The reason why I love Mel Brooks is the same reason why I loved Joan Rivers so much. They are both crazy, irreverent souls and made their humor a total, absolute, necessary priority! He shows up at the hand-in-cement Hollywood ceremony with an additional prosthetic finger, leaving an 11-finger hand print in the mud. He is 88 and we dont know how long he has to live, but while I was disappointed to never have met Joan Rivers in real life, I am happy to say that I did meet Mel and he was exactly the kind of good crazy I was hoping to find. I was sitting at the outside tables of the French Roast, on 6th Avenue and 11th Street, he was at the table behind me. It was 2001. He heard me speak Italian with my friend Johna, who was at the table with me and would make fun of my hand gestures, would make noises from behind and interrupt me and throw random words in Italian at me. We started talking and in a few minutes we hit it off so much he asked me to attach my table to his table so we could be close. He was with two other people. I cant remember now who they were but one of them looked like Bruce Vilanch (can someone tag him to see if he can confirm?). I was at Mel Brookss table like we were friends - the type of thing that USED to happen only in New York. But to make it even more surreal, after 40 minutes or so we see Robin Williams walk by on the sidewalk and he recognizes Mel and they hug and they chat. Robin was in town for some benefit event connected to the September 11 tragedy and he happened to be there at the moment. Mel introduced Robin to his friends first and then he said and this is my friend Aldo. I was in total shock and I will always be grateful to him for doing that and treating me like one of the boys, even if I wasnt one of the boys. I love you Mel Brooks, Ill be in New York end of October, I hope to see you again. Meet you at the French Roast, around 10pm-ish. Max Brooks, tell your father to be there!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 01:01:40 +0000
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