I was just a PA, a production assistant. I was pretty young at the time.
That’s a shame to hear. I never met Stewart Copeland myself, but last year friends of ours had tickets to a ‘Music of the Police’ concert by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and invited my wife and me. It was hosted by Copeland, with a central band consisting of session player guitars, bass, keyboard(?) a trio of singers and Copeland on drums, backed up by the DSO.
The music and performances were great, but what really elevated the show was Copeland’s showmanship-- in addition to drumming, he acted as ‘emcee’, sharing jokes and anecdotes in-between songs about the Police, Sting and the songwriting process, and running around all over the stage introducing and giving shout-outs to the various band and DSO members. He was an enthusiastic, energetic, extroverted whirling dervish. All the more impressive since he’s in his 70s.
I know someone can be a great showman and still personally be an asshole, but it’s still too bad to hear. As is often said about this sort of thing, maybe he was just having a bad day when you asked him for an autograph.
What cracks me up about this whole episode is the fact that he was sitting at the bar in the first place. He didn’t even have enough pull with the restaurant staff to get a table? (Maybe that’s why he was in such a pissy mood.)
A lot of sushi aficionados, especially the ones who think they are experts in authentic sushi etiquette and know how to interact properly with the sushi chef, prefer the sushi bar to a table.
That was his regular seat. I’d seen him there a few times before. But like who the fuck cares about an, at best, second tier actor in freaking Montecito? Maybe it’s the only local restaurant who kisses his ass.
That reminds me, I once managed a movie theater, and we held a preview showing that both of these gentlemen attended.
As each arrived (separately), I welcomed them and told them to let me know if there was anything they needed.
Ebert was very friendly and affable; Siskel was gruff and rather short, but nothing really approaching assholery.
The above information is based on a sample size of about 20 seconds with each.
It’s quite possible. This happened at a time when The Police were on top of the world, and I haven’t a clue what pressures come with that. I try my best to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since I still greatly respect his musical skills. But it still felt pretty shitty at the time, and as a musician who has a fair share of fans, I would never treat anyone, let alone a kid who admires me, that way. Maybe that was the lesson I learned from him - don’t be like him.
I have heard that many celebs are sore about autographs after finding that they are sold for profit.
That’s why most of them ask for your name - personalized signatures are worth much less.
It’s not a pretension, though. When it comes to sushi, it’s not really possible to have an authentic omakase experience at a table:
Omakase, a chef-curated dinner, is famous for its direct interactions with the chef. The customer leaves the order details to the sushi chef. The experience of watching the chef do their magic is a spectacle in itself. View it like an interactive performance, added with personal stories and recommendations.
It is in fact possible to have an excellent Japanese tasting menu type of experience at a table, but it’s not true omakase and will generally be a series of many different dishes, only some of which are sushi and many of which are not seafood and might be cooked and served hot. It’s a great experience in itself but if you’re having sushi at a really good sushi restaurant the sushi bar is the only place to have it.
Yes, absolutely. I didn’t mean to suggest that everybody who chooses the sushi bar is being pretentious. Though many who do in the states, I imagine, think they are more knowledgeable about the omakase experience and how they should properly act than they actually are. I love sushi, but I seldom sit at the sushi bar because I don’t feel like I remember enough about the proper etiquette of the experience to deserve to be at the bar 
My post was meant more to distinguish between sitting at a sushi bar, which for many is more desirable than a table, and sitting at a normal bar because one did not have enough clout to get a table.
Not to get too far off topic, but the trick here is not to worry about appearing ignorant because that’s how you learn. As much as I thought I loved sushi, it was only when my son introduced me to really first-rate sushi bars that I truly appreciated the whole experience and realized the basic mistakes I had been making, besides believing that second-rate sushi was really sushi.
For instance, that only a total boor like me would ask the chef for wasabi. In any decent restaurant, if the chef considers wasabi necessary, he will use the appropriate amount when he makes the sushi. It’s not stuff that you slather on like mustard! And neither does all sushi require either wasabi or soy sauce – some come anointed with a perfectly matched richly flavourful sauce.
