Gapers Block has ceased publication.

Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni.
 Thank you for your readership and contributions. 

TODAY

Monday, December 9

Gapers Block
Search

Gapers Block on Facebook Gapers Block on Flickr Gapers Block on Twitter The Gapers Block Tumblr


Fuel

Andrew Huff / June 17, 2009 12:12 AM

According to the Urban Dictionary, getting "big-timed" occurs when someone "acts like they are too cool to say hi or acknowledge your existence."


Question suggested by Derby. Got a good one for us? Email it to inbox@gapersblock.com.

Kevin Guilfoile / June 17, 2009 8:31 AM

I think it was probably 1994 and Jim Coudal and I were at a Blackhawks game, sitting right in front of John Hughes and two of his guys and all three of them are wearing these ridiculous/awesome "Baby's Day Out" crew jackets. The Hawks score a goal to go ahead and we start celebrating and Coudal high fives the first guy and high fives the second guy and then he puts his hand up in front of Hughes, who just stares at him without taking his hands out of his pockets. Baby's day out, indeed.

maardvark / June 17, 2009 9:56 AM

I went to law school at Harvard ten years ago, and while I was there I did too much theater for my own good--I was a lighting designer and tech director, often with two shows up at once, so I tended to all but move into the theater for weeks at a time. Harvard student theater shares a building with the American Repertory Theatre (ART), a fairly snobbish professional company.

Anyway, Debra Winger was appearing at ART in a show during my third year. One day, I was standing around by the front desk talking with the undergraduate who was manning it, who happened to be a friend of mine. She was telling about how horrible Winger was to everyone who worked in the place. We stopped talking about it, because we could hear her coming. When she got to the front desk, Winger barked in my friend's general direction to order a taxi. No please, no thank you, just "call a cab." Didn't even look at me. Then she stalked off in another direction.

My friend rolled her eyes, and then we both laughed.

kate / June 17, 2009 12:01 PM

I was "big timed" by a regionally semi-famous person's girlfriend. I'm looking at you, Richard Roeper's unpleasant female companion.

I work a couple nights a week at a bar and just so happened to be attending to a birthday party. While bringing drinks through the crowd and trying to get her to shift ever so slightly so as to avoid some booze getting on her jeans, I got a nudge and this lady got some drink on her denim. At a bar. I apologized profusely, got her a towel and extra napkins and there was still a huge fuss - including a sprint to the bathroom. Vodka on denim, noooo!!!

The next drink she got I gave her plenty of warning that I was coming in and she held a napkin under the drink as I set it on her table. She was pretty generous with the simultaneous looks of horror and boredom.

The balcony is closed on that girl.

R / June 17, 2009 2:12 PM

I was waiting for the bus on Michigan Avenue (by the Drake) when Oprah's decorator Nate Berkus walked by; I smiled at him in recognition and he looked blankly at me and kept walking.

Amber / June 17, 2009 2:24 PM

One of my all-time favorite stories regards waiting outside the Park Hyatt for U2 to come out about 8 years ago (I know, dorky). There were about 300 people there around the front doors, and the crowd had cleared a way down its middle to allow regular hotel-goers to enter and exit the building. After waiting a very long time, a limo pulls up -- but the person who walked out was not a member of U2, but instead it was Sting, who was also in town that week. He had his enormous bodyguard with him. But instead of walking through the aisle into the hotel, he decided for some odd reason to cut through the crowd. This was ridiculous. It was met by a growing murmur from the crowd as the news spread, although very few people seemed really interested or impressed with his presence. Maybe that upset him. Because eventually one girl near me asked him for his autograph, and he just kept walking (pushing) without acknowledging her. At that point, as he was about 5 people beyond her, she just called out half-heartedly, "F*** you, Sting!" And then everybody laughed.

I loved it, because it seemed very Spinal Tap. The dwindling of a once-fine, now useless career.

Lauren Love / June 17, 2009 3:11 PM

Jessica SImpson is a VERY unpleasant person to deal with. Won't go into the details, but did manage to politely get her back by complimenting her SO CUUUUTE shawl and letting her know WalMart has them in "oodles" more colors in case she wanted to pick some up.

Meems / June 17, 2009 4:33 PM

I got used to being "big-timed" when I worked at a downtown hotel.
Worst: Russell Crowe (I'll never forgive him)
Sweetest: Bill Murray (I'll love him forever)

David / June 17, 2009 4:40 PM

When I was coming out of a showing of Pennebaker's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars," I saw the guy who played The Shoveler in "Mystery Men." I smiled and waved at him, and he just nodded back.

What a dick!

MrBrownThumb / June 17, 2009 11:55 PM

I was "big-timed" by David Schwimmer while I was simultaneously "big-timing" him. He and an assistant walked into the store I was working at in college to buy some furniture and he acted like people weren't standing just a foot away from him. When I caught onto his celebrity mind games I called over an assistant to deal with them when he had his assistant ask me for help. Eventually, another associate spotted him and got all fangirl and he sighed like Ross and stormed out of the place.

At the same place I dealt with Nate (mentioned above) a couple of times and he was always really cool. A lot of designers used to come into the place and try to "big time" the associates but Nate was always polite and respectful.

