Name-dropping #4: politicians and Hollywood celebrities

Of course you have to be careful about what famous person's name you drop in certain circles. The first famous person I met when moved to San Francisco was Jerry Brown who was then Governor of California. (He has recently announced that he is running for Gov again - God help California.) I met him at the Zen Center in San Francisco and thought he was a very nice, unpretentious man in spite of his crazy politics - but of course I couldn't tell Republicans that I liked him.

About 10 years later I met another politician, Tom Haydn, who was at that time a State legislator in Sacramento. I detested this man before I met him because of his insane politics and my prejudices against him were not dispelled by meeting him. He is arrogant and phony - and plain ugly. I kept thinking as I talked to him: "How could Jane Fonda ever have married and had sex with this troll?" And of course I couldn't tell Democrats that I despised him.

My friend who had gotten me the job in Yehudi Menuhin's restaurant in London came to live in California soon after I moved to San Francisco. She had given up working for the Arab "prince" on board his yacht in the Mediterranean and taken a job working for the film producer Gary Kurtz.

Kurtz had been collaborating with George Lucas ever since American Graffiti and had produced Star Wars. I liked Kurtz a lot. He is a very nice guy. He had a beautiful house on the south slope of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County with a stunning view of San Francisco. Lucas decided to have his adopted daughter's second birthday party at Kurtz's house. He had a temporary "playground" (swings, carousels etc which I later learned had cost $20,000) built on the lawn just for the party.

My friend who worked for Kurtz was asked to organize the party and asked me to do the catering. I decided to cook finger-food that could be eaten standing as it was a buffet lunch. Lucas' wife at the time was vegetarian so I made falafels, hummus, tabouleh, baba-ganoush and tomato and cucumber salads served with pita bread. I got to Kurtz's house at 6 am to have lunch ready by noon. Lucas was the first to arrive.

My friend kept digging me in the ribs and urging me to go to Lucas and tell him that I was a writer. I was still in awe of Lucas in 1980 when I met him but, even if I weren't, I would not have been that pushy. When he eventually came into the kitchen, I introduced myself as "the cook" and let him taste all the dishes. I was pretty timid in those days and didn't say much and Lucas seemed awkward and uncomfortable. Maybe he expected me to gush about how much I enjoyed Star Wars but I was tongue-tied and he was aloof and unfriendly.

Later, when I learned more about him, I decided that he didn't have enough class to have any sense of noblesse oblige to put mere servants like me at ease. Kurtz fell out with Lucas soon after I met them because Lucas "kept changing plans and going over budget" during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back but my friend told me that there were already tensions between the two men before that. Kurtz is a gentleman and Lucas is pretty "unpolished."

A few years later Chas and I were in Sears in San Francisco buying a plug-in word-processor cartridge for my Commodore C-64 when Robin Williams came in and started to look through the Commodore software. He was very friendly and chatty and told us that he was looking for games for his C-64.

While I'm on the subject of Hollywood celebrities - I also knew the actor Michael Nouri before he became famous. He was also a follower of my Hindu guru - and may still be. I lost touch with him after he became famous. The beautiful actress Marissa Berenson and George Harrison's wife were also followers of my guru but I never met them.

I did meet one other Hollywood celebrity - Alicia Silverstone - before leaving San Francisco but I'll save that for another time.