Kind of unrelated, but I remember a story Dustin Hoffman told on Johnny Carson. Dustin said he was in Hawaii making a movie and decided to take his family out to dinner at this very expensive, popular restaurant. So he says they get there and the place is packed, he finds the manager and asks the manager, “Do you know me?”. The manager says, “No sir, I don’t know you”. Dustin replies, “I’m Al Pacino, and I have brought my family here for dinner”. The manager says, “I don’t care if you were Dustin Hoffman, we have no tables available”.
Ken Griffey Jr. pretended to get hugely pissed off at me because I wouldn’t cut him a discount on about a grand’s worth of sunglasses a few months ago.
Turns out he was kidding, and even called my roommate on my cellphone to freak him out.
Mark Messier made a number of comments about my stature in relation to his.
I don’t think he intended any insult, though. When there’s beer involved, and you stand a 5’4", 120lb guy next to a big guy like that, someone’s going to comment on the disparity.
Harlan Ellison called me a putz once. I had tried to trick him with a question during a reading he was giving in Anchorage. He slipped out of the noose rather easily, then delivered the rebuke.
Spider Robinson has called me “tone-deaf.”
But Buffy Saint-Marie said I was “considerate,” so I guess it all balances out.
Really? Say it ain’t so!
Tony Kornheiser sat in my section when I waited tables. He complained about the food, and how long it took to be delivered. Does that count?
Tim Russert bought coffee and 5 newspapers from me when I was a coffee jockey in a well-known bookstore cafe. As he left, he smiled and said, “Good luck to you”. I wasn’t sure if he was complimenting me (as in, hang in there, you’ll be out of this dead-end job soon) or insulting me (as in, what the hell is a guy like you doing in a place like this).
Alan Colmes told me to “lay off the bong” once when I called his radio show to rip him for being too pro-corporate.
This was before he was on Fox News and he wasn’t that well known yet. I use to love his radio show. It seemed like about 90% of his listeners were total conservatives (at least the callers were) and he used to say absurdly over the top things just to bait them.
I once asked Willie Stargell (a baseball player from the 60s & 70s) for his autograph while he was in the stands of a minor league game. His reply: “Fuck Off! Casper!”
My friend drives a limo in Vegas. He tried to make small talk with Bill Cosby as he drove him around. Bill told him “You aren’t allowed to talk to me”.
Before the accident. I also mentioned this story to a few people in LA and one woman said, “thank you for telling me that, I thought it was just me!” Seems a year or so before, she had been selected to pick Reeve up at an airport (he was going to her University to speak) and she arrived on time, waited for him (she is a petit, pretty and very friendly woman) and he made her life miserable from the time she picked him up until she had to drive him back to the airport. She said she had never been so glad to see someone get out of her car as she was when she dropped him off at the airport!
I recall getting snubbed by Natalie Merchant (of all people!) after a 10,000 Maniacs concert. It was in Jamestown, early 90s, before “Our Time In Eden” (the last studio album by the band with her) but they did songs from it throughout their set.
Anyway, after the show was over, a friend I was with really wanted her autograph. I wasn’t too interested, but hung out with her. Sure enough, “Miss Merchant” came out to sign autographs. But evidently she took a liking to the two people in line just ahead of us because she continued chatting with them for quite a while, blithely ignoring my friend who was waiting patiently (sheepishly even.) Then, Natalie simply walked away with these two folks, and talked to them quietly. Unsure of what to do, we hung out for a little longer. Natalie did come back, but she breezed right past us, ignoring my friend when she asked for an autograph.
While all this going on, there was some guy waiting for Natalie who looked to be about 75 years old. Since it was the band’s home town, I thought it may have been her father. Wrong! After breezing past us, Natalie went up to this guy and started kissing him, ahem, passionately. Insulted, and grossed out, I convinced my friend that we should leave.
I should say though, that the other band members also came out, and very graciously signed autographs.
Nick Fiend tried to crush my hands with his boots while “performing” in Hamburg one time. I was not happy. I threw stuff at him after that. You know what? I think he liked it.
John Connally (former Texas governor and near assassination victim along with JFK in '63) once got seriously pissed off at me.
This was during his unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980. He was holding a press conference during a stop in the Quad Cities, and since none of the other reporters was quizzing him about anything interesting, I asked him a question about his role in the Watergate-era milk price support bribery scandal.
He was snappish and dismissive, and while not directly insulting me managed to suggest that I was an idiot for bringing up this bit of ancient history.
I had to leave this major news event a little early to cover some other story, and on the way out passed a video crew filming Connally for some reason (probably a commercial). The “director” was peeved that I walked in front of his camera and hissed angrily at me.
I wasn’t entirely unhappy when the Connally campaign shortly thereafter sank without a trace.
In the 1980s, Bozo the Clown quipped that he and I must go to the same hairdresser.
Prolific recording artist Eugene Chadbourne threatened to kill me and I have it on paper. He was only joking, I think.
A friend of mine who was once a waiter at a place in Ohio said that Dave Thomas (of the Wendy’s fast food chain) came in and was a big ass who brought a waitress to tears over the size of his porkchops.
My friend has a piece of paper autographed by the guys in Motorhead (don’t know how to do umlauts) saying “Motorhead will kick your ass!” I keep telling him that he has a signed document threatening physical violence in his hands. He won’t listen though.
