Most of us have at least one story. That time I met my favorite band backstage. That time I saw a famous actor eating spaghetti in a New York restaurant. And we tell the stories for years afterward. “I think the reason why we are so excited about these encounters is because celebrities, in my view, are the American royalty,” said Elayne Rapping, an American Studies professor specializing in pop culture at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “People are just addicted to them. I think celebrity culture really is the dominant culture in America.” Meeting celebrities is thrilling because “they’re supposed to be either in a magazine or on a screen or whatever,” Rapping said. “When we see them in person, it’s like they popped off the screen, and we don’t expect that.” Here are some of our brushes with fame. You can post your own at 210sa.com.

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor

Eddie Vedder

Jeeze, I used to listen to some bad music. And I know this is going to piss some people off, but Pearl Jam is up there with the worst of it. Yeah, yeah, I know. My e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for those of you wanting to send hate mail.

But back in 1992, I was a young, impressionable kid looking to make a move from Led Zeppelin to something a little more, I don’t know, interesting and less predictable. I heard Pearl Jam’s “Alive” and immediately bought the album Ten. A month later I went to Lollapalooza II, and during Lush’s performance I saw this guy walking around with a flannel and vest on, and I just thought, “what a f***ing idiot. It’s 100 degrees.”

Anyway, I walked past the guy and realized it was Eddie Vedder checking out the show before Pearl Jam went on. I remember saying “holy s**t, that’s Eddie Vedder.” Moments later, a crowd gathered around him, and he quickly ran off. He was just trying to be like everybody else, but I guess you can’t have it both ways, my friend.

A couple of years later, Vedder was on the MTV Music Awards with a bottle of booze, playing with Neil Young and acting all tortured and s**t. He was talking about how he liked Fugazi and Rollins, and I really tuned out.

Soon after, I discovered this wacky band called The Dirty Three. They play this weird avant garde waltz music and it made me realize that Pearl Jam wasn't that special after all.

It was the 1990s. And a couple of years later me and Eddie both cut our hair.

Dustin Coleman

Dokken

Back in 1990, I was visiting a friend at the University of Illinois. We hit a Taco Bell and were walking through a hotel parking lot when, by himself and out of nowhere, Dokken guitarist George Lynch walked past us. Technically, Dokken had broken up two years earlier, but Lynch was in town touring with his new band, Lynch Mob.

As he walked by, I saw the back of Lynch’s jacket was the Mob’s album cover of their debut album, Wicked Sensation. I said, “Hey, you’re George Lynch!” He turned around and said, “Sorry, man, I don’t have any tickets.” I got all starry-eyed and said, “I don’t want tickets, I just wanna tell you, YOU ROCK!!” He kind of mumbled “thanks” and walked away.

After a few seconds, I looked at my friend and said, “What are we doing here? Let’s follow him into the lobby.”

We did, and found Lynch Mob member and former Dokken drummer “Wild” Mick Brown, Lynch and their two jaw-dropping hot significant others checking in or out of the hotel. Mick was much cooler than George. He shook my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Mick.” I incredulously replied, “You don’t have to tell me who you are.” Then Mick said, “Here, get his autograph, too.”

George scribbled his signature on a piece of paper, and that was that.

I was only 19 at the time. But honestly, when I meet musicians these days, I pretty much react the same way.

Jay Nanda

Santana

My friend’s mom used to work backstage at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, which is the concert venue of UTEP. About 15 years ago, Santana did a show there, and my friend’s ma got us tickets (floor seats, fourth row) and backstage passes. After the show, we flashed our badges and went backstage, where we sat in this room with other people who’d gotten backstage passes or who got picked from the crowd (yes, big-boobed chicks) to go backstage.

Like in the movies (I am SO not lying, I SWEAR it happened this way), one of the roadies or whoever came in the room, said, “You. And you. And you. Come with me” to me, my friend and a ditzy, big-boobed chick, and we followed him into another room.

