I noticed my daughter and her friend ‘noticing’
some guys on the bus with us. I hadn’t noticed them at all – dyed and tattoed all over hell’s half acre isn’t really something I ‘notice’. Turned out these guys were band and crew members of some band called Slip Knot, or Slipknot.
Elizabeth seemed happy to be breathing the same shuttle bus fume-filled air they were, so I got a kick out of that.
I leaned over and quietly asked her if she wanted me to take a picture (with my phone, nothing flashy like an actual camera, oh, Good Lord, we couldn’t have that) of these Slip People with she and her friend in the foreground – and she shot me our family’s ‘look of death’. My husband thought that was a riot.
I found out later she wouldn’t have minded, except she was worried she’d look stupid to them because she had butterflies in the pattern on her hoody. As she is fifteen years old, it was, I suppose, a valid concern.
But now she wishes she had let me take the picture.
Hey, I met Kenny G once and he didn’t give me anything! Then again, we were in the restroom at Angels stadium at the time, so he may not have had any CDs in his pocket, let alone a Sharpie to sign them with.
I don’t recall if he washed his hands.
That’s fabulous. Dogs really are a great equalizer, lifting us all up to a happy place 🙂
Will there be posts about you having an entourage soon? I think agents deserve entourages. Then you can tell us all kinds of stories about the difficulty of traveling without being hounded by paparazzi…
LOL!!! We just got a new puppy and I had to take her to a trade show with me this weekend. I swear she made sales for me just because no one can resist a 10-week-old terrier puppy. (Her name is Philomena, and if you want to OD on cute you can find her here: http://goingtothedogs.shutterfly.com/action/ )
I know who SCI is, but I have no visual pattern recognition, so I couldn’t pick them–really, any musician with the exception of Mick Jagger–out of a lineup.
My husband used to work for bands and at our wedding the only people there were the band he was currently on the road with (we got married in Vegas while he was on tour) and his friend Henry, who’s quite well-known himself. We’d been married a year when my mother caught on to the fact that the “nice man” she’d met at our wedding was quite famous for his foul mouth and bad disposition.
Hehehehehe.
Right now they are probably blogging about their encounter with the famous literary agent, and her lovely dog.
When I worked at Henry’s Cameras in the 80’s, a nice pair of blond British boys came in to buy some stale-dated Super 8 film. I helped them out, admiring their accents. They were polite and friendly, finishing the visit off with a nice “Cheerio”.
Turns out they were Sting and Andy Summers.
I was once just chilling in a seating area, and watching curiously as gaggles of teen girls passed this one young man and stared and whispered. A little girl kind of chatted with him, and it seemed got an autograph. I’m not sure I’ll ever know who he was, but it was funny.
It was even more fun to make a short story out of it, though it turned out rather lame. Too close to reality, I guess.
Yeah, Kristin, but did they know who YOU are?
I heard them a couple of years ago at Telluride Bluegrass (a festival with a very elastic definition of bluegrass), where they got the whole crowd on their feet. Along with Big Head Todd, String Cheese is my favorite local-Colorado-gone-big-time band.
jduncan – Jodi Picoult does this by chapter. Each chapter represents a different character’s pov and is done in first person. My fav so far is My Sister’s Keeper. It is a great concept and really makes you think.
Omigosh. My son listens to them. I’ll have to pass this story along.
Yes, dogs are the great equalizers!! Everyone in my small town knew my Great Dane’s name long before they knew mine. I had no clue who SCI were either. I have an excuse. I am a retired opera singer so I don’t listen to much rap!! I have been lurking on your blogspot and I really appreciate all of the pertinent information you post!! I’m in the middle of my first book, so I am really a babe in the woods! I was in New Orleans late one night and my steak po-boy had just been delivered to my table when a waitress asked if I would be willing to give it up (it was the last one)for another customer as it was his favorite. I said “It’s my favorite too and I’m hungry!” She points over to the bar and this guy waves at me. It was Dennis Quaid! I told her to tell him I would split it with him. We shared the po-boy and fries and listened to the jazz band until @4 in the morning!!
NO idea who they are.
The lead singer from Better than Ezra used to live down the street from me, after Katrina.
I guess you can count me as one of the ‘living under a rock’ crowd. I listened to the songs they have on their website. Not bad. A bit ‘Little Feat’ meets jazz funk.
Great story.
Never heard of ’em. So don’t feel too bad about not recognizing them, I wouldn’t either!
I did have a friend once who said she chatted for awhile with a nice fellow on Cape Cod a few years back…later a friend said, “Did you know who you were talking to?” No, she replied…”That was Matthew Perry!” Who? she asked. “You know, Chandler on ‘Friends’!”
She had no clue.
My daughter and I were out caroling one Christmas with a neighborhood group. We called on all the houses with new babies, sick relatives, whatever. I felt like such an nitwit when I realized that everyone was gaga because the FATHER holding one new baby was Heath Ledger, rather than because the newborn was seriously adorable.
Welcome to Brownstone Brooklyn, right?
Yesterday was the first I’d ever heard of String Cheese Incident. I was reading a 2006 article about my nephew’s band, Spoonfed Tribe. On a whim I decided to clean the ol’ desk and found the clipping.
As bands go, they’re apparently musical cohorts.
Then SCI turns up in your blog today.
The synchronicity (no reference to The Police) is seriously freakin’ me here.