Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
In terms of famous friends, I have a plethora. That’s because I went to High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston (freshman and sophomore year), and I’ve kept up with two artists over the long haul. Of everyone, I’m closest to Jason Moran and Robert Glasper, because our shared niche interest is jazz (they’re pianists, I was a trumpet player). Not only did we attend the same school, Jason was around in my department, Robert and I were in the same class.
Our other teachers birthed good people. Robert “Doc” Morgan birthed our trademarks. It just took a while to see that I am actually as talented as Robert and Jason, just not at jazz. 😉 Doc is the jazz director that not only is he legend status at HSPVA (retired now), he’s legend status across the world in jazz education. So, really, the most famous person I’ve met is Doc, because I only know two famous kids that came from his classes and he knows them all.
He also knows Beyoncé by nature of the fact that she went to HSPVA and was in the music department, but he didn’t have her as a student. It’s such a shame. If she had, she might have been successful. 😉
I am less close to the rest of the Texas creatives that have come before me, and I’d like to remedy that when I can. I’ve never met Sandra Bullock, Tommy Lee Jones, Chandra Evans (also PVA), Reneé Zellweger, and Jim Parsons, sadly. Of everyone on the list, it should come as no surprise that Tommy is at the top, because intelligence is my special interest and he’s the greatest MiB who ever lived (“Went to Vegas. Saw white tigers fly around the room. Your act ain’t nothin’ special, slick.”).
Few people know that the scene in MiBII where Will Smith starts “conversing” with Biz Markie in the post office through beatboxing was actually Tommy’s idea. Just brilliant. Brilliant. So, if you see Tommy Lee Jones on the street, tell him I said hello and I’d like to hug his neck, in Texas vernacular.
I didn’t mention Matthew McConaughey in that bunch, because I actually have met him. In fact, every time I write his name out I hear my dad’s voice in my head, because he always kidded Matt’s parents that their last name was pronounced “Mac-a-nog-eee.” Sounding it out like that in my head is the only way I remember to spell it. The reason my mom and dad are better acquainted is that Matt’s family belonged to our church. Matt also had a junior high choir director who was married to his pastor, with a three year old girl named Leslie. I have no doubt that we’d love each other if we spent time together, we just haven’t. Both our dads thought of the other one as “a mess,” what you say in Texas when the other person is creative and a bit impish. “A mess,” in Texas, is a good thing.
In Texas, you get called “a mess” if you’re doing anything that is not pre-approved, and that list is small. People alternately admire and fear you for being different. Where they fall on the spectrum depends on the area. Are you trying to be different in El Paso or Austin? El Paso is still heavily Christian, Roman Catholic in particular. Austin has dementia and thinks it’s in Oregon.
“Keep Austin Weird” is not a thing. Texans think it is a thing, but it’s a Portland slogan they adopted. Ditto for “People’s Republic of Austin.” It’s like the whole city of Austin packed up the t-shirts at Powell’s Books and decided they own the slogans now. I will be surprised if, in 20 years, people in Austin still think Voodoo Donut is from Oregon. That’s how culture works, and I’m glad Portland handed it down. Texas needs more areas where you don’t feel oppressed by the Bible, and I say that as someone who loves the Bible….. I just love it in the context it was made. I am not trying to fit modern society into constraints thousands of years old.
If it seems like I’m wandering off, I’m not. When I talk about famous people I’ve met, I’m talking about the context around them, too. I’d want to meet my Texas creatives because we’d have the same leftover ideas from our childhood environments to make us feel familiar to each other before we even met.
A good example of that would be Matt and me. I don’t know him from Adam. Would still instantly take him in if he was in trouble because my mom thought he hung the moon. I cannot think of a single situation in which he would need me for that, but I don’t mean it any less. Loving Matt isn’t Hollywood stargazing for me. It’s felt animals going into the ark. Juice and cookies. Swimming parties.
He’s the most famous person I’ve ever met, I just wasn’t old enough to retain the memory. It’s fun thinking what I would do if I got a new one.
Stories That Are All True 