Top 5 People I'd Like To Meet

Hammerin' Hank

The Most Interesting Man In the World:

His shirts never wrinkle
Cuba imports cigars from him. 
Mosquitos refuse to bite him purely out of respect.
In museums, he is allowed to touch the art.
His passport requires no photograph.

When he drives a new car off the lot, it increases in value.

Superman has pajamas with his logo

If opportunity knocks and he's not home, opportunity waits

 

Now, readers, I want you to prepare yourself. Because I have to convey something shocking here to you. You probably don't know this, but I'm, well...umm...I'm not exactly all that great at, uh, meeting people.

Its ok, its ok. I'll wait so you can absorb that knowledge and compose yourself.

But its true. I'm not all that predisposed, and apparently am ill-equipped, to meeting people. In fact, given the choice between going to a party and doing anything else in the world, anything else in the world generally would win out. I'm talking Disney on Ice here, people. Which is odd, because once I get to the party or other event, I generally do ok, and often enjoy myself. But this social antipathy is just as well. Within the last couple of years, a friend informed me that I'm socially awkward and inept, I make people generally ill at ease around me, and I often anger others. To which I replied, "have you not met me?"

So the whole concept of meeting someone at all, much less someone famous, kind of leaves me hanging. On top of this, the general admonition not to meet your heroes also keeps me out of the stalker column. Celebrities or other famous types carefully cultivate a public image. They hire media consultants, press agents, and the like specifically to make them more appealing, thereby enhancing their "brand" and marketability. Its more difficult in the TMZ era, with paparazzi, and everyone possessing camera phones capable of videoing your every move (signed Prince Harry's Vegas Vacation). But even today, we have no idea what these people are really like. Unless you wind up in the courts or under arrest, how would anyone know if a Disney star is really a creep? Oh, right. Because they're a Disney star, that's how. You meet someone you've idolized for years, then you find out they're horrible. What a huge letdown. How would you have liked to have been a Joan Crawford fan, only to find out, well, you know. Or have idolized Bing Crosby? How many times have you heard some story about a star with a generally positive image being horrible in private? So in addition to the whole having to meet someone issue, there's the issue of your hero totally blowing their image.

Its easy to fall for the image. You see the star up on the screen or on TV and you want to believe they're like the characters they portray or the image they project. You forget that, just like yourself, they try to put their best put forward when out in public. You only see their best side, not the cranky side pissed because their flight was late, or their agent screwed up some contract, or there were brown M&Ms in the candy jar. You don't see them when they haven't slept in 24 hours, or just got some bad news, or when they have a sick kid. You know, under stress. Are you always at your finest, every single moment of the day? No one person is ever totally good, just as no one is ever totally and completely bad. I'm sure Stalin could be totally charming at dinner parties. He'd just as likely have the NKVD haul you off to Siberia after coffee and desert, but he could seem relatively normal over the borcht and stroganov. Just like I'm sure Mother Theresa could probably be a little bitchy late at night after about a thousand poor people cried and moaned around her all day. Again, for like the millionth day in a row. In between, the rest of us have good moments and bad, and someone's entire opinion of us might turn on when they had their first impression of us.

Or stars are all just whack jobs. Which is probably also true.

But I would like to meet a handful of people. More deceased ones than those still with us. I'd have loved to have met Elvis, for example. Or Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan. I'd have liked to have met Cary Grant, like my friend Kendall Morgan did. Gene Kelly would have been another. Or Audrey Hepburn. I'd have liked to have met one of the original Mercury astronauts. And I'd have liked to have met John Lennon.

I haven't met many famous people. Probably the most famous was Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. He was buddies with this lawyer who I tried a case with once. I met him at our client's Christmas party in Boerne. Pretty cool guy. Other than him, that's about it. I think I shook hands with Ann Richards once, but I'm not sure. Oh, I met and shook hands with Rudolph Giuliani, after a speech he gave at the River Oaks Country Club. I've seen several other famous people whom I didn't actually meet. All in all, none of these encounters have really done much for me. Although I like to think they all remember the time they met Chris Reeder....

Time has narrowed the list of potential meeting opportunities. Believe it or not, I don't have much desire to meet any of the new "stars"; I'll have to pass through this world having never met Lauren Conrad or Robert Pattinson, for example. I really had trouble completing this list. But I'd say that, notwithstanding the risk of finding these people are really just, um, assholes, I'd still like to meet them.

Top 5 People I'd Like to Meet:

5. Jennifer Love Hewitt. Because of course I do. Does that surprise anyone? Again, do you know me?

4. Any U.S. President. Current or former. I'd really enjoy talking to them about what its like to be the "most powerful man in the world." I'd like to find out what it's like living inside the bubble of the Presidency. Can you imagine the isolation of not being able to drive a car, or go to the store, or walk down the street by yourself for four or even eight years? I'd like to find out how they cope with the responsibility for deciding when to hit the red button, as it were. Mostly I'd just like to see what such heights of power does to a person. If I could pick one living President to meet, it would probably be Clinton. Not so much because I supported his policies, but he just seems like the one most likely to be forthcoming. Followed by Bush 43.

3. Any Beatle. I guess there's not many to choose from these days. The 1960s were likely the most turbulent, innovative, fluid, free, and wrenching decade that likely will occur in my lifetime. And the Beatles were at Ground Zero of the 1960s. Arguably, the 1960s, and all the cultural evolution since then, would have been strikingly different without them. They've given lots of interviews about those times, and in later years have seemed astonishingly open about them as time fades, grudges ease, and social norms continue to evolve. I just think it would be fun to hear stories about those times first hand, and to get their opinions on a number of subjects. Like what they think about how music has evolved, how they've coped with fame, and what they may have done differently. Hopefully it wouldn't be like the Chris Farley Show with Paul McCartney: "Remember when you were in the Beatles....?"

2. Henry Kissinger. THAT guy knew what real power was and how to use it. National Security Advisor, then Secretary of State to Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He was the point man on Vietnam, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, détente, the opening to China, the Chilean intervention, the India-Pakistan conflict, on and on. And we could talk about Nixon. Plus, I like how he speaks.

1. Henry Aaron. It might have been Muhammad Ali, but I think the conversation with Aaron would go better. One of the greatest baseball players of all time or on the short list. And played during baseball's 1950s and 60s heyday. Knew the absolute pinnacle of athleticism and competition, yet experienced prejudice and overcame significant obstacles. Played in the Negro Leagues and yet later became a long-time Major League All-Star. Five tool guy, but despite the publicity his home run chase brought him, he never really received the respect for his all around baseball talent and achievement. Unbridled enthusiasm for the game despite having experienced some of the most vile hatred imaginable. In interviews, Aaron has expressed some really keen and provoking insights into sports and society in general. And I want to find out what he thought when those longhairs ran out on the infield as he was rounding second as he hit home run 715. And I could ask him about his Milwaukee teammate, Bob Uecker.

NEXT-Top 5 Things or People That Annoy Me. Oh, great. That should be uplifting.