Brushes with Fame III

Al Strobel - You may not recognize the name, but if you ever watched Twin Peaks, you're probably familiar with Phillip Michael Gerard aka The One-Armed Man. Al's a longtime resident of Portland, Oregon and could often be found riding his bike around town. In fact, the first time I saw him was when he rode past me in Northwest Portland after I finished a Twin Peaks marathon. Dazed from hours of sleep deprivation and marijuana consumption, having the One-Armed Man ride by on a bicycle moments after I left him on my TV set was more than a little unnerving.

Flash forward a year or so later and Molliwogg and I found ourselves regulars at the Goose Hollow Inn. A former roommate had just hired on at the Goose and, being big fans of free drinks, we quickly made ourselves natives. Turns out Al was a regular as well and, after a week or two, we finally sat down to break suds together.

Like the rest of the regulars there, Al's a really weird guy. I mean that in the best possible sense of the word. Very cool, very laid back, very broke and very weird. He could go on for hours talking about curling and various drug-induced road trips he took in his youth. Soon he ceased to be the One-Armed Man and became Al, just another one of the crazy old guys at the Goose.

Which is not to say he didn't know how to market himself on occasion. As par for the course, the bar closed around one and the Goose Crew would head out to a couple bars in Northwest to finally catch up with the people they have been serving all day. The posse numbered between five and ten people depending on who tagged along that night, and Al was often among us. Normally he'd dress the same as any old codger (again, I mean that in the best since of the word), but on the nights he'd come out drinking with us, he would sport a satin Twin Peaks jacket as a visual aid to alert anyone with doubts that, yes, he was that one-armed man.

Eventually Al moved out of the area and Molliwogg and I moved on from Portland, but we occasionally get status reports from friends who keep in contact with him.

The Dalai Lama - According to the Northwestern Tibetan Cultural Association website, this would have occurred in May 2001. The Dalai Lama was giving a two day speech in Portland's Pioneer Square. I had considered going but my need for spiritual enlightenment was far outweighed by my claustrophobic fears of standing in the midst of approximately a gazillion people crammed into one city block. I wound up forgetting about it all together.

I was living in Northwest Portland at the time and walked pretty much everywhere. Despite being more or less logically laid out, it still takes less time to walk from point A to point B in Portland, at least in the downtown/Northwest/Pearl District, than it does to drive. I had just crossed one of the many 405 overpasses when I noticed a motorcade coming up on me - lots of cops on motorcycles, pretty red and blue lights, the whole nine yards. I figured it was a cop funeral.

I'm watching them pass and as the limousine they were escorting goes by, I notice the back window is open and, half-hanging out of it, the Dalai Lama is smiling and waving to the few of us that happened to be walking by. We made eye contact and I managed to lift my arm just enough to perform a passable, but totally lame wave. And then he was gone.

This will forever remain the most surreal moment of my life. The only things I can think of that would even come close on the bizarre-o-meter, would be turning the corner and seeing Bigfoot, or bumping into Elvis at the local tavern. (Although I'm pretty sure I saw Elvis working at the St. Johns Safeway in Portland, but that's another story.)

That's about it as far as brushes with fame go. Molliwogg and I passed by Martin Sheen in a Vegas casino once, and she ran into Erik Estrada in the Reno International Airport - a meeting I would kill to have on my resume. I'll settle for what I got, but man, Ponch? That's too cool.

Tags: Dalai Lama, Twin Peaks, Goose Hollow Inn, Portland, Al Strobel, celebrity, m/a/z/e

posted by m/a/z/e  [12:01 AM]   0 comments