Three years ago I met Ernie Hudson. I got a photo of all four Ghostbusters and he signed it. I have made it a goal to get all four guys to sign it now.
Tonight I was chillin’ at home in a Battlegrounds queue when my phone rang. It was my friend Robert. He’d just passed a liquor store with an Ecto-1 parked outside. Dan Aykroyd was inside, selling and signing bottles of Crystal Head Vodka. “I would leave, like, now,” he advised. I checked the website — it was legit and going until 8pm. It was 7:30. “Can you get in your uniform that fast?” asked Kat. “Of course I can — I’m a Ghostbuster!” And I am not kidding — I said it with a straight face and no sense of the ridiculous nature dawned on me. I meant it. In retrospect, I am a little scared for myself.
We grabbed the photo. We grabbed my wallet. We found Kat’s wallet. We figured out how to get there — it was ten minutes away, which in LA is potentially 40 minutes, but we showed up just in time. Ecto-1 outside. Signs everywhere. My pack broke; I had to do emergency surgery. The guys at the store were waving me in from across the street, saying “C’mon! You’re gonna be the last one, but you gotta get in here!”
Photo? Wallet? At home. Didn’t grab them after all. But Kat had her Nikon.
Dan Aykroyd is one of the reasons I love comedy. His sense for the absurd, his fearlessness — you watch those early SNLs and it’s amazing. Sneakers, Grosse Pointe Blank,Dragnet…and oh yeah, he created Ghostbusters. Ray has always been my favorite character — the smart believer, the relentlessly positive one, “the heart of the Ghostbusters.” I built ecto goggles to go with the outfit because Ray had them.
I bought a bottle of the vodka for him to sign, of course.
It says “Dan — Report all ghosts! Dan Aykroyd — ‘Ray'”
I posed for a few photos with the Ecto-1 and a few people who wanted their photo taken with me, and then we headed home.
Two down, two to go. Well, I did get to interview Harold Ramis when I was at OXM, so I suppose that counts for something. I have now made contact with three GBs, even if I only have one signature on that darn photo.
Now excuse me, I have to drink booze from a skull.