The other thing I quickly learned is that I was in the habit of drowning my sushi in soy. Even most of the ignorati know that the correct procedure is to carefully hold it upside down and gently immerse just the fish portion in the dish of soy. But I also learned that it’s quite common for a sushi chef, on request, to brush the sushi with soy for you if it happens to be the kind that requires it. The job of a good sushi chef is to make his creations as delicious and attractive as possible and create the best possible experience for his customers. As one sushi chef once summed up my responsibility as his customer, “just eat”! Since I know I’m going to get a bill for around $600 for two, I don’t feel guilty about it.
Likewise, when I once expressed my ignorance about the different types of exotic saki they had on offer, I wasn’t ridiculed. This is not the Japanese way. Instead, a gentleman who was a sort of Japanese saki-oriented version of a sommelier, asked me about my preferences and brought me small tasting samples of about half a dozen of what he thought I might like best!
Sadly, I can’t afford to do the top-tier sushi bar scene very often.
Interesting post! Hopefully the OP will be tolerant enough of the thread hijack to allow me a reply to your post before we go back to jerky celebrities…
I do know the very basics-- like only putting the fish side of nigiri into the soy sauce. I am kind of a wasabi junkie though, and I usually use up all of that extra little mound of wasabi the chef gives you. Hopefully that wouldn’t insult the chef too much if I did that at the bar. Why they give you the extra if you ain’t supposed to use it? Maybe it’s a test?
Darn it, it’s not even 9am on a Thursday and now you got me craving good sushi…
Living in practically the geographic center of the continental US, we don’t have a lot of sushi places around, so I’m not familiar with how it all works. Good to learn, and sorry for the table/bar hijack!
In my (admittedly limited) brushes with Hollywood and the music biz, it was the C-listers who were the biggest divas.
My then-wife, oldest daughter, and I once decided—on a whim—to show up for a cattle call and got ourselves bit parts in the movie Lonely Hearts. Now, John Travolta, Laura Dern, and Salma Hayek couldn’t have been more gracious—Travolta especially. The guy was downright hilarious and chatted my ear off between takes. James Gandolfini, Jared Leto, and Scott Caan were a bit standoffish, but still polite enough. Many of the lesser-known cast were simply jerks to us bit players.
Back in my college days, I spent summers in Philly working as a stagehand alongside my BIL, who was a master stagehand. We set up for acts including David Bowie, Yes, Renaissance (with Annie Haslam), and Chubby Checker. Every one of them was super friendly and accommodating—no attitudes or nonsense.
On the other hand, many of the almost-famous were all-the-way-jerks—give some people a whiff of local fame and it goes straight to their heads. The worst offender was Elvis Presley.
… well, not the real King (I wish!) but a wannabe who called himself “The Big El.” He was briefly popular in our area—though not briefly enough if you ask me. He was a nightmare to work with, constantly treating everyone on the crew like dirt. One time, a mom approached me with her wheelchair-bound son, hoping they could get a photo with him. I passed along the request, and The Big El—class act that he was—muttered something nasty about “cripples” and told me to charge ten bucks for the privilege.
I didn’t comply, but took the requested photo anyway, free of charge. I just told The Big Dick; King—of Jerks, “yeah, she paid.”
Didn’t Spector get convicted of something major and go to jail? That would definitely qualify him as being a jerk.
I’m willing to wait the 7 years for Spock.
Wait, Kim Fowley? Yeah, he could be a charmer. But truly a scumbag. A defensive response to that article from a Runaways biographer which is slightly critical of it for balance, but no less hard on Fowley.
Yes, murder. He died in prison in 2021.
Even before the murder, he was widely known to be eccentric and erratic.
Mark Harmon earned a terrible reputation on the NCIS set. Lots of star 'tude behavior with hints of much worse activity that caused problems for females on the set.
But he was the star of the #1 drama on TV. CBS made the choice to look the other way, which of course didn’t help.