Monday, April 25, 2011

Friendly Encounters

This is a weekly series about friends who have met celebs.

The latest blog I have just found is the Sports Daddy, a blog written by Mookie Anderson, who states he created the blog to hone his web skills and write about sports.  He has turned it into an interesting blend of sports and family, with a definite (but not over-the top) Minnesota flavor.
I asked Mookie to share something for this site and he responded with a couple stories and a picture.  I'll let him take it from here.

MA:I was in a movie, briefly, called Overnight Delivery.  It was filmed back in 1994 in the Twin Cities and starred a young, future Oscar winning actress Reese Witherspoon, along with Paul Rudd.  I was an extra who was called back to shoot two different specialty scenes in that comedy.  One role was as a bouncer in a strip bar.  The other was a waiter in a diner.  They didn't use either, so my work is on the cutting room floor somewhere out in Hollywood.  The fun thing is I got to eat and chat with both actors on the set.  Rudd was a great person to chat to.  I had just finished up a part as Big Jule in Guys and Dolls at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul and he told me a lot about his experiences on the stage.
"In movies, it's a lot of hurry up and wait.  You can never tell how good a movie will be when you film it.  Once it's done filming,many other people have a hand in its final format, making changes and editing the scenes.  You never know what scenes or takes they will use or how the final version will look.  Then once it comes out, you have to wait to see if the critics will like it.  The process can take months.  On stage, the feedback is instantaneous.  The crowd reaction tells you immediately."
Gordon Lightfoot's drummer is married to an old friend of mine and in 1993 I got a backstage pass.  I remember asking him the question I I always wanted to ask a musician,  "have you ever written a song and just knew it would be a hit?".
He said point blank, "It's tough to know, but when we wrote Sundown, we just had a good feeling that it would chart.  There are of course surprises.  The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, for example, we wrote that song not knowing it would be the one that we are most known for.  It was intended to be an album filler.  It caught us all by surprise when it became so popular."

Now that is an excellent tale, but I am not surprised.  The Sports Daddy doesn't disappoint.  Check out the Sports Daddy website and see for yourself!
Gordon Lightfoot and Mookie Anderson in MN-1993.

1 comment:

Corky said...

I love Gordon Lightfoot. Great story.