Guess Who's Coming to the Lobby

Since there's not really much to post about this week... that doesn't sound horribly snarky, anyway... I could expound on how, if you've ever seen the town the mudslide hit in California, it's pretty obvious that you're living at the base of a mud cliff and that sucker just might let go some day. I've often wondered, driving by there, why the hell a person would build a house in that spot. But, whatever. No dumber on the part of Californians than their flyover country brethren who insist on living on flood plains, I guess.

Anyway. One of the guys at work rented Guess Who's Coming to Dinner today. It reminded me of a good Sidney Poitier story I'll relate for you.

In the mid - late eighties, I was working in a camera store in an upscale Atlanta mall. Across the street stood a Ritz - Carlton hotel. One day, in rushed a customer who needed a camera immediately.

"I'm staying at the Ritz, and I just saw Sidney Poitier there. My wife is a huge fan. I have to get a picture with him...."

This was before disposable cameras, so we looked at the lower-end point-n-shoots. The customer selected the cheapest piece of crap that we had.

I warned him that we'd seen lots of these come back defective, and he'd be better off spending the extra 30 bucks for a better model, this being a once in a lifetime picture (I made lots more commission on the piece of crap, so I actually was trying to help this guy out). He decided to gamble on the cheapo.

An hour or two later, he comes back. You guessed it, defective camera. No picture with Mr. Tibbs Poitier for his wife. He tells me he'll buy the better one, and see if he can get another picture.

I wished him best of luck with that.

Two hours later, what do you know. Here comes Mr. Customer, proudly bearing a photo of himself standing in the lobby of the Ritz - Carlton Buckhead with Sidney Poitier.

The front desk had called Mr. Poitier's room, explained this poor guy's situation, and asked if Mr. Poitier would be good enough to come down to the lobby to pose for a reshoot.

He was good enough to do just that.

To this day, I've admired Sidney (can I call him that? no, probably not) Mr. Poitier for being so generous with his time. That's got to be a rare phenomenon in the celebrity world.

Have a good weekend. Watch some movies. We will be.