Serving Celebrities: The Complete Collection Read Online Free PDF

“Who said he could play my piano?” I rolled my eyes. “Come on, it’s Elton John,” I said. “But it’s not his job!” he exclaimed, moving closer to me, so that I could hear him better.
    I wasn’t really paying much attention to him. I was trying to listen to what probably would have cost me a hundred bucks to hear Elton John in some cavernous arena. I had seen Elton the previous summer at Dodger Stadium. This was a lot better and free. The piano player said something else to me that I didn’t hear.
    Realizing I wasn’t listening to him, he moved closer to my ear. At first, I thought it was just one of those wild thoughts you have every once and a while and then I realized it was the piano player talking to me… “Tell him to stop playing, right now!”
    I turned to the little snot, incredulously, he had to be kidding. This guy was a piano player, a musician. Did he really think I was going to walk up to Elton John and tell him to stop the playing? I looked at the pouting pianist... yes, he was serious. And then it started -- and once it started, I couldn’t stop. I began to laugh.
    I started laughing hard -- bending over and holding my sides, trying to keep it in. There was a point that I thought I was going to fall over laughing. I couldn’t believe this knucklehead would actually think that I would ask -- no tell -- the great, Elton John, to stop playing and entertaining everyone because it was hurting the feelings of the stuck-up hack that usually plays here. It makes me laugh remembering it -- but I was laughing real hard then. It was one of those I’m-laughing-at-an-event-where-I-shouldn’t-be-laughing-type of laugh. You don’t want to, but you already are… and you can’t stop.
    As I started to regain control over myself, I realized that the piano player was now just staring at me… and that it was suddenly very quiet. Still shaking with waves of almost-suppressed chuckles, I looked up to find everyone; Sir Elton included, staring at me. I smiled at Elton, wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes and shrugged an apology… and then started laughing again. Elton smiled and turned back to his friends saying, “All right then…” and continued to play.
    Elton John played for his friends for about another half hour and then they went back into the hotel’s small bar. At one point during his playing; my friend, Hector, the Assistant Front Desk Manager, came over and stood next to me and the still sulking, piano player. I turned to Hector and said, loudly, “Would you call that bouncy music?” Hector agreed. It was bouncy music. “People like something bouncy,” I said, loud enough for the piano player to hear.
    Robert Redford -- Failing The Bob Class... or How I Got Kicked Out of the Sundance Film Festival

    R obert Redford is the Sundance Film Festival; he founded it and has been the driving force of one of America’s most important and esteemed film events every year. He’s so important that the festival actually gives a class to its theater managers on how to handle a screening if Mr. Redford decides to attend -- it’s called “The Bob Class.”
    I enjoyed working at the festival and looked forward to going every year. It was fun to discover the good small film that may never see the light of a public theater. To make it possible, I would work at the festival and they would put me up and allow me to see many films for free. My last four years at Sundance, I was an assistant Theater Manager at the Holiday Theaters, in Park City. The Holiday was the town’s every day cinema. When I first started to work at the theater, it only had two theaters, in 2002 they renovated the theaters and added stadium seating and two more screens. The renovations were financed by the film festival. They called it a festival but never mistake it for fun, it was really big business now.
    Every year just before the festival starts there is a training session for all the Sundance theater managers. Most of the