Very Good Things That Have Happened At LAX

This is a story that I promised Warren a while ago to entice him to my blog...

1. I saw Sigourney Weaver just after she did Alien III. Her hair was super short and she looked kick-ass.

2. I met The Man of My Dreams - he was gorgeous like John John and a dog trainer by profession, no less - and we got so deeply involved in our conversation that we missed all of the repeated calls for our flight and were flung in seperate directions!

3. I met Pat Smear on a plane bound for Chicago on my way to Montreal. I was seated somewhere in the front half of Economy Class and then what I like to call my Star-Fucker Radar goes off. I realised that rock stars and were in my midst and I looked up. At the back row of First Class causing a stir is Pat Smear, he's with his Rock star cronies so I quickly and surely help myself to 1C and D which were sitting empty. I sat down and focus all my energy on looking casual.

He turns around and looks at me in his best manchild way: "Hi!" We start chit chatting, he compliments me on my clothes. I tell him about the Foo Fighters shows I've seen. We *should* have met before but we didn't because he was in Sydney shooting the "BIg Me" video (the one thats a mentos ad spoof).

The plane is delayed, we're grounded and the plane was really hot. Pat was drinking and generally fussing. We both do childish things like going to the see the cockpit (this IS pre-September 11, 2001, after all). He's already drinking scotch in the rarified air of First. Why? He's afraid of flying and the alcohol works nicely with the downer he's already taken in preparation for the gruelling 4 hour flight.

He sneaks me cookies throughout the flight and talks to me through the curtains. We get off the plane and we go and smoke furiously outside at O'Hare Airport when we arrive. He thanks me for saving him from having to hang out with his band mates. We go to the post office in the airport which just closed. Pat whines and somehow gets this sassy postal worker to sell him a stamp through the fuck-off-we're-closed grill. He tips her a twenty. He lends me some change so I can call this guy who has my keys who had a fit when I told him I was calling him with "rock star money".

Then we get a drink at the concession stand of the airport and he orders a mineral water. Now, for reasons completely unknown the following word falls out of my mouth: "FAG!" I am mortified. All the blood in my body courses through my cheeks and I start to feel slightly lightheaded at the thought of having to back-pedal out of this one. (I would say that I think my bowels leaked but that would probably be stretching it.) Pat turns and looks at me, eyes wild and says "I love that movie!" Phew! He understands that I was having a simple lapse where media memoery takes over in the same way you might quote a line from The Simpsons. As anyone who has ever watched the film Heathers knows, "fags" drink mineral water (it set in Ohio, I believe).

I give him my number and we promise to keep in touch and never do. He leaves the Foo Fighters a few weeks later...