[wordup] Crazy, Random "Chris Rock Thing"

[Adam Shand]

From: http://www.laurasnyctales.com/current/chris-rock.html

I needed a new cell phone and service plan, so I visited a nearby 
Verizon store. I'd previously suffered through two unattractive, free 
phones with my other plans, so when it came to choosing my new phone 
this time, money was no object, and aesthetics was everything. After a 
prolonged period of touching, feeling, holding, grasping, opening, 
closing, etc. the many models on display, I happily decided upon a 
lovely little flip-top Samsung. What a gorgeous piece of modern 
technology!  Me and you, my new, cute little flip-top phone -- we're 
gonna have fun times together, you just wait and see!

I finished up at the Verizon store and returned to my apartment. I sat 
on the edge of my bed, reading through the manual, new phone beside me, 
when all of a sudden, it rang! Granted, a ringing cell phone is nothing 
out of the ordinary, but what surprised me here was I hadn't given 
anyone my new number yet, so who could possibly be calling me? The 
Caller ID flashed, "Restricted" which wasn't any help.

I picked up the phone, flipped open the top and questioned, "Uh, 
hell-o?" "Is Chris Rock there?" Chris Rock?! Of course not! That's 
ridiculous.  "No," I replied. I figured his asking for "Chris Rock" 
must have been some sort of inside joke with a friend, but he'd dialed 
my number instead of his friend's by mistake. I continued, "This is my 
cell phone number -- so you've got the wrong number." "Oh," the caller 
replied, "I must have dialed wrong." We hung up, and I didn't think 
anything more of it.

Two days later, I was upstate, cruising around a Wal-Mart parking lot 
looking for a space (thrilling, I know), when my cell phone rang. A 
number I didn't recognize appeared on the Caller ID.

LAURA: Hello?

CALLER: Is Chris there?

LAURA: [Puzzled, with curiosity immediately piqued] Uh, Chris... who?

CALLER: Chris Rock. 

LAURA: [Incredulously] Chris Rock!!? As in Chris Rock? As in, the Chris 
Rock?

CALLER: [Seemingly unfazed] Yeah, the Chris Rock.

LAURA: That is so funny! You're the second person who's called asking 
for Chris Rock! I just got this new cell phone, and this is the number 
they gave me....

CALLER: [Laughs] Well, you'd better change your number, because I'm 
sure that this is Chris Rock's number... Oh, wait... now I remember 
Chris saying something about getting a new cell phone number....

I pulled into a parking spot, and we continued chatting for a minute or 
two. He asked, if I didn't mind, where did I live? I told him NYC. 
Although I remember thinking I should ask who he was, I didn't, because 
I was feeling kind of discombobulated. My mind was too busy reeling 
from the realization that:

Omigod! I have Chris Rock's old cell phone number!! But it's not that 
old, because people are still calling!! This is such a crazy, random 
thing that's happened to me!

When we got off the phone, I immediately called my father. "You will 
NOT believe who had my new cell phone number before me! Omigod -- it's 
crazy and hilarious! I can't believe it!" I told him about the first 
call I'd received, and then the one I just got -- and that now I knew I 
had Chris Rock's old cell phone number. He burst out laughing, and 
agreed it was such a hoot.

After I calmed down from my elation over this crazy happening, I soon 
began to think, "If I got two calls already, I'm probably gonna get 
some more. This could be really fun! Bring 'em on, baby, bring 'em on!"

I had dinner with my ex-boss Tim a few days later, and had fun telling 
him about it. I was telling everyone -- and everyone loved it! We all 
wondered when the next call would be, and who it would be from?

That weekend, I helped Tim with this project of moving tons of stuff 
from his NYC apartment to his storage space upstate. It was a two-day 
project that required a sleepover in a hotel on Saturday night. 

On Sunday morning at 8:30, I was sitting on my bed flipping through a 
magazine, when my cell phone rang.  Who could be calling me at 8:30 
a.m. on a Sunday morning?  I hopped off the bed and walked over to my 
phone. On the little front screen, the Caller ID read, "Restricted." 
Hmm... intriguing... I wonder if this could this be another Chris-call?

LAURA: [Curious, and ready to tackle the unknown] Hello?

CALLER: Is Chris there?

LAURA: [Inquires politely] Who's calling?

