MEETING FAMOUS PEOPLE
WHEN BIG TIM BOWERS just happened to turn to his left and see the little guy with the battered guitar case emerge limping from Gate 4A at the Omaha International Airport on July 12, 1985, he held out his big arms to greet his best friend, which, although they had never met in person, Sweet Brian surely was. It was Sweet Brian himself! There! In Concourse C! His White Boy album was what got Tim through the divorce from Deloyne after three loving months of marriage, when she notified him that he was hopeless and the next day upped and split for Cheyenne with a bald bread-truck driver (unbelievable), after which Tim lost his security job and apartment and would’ve lost his mind except for Sweet Brian, so of course he yelled, “Hey, you’re my man! I got to shake your hand! Hiiiiya! Sweet Brian! Hey!”
Sweet Brian made a sharp right, climbed over a railing and a row of plastic chairs, and walked fast toward Baggage Claim, which didn’t surprise Tim one bit. After all, the guy who wrote “Tie Me Loose” and “That Old Highway Suits Me Pretty Well, I Guess” and “Lovers Make Good Loners” is no Sammy Davis, Jr., and Tim respected him for the uncompromising integrity and privacy and sincerity of his art, which had been crucial to Tim when his own sense of self was chewed up by Deloyne, all of which Tim now needed to say to Sweet Brian. He galloped down the concourse after the fleeing singer-songwriter, who heard his 262-pound fan and panicked and went through a door marked “NO ADMITTANCE” and clattered down two flights of steel stairs, Tim’s big boots whanging and whomping on the stairs above, convincing him that death was near, and burst through a pair of swinging doors marked “WEAR EARPLUGS” and headed across the tarmac, a man once nominated for a Grammy (for “Existential Cowboy”) and once described as the Dylan of the late seventies, panting and limping around some construction barriers along the terminal wall toward a red door twenty yards away. “Incredible,” Tim was thinking. “I come to the airport to hang around and maybe get an idea for a song—not to meet anybody or anything, just to think about something to write about, maybe about not having anybody to meet—and I meet him. Fantastic.” Tim was six strides behind him when he burst through the red door. There was a second, locked door a few steps beyond, and there, in the tiny vestibule, Tim expressed a lifetime of appreciation. He hugged Sweet Brian from behind and said, “Hey, little buddy, I’m your biggest fan. You saved my life, man.”
The star pushed Big Tim away and sneered, “You know, it’s vampires like you who make me regret ever becoming a performer. You and your twenty-nine-cent fantasies. I don’t know what you—You sicken me.” And he slapped Tim.
At this point Tim wasn’t thinking lawsuit at all. An apology would have been enough—e.g., “Sorry, pal. I’m under too darn much pressure right now. Please understand.” He’d have said, “Fine, Sweet Brian. No problem. Just want you to know I love your music. That’s all. Take care of yourself. Goodbye and God bless you.” Instead, Sweet Brian said those terrible things and then slapped him and shoved him aside and went to the hotel and wrote an abusive song about him (“Your Biggest Fan”) and sang it that night at the Stockyards, and that’s how they wound up in U.S. District Court two years later.
Tim had lost quite a bit of weight in those two years, ever since he got a great job at NewTech, thanks to the company’s excellent weight-loss program, which, in fact, Tim himself initiated (he’s executive vice-president in charge of the entire Omaha and Lincoln operations, about eight thousand employees and growing daily since NewTech bought up SmetSys, ReinTal, and Northern Gas & Hot Water), and he looked blessedly happy at the courthouse, which might have had something to do with his new wife, Stephanie, a blond six-foot former Vogue model who accompanied him, leaning lovingly on his chest and smiling fabulously as photographers jockeyed for position. A handsome couple. Rumor said she was two months pregnant. They looked ecstatic. Young and rich and very much in love.
Inside, Tim’s lawyer described Sweet Brian as a “candy-ass has-been who can’t hit the notes and can’t write the hits, so he hits his fans,” and asked for a half million dollars in damages. The little guy sat twenty feet away from Tim, his ankles chained together. He looked bloated, sick. His cheap green sportcoat wouldn’t button in front. It had orangeade stains down the lapels. The story of his downfall was in all the papers. Sweet Brian and Tania Underwood had had to interrupt their Hawaiian sex tryst to fly to Nebraska for the trial and in Concourse C Brian was nabbed by the Omaha cops for possession of narcotics with a street value of $327. Tania was furious. She slapped him around in the police station, called him a loser, and left town. It snowed three feet that night, and his lawyer was stuck in L.A., and Sweet Brian sat in the clink for six days. That was when Tim saw him in court looking morose. “Can I help?” he asked, but the sullen singer turned away in anger. That night, a rodeo rider from Saskatchewan who was doing thirty days for bestiality beat the daylights out of Brian and knocked out four front teeth. Next morning, the county dentist, Dr. Merce L. Gibbons, had to drill out the stumps without Novocain. Brian bled so much he fainted and toppled forward, and the drill went through his cheek. The dentist panicked, thinking malpractice suit, and he tore his white smock slightly and roughed up his thin hair so as to claim that Brian had attacked him, and then he clubbed the former star hard, twice, with a mallet and yelled for the cops. They took Brian to the hospital and he got an infection from the blood test and died. There was no autopsy. The lawyer was in China. Nobody came from L.A. for the body, and finally some reporters collected $310 around the newsroom and Brian was buried in Omaha under a little headstone: “Brina Johnson, 1492-1987.” The two typos weren’t noticed until it was too late. So what could they do? A local columnist taped a note to the stone saying, “His name is Brian. Listen to his albums sometime. Not White Boy, which is too pretty, too nostalgic, too self-conscious, but Coming Down from Iowa is not bad. I think it’s on the Argonaut label.”
