Last night around 2am I was sitting at the Old Town Ale House after my class at Second City had ended. I look over to the bar and I see HANNIBAL BURESS standing there talking to the bartender! Since he was alone I figured I would go talk to him. We made eye contact, and as soon as I stood up to go walk over to him I could see it in his face "oh no, here comes some fan boy."
I approached him with something original like "You're Hannibal Buress." And he agreed with that. He seemed a bit disinterested in talking to me but I knew that he started doing stand up in Carbondale Illinois at SIU in a place where I started, The Long Branch Cafe. So we talked a little bit about that, he asked me if I knew the owner of that place and I didn't.
I was nervous so I asked him, "What the fuck are you doing in this place?" Thinking that's some kind of compliment on his status as a famous comedian, he was not to pleased with that question. He said "Come here, you see that picture up there... That's me, way before I ever became famous, so don't be asking me what the fuck I'm doing here, what the fuck are you doing here?" He kept ripping on me to the bartender about my arrogance and dumb questions and we laughed about it.
I asked him about Why? his TV show which I found out is cancelled. But apparently he's working on another project. I then told him I saw Flying Lotus on Why? Who we both agreed on being excellent.
I then said something like "I'm surprised I'm the only one in here who's bothering you right now." He jumped all over my arrogance again for that, because the Ale House is a chill place where people don't make a big deal out of regulars who have become famous.
At some point he asked me how old I was, I said 22. Then he said "I've been coming here since 2003 when you were stilling pissing in your bed." I liked that one.
After we shook hands a few times and clinked our glasses together I asked for a picture and he said no. Which is very understandable, and would have drawn unnecessary attention, but I had to ask. I shook his hand again saying it was nice to meet him and he wished me good luck with the comedy.
It was really surreal to see him, stand in front of him and converse with him. He smelled exactly how I thought he would smell too.
He was a bit of a strange dude, but overall he was a good guy about everything. I did not reciprocate with attempting to break his balls, I was just very nice and apologetic. "I'm sorry Mr. Buress." "Call me Hannibal."
I called him Mr. Buress as a kind of joke, but it was cool for him to tell me to call him Hannibal. We both continued our nights, he ended up in the back room talking to some girls, so I didn't bother him again.
Obviously, I've been over analyzing what happened. Maybe I could have asked better questions, or broken his balls back. But I met the fucking guy who's blowing up Bill Cosby's spot, who's all over Netflix and is really killing it for his age in Show Business. So it was a great experience to talk to him for five minutes.
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