CALLER: It's Spike.

LAURA: [Mischievously inquisitive] From...?

CALLER: [Blurts out, in an annoyed tone] It's Spike Lee.

LAURA: [Speechless, stunned, mouth frozen open. Guess wasn't quite 
ready enough to "tackle the unknown." Takes longer than usual to 
respond, and when does, does so very slowly] Uh... well... actually... 
you have the, uh... wrong number.

No reply. Spikey my pal, you still there? I glanced at the screen on my 
phone -- the call was no longer active. Hung up on me, the little rat. 
Oh, these movie-director stars... no sense of humor at all!

With a big smirk on my face and clearly amused to the hilt, I looked at 
Tim. Again, I was speechless! He gave me this look like, "Yeah? I'm 
waiting... Who was it?" Finally, I spilled the beans: "It was Spike 
Lee! Isn't that crazy? This is really funny!... Gosh, I guess Spike 
isn't thinking Chris stays out late partying on Saturday nights, if 
he's calling him at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning." Tim agreed with 
this assessment.

After the Spike Lee call, it was like, "Whoa -- I've got a live wire 
here." Being the upstanding citizen that I am, I felt a responsibility 
to have an appropriate number to refer future callers onto. 

On Monday morning, I did a Google search, and located Chris' management 
agency. After being shuffled from person to person within the vast 
agency, my call was finally passed to this guy named Tucker, who worked 
with Chris in some capacity. After I explained my "unusual situation," 
out of curiosity I asked how long it'd been since Chris had changed his 
number? Tucker replied, "About three months." He said he'd contact 
Chris' assistant Kali, and tell her what was going on. I joked, "She 
can call me on my cell -- she's already got the number!"

  The next day my cell rang, with "Restricted" appearing once again on 
the Caller ID.  Fasten your seat belts -- here we go!

LAURA: Hello?

CALLER: Hi, I'm calling from Jerry Seinfeld's office. Jerry would like 
to get two tickets for Chris' show in L.A. this weekend. Would that be 
possible?

Kali hadn't called me yet with a number to give out, so unfortunately, 
all I could say was a lame, "Sorry, you have the wrong number." I 
wanted to be more helpful, but there wasn't much I could do. C'mon 
Kali, work with me here, work with me!

I called Tucker again. "Hi, it's Laura, the girl with Chris' old cell 
phone number. I haven't heard from Kali yet, and I got another call -- 
this time it was Jerry Seinfeld's office. Just so you know, Jerry would 
like to get two tickets to Chris' upcoming show... I'd really like to 
be able to give these people the right number to call...." He 
apologized, and promised someone would get back to me soon.

Later that day, Tucker called me back. He gave me Kali's cell phone 
number, and told me I could give that out if/when I received any 
additional calls. I was hoping they'd give me Chris' number instead of 
his assistant's, but when they didn't, I wasn't crushed. That's 
because, in actuality, I've never really been the hugest Chris Rock 
fan. Interesting timing that Entertainment Weekly just named him the 
"Funniest Man in America." I guess I'm not the best judge on who's the 
funniest comedian!

So anyway, the calls kept comin' -- over the next couple of weeks, I 
averaged about five a week. That's a lot! Nearly every single one of 
them came up "Restricted" on my phone's Caller ID. It didn't take long 
for me to be conditioned: "Restricted" equates "Chris-call."

  Restricted, restricted, restricted, blah, blah, blah. How boring!  I 
like Caller ID -- it enables you to be a snob if you want to be, and no 
one will ever know it but you. For example, if your current squeeze is 
calling, of course you'll want to get that one! But if someone you're 
not especially thrilled with calls -- nah, sorry, not in the mood to 
chat right now -- and so conveniently, off the call goes into 
voicemail. Caller ID wasn't invented so everybody who thinks they're a 
somebody can turn around and restrict it!

Some people might regard the task of getting Chris-call after 
Chris-call as extra work, and/or an annoyance. But not me -- I liked 
it. My little cell phone had become a portal into the 
celebrity/entertainment world at large -- when that new phone of mine 
rang, I never knew who knew was going to be on the other end of the 
line. And trust me, I had some real surprises!