Do one of these posts on celebs who pull the "Do you know who I am?" card and I'll tell you my story about Congressman Boby Rush.

fluffy / June 18, 2009 8:14 PM

It was a snowy night in Dallas...I went to see a band called Skinny Puppy in 1989. They weren't popular at the time so it was easy to get backstage after the show -the singer was asking me out/hitting on me. I had a boyfriend at the time and I would never cheat. Fast forward 3 years when they were popular, I got backstage to talk to them, and their security people were all "sorry- only blondes tonight". sheesh.
Also got into an argument with Micheal Stipe at a record store in Dallas back in 1986. I was in high school. He was a jerk.
I've been 'big timed' by everyday people too and that's the point when I stop giving a shit. Only down to earth people for me.

p / June 19, 2009 1:05 PM

this usage of "big timed" is flawed. it is the right of celebrities to big time to a degree because they are big time. "big timing" happens when someone you know acts as though they are a celebrity and ignores you. i.e. an acquantance nods and walks past you rather than stopping to say hello

Clarke / June 19, 2009 1:37 PM

I didn't get 'big timed', but saw it happen, and it ended on a positive, funny note...

This is back in '91/92. Was in college and at an overnight dance at a hotel in Indianapolis. At the time the Portland Trailblazers basketball team was one of the best in the league (Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Kevin Duckworth, Danny Ainge, et al) and were in Indy to play the Pacers. Turns out was staying at the same hotel as the 'Blazers, and I, along with a couple friends, were in an elevator at the same time as a few of their players. As we hit the lobby the players exited first and were surrounded by 5 or 6 kids around 8 or 9 years old looking for autographs. Ainge accommodated a few of the kids, but the rest of the players blew past them, no autographs.

Kids were disappointed, I felt very sorry for them, but I couldn't do anything about it. However, my friend -- (who was all of 6'10", big, but no real basketball player ) stepped out of the elevator at the same time as the 'Blazers, saw the same thing I did, and did something about it. So, after the 'Blazers had gone ahead, my friend signed every piece of paper, ball and jersey given to him, and talked with the kids about how tough was MJ, and what it was like to play in the NBA. Then he walked on ahead as if he was heading outside to catch the team bus. The kids may have got some unknown and worthless autograph, but at least they got to go home having talked with a 'real' NBA player.

Poppy / June 19, 2009 3:09 PM

I have a silimar story to the last one from Clarke. A friend of my dad's was traveling for business and was in a tinted-glass limo going to his hotel from the airport. As the limo pulled in it was mobbed by people wielding pens and items to autograph. The driver said, "oh, they must think you're David Bowie - he's in town and staying at this hotel." So my dad's friend rolls down the window a smidge and starts pulling in records and programs and signing them David Bowie and slipping them back out. Eventually h had the driver evade the crowd and drop him off in the back of the hotel.

The same man totally got Big Timed by Phil Simms. He ran into Simms at a New York hotel bar right after the Giants uncerimoniously cut him from the team. My dad's friend expressed regret at the shabby treatment Simms had received. Simms listened and then looked the guy right in the eye and said, "Fuck You." and turned back to his companions. I guess the wound was still too raw.

Janaynay / June 19, 2009 3:23 PM

Luis Guzman. He came into a restaurant I was eating at, and I approached him at the bar to tell him I liked his work (at the time, I thought he was a great character actor. And he's from one of my favorite movies EVER, Boogie Nights). He looked at me, said nothing, and pushed me aside...to join Jay Hernandez in talking to a bunch of plastic trixies.

Asshat.

Spook / June 19, 2009 4:00 PM

So I was dancing with Michael Jackson in the Thriller Video and, well, I'm a better dancer.

So Michael starts to get really really jealous and mad and begins yelling "cut"! So he can redo a dance move and so forth and so on.

Any way, it reached a point
to every time he
yelled "cut" for a redo, the hotter and "badder" -than him - I got on the dance set!
Cause you know I'm Bad, I'm Bad, Sham-on! Sham-on!

Any way it got to the point where I'm dancing along side of Mike and just being badder than him, Sham-on, and he just ends up stalking off the dance set!

Then we shoot the Beat It Video and of course its the same thing! Its not that I wanna be starting something, gotta be starting some thing yeo. Its just that I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm really really really bad, sham oooon!

So two weeks later at the video party in Hollywood, I see that on both videos, Jackson had placed his head on my body and won all the awards and got all the credit!

It was F*cked Up!

waitress / June 19, 2009 4:47 PM

this is more of a local celeb,

one time I worked at a health food place where you sat at the bar and got veggie juice etc... and Johnny Mars regularly came in w/ his AA buddies and sat at the bar for their wheat grass shots and chatted w/ me. they like to talk about their colonics alot. ew, I know.

I was at Lounge Ax one night and ran into Johnnie Mars and he was with a bunch of popular people, and I said Hey, Johnnie, like I would to any friend and he pretended like he didn't know me.

and still, everytime I hear him on the radio I think about him getting wheatgrass shot up his hiney.

GB store

Recently on Fuel

Urban Ethos [26]
What is Chicago's "urban ethos"?

Cool Glass of... [16]
What're you drinking?

Supreme Decision [22]
What's your reaction to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act?

Taking it to the Streets [20]
Chicago Street Fairs: Revolting or Awesome?

I Can Be Cruel [9]
Be real: what is the meanest thing you've ever done?

View the complete archive

GB Store

GB Buttons $1.50

GB T-Shirt $12

I ✶ Chi T-Shirts $15