Last night I went to see the Kids in the Hall. It was a wonderful show, and I hung out afterwards to meet the Kids, even though I always feel like a dork when I talk to or see celebrities. Part of the reason I feel like a dork is that I'm never quite sure what I'll do or say. For example, a few hours before the show yesterday, I saw Mark McKinney walking down the street in Philadelphia. I was biking in the opposite direction, but I immediately stopped, got off my bike, and started following him on foot. It took me about a block-and-a-half of tailing him for the part of my brain with good sense to say "You are being a creep" and turn around.
Even though it's embarrassing to admit that story, I don't think what I did was uncommon. People approach famous folks every day, and quite often they do stupid things when talking to those people. For example, I have a friend who, upon meeting Joyce Carol Oates, blurted out, "You don't have any eyebrows!"
Sometimes I'll try to save myself from such bits of verbal dirt by telling myself that I don't need to talk to the person or people in question. But the Kids in the Hall, and Bruce McCulloch in particular, have had a huge influence on both my life and my comedy. So I spoke to Bruce, and when we were done talking I had such a wonderful, glowing feeling. It made me think about a great quote from Wayne Coyne when he was interviewed in The Believer:
What did you want when you met Santa Claus for the first time? You didn't really want to know that he was just some guy who was lucky to have a job being Santa Claus for two months around Christmas time. You wanted it to be the real Santa Claus. And at some point, you and I, we put on a little bit of the Santa Claus costume and go out there and do the show. So I can look at it like, if I met Santa Claus, would I want him to be tired and grumpy and say, "Hey little kid, leave me alone, goddamnit"? I would want him to handle it and let me walk away with that image and that belief still in my mind.
Bruce didn't have any reason to be so nice to me, but I walked away from our conversation feeling like that man cared deeply about my life. It was totally like meeting comedy Santa.