Me being mischievous me, I devised this (harmless) game with the 
Chris-callers. My game was when I got a Chris-call, I tried to find out 
who the caller was, what company he/she was calling from, and why 
he/she was calling, all the while not letting on that the person was 
actually talking to moi, who was in no manner, shape or form associated 
with Chris Rock, his staff and/or his entourage.

After I got my "kicks" (a.k.a. the info), in a polite and seemingly 
helpful manner, I would then say, "There's someone else you'll need 
call who can help you with that matter. Her name is Kali, and her 
number is 917-555-5555." The caller would then graciously thank me, and 
hang up thinking I was so very helpful. It's a win/win situation, I 
tell ya!

Extracting the information from the Chris-callers might seem like it'd 
be easy, but it really wasn't. Often I couldn't go through with it, 
because I'd get shy. In those cases I'd just tell the caller he/she had 
reached the wrong number, and refer them onto Kali.

Once, when I was feeling especially brave and carefree, I got a little 
"punchy" with a caller. It was a Thursday night, around 10 p.m. I was 
enjoying some quiet time in my apartment, when -- ring! ring! -- cell 
phone call! I went over to my phone, and saw a number starting with 
"310." Hmm... California... 10 p.m. my time/7 p.m. theirs... this could 
be another (you know what):

LAURA: Hello?

CALLER: Hi, is this Mallack? 

LAURA: No, it's not... Who's this? [Note: I later did a Google search, 
and found out, not surprisingly, that "Malaak" is Chris' wife]

CALLER: It's Adam.

LAURA: Adam?

CALLER: [In a jovial manner] It's Adam Sandler!

LAURA: [Realizes instantly it was indeed Adam Sandler -- there's no 
mistaking that distinctive voice of his] Oh, hi!

ADAM: Hi!

LAURA: Hi!

ADAM: Hi!

LAURA: [Overcome with sudden punchiness, from the craziness of one 
minute quietly winding down for bedtime, and then talking to Adam 
Sandler the next] So, are you calling Chris for business or pleasure?

  ADAM: [Laughs, slightly taken off guard by this question, but still 
retaining his happy-go-lucky attitude] I'm calling Chris to say hello 
and chat. So... is he there?

LAURA: [Knows it's confession time, but tries her best to retain 
formerly buoyant personality] No, well... he's not. You see, I'm 
actually just this random New York City girl who happened to get Chris' 
old cell phone number....

ADAM: [Lets out a big laugh] Wow, that's really funny! That's great! 
You must be having a fun time with this!

LAURA: As a matter of fact, yes, I am! And what also makes it fun for 
me is that coincidentally, I write true stories about my life in New 
York City, and this will be another funny, true story to write about... 
Oh, I have number you can call to reach Chris....

ADAM: No, that's okay... I have another number... Well, good luck to 
you, and sorry to have bothered you.

LAURA: Oh, no bother at all. Bye!

ADAM: Bye!

As soon as I got off the phone, of course I had to call at least one of 
my friends and exclaim, "Guess who called for Chris that I just talked 
to?!" Keeping everyone in the loop as to the latest Chris-call became 
this ongoing, play-by-play event.

The following evening, I was riding a Trailways bus, heading upstate 
for the weekend, when my cell phone rang. I ruffled around my luggage, 
and located my cell. The Caller ID flashed, "Restricted."

  LAURA: Hello?

CALLER: Hi, is Chris there?

LAURA: Who's calling, please?

CALLER: It's Jack Nicholson.

In the next millisecond, frozen in time, I nearly dropped dead, but 
then I thought, "Wait a minute." Adam Sandler totally sounded like Adam 
Sandler.  I quickly put two and two together here, and they didn't add 
up. With a hefty dose of skepticism, I boldly commented, "This doesn't 
sound like Jack Nicholson." The caller replied, "I'm his assistant."

Although I'd had my doubts it wasn't Jack I was talking to, when I 
heard the words, "I'm his assistant," aargh... it was such a let down. 
So close... but yet so far. Can you imagine if it'd really been Jack? 
Wow, that would have been incredible.

But getting back to the matter on hand -- the nerve of that guy!! You 
don't go around saying you're Jack Nicholson when you're Jack 
Nicholson's assistant. You say you're calling from "Jack Nicholson's 
office," or something like that. Didn't they teach him anything in 
Celebrity Assistant school?

