Bump with Fame

Hi kids! I'm working on a big, picture-laden post for y'all that will serve adequately as an update. But to tide you over until then, I offer this morsel: "Woolly" Bill Pullman.

While working the last weekend of the Faculty Room, we learned that star of stage and screen Bill Pullman would be attending the show on this evening. He was in town for the ACTF festival over at Kennedy to see a production of his new play, and having met Howard some months earlier decided that Woolly was his kind of place and he wanted to see something there. It just so happened that I was the manager on duty that night, and since Bill Pullman insisted on paying for his tickets and being treated no better or worse than any other Woolly patron, he would pick up his tickets at the Sales window before the show. I usually work the Sales window prior to performances, so it's not like I pulled rank to meet him or anything. I would have been sitting in that chair anyway.



So, about 15 minutes to curtain, in strolls Bill Pullman. Now, I haven't had that many brushes with fame in my short life. I can count on one hand the number of bona fide celebrities (of whatever stripe) with whom I've had any interaction. But without a doubt, this was my biggest such brush (move over Bob Dole). He walks up to the counter, and the following exchange occurs:

BP: I hope you have some tickets for me.
JM: I do, in fact.
BP: Great. And I owe you some money.
JM: Right. It'll be [whatever the amount was, I don't recall].
BP: [Handing me his Visa, looking around the lobby] Woolly Mammoth... Woolly Mammoth... this place is very Woolly.
[It's important at this juncture to point to the photo of Bill Pullman herein and direct you, dear user, to push your mouse over yon. Therein is a skilled artistic rendering of how Bill Pullman looks with glasses and facial growth, as he was at Woolly that evening.]

He just kept saying that word: "Woolly." He was fully engrossed in the Woolly-ness of it all, I suppose.

JM: Indeed. [As his credit card receipt and tickets are printing:] I gotta say, you're looking a little woolly yourself these days [strokes own beard indicitively].
BP: Yeah, well, I'm growing it out for a part.
JM: Excellent.
BP: You growning yours out for a part?
JM: Oh, no no. You're looking at my part.
BP: How long have you been growing that?
JM: About fifteen years. I've trimmed it along the way.
BP: [Stroking own beard] Well, you have a little more color in yours [referring to his own's salt-n-pepper nature].
JM: P'shaw! Yours looks great. [Ok, I didn't actually say P'shaw.] [Everything has printed at this point. I slide the CC receipt and a pen, identical to the one illustrated here, across the desk to him.] If I could just get you to sign down at the bottom? [BP does so.] Great. There are your tickets [hands tickets], and there's your souvenir [sliding yellow CC receipt copy over to him].

Now it's important to note here that that's what I say to everyone. It's one of my things, and it gets a little snicker about 85% of the time. But everyone's always clear that by "souvenir" I mean the little slip of paper that just came out of the credit card terminal. Almost everyone.

BP: [Looking at pen, apparently reading the words "Capital Partners for Education" on it, with a little amazement] I get to keep this?!

This was about the only point in this brush jostle bump with fame where I was thrown for a loop and rendered momentarily speechless. Stevie, a coworker and quicker on her feet than I am, quickly jumped in with, "Oh sure, yeah, you can have that as a souvenir," and I was quickly following her lead. Bill Pullman then thanked us, pocketed the pen, and wandered over to his crew.

As I mentioned, I'll have a full update done within a day or two (it's a biggie!).