A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 17
This is the fifth year in a row I’ve run this series in April.
Today: Dave Matthews fans give star a ride.
Two Dave Matthews fans gave the musician a ride to his own concert after his bicycle broke down on the side of the road and he found himself stranded without a cell phone, CBS News reports.
Emily Kraus and her boyfriend, who were on their way to Matthews’ concert in Hershey, Pa., spotted him and drove him to the show, even transporting his bike.
“He said, ‘I’ve never seen a bike rack like this before,’” Kraus explained to CBS. Her boyfriend helped him with his bike and she held his helmet.
He then got into the car, and they got him to the stage on time.
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Matthews was so grateful, he invited the couple to dinner. They also went backstage and watched the concert from the front row.
“I rolled over this morning, and I said, ‘Yeah, that really happened yesterday,’ “ Kraus recounted.
This story reminded me of another chance encounter with a famous musician:
Bob Dylan was escorted by police in New Jersey last month after officers failed to recognise him, it has emerged.
Dylan was walking in the pouring rain in Long Branch when locals became suspicious of his behaviour and called the police. 24-year-old police officer Kristie Buble answered the call, and was told that an “eccentric-looking old man” was standing in a residents’ yard.
“It was pouring rain outside, and I was right around the corner so I responded,” Buble told ABC News.
“I asked him what his name was and he said “Bob Dylan”,” she said. “Now, I’ve seen pictures of Bob Dylan from a long time ago and he didn’t look like Bob Dylan to me at all. He was wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head.”
Buble added that she then asked Dylan for identification. Upon learning that he had none, she decided to take him back to what he said was his hotel in a bid to have someone identify him.
“‘OK Bob, why don’t you get in the car and we’ll drive to the hotel and go verify this?’” Buble said she told Dylan. “I pulled into the parking lot,” she continued, “And sure enough there were these enormous tour buses, and I thought, ‘Whoa’.”
And then there’s this:
So what would it be like to intersect in a totally random way with a rock star? Perhaps s/he just broke up with the band and stalked off the tour bus into God knows where… without his/her identification, wallet, purse, money, cell phone. A defiant act… but also quite stupid. Who rolls up:
* Lonely down on his/her luck dreamer
* Stoner
* 18 wheel trucker
* Drug dealers
* Psychopath
You could do a compressed time frame sort of thing whereby the musician processes their life a la Roman Holiday, then returns to the band all happily ever after like.
Or a thriller whereby musician ends up being kidnapped by some bad guys who feel like they just hit the jackpot by stumbling into this lucky encounter.
You could take it from the perspective of the musician. Or the person(s) with whom the musician intersects.
Lots of different story angles with this one.
There you go: My seventeenth story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!
What would you do with it?
Each day this month, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Gender bend, genre bend, what if. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are all valuable skills for a writer to develop.
See you in comments (hit Reply to join the conversation). And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.
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