Jack's ASSISTANT continued, "Jack has tickets to the Laker's game 
tonight, and he wanted to know if Chris was available to go with him. 
Will Chris still in be in L.A. tonight?" Blasé, I replied, "There's 
someone else you'll need to call who can help you with that." I gave 
Kali's name and number to him.

And then, of course, I had to call someone (my brother, this time), and 
tell him whom I almost talked to. I prefaced this latest, "Guess who 
just called for Chris?" update with, "I got another Chris-call... but 
don't get too excited. At first it's going to sound incredible, but 
it's not -- it turned out to be rather disappointing...."

Just like other cell phone calls I'd receive (a.k.a. the ones that were 
actually for me) the Chris-calls came unexpectedly at anytime and 
anyplace, and thus early on I began to feel this newfound, pressing 
need to be on top of my cell phone at all times. Last Saturday, I 
decided to visit the "Museum of the City of New York." When I was 
getting my bag checked at the security desk, I had to take everything 
out of it, to show the bag-checker guy there weren't any bombs hidden 
at the bottom. The security guy saw my cell phone and said, "Please 
turn you cell phone off." That sent a shockwave through me. I can't 
turn my cell phone off! What if I miss an important Chris-call?! To be 
agreeable (and so I wouldn't be ejected from the museum), I turned it 
off, but then I turned it back on as soon as I was past the security 
desk.

This behavior has certainly come a long way from the days when my 
brother frequently expressed his annoyance at me for never answering my 
cell phone. After every time he tried to reach me on my cell and 
couldn't, when we did speak he'd disdainfully say, "Laura! What good is 
having a cell phone if you never have it on?!" Well, dearest bro', 
times have a' changed, and sis has a' changed with them. You can thank 
Chris Rock for that.

"Google" has proved itself to be quite helpful in identifying some of 
the callers. When this one caller told me his name, at first I thought, 
"That's no fun -- I can't even Google him -- there must be a million 
'Steve White's.'" But then I decided to try Googling "Steve White" and 
"comedian" at the same time. Bingo! I found exactly the "Steve White" I 
had talked to. Nice guy, BTW.

And then one day I was sitting at my desk at my current temp job, when 
my cell rang. The Caller ID showed a "603" area code, which I didn't 
recognize. I also didn't recognize the name of the caller, which was 
Ken Burns. After he said who he was, the conversation went as follows:

LAURA: What's this regarding, please?

KEN BURNS: Stand Up.

LAURA: Do you want to book him for something...? [Note: Discovers after 
the fact this was a completely ignorant question to ask. Oops.]

KEN BURNS: No. It's regarding a film we've been discussing doing 
together for the past year -- a documentary on the history of Stand Up.

LAURA: Ohh... there's actually someone else for you to call....

  This girl at my temp job who's been really into the ongoing Chris-call 
stories was standing near my desk when I got off the phone with Ken. I 
said to her, "I just got another call for Chris, but I never heard of 
the guy -- his name was Ken Burns."

She exclaimed, "Ken Burns! Oh, my God! I can't believe you just talked 
to Ken Burns! He's great! He's a famous documentary filmmaker -- he did 
a documentary on the Civil War, and the history of Jazz -- lots of 
stuff. Do a search on him -- you'll see all the great stuff he's done." 
Yes, Google proved me a bit of a fool, thank you.

We were still discussing the Ken Burns call when my cell rang again. I 
saw "603" on the Caller ID. "Oh, no! It's him calling back!" I was 
almost afraid to answer it. "Answer it! Answer it!" she ordered me.

LAURA: [Meekly] Hello?

KEN BURNS: Hi, it's Ken Burns. I spoke with you a few minutes ago... 
That number you gave me -- no one was there. I got the machine of 
someone named 'Kallie.'

LAURA: "Kali" is Chris' assistant...

KEN: I left a message on Kali's machine, but... do you think I could 
call Chris at his home?

LAURA: Yeah, uh, sure... you can try him at home.

Am I naughty? Yeah, I suppose it's possible. But only a little, not a 
lot, right? But c'mon -- who in their right mind would want to pass up 
this amazing entertainment?

It's been a very entertaining five weeks of calls. I suspect by now the 
calls are mostly over, but then again, I can't say for sure. However, 
there is one thing I'm certain of: My new little flip-top and I sure 
have had a lot of fun, just like I said we would!