Welcome a new president to the Celebrity Stumblers Club

Misery, they say, loves company.

And now I have proof positive that idiocy also loves having a club to belong to.

A few weeks ago, I confessed to you that I am an idiot when it comes to meeting celebrities. As proof, I once asked the great Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters, “What are you?” when I bumped into him. Not “Who are you,” but “What?” Only an idiot would say something like that.

And when I met James Brown, I said, “Hey, you’re James Brown!” He told me in no uncertain terms that my breaking news came as no surprise to him.

And so I offered a challenge to anyone who might have read that column: If you have ever said anything more stupid to a celebrity, I’d like to hear about it. Just to combat the loneliness.

Tom S wrote to offer his membership to the club:

“It was the year 2000,” Tom wrote, “and I am in Salt Lake City, eating in the hotel restaurant. As I walk to the salad bar there was Christopher Walken sitting by his lonesome eating a bowl of soup. I recognized him immediately and as I passed by I knew I had to say something. ‘How’s the soup?’ is all that would come out, and I will never forget the look on his face, something akin to ‘Just leave me alone.’” 

Now, while that moment was probably uncomfortable to Tom, I’d have to place his celebrity-encounter-moron-moment somewhere below mine. After all, you don’t have to be a star-struck celebrity fawner to ask a guy if the soup is worth buying, do you? It seems to me that the biggest idiot in that encounter was Walken. I hope he choked on a crouton.

So while I’m willing to accept Tom S. as an honorary member to the idiot’s club, I still have to claim founder and CEO status for myself.

That is, I did until I heard from Lauren A, who wrote to say: “I was in Sam’s Club on Barrington Road in Streamwood, when in walked Bill Murray. Bill grabbed the microphone and announced ‘Attention customers, for the next ten minutes all merchandise is fifty percent off!’ I am quite sure that the Sam’s Club management did not expect Bill Murray to be there. This was during the time that they were filming Groundhog Day in Woodstock. Everyone was gathering around Bill but I noticed another celebrity that nobody was paying any attention to. So I walked up and I said ‘Hi, I know I recognize you but I can’t remember your name.’ He says ‘I’m Brian Doyle Murray.’ I said ‘Oh, are you Bill’s Dad?’ He says ‘No! I am Bill’s brother!’ That’s when I decided not to ask him any more questions.”

So, OK, I have to admit, it’s one thing to walk up to a celebrity like James Brown and tell him who he is, but it’s quite another thing to accuse a celebrity of being his own father. So I’m willing to pass the crown to Lauren A and name her the Grand High Poobah of the Star-Struck Stumblers! The Murray boys are probably still teasing each other about that one around the dinner table whenever they joke about their fame-fueled encounters with bumblers.

I’m sure there are others of you out there with tales of bungled celebrity encounters that might top these, but you’re still too immersed in shame to share them.

Well, don’t be. Because those celebrities are just people, too, and if the shoe were on the other foot—if you were the famous one and they were the anonymous face in the crowd—they would stumble over you, too.

Because deep down, once you get past all that celebrity nonsense, we’re all pretty much the same. And even a certified moron like me can sidestep a star-struck stumble once you get past the envy and admiration.

I know, because it happened to me.

A couple decades ago I had just stepped into a hospital elevator after visiting my father, who was dying of cancer in hospice. Just as the doors started to close, I noticed a man rushing to get to the elevator, and I held the door for him. Then I went back to staring at my shoes in grief.

“Thanks,” he said.

I nodded and looked up at him. It was Jim Belushi.

Over the previous few days I remembered hearing that Belushi’s mother was also dying of cancer in the room next to my father’s, but it hadn’t made much of an impression on me. I had more important things to think about.

We rode down the three or floors together, silently staring at our shoe tips.

And then, just before the door swept open on the ground floor, Jim said to me, “It sucks, don’t it?”

I nodded. “Yep,” I said. “It does.”

And then we offered each other a grim smile of consolation before walking off in different directions, silently acknowledging our equal membership in a club we never wanted to join.

Because misery loves company—even if neither of you acts like an idiot.

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