Lucas Is Dead.

What is it about breaking news to people, bad or good?  There is some sort of power in it, we revel in knowing something before someone else and then telling them the news.  More often than not, we traffic in celebrity death, we're nearly always detached from it but it's still a rush to spill the beans to someone.  Because of my schedule, I often spill such beans to my wife when I get home from doing an overnight.  The other morning, the tables were turned and she woke me up with the news that Corey Haim had died.  I wouldn't call it glee but there was a certain tone to her voice, knowing that this wasn't the death of just any random celebrity but the death of a celebrity who had a starring role in one of the most overtold stories in my admittedly large repitoire of overtold stories.  They don't call wives 'long-suffering' for nothing and my wife has suffered through so many of my oft-told stories and being in the movie Lucas was always #1 with a bullet. It became a joke pretty early on and it had gotten to the point where I wouldn't bring it up unless a direct question was asked about it or the subject of being in movies was the topic of conversation.  Fair enough, it had been my lead story for a looong time. 

After a cursory peek at the news sites for details, I showered, got dressed and headed downtown for a meeting.  While sad, Corey Haim's death was hardly a surprise, I was kind of amazed it took this long, after all he was selling his teeth on E-Bay a few years back.  While in my meeting, my cell vibrated with the familiar area code (312) and prefix (222, The Tribune's exclusive prefix), I let it go to voicemail; seconds later a text buzzed my phone again, it was Carla: "Here's your chance to shine, someone actually wants to hear about your Lucas experience, expect a phone call." After my meeting, I called the Tribune reporter who had done her research and knew that I had been an extra in Lucas and I told her about my fleeting brushes with the young cast of Lucas (Jeremy Piven, Charlie Sheen, Winona Ryder & Courtney Thorne-Smith).  The story ran in yesterday's Trib.

It's true I did meet Corey and the rest of the cast as a paid extra on the set (my high school) of Lucas, in fact I wrote about the whole experience in my fifth or sixth post on this blog.  And here we are, 25 years later, Corey Haim is dead, so I think it's time to officially mothball the Lucas stories, at least until Abby asks if daddy ever did anything cool when he was younger.

Feel free to post in the comments about your brush with greatness--Lucas or otherwise--or nominate another Ken story to put away in the story vault.

Comments

[Jeff]

I concur. It's time to put the Lucas story to bed and your Tribune quote was a fine way to end it.

Now we just need to be visible in the background of another movie which defines an era and a genre and everyone can remember :-)

[Jules]

How about our beer with Jeremy Piven?? You me and Doug. Back in 94ish?

[audree]

I still try to make myself out in the bleachers, in front of the 'Bears' cheerleaders was it not? They stood in for our green and white 'Hilltopper' girls. Front row with my legs hanging down. I see Suzie Alstrin in the band shot..One day I am gonna freeze frame it. The girl with a 'Nick Rhodes' hair style..OMG. What sticks for sure, like it was yesterday, the 20 takes standing with the director as the sun set on the big 'tackle' that put him in the hosp. 'We are loosin light people!!' It could be said, it is like a home movie. Heck, some drove up in limo's to 'The Glen' the night it opened. For a time, and forever on DVD, The Village of Glen Ellyn and the cool school we went to, were stars!

[Jay]

I was also in the bleachers of the football scenes. We were told to wear fall clothing, but as your camera crew photo shows, it was incredibly hot those days.

I remember hearing that Corey Haim was almost kicked out of the local Holiday Inn where he was staying for riding his bike in the hallways. That's the only inside story I have.

Too bad you graduated before Fox produced Yearbook, Ken. You could've been the first reality TV star.