Once a week long-time radio producer and author Rick Kaempfer shares his favorite brushes with greatness in a feature he calls “Celebrity Snippets.”
The Academy Awards are tomorrow night. For the first time ever, a former Vice President of the United States could win an Oscar. I never met that Vice President (Al Gore), but I did meet the man who held the office before him: Dan QuayleDan Quayle had been out of office for less than a year when I met him at a Marshall Field's book signing. I was the only member of the press to show up.
I'm not kidding.
To be fair, the press was told in advance that former VP Quayle wouldn't be taking any questions--he was just there to sign books and meet the public. That scared off everyone else. That, and the fact that he was already considered old news. He had just become an ex-Vice President.
Of course, I went for comedy reasons. I figured that I would get him on tape, or I would get someone on tape telling me to get lost. It was win-win.
When I arrived at the store, the PR person told me politely that there wouldn't be any questions. I promised her that I didn't have a lot of questions...only one. It would literally take one minute. The Vice President overheard me say that, sighed, and nodded to her. I had the go-ahead.
Unfortunately, I didn't really have a question ready. I was certain I would get the brush off--so I hadn't properly prepared for success. It wasn't until moments before the Vice President waved me up, that I finally thought of a question. His first question to me, however, changed my plans.
"Are you with a wacky morning show?" he asked when he saw my microphone and recorder.
I admitted I was.
"Is your question going to be crude?" he asked, his eyes looking for the PR person to intervene, just in case.
"No," I promised. "Nothing crude."
"Are you going to make fun of me?" he asked.
"No," I promised, and frantically searched my brain for a replacement question.
"OK," he said. "What is your question?"
It came to me at the last second--only because as far as I'm concerned--I had never heard a good answer to the question. I knew he was from Indiana, so I asked...
"What is a Hoosier?"
He smiled, and launched into his answer without hesitating or stumbling. It was a lengthy answer, with many layers, about a contractor named Hoosier from the 1800s, who preferred hiring stout and sturdy workers. He found that those kind of men tended to come from Indiana, so over time, "Hoosier" became shorthand for 'Indiana workers.'
(When I was writing this, I went on the Internet to find out if Quayle's definition was correct or not. Apparently no-one can answer that question definitively, there are several different definitions, but I did find his definition elsewhere. At least he wasn't making it up.)
When he finished answering the question, he leaned over and hit the stop button on my tape recorder. Then he smiled and said "Thanks. You had me nervous there."
"Are you kidding?" I said. "I was the one that was nervous. I was talking to the Vice President."
He waved his hand modestly. "Happy to do it."
I have to be honest, my overall impression of the man was very positive. Of course, I still had comedy obligations, so when he officially retired from politics just before the 2000 Presidential election, I still wrote the following song...
AUDIO: "So Long Dan Quayle"
(Vince Argento on vocals, Dan Quayle on malaprops)
It's nothing personal. Just doing my job.
Tomorrow's Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres was previously featured on Celebrity Snippets
