the 941

Last night was celebrity encounter night for three of your friends here at CL. Well, make that celebrity near-encounter night.

At about 6:10 last night, Randy Adams — awesome friend of our beloved Amanda’s, former bar manager upstairs at the Gator Club and the Silver Cricket, current ”Scotch Guy,” possessor of one of the all-time porniest-sounding names in town — called to inform us that yes, the Naked Cowboy was still in town: Adams had just spotted him in front of Mel’s Diner on the South Trail.

And that wasn’t all. The sidewalk in front of Mel’s had apparently become star-studded campaign turf for the evening, and was now being graced by none other than Steve Forbes — and the Rev. Rudy Giuliani himself!

Randy hadn’t known the event was going on, but when he saw the crowd gathered outside and the diapered wrangler, he decided to stop by.

Rudy didn’t disappoint.

Emerging from his motorcade to shake hands with his supporters (comprised mostly of blue hairs and families with children, with some cheerleaders in tow), the current prez candidate eventually found Randy and, emanating the kind of class that only a Mel’s campaign stop could allow, smiled. Our correspondent said he looked like Skeletor.

“You got balls,” said Randy.

“Yes,” said Giuliani. “Yes I do.”

That was enough for us to hear: Within five minutes we were out the door. Using my car to get there was out of the question (it’s filled with crushed glass and smells like death). Luckily, stalwart sales rep Chris Duffy was around, excited as we were by the whole thing and already brandishing the keys to his black Audi.

By the time we reached the South Trail, Amanda spotted Giuliani’s bus & motorcade headed… in the opposite direction! Chris got us behind the police cars following the motorcade like he was Bruce Willis or something. And then we were on Fruitville, following the Giuliani procession on its way to I-75 and, eventually, Clearwater.

Oh, how we almost got him! But alas, the bus stalled at the corner of Beneva and mysteriously pulled over.

…Yes, of course we stopped, too! Have a little faith in your paparazzi, folks.

Soon, though, a police officer in the next lane pulled up next to us, and, well, that was sort of the end of the affair. It was the closest any of us had ever been to the former NY mayor.

Exciting stuff, right? We thought so.

It was almost enough to get us caring about the guy we were after.

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