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" Adam Ippolito, the keyboardist from Elephant&amp;#039;s Memory, the band John Lennon plucked from New York&amp;#039;s counter-culture scene to back him up when he arrived in New York City in 1971, remembers the time Dick Cavett visited the band&amp;#039;s Madison Square Garden dressing room in comical detail. &amp;quot;He walked into our dressing room, looked around at this hairy, probably stoned band, got this incredibly scared look on his face, and turned and almost ran in the other direction,&amp;quot; Ippolito recalls, chuckling, of the band&amp;#039;s run-ins with Cavett after appearing with Lennon on the talk show host&amp;#039;s fabled 1970s TV show. When I catch up with Cavett, I ask him if the story is true.  &amp;quot;Probably,&amp;quot; Cavett says. &amp;quot;But it must have been the drugs.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yours or theirs?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Does it matter? It was the &amp;#039;70s!&amp;quot; Cavett, now 77, has a new memoir out today, Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks, which looks back on his time with some of the biggest names of the 20th century. A touching essay about the late James Gandolfini, a fond remembrance of an afternoon at Stan Laurel&amp;#039;s small Los Angeles apartment, sparring with Muhammed Ali, and being talked into signing on as Apple&amp;#039;s first celebrity pitchman by a young Steve Jobs are all here, as are Cavett&amp;#039;s warm memories of John Lennon. Listen to an exclusive clip from the audiobook of Brief Encounters, read by Cavett himself, in which he talks fondly about John Lennon:      &amp;quot;He was one of those people who you liked right away,&amp;quot; Cavett says of the Beatle. &amp;quot;There are some people that it takes a while to figure out if you like them or not. You know, are they smart, do they say &amp;#039;excetera&amp;#039;? But with Lennon it was instant accessibility. I immediately wondered, &amp;#039;How long have I known this guy?&amp;#039; It was like talking to an old friend. He was peaches, as we used to say back then. I didn&amp;#039;t observe him with many other people, but the only time I ever saw him tense or on edge was at the courthouse in downtown New York City when I testified on his behalf that he shouldn&amp;#039;t be deported by the Nixon administration. I said that if they were going to start deporting the sort of valuable citizen that John was that I had a list of about 100\u2014not all in show business\u2014that should go first. We didn&amp;#039;t talk much that day, but I remember seeing him at the end of a long corridor and he did seem to be concerned and unusually serious, but understandably so.&amp;quot;  Cavett, still as busy as ever doing appearances on Imus in the Morning and HuffPost Live, and writing a regular opinion column for The New York Times, looks back in sharp detail in the book on his days as one of the premiere talk-show hosts of the &amp;#039;70s. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t have a real method for my storytelling,&amp;quot; Cavett confesses. &amp;quot;But I try to approach it from the perspective that I was able to go somewhere that so few people were\u2014or are\u2014able to go. I&amp;#039;ve had the incredible luck of being able to meet virtually everyone I&amp;#039;ve ever wanted to meet\u2014all these fascinating people\u2014though there were certainly a few I would rather not have met.&amp;quot;  For anyone who grew up with Cavett, or has even hazy memories of his talk shows, he&amp;#039;s as witty and warm in person as you might imagine, as Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon recalls in his foreword. &amp;quot;He couldn&amp;#039;t have been nicer and more generous,&amp;quot; Fallon says of a phone call he received the night before the launch of his run on NBC&amp;#039;s Late Night. &amp;quot;He said he was rooting for me and wished me luck hosting the show, and I&amp;#039;ll never forget the advice he gave me. (I think it was about listening to people when they talk. Or something like that.)&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yeah, I loved Jimmy&amp;#039;s foreword,&amp;quot; Cavett says with a laugh. &amp;quot;But my favorite was the blurb Mel Brooks wrote. Let me read it to you, so I get it right. &amp;#039;The best bathroom reading ever written! Each story takes just the right amount of time.&amp;#039; That&amp;#039;s as perfect as they come, don&amp;#039;t you think?&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a30598/dick-cavett-john-lennon/>