Last week, the League of Extraordinary Bloggers introduced a few new members and we all told some cool stories. The idea for this week’s assignment came from the Femme of Fandom’s Oprah sighting story. Your assignment this week is…

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Hey, isn’t that…

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I've met a lot of cool pop culture type people in my life. Chris Claremont, Stan lee, Mark Hamill... but they have always been in controlled environments (conventions). However, there was that one time...

It was 1987. I was heading back home to Las Vegas from New York City after a 3-month vacation. My flight was in the middle of the day and the flight was pretty empty. So empty that I had a whole row to myself and got sit in first-class for a little while.

As I'm sitting in my seat waiting for the flight to take off, a group of about 7 people get on. First guy walks by and has to be the biggest dude I had ever seen (I am 14 and a bit short for my age so it didn't take much to be huge). He's followed by a couple of pretty ladies. Then a kinda skinny black guy with a jogging suit walks by. He's wearing a Kangol and dookie rope chains (This was during the beginning of rap history after all). He's followed by a guy carrying a boombox. The entire group goes to the back of the plane and we take off.

The flight is five hours so I have plenty of time to waste. I spend about 30 minutes in cockpit. Yes, you could hang out in the cockpit back in the day. Ate lunch (a full lunch, not just peanuts) and took a nap. Had to take a potty break and on my way to the back of plane, I passed up the "group". They starred at me as I walked by but I didn't think nothing of it. That is, until I got a good look at the guy wearing the Kangol.

On my way back to the seat I kept trying figure out why Kangol guy looked familiar. I know I had seen him before. Then it hit me! I pulled out my LL Cool J "Radio" cassette and looked at the inside cover. There it was!

Yeah, it was him! It had to be him! I'm sharing a plane with LL Cool J. Awesome. I took another trip to the bathroom to make sure it was him. Yeah, no doubt. I got back to my seat and grabbed the cassette cover and pen and made my way to the back of the plane again. I'm almost there and the "biggest dude I had ever seen" gets my attention. I look over to him and gives me a scowl and starts shaking his head. I don't test him and head back to my seat. I never went back there for the rest of the flight.

To this day I'm still not 100% sure it was LL Cool J, but everything points to that it was. Maybe one of these days I'll meet him and ask him.

*G.O.A.T.- Why the G.O.A.T.? Check it out here.

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The Geeky Vixen has had quite a few cool encounters.

Erik Johnson got to meet one of favorites.

Other members of the League have also had cool "Hey, isn't that..." moments.

The time I almost met the G.O.A.T.*