May The Bridges I Burn Light The Way: About That Time I Tried Not To Annoy Steven Spielberg
I do want to make clear that not every post in the “May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way Thursday” series will be negative. (Unlike last week, that one was.) I don’t have that many enemies, at least that I know of. (Doing a quick internal count, I’d put the number somewhere between eight and twelve.)
So, a lot of these stories could be categorized as “positive,” but are still stories I find funny and, often, I’m the one that comes off looking stupid. Also I did promise paid subscribers “exclusive content” (if you are a paid subscriber reading this, seriously, thank you) and this is my best version of “exclusive content.”
The closest I ever came to interviewing Steven Spielberg* was in 2011 when I worked at Huffington Post. We were granted a rare one on one for Tin Tin, but it was only for three minutes. The bare minimum for print interviews is usually ten, but this was a special circumstance. Anyway, Chris Rosen wound up doing this interview. (I’m still a little steamed about this and I also know Chris is probably reading this. Hello, Chris.)
*Steven Spielberg directed Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Anyway, in 2017 Kate* was invited to the New York Film Festival premiere party for the Spielberg documentary. A movie titled Spielberg.
*Kate is my girlfriend. Or partner. I don’t know what term people prefer for people who aren’t technically married. We have lived together in a Manhattan apartment since 2013.
The way this after party was set up, there were a bunch of big tables and attendees were all assigned a table number. Now you may be surprised to learn we were not seated at the same table as Steven Spielberg. Right? I realize this is shocking news but, no matter how much you refuse to believe this, it is true. We were seated at table 11. (Assuming Spielberg was at table 1, that means we were only 10 full tables of people away from getting an invite to be at his table.)
As the party was winding down, Spielberg gets up from his table, by himself, and kind of ceremoniously walks to a central location at the establishment where this was hosted. This was his pretty obvious signal, “if you’ve ever wanted to talk to me, now’s your chance.” Kate said, “Oh you should go.” I said, “I have nothing interesting to say.” Kate said, “Just go anyway, you’ll regret it if you don’t.” So I went. Here‘s what happened.
