With Ice Cube being discussed here so much today, I feel inclined to share the true story of when I met Ice Cube. His real name is O’Shea Jackson, which is relevant in the story. Several years ago I had a job as a night porter (combination bellman/valet/room service) on graveyard shifts at a very nice 4 star hotel in a state that has a larger white population than average. It was quite common for celebrities of different types to stay at this hotel because it was, at least at the time, a trendy, hip franchise of a popular San Francisco company. Most often, musicians who were in town touring would be the "VIP guests" and because I worked from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am, I would often interact with them as they tended to check in late at night after their show. One night I got to work and the night auditor (overnight front desk worker) told me that he was very excited because Ice Cube was going to be staying there for the night and he was a huge fan. I wasn’t around when his crew checked in so it was pretty much a normal night for me until just before 6:00 am when the night auditor called me up to the lobby. I went there and the driver of Ice Cube’s tour bus asked me if I had any ice for the bus that they could have. I said yes and told him I’d go get some and went down to the kitchen for it. When I got upstairs with the ice, most of the crew, including Ice Cube himself, was sitting in the lobby waiting for the last few people to get downstairs so they could leave. As I approached, a *very* large man walked over to me and asked what I was doing. I said the driver asked for some ice so I was looking for him to deliver it. He told me the driver was already outside and to just take it out directly to him on the bus. I said ok and thanks and went outside. I walked up to the bus and saw the door was opened, so as directed I started walking up the stairs and into the bus. As I took the second step, I was suddenly grabbed from behind and yanked off of the bus by another incredibly large man. He had a hold of me and lowered his face down to right in front of mine and said “what the fuck you think you doin’, man”? I started to tell him I was just delivering ice when at almost the exact same time the driver popped his head out of the bus and said “he’s got my ice” and the first very large man I spoke to came out of the hotel door and said “yo man, he’s cool. I told him to go out to the bus”. The first dude told the second dude that he told me to go out and onto the bus with the ice but forgot that the second dude was out there already so he didn’t tell him someone was coming out. The man let go of me, and like out of a movie, he smoothed down my shirt where he had grabbed me. He apologized for grabbing me and yanking me of the bus and made sure I was ok. I said “I’m fine; I just think I need to go change my pants now”. He laughed and stuck out his hand which I grabbed. He did the ‘black guy handshake’ and pulled me in for the half hug part then said while still laughing “god damn, man, you should have seen your face. What’s wrong, you ain’t never seen a black man in [state with larger than average white population] before”? I kinda chuckled and said I had, but it’d been a while and told him that I was actually from Chicago and had only moved there a couple years prior. He chuckled again and said “for real, though, you aight, man”? I said yes, I was just glad the first guy came out to clarify the situation when he did. Then he said “cool, now quit playin’ and get on the bus…for real this time!” and laughed as I got on the bus. The driver apologized profusely. I told him everything was fine, it was a simple miscommunication, etc. I asked him where he wanted the ice and as I was dumping it into the icebox I said “at least I got a good story out of it, right”? The driver laughed and handed me a twenty and said “for the ice”. I started to thank him when he reached out with a hundred in his hand and said “for the miscommunication”. I tried to refuse, saying it wasn’t necessary, etc. but he interrupted me and insisted that I take it, so I finally did. I made sure he had everything he needed, and we thanked each other and I got off of the bus. I walked back into the lobby, and noticed his whole crew was staring at me, most of them laughing. Then Ice Cube asked big dude #1 “is that him?” and big dude told him yes. Ice Cube then waved me over with his hand. I walked over and said “yes, Mr. Jackson”? He busted out laughing and said “Mr. Jackson” in a playful mocking voice, so I said “look, I just didn’t want to be the white dude from [state with higher than average white population] that called you ‘Mr. Cube’…”. That was when his whole crew busted out laughing and a couple of them pointed behind me while laughing. I turned around with a confused look on my face and saw they were pointing at the night auditor who turned bright red with embarrassment and looked down at the computer, pretending to work and acting like he didn’t notice them laughing. The Ice Cube said “you too late for that, cuz. Your boy at the desk already did that”. Everyone laughed again, and he said “just call me Ice… But seriously, though, my boy told me what happened. Everything good”? I assured him I was fine and that it was just a miscommunication and big dude #2 was just doing his job, and so on. The he asked if his driver ‘took care of me’ and I told him yes, the driver was more than generous and none of it was necessary but I appreciated the concern. Then he stuck out his hand and gave me a ‘regular’ handshake and we thanked each other and said goodbye and then they all walked out and onto the bus. I went over to the night auditor who still looked embarrassed. He asked what exactly happened because he only heard a little bit of the story after big dude #1 came back in and told the guys what happened. I told him and then asked him what happened to make them all laugh like that. He said when they came downstairs Ice Cube himself went to the front desk to check out, which was highly unusual. Usually the famous people had their manager or someone in their group do it and they would enter and leave without any interaction. He then said he was so surprised to see him standing there and was starstruck at the