On the way out of the Syfy party on Saturday night, a pretty horrible thing happened. I wasn't going to talk about it in public, but I can't stop thinking about it, and I think this needs to be said.
If you camp out in front of my hotel while I am on location or visiting a city, if you camp out in front of a party I'm attending ... basically, if you camp out anywhere so you can shove a stack of 8x10s into my face when I'm trying to enter or leave a location, I'm not going to sign them, and I'm not going to be nice about it.
I refuse to reward or validate that kind of behavior, and I'm done being polite about it.
When we walked out of the SyFy party on Saturday night, a pack of people -- probably 12 or 15, I'd guess -- appeared out of nowhere, and surrounded me. They shoved pictures into my face, thrust pens at me, and made it so that I couldn't even move. They separated me from my friends and my son, and, quite frankly, terrified me.
Let's stop for a second and think about this: in what kind of world is it acceptable to surround a person you do not know, separate them from the people they are with, and essentially trap them? Maybe in crazy entitled psycho world, but not the world I live in.
I tried to scrawl my signature on a couple of things, just so some of those people would move and let me keep on walking, but whenever someone took something away, something new immediately took its place. Somehow, +Felicia Day saved me. She reached through the mob, grabbed my hand, and said, "Sorry, we have to go meet some of our friends," before the literally pulled me away, to safety.
This is when the mob lost its shit. They yelled at me like I had done something wrong. They called me names, and they booed at me. (Seriously). A woman stormed up next to me and said, "If you don't sign these things for me, I'm going to tell Twitter what an asshole you really are."
I looked her square in the eye, turned on my dad voice, and said, "Really? Are you serious? We're done here." I quickened my pace, and for the next two blocks she followed us, screaming and ranting and raving about how she'd waited there for hours, driven all the way from someplace far, and that I basically owed her. I eventually tuned her out, and I guess she went back to the Syfy party to harass whoever else came out, next.
The whole thing was really scary, made me feel like a sideshow freak, and made me really, really angry. I was just trying to walk out of a hotel and go meet up with my friends. I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm not going to apologize for it.
I realize that a person who thinks it's entirely normal and not psycho to camp out in front of a hotel for hours and hours so they can trap a person isn't going to understand why I will not validate that behavior, but I need to make this clear for the future: I'm a person. I'm happy to sign things and take pictures with people in appropriate situations, but if some dude violates my personal space or freaks me out, and then gets mad at me when I try to get away from him, I'm not going to do anything beyond telling that person to go fuck himself, and I'm not going to feel bad about it.
This is important: I realize that anyone reading this isn't one of Those Guys. Please don't think the "you" here refers to, you know, you.
JUL 25, 2011 02:16 PM
JUL 25, 2011 02:20 PM
JUL 25, 2011 02:21 PM
JUL 25, 2011 02:36 PM
JUL 25, 2011 02:38 PM
I understand running into a celebrity and being starstruck. I've NEVER understood people that go out of their way to intrude on a celebrity's personal life by asking for autographs or even just to tell them how much they enjoy the celebrity's work.
I'm astounded that there are so many people who feel it is okay to expect celebrities to take unscheduled time out of their day to cater to the demands of complete strangers. 
JUL 25, 2011 03:38 PM
JUL 25, 2011 04:00 PM
JUL 25, 2011 04:36 PM
Wow. That sucks. That is one reason why I never want to be a celebrity of any sort, I'm glad I'm just a 'regular' guy. I've never understood getting autographs either. That lady and that specific group of people must be missing something in their life that has caused them to behave so horribly, that situation seemed pretty sad, to me at least. Just know that if we ever hang out I will not bum rush you for an autograph however if you have a Pabst Blue Ribbon in your hand, well that's a whole different ball game... 
JUL 25, 2011 04:58 PM
JUL 25, 2011 05:04 PM
JUL 25, 2011 05:26 PM
JUL 25, 2011 05:35 PM
Wow that really sucks... I hope something like that never happens to you again. It must be horrible to have that kind of pressure of not knowing when a psycho might just jump out of nowhere... Take care and I wish you nothing like that happens again 
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