I'm going to tell a little story today about New Years Eve 2011. I was working at a small restaurant in Hood River, Oregon. A family owned place that was popular with the older crowd for some reason.
It was just after 6pm and I was at work in the kitchen. I had just finished getting my grill ready for what would prove to be a busy night. Being New Year's Eve as it was the restaurant was still slow this early, so I grabbed my phone to check out some Twitter.
Yep, I was big on Twitter back then, well I wasn't big, Twitter was big with me. I did not really tweet, I just enjoyed the comedy. There were some very funny folks on Twitter at that time, and I'm a huge fan of one-liners. So I'm scrolling through my feed when I see this tweet.
Now I'm a big Howard Stern fan and at the time I would listen to every show. You can imagine my excitement when I saw this tweet. My mind starts racing as I try to think of the most clever tweet I could. I think of something, quickly type it and hit "tweet". Unfortunately I can't find that first reply I sent, but I do remember it was a dig on his west coast rivals that I used to listen to in the 80's, Mark & Brian.
As soon as I re-read my reply I know it's not right. I need something more positive, it's New Year's Eve and he's drinking with his wife, having a good time calling fans... Then it hits me!
Back in 2011 he and his wife released a calendar with pictures by Howard. All the proceeds went to the North Shore Animal League. The first 500 were autographed by the both of them and I had one! Now to construct the perfect tweet. It had to be short and to the point I figured, and something from the heart would probably be a good thing, so...
Yes, my Twitter handle is franeatsfarts, it's a joke, like Twitter.
There it was, with the word "beautiful" in all caps too, it had to work! I tapped tweet and put my phone on the shelf where I was working. As I flipped steaks and plated food I could only think about my tweet.
Then it happened, my phone rang!!!
I picked it up off the shelf and looked at the screen, it looked something like this.
Not actual sceen
Holy SHIT! I have never gotten a call from a private number. I took a breath and answered the call (I'm nervous now just thinking about this so you can imagine...).
- Note; at the time my Twitter had my first name on it, Chris.
Me: hello?
Deep voice: Chris!
Me: Howard! Happy new year man!
Woman says something I don't quite hear
Me: What was that?
Howard : That was Beth, she asked how you knew it was me?
Me(imitating Howard in my deepest voice: Chris!
They both burst out laughing! I made Howard Stern laugh!
Me: This is unbelievable, hey thank you guys for the calendar, I love it.
From this point on its pretty much a blur. I know he asked me where I lived and what I was doing at the moment. I told him I was in Oregon and that I was currently working as a chef with a busy night ahead. I'm sure I said, "unbelievable" quite a few times, then we wished each other well and I hung up.