Tim was in Palm Beach when someone told him Brian was dead, and although he was extremely busy in meetings all day, he wondered, “Could this have been avoided if I had approached him differently, maybe been more low-key?”
“He was a big hero to me back then,” he told Stephanie as they strolled along the beach toward The Palmery, where they were meeting some Florida associates for drinks and dinner. “I really wish we could have been friends.”
Even today, after he settled out of court with the singer’s estate for a rumored $196,000, Tim feels bad about the incident. He is not alone. Tens of thousands of people have approached very famous men and women intending to brighten the lonely lives of the great with a few simple words of admiration, only to be rejected and abused for their thoughtfulness. To the stars, of course, such encounters are mere momentary irritations in their fast-paced sensational lives and are quickly forgotten, but for the sensitive fans personal rejection by an idol becomes a permanent scar. It could easily be avoided if, when approaching the celebrated, those who practically worship them would just use a little common sense:
1. Never grab or paw the famous. They will instantly recoil and you will never ever win their respect. Stand at least thirty-two inches away. If your words of admiration move him or her to pat your shoulder, then of course you can pat back, but don’t initiate contact and don’t hang on. Be cool.
2. Don’t gush, don’t babble, don’t grovel or fawn. Never snivel. Be tall. Bootlicking builds a wall you’ll never break through. A simple pleasantry is enough—e.g., “Like your work!” If you need to say more than that (I think you’re the most wonderful lyric poet in America today), try to modify your praise slightly (but your critical essays really suck). Or cough hard, about five times. That relieves the famous person of having to fawn back. The most wearisome aspect of fame is the obligation to look stunned by each compliment as if it were the first ever heard. That’s why an odd remark (Your last book gave me the sensation of being a horned toad lying on a hot highway) may secretly please the famous person far more than a cliche (I adore you and my family adores you and everyone I know in the entire world thinks you are a genius and a saint and with your permission I will fall down on the sidewalk and writhe around and foam for a while). Be cool. Famous people much prefer a chummy insult to lavish nonsense: a little dig about the exorbitant price of tickets to the star’s show, perhaps, or the cheesiness of the posters (You design those yourself?). Or a remark about the celebrity’s pet (if any), like “How much did you pay for that dog?” Personal dirt (Do you have to shave twice a day? Do you use regular soap or what? What was it like when you found that out about her going out with him?) can wait for later. For now, limit yourself to the dog. As it gazes up in mealymouthed brown-nosed, lickspittle devotion, glance down and say, “Be cool.”
3. Autographs are fine, photos are fine, but be cool. Don’t truckle (Oh, please please please—I’ll do anything—anything at all), don’t pander (This is the high point of my life), and never cringe or kowtow (I know that this is just about the tackiest thing a person can do and it makes me sick with shame but . . . ), and never, never lie (My mother, who is eighty-seven, is dying in Connecticut and it would mean the world to her if ... ). Hand the famous person the paper and simply say, “I need you to sign this.” Hand the camera to one of his hangers-on and say, “Take a picture of us.”
4. When you are cool like this and don’t fawn and don’t grab and just go about your business as a fan and get that autograph and the photo and are businesslike about it, probably you are going to make such a big impression on the famous person that he or she will make a grab for you in that offhand way these people have (Care to join Sammy and me for dinner, Roy? or Somebody find this guy a backstage pass, wouldja?). Remember, these people are surrounded by glittering insincerity and false friendship and utter degradation of all personal values to such a degree that three cool words from you (Like your work!) will knock them for a loop. Suddenly the star recalls the easy camaraderie of a Southern small-town childhood and the old verities of love and loyalty in the circle of family, church, and community. Desperately he reaches out for contact with you (Please. You remind me of a friend I once had. Many years ago and far away from here. Please), wants your phone number, tries to schedule lunch with you on Thursday (Anywhere, anytime. Early lunch, late lunch. You name it. I can send a car to pick you up. Thursday or Friday or Saturday or any day next week. Or Sunday if you’d rather. Or it doesn’t have to be lunch. It could be breakfast or dinner. Or a late supper. Brunch), tries to draw you into conversation (You got a book you want published? Songs? Anyone in your family interested in performing? Got a favorite charity you need anyone to do a benefit for? Need a credit or job reference?). Don’t be fooled. Just smile and nod and say, “Nice to meet you,” and walk away. He’ll follow you (What’s your name? Please. I need you). Walk faster. You don’t want to get involved with these people. Thirty seconds can be interesting, but beyond two minutes you start to get entangled. They’re going to want you to come to the Coast with them that night and involve you in such weird sadness as you can’t believe. (Please come with us. I mean it. There’s something real about you that’s been missing from my life for too long. Please. Just come and talk to me for three minutes.) Sorry. (Please.) No. (Then let me come with you.) No. (Tell me why not.) I’m sorry. I wish that it was possible, but it isn’t, not at this time. I hope we can meet again very soon. Bye.
