A Brush With Greatness

I travel... a lot. This year looks like it's going to include a lot of time on an airplane. Often airplanes mean catching up on reading, or writing, or sleep! Movies often portray the airplane trip as a place of sudden friendship where two individuals, thrust into the same adventure of travel, share their business, their hopes and their fears, and walk away as new comrades. I know people who really do have great experiences meeting people on the plane. I normally end up being a little quieter. (I know that's hard to believe.)

Every once and a while this pattern is broken. I broke it on my trip to New York when I had my Brush With Greatness. I was not sure if I was going to get a flight that morning. I had one of those “we have a seat for you but we don't know which one” sort of tickets. When I finally got my assignment I was in seat 1A. Score! That's a free first-class upgrade. No! It's just a small plane. There was no first class. I got on, stashed my stuff and sat down next to a young man on the front row. He looks a little familiar but I think nothing of it. I notice that he wears a Hard Rock Café jacket so I mentioned the closing of the HR in Austin. We chatted for a while about Hard Rock Cafés and how they really could be havens for Americana when you were traveling outside of the U.S.A..

Then I stumbled onto a real passion... flying. The gentleman as a pilot and had flown for ten years. I have not flown but am a flight-simulator enthusiast on the PC. We spent the next while talking about flying technologies, experiences and the future of flying. It was fascinating. He knew a lot and had some very interesting thoughts on the subject.

Finally it was getting close to landing time. I had about twenty minutes to close my eyes for a while and prepare to switch planes. He was ready to relax a little before arriving home. Suddenly I realized I had never introduced myself.

“How rude of me,” I said, extending my hand. “I'm Chris.”

He shook my hand and replied, “I'm Emmanuel.”

That's right, folks. I had a rare and very interesting conversation about travel and flying with Emmanuel Lewis, the one-time star of Webster, among other things. We never talked about his past. We just talked about the things we enjoyed and shared like two regular dudes.

So, aside from sharing the strange tale of how I once sat next to and spoke with Emmanuel Lewis, what is the point to all of this? As a performer I encounter a number of people under different circumstances. They are normally there for “business” or some other official purpose. They are wearing whatever face that they have to wear for that situation. As I take them on the journey into the strange, odd and unusual we sometimes end up breaking through this barrier through to the real them. When this happens I always learn something completely unexpected. These are my favorite moments in life. These are where the real magic happens.