All That Remains Are Memories by Kris Gilpin

As I'm stuck back here in Floriduh now (still hate it) and broke, in debt & basically homeless, I think about the few highlights of my life (I should've been a character actor but fucked that up, I didn't know how to go about it (duh!), I think of all the cool peeps I've met & just wanted to share these short bits with others. I don't mean to be at all pretentious here, I'll just always be a kid from boring Miami in my heart and I've never lost the thrill of meeting famous folk thru the years. That and the fact that Erok has offered me $1 a word, well, enjoy, I hope!...[Gilpin, you having one of those LSD flashbacks?! - Ed.]...

Kurt Vonnegut:

The last time was in NYC (only been there twice, didn't like it, dirty and hard as hell to make a living there, and that was decades ago. L.A. is like that now) I was walking down a popular, rich street (6th Ave.? Duh...) and coming towards me was Kurt Vonnegut (!), a long time literary hero of mine. Unfortunately, he had his hands full, with lots of bags. My heart beat faster as I got the courage to say, "Hello, Mr. Vonnegut! I, uh..." He saw I really wanted to talk to him, so after a  moment he stopped, motioned me aside, tho he was obviously in a hurry, shook my hand and said, "Yes..."

Knowing I was apparently keeping him from something, I quickly tried to get out, "When I was a kid my old brother, who I was closer to than anyone, bought me a copy of Mother Night, I loved it, he later took a year to die young in pain from cancer, and I've read all your books since, and every time I read one it reminds me of him and of how, if he had lived, we surely would've written some funny stuff together--we had the same warped sense of humor--and my entire life would've been different, instead of the fucked-up mess that I've made of it by myself,"

I still don't know why, but all my nervous, then jammed-up brain could spit out was, "Uh, um, my...I think you're fantastic!"

I instantly thought, Oh no, what a fuckin idiot!!

He simply nodded politely, as if to say, Thanks, but I'm in a hurry and you're wasting my precious time here...

He then wordlessly walked away and I froze there, getting tears in my eyes. It haunted me for YEARS, until I encountered someone online who said they knew someone who knew someone who knew Vonnegut. I wrote out all the above in an email, sent it to him and begged him to send it to K.V. He said he would, and did, but of course I never heard back a word.

I don't know if Vonnegut ever did get my apology/explanation for that day, but I've always hoped that he did before he died.

Michael Ironside:

For the 22 years I was in L.A. I was in heaven, of course. On almost every street, almost every day, I'd run into people I recognized and loved.

One night my ex-wife and I were coming out of a theater on Hollywood Blvd. and in front of us was Michael Ironside, he looked and even moved like Joe Fucking Cool, no lie! We walked behind him a few feet and he actually seemed to emanate a strong vibe which I could feel just by being behind him, making me think, Holy shit, he has the Joe-Cool aura you'd expect from Jack Nicholson!

More heart palpitations before I stopped him and told him how much I loved his work in Scanners. I didn't know if he would bark, "Fuck off!" at me, but he was cool, said thanks and shook our hands. Only then did I notice the smiling beauty on his arm, and my jaw partially dropped--it was the still-stunning Kristen (R-and X-rated Alice in Wonderland) DeBell! I said, "Oh, hi, Kristen, we love you, too!" (Ironside smiled at that.) She smiled sweetly and shook our hands. "Well, I'll let you guys go, we just had to say hi!"

That's one of the few things (along with the indie-film theaters and the bookstores) I miss from L.A. I got out after all the rich, vacuous movie-studio types (who I worked for) started making me sick (another story)...