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Chris Mills Tells It Like It Is: Being Rude To Famous People (With Apologies To Jonah Hill)

Heavy Years: 2000-2010 (Ernest Jenning) is the latest release from Brooklyn-by-way-of-Chicago singer/songwriter Chris Mills. The 14-track retrospective compiles songs from his last four albums, along with two new tracks recorded with DJ Oktopus (Dalek). Mills is currently on the road supporting Heavy Years, and he will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.

Mills: A while ago, I went to see an old friend play a show. This friend happens to run in some slightly famous circles, so when I walked into his band’s dressing room and found him chatting with lovable movie star Jonah Hill, I wasn’t exactly surprised. My buddy and I hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and he immediately broke off his conversation and stood up to give me a big hug. That was awesome and not weird at all. What was weird was that instead of turning to Mr. Hill and introducing myself, as I would normally do if I had interrupted someone’s conversation, I stared straight at my friend and started having an entirely different conversation, ignoring Jonah entirely. For some reason, I couldn’t get up the nerve to turn and introduce myself to the famous movie star I had so rudely interrupted.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m such a big fan (I’ve seen Get Him To The Greek three times!) or if I felt like I would be bothering him or if I didn’t want to appear like some sort of weird sycophant, but I ended up totally freezing him out and being ruder to him than I would a complete stranger or even someone at a party who I didn’t like very much. I even realized it as I was doing it, but couldn’t bring myself to correct the course.

I felt awful. Later during the show, I saw him again and thought about apologizing for my rudeness, but again felt like by doing the decent thing, I would only be bothering him more. I don’t know why I thought that someone famous wouldn’t want to have a nice conversation or be apologized to when someone was rude to them, but that’s how I felt. So I treated a perfectly likeable movie star like a real jerk.

That said, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Jonah Hill for interrupting his conversation and not saying hello or introducing myself like a perfectly friendly and sane human being. Sorry Jonah, I promise I will not be such a weirdo next time I see you at a Fruit Bats show.

Video after the jump.