Wednesday, June 22, 2016

When Joe Met Jay

Delightful evening at El Azteca in Sandy Springs with Joe Suggs. I wanted him to give a young cartoonist friend Amber some advice and tricks of the trade, and Joe did a great job. He came in and sat down and went right to work, spending an hour pouring over her portfolio page by page, drawing by drawing. When he gave pointers Joe told stories about who taught him the trick. It was interesting stuff and when I got home I spent a long time retelling Ceil many of the details. Joe has worked for Disney, DC Comics, Pixar, and the Braves, among several other companies. At Pixar he crossed paths with Steve Jobs. Joe worked on Space Jam and as well as several cartoons of note.

I had Joe tell his Jay Leno story: back in the days when you had to go to a place called an "arcade" to play a video game (the early 1980's). Joe's high school girlfriend Lynn Lemmons spotted the hot young comedian in Sandy Springs. Lynn pointed out Leno to Joe, who'd never heard of him. Later they looked him up and discovered two movies he'd appeared in. Lynn wrote an entry in her journal for English class entitled "The Day I met Jay Leno." 

The next day Joe and Lynn were in a different arcade in Sandy Springs and again spotted Leno. Jay remembered the young couple and quipped to Joe "do you ever take this girl anyplace nice?" Joe replied "as a matter of fact, we're just getting back from watching a double feature: American Hot Wax and Americathon." Jay came back with "ah, great movies all!" Lynn showed Jay her journal entry, and at the bottom Leno wrote: "I attest the above statements are true - Jay Leno" 

A year or two later Joe and Lynn went to The Punch Line to see Leno. Joe ran into Jay at the bar, and Jay asked where his young lady was. When Joe pointed to Lynn, Jay quipped "Nice to see you finally took her someplace nice."

Joe mentioned he talked to Edie at Denton Harris' funeral. He talked Andy Griffith Show with Don Head at brother Rob's birthday party. Joe recalled the famous choir tour taco salad incident, which I explained to Amber. We told Joe about how I came to be known as the superhero Krypto, and how Steve Norman and David Hurt's kids went to school with Amber and Will – and that Camp SPdL was similar to the Living Science school trips we'd gone on.

Speaking of dogs, did I tell you W&MC got a dog? Named it Okie.

We had trouble getting internet and cable hooked up, so that chore drags on.

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