Six degrees of Canada Jackson.

I have, in my long and glamorous life, met two whole celebrities. Well, kind of celebrities. In that if you saw them walking down the street you might say, "Hey, is that that guy from ______?" and then realize that even if it were that guy from ________ it wouldn't matter because they would probably ask you for bus fare if you tried to talk to them.

Oh, wait, I've met three. I once got into a bar fight with Doris Kearns Goodwin. She kicked my ass.

Anyway, these are the true stories of my celebrity encounters.

First, I met Henry Winkler. That's right, the Fonze. The lawyer from Arrested Development. The beleaguered football coach from Adam Sandler's moving portrait of anger and mental disabilities, The Waterboy.

I met him while working as a bartender at the Scranton Cultural Center, which was by far the worst job I have ever had--and hopefully ever will have. There were times when I worked for fourteen hours straight and went home with nine dollars in tips. There were times when I was in real danger of physical harm at the hands of drunken concert goers because we ran out of beer. And, once, while standing outside in the rain, I witnessed a man vomit in the gutter--myself having to take quick evasive action as the currents pulled the former contents of his stomach towards my shoes. The reason the Scranton Cultural Center is called the Scranton Cultural Center is because excessive drinking, violence, and public vomiting are all an important part of Scranton's culture. As my friends and I paraphrase the very misleading TV show "The Office:" There ain't no party like a Scranton party, because at a Scranton party someone dies.

But anyway, Henry Winkler. He was coming to Scranton to hype his children's books about a kid with dyslexia. First there was a little party with champagne on the second floor of the building, followed by Mr. Winkler giving a little talk to an audience of kids in the theater. During the little pre-party I swiped a bottle of champagne, thinking it would be excessively cool to have a champagne bottle signed by the Fonze. Why did I think that? Because Scranton is full of radiation that makes you retarded.

I waited backstage while he was giving his talk to the little tykes. After he was done I asked his manservant (I assume his manager or assistant or sex slave) if he would sign my bottle. Mr. Winkler said, through his concubine, that he would not. Crushed, I decided to have him sign one of his books about kids who can't read.


Even though I spent a good ten minutes in Mr. Winkler's presence, he neither spoke to me or made eye contact with me. Instead he spoke to his manservant about how he was going to sign the books across his picture on the back because no one does that, and how will you know it's really his signature if he doesn't sign it accross his picture? "Why didn't anyone else think of that?" asked. Clearly, it's because Henry Winkler is a fucking genius. He also piqued my ire when he asked me, again through his chattel, to bring him some water. I did so, and received no acknowledgement whatsoever.

But, the life of celebrity is tiring. With this in mind I decided to sign my champagne bottle for Mr. Winkler.
My next dramatic semi-celebrity meeting was at my current semi-job at [Demarcations]. In this case, I met Bronson Pinchot. That's right, Balki of TV's "Perfect Strangers."

Bronson Pinchot on the left.

According to Wikipedia, Bronson Pinchot owns a god damn town near Scranton. He moved there and bought all the buildings with his "Perfect Strangers" and Beverly Hills Cop money. And, for whatever reason, he occasionally relaxes with a warm cup of the distilled, burned offal we call coffee at the Scranton [Demarcations]. How he has not killed himself is anyone's guess.

Now, I should say that in actuallity Mr. Pinchot is a nice guy. When I was ringing him up I didn't realize that he was Bronson Pinchot until he handed me his credit card with BRONSON FUCKING PINCHOT on it. Also, someone behind me asked a manager if he could take his lunch break. This struck Mr. Pinchot as funny, as it was eight o'clock in the evening.

"Lunch?" said Mr. Pinchot. "That train has sailed." I am not ruling out that Bronson Pinchot was intoxicated during this interaction.

Bronson Pinchot on the left. Wokka wokka.

It has occured to me that nearly everyone has some cool story of meeting a real life celebrity or otherwise important public figure. My cousin got to shake hands with President Clinton while he was still president. RJP4 has met several celebrities during his exile in New York City. My sister saw Jake Gyllenhaal and Kirsten "Beastly Whore" Dunst buying rice--and was once yelled at by Sean Connery.

I, however, have been irritated by Henry Winkler over the course of an evening and shared a surreal three minutes with Bronson Pinchot. Clearly I am the winner.

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PS: Hopefully, children, I will have more time and motivation to post as [Demarcations] continues its steadily more entertaining shit show of a downward spiral into irrelevance and bankruptcy. Rumor has it that the new CEO is randomly visiting stores and firing people. Oh please, Father Christmas! Oh please let him visit humble Scranton, Pennsylvania to find me and set me free! And please, dear Father Christmas, let me tear off my stupid nametag and tell him to take his fraudulent charity book drives and maddeningly arbitrary sales goals and go fuck himself to death.

Cheers!