There was food on tables all along one wall, buckets of drinks along another, and in a corner were Santana and his band, just kind of sitting around, talking and eating. The ditzy chick ran to Santana and threw herself at his feet (he was sitting in an armchair, eating a chicken leg) and proceeded to tell him how much she loved him and “what an important artist” she thought he was. My friend and I were more timid, and we kind of said hi to the rest of the band, and they were very nice and invited us to get some food and drinks and sit down if we wanted.

We were too nervous to eat, so we each grabbed a Snapple and sat on the floor till this stupid chick realized Santana was not going to take her to the tour bus to do her. She got up to get a drink, and we approached Santana, told him we loved the concert and would he please sign our backstage passes. He was very nice and said thanks for coming out, asked us our names and was just all around a decent dude.

A roadie came in and told the band it was time to leave. They all got up and started filing out, and the dumb chick followed them. My friend and I were alone in the room, with all this food and drinks. Now, that was the time when backpack purses were the fashion craze. So we had this brilliant idea: Why not grab a few Snapples and Perriers? They were just sitting there and probably were going to go to waste. So I started stuffing Snapples into my friend’s pack.

In mid-theft, Santana’s bassist came trotting back; he’d forgotten something. He sees us and starts laughing and goes, “Hey, those are for the roadies!” My friend and I were mortified and couldn’t move, and here’s this dude cracking up. THEN, he waves back the others to see us stealing, and we just wanted to die. The whole band came back to look and laugh. Then Santana sticks his head around the door, sees us, chuckles a little and takes off. Well, we didn’t put the Snapples back, so there!

Julie Ann Vera

Red Hot Chili Pepper

I met the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the record store Waterloo in Austin on the Mother’s Milk tour. This was when Chad Smith and John Frusciante joined the band after some pretty chaotic lineup changes. Flea and Anthony were as cool as I expected them to be, but the new guys were real jerks. Frusciante drew a dripping penis on my poster, and Smith wrote that I was a dirty word that sounds a lot like casserole. I remember thinking at the time, “Well, these chumps won’t be in the band long anyway.” Shows what I know.

Mike Knoop

Tommy Lee

My cousin and I went with another girlfriend to see Tommy Lee DJ at Ghost Bar in Dallas. It was really cool because you get right up to the DJ booth, almost close enough to touch him. So we’re dancing and grooving and drooling, and Tommy Lee keeps looking over in my cousin’s direction. So, she turns to the woman standing next to her and says, “He keeps looking at one of us.” “That’s my boyfriend,” the woman says. To which my cousin replied, “That’s weird, that’s my boyfriend.” Turns out, that really was Tommy Lee’s girlfriend. But we’re convinced that he was looking at my cousin.

Jennifer McInnis

LaDanian Tomlinson & Chris Klein

I’m a member of the Class of 2000 at Texas Christian University, and two famous Horned Frogs made their way down the same collegiate halls that I did. And I had brushes with both in my time there.

Chris Klein, whom you may remember from such films as “American Pie,” “Election,” “Here on Earth” and “Rollerball,” was in my Principles of Math class, where we learned how to calculate mortgages using prime rate, the difference between simple and compound interest and how to calculate and analyze statistics. I didn’t understand anything that was going on in class, and he was hardly ever there. So I guess that’s not too exciting :(.

But my second brush with fame is a little better. LT was famous from the first day he stepped on campus.

The Southwest Conference had just disbanded, and the Horned Frogs were joining the Western Athletic Conference. All hopes were on Tomlinson for winning seasons, and, boy, did he deliver. In 1999, his junior year, he helped TCU defeat USC in the Sun Bowl, its first bowl win in 41 years, and he rushed 2,158 his senior year, earning him the Doak Walker best running back award. The guy was top dog at TCU.

As he was preparing to enter his final year, our communications department knew he’d be getting national attention, so they asked the college newspaper, of which I was editor, to help him get comfortable answering questions from journalists. They set up a mock press conference and let us ask whatever we wanted. My question was about whether he was looking forward to winning the Heisman trophy. His answer was the usual “I’m focused on the season and not on winning that trophy” or something like that. But he did end up coming in fourth for the Heisman, which for TCU was really big.

So see, my class was filled with successful, famous and attractive people! And I was among them.

Joaquin Herrera