James Hannon's video: RiffSurfers Archive - Jeff Hornlien sings Blood and Roses to Darth Vader 11 14 2009

RiffSurferJeff Hornlien singing Blood and Roses to Met fan Darth Vader... This goofy clip led to one of the most amazing coincidences in my and Jeff's lives... Full read at https://jameshannon.com/2009/11/20/late-night-tales-from-a-nj-diner Late night tales from a NJ Diner, November 20, 2009 Jeff was over the house and we had a Star Wars geek mission to complete. He needed pictures in his Han Solo costume in order to be accepted into the Rebel Legion (the Star Wars “good guys” costume group) . So we decided to make a hang-out night of it. He brought his guitar over because he wanted me to videotape him playing the Smithereen’s “Blood and Roses” to put up on Youtube. Somehow between him & me, we came up with him playing it while dressed in the Han Solo costume. While filming, we also decided to add me in a Darth Vader mask and my Stormtrooper mannequin wearing a Smithereens shirt in the background… We finished it at like 1am that night, and put it up on Youtube. The reaction we got from our friends is that they thought we were goofy (they’re not wrong), but it really didn’t get the appreciation that we thought it deserved. And that was the end of that. Or so we thought. A week later, Jackie, Jeff and myself went to the Star Wars in Concert event. Had a great time there and we met some of the 501st Legion . After it ended, we hung out talking after most of the crowd left. We went back to Scotch Plains. I hadn’t eaten all day, so we went to the local Scotch Plains Diner to eat. As we’re walking in, Jeff notices thru the window that someone is wearing a Smithereens T-shirt – Being the wiseass that I am, I said in a mock snobbery tone “Yeah, Pat DiNizio (lead singer of the Smithereens) eats here all the time. And as we walked a little further, Jeff looked like he was about to crap his pants. Pat DiNizio WAS in the diner having a late night meal. We go in, and we were sitted about 30 feet away from him. Originally Jeff wanted to go over to him, but I gave him the “let the man have dinner in peace” talk, and Jeff relented. But he kept looking over which was kinda funny, and I started calling him a stalker. Eventually Jeff said that the people at Pat’s table were starting to look back at him which made him really nervous (he didn’t want to come across as a stalker) so we continued our meals.. Eventually Pat got up and went to the other side of the diner (we assumed it was a bathroom trip, but he got stopped by some fans/friends before he got there) All of a sudden the woman that Pat was with appeared at our table looking nervous. She showed Jeff her phone, and asked him if this was him. Jeff looked amazed, so I asked if I could see. She showed me her phone and she had THE VIDEO THAT JEFF AND I SHOT LAST WEEK!!!!!! Apparently she was filming a documentary on Pat for the last two years, and has been doing research on the fan appeal of the Smithereens and found our video on Youtube. She said it was so different from the rest of the fan-videos that she definitely remembered it. She asked if we wanted to be in the documentary, to which we said of course. She also said that she wasn’t sure until she saw Jeff’s Stormtrooper shirt that I had just given him for the Star Wars concert. Then she was 90% sure it was him. She told us that Pat walked away just in case Jeff wasn’t the guy on the video. Once she gave him the “confirm” that it was the right guy, Pat came over to us and introduced himself. He’s really a nice guy, and told us that he enjoyed the video, and that Jeff did an awesome job – He also offered to teach Jeff the special chord needed to play “A Girl Like You”. All this was filmed by the documentary guys. Pat then went on to talk about how blown away by Star Wars he was, and he and I had a great conversation about the movie, the conventions, and Lloyd Kaufmann. We all just had a wonderful conversation, and took some pictures. I passed him a RiffSurfers CD, and my Richard and the Young Lions documentary DVD. It was really cool, and he was very friendly to us. We exchanged cards, and signed releases for our footage, and WE WILL BE IN THE DOCUMENTARY!!! Hopefully we’ll be kept in the loop about when its coming, etc. (2019 note - we never found it) We left shortly after, as it was like 12:45am by this point, and we held it together until we got outside. Then Jeff, Jackie & I just lost it… High fiving, hugs, cursing all around. It was just a crazy crazy night. All the small coincidences that led up to that moment were insane. There is absolutely no way we could have planned it, and if we didn’t just have it happen to us, we never would have believed it. RiffSurfers Archive Note: Years ago, I was the manager and video guy of the amazing band The RiffSurfers. We shot quite a few videos and posted them on the RiffSurfers YouTube page. The band only exists in fond memories now, but these are the clips I created and wanted to archive on my channel as part of my James Hannon history