Yes, that's Patrick and Drew Carey! And if you can't tell, Patrick was beside himself (ha! bad pun not intended -- see below). For those of you who don't know this story...
Patrick had decided he was a huge fan of Drew's. Wanting to grow up to be a game show host and actor (after all, Drew did it!), he decided to take his act to the streets and was Drew Carey for Halloween, 2007.
A suit, his glasses, a Carey grin and a Price is Right microphone and Patrick looked the part. Anytime Patrick orders pizza from the neighborhood Snappy Tomato, the order is entered as "Drew Carey Howard," they had enjoyed his costume and performance so much.I'd learned that Drew Carey was making his debut performance with the Cleveland Orchestra (Doing what you might ask? Doing Shakespeare I would reply as if that were the most common role in the world for Mr. Carey!), narrating parts of Shakespeare's play (those words spoken by Puck) and one of the best orchestras in the world playing selections from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Once tickets were on sale I immediately made sure we had the best available in the pavilion and planned a trip for July to Cleveland.
Being encouraged by several of you who might be reading this, I emailed the PR dept. of the Orchestra explaining about Patrick, sharing his pictures and asking if there were any way he would be able to meet Drew Carey. Fast forward a few months, and we were down to the week of the concert. I finally received a reply from the director of the PR Dept. and she had said she would share my email with Mr. Carey and it would be up to him. If something could be arranged, she would let me know the day of the concert.
Friday, July 25th, we excitedly embarked on our trip. Patrick had packed everything and had it waiting to go when I got home from work and we hit the road north. I'd found a nice, inexpensive hotel with a swimming pool that wasn't far from the Blossom Center where the summer outdoor concerts are held. We got a good sleep and woke up Saturday morning for our day of seeing Drew Carey's Cleveland.
Please note: while the following may seem to be stalking, we were doing it in a lime green VW Beetle, so therefore, no malicious intent was intended. Had we done so in the car wearing clown make-up, well that could qualify as malicious.
One of the more famous stories about Drew Carey available on the internet is him buying the house he grew up in when he first made it big. Not expecting success, I was easily able to find the address of a home owned by a Drew Carey using the county auditor's site. Our first stop was driving past the address on Flowerdale (which we realized Patrick is living on Lonsdale, hmmm) three times. I told Patrick that was all I was willing to do since people were starting to wonder. The house was empty, well taken care of with a large, white wooden fence around it. After that thrill had subsided we headed for the next stop on our Mecca of Carey's beginnings.
The most recent story on the internet about Mr. Carey involves him ordering 45 pizzas from his very favorite pizza parlor and having them flown to a party for the Price is Right in California. So, we had lunch at Drew's favorite pizza parlor, Antonio's Pizza in Parma. We of course listened several times to Moon over Parma from the soundtrack of the Drew Carey show as we drove. The pizza was very, very good (Drew does have terrific taste in pizza it seems!). We talked to Curtis, the guy running the place Saturday morning and Patrick was dying to tell him we came all the way from Cincinnati to eat there. Curtis burst his bubble. It seems people come from greater distances to check out Drew's favorite pizza. He did explain the process of shipping the pizzas from their store via UPS and it involved many steps that would make one wonder if the pizza really arrived as tasty as ours was. He also mentioned that a woman in Florida shells out $50 to have a pizza delivered every few months because she misses their pizza.
We never did hear from the PR Dept and with a bit of disappointment we listened to the first half of the concert. Drew came out on stage after the intermission and the hometown boy was given a rousing welcome. It seemed to take Mr. Carey a bit to relax or perhaps warm-up and the performance was very fun. I'm sure Patrick will replay the death scene without much encouragement now that he's seen Drew Carey do it. After the show, I wondered if we sort of hung around maybe there would be a chance to run into Drew (since we hadn't while we were stalking him earlier in the day). Waiting on the side of the backstage area, Patrick worked his charms on several of the women who were guarding the gates and they noted how adorable he was and that he looked like he could be Drew's son. One thing led to another, I threw around a few names from my email and while we continued to wait, a group came out of a post concert party and asked for our names. Much to Patrick's excitement we were told that our names were "on the list" and we were led back to the party.
Standing there, right in front of us was Drew. He was really nice and introduced himself to Patrick and Patrick was speechless. There was some awkwardness, I shook his hand, and told Mr. Carey about Patrick being a fan and dressing up like him for Halloween (I left out the stalking details). Drew smiled and joked around with Patrick who was still speechless. He posed with Patrick for the above picture and we thanked him and started leave. Patrick stammered, still wasn't able to talk and Drew grabbed him and gave him this huge bear hug. It was really awesome. Once we'd walked away, Patrick was able to talk again, yelling that "I'm going to savor this moment for the rest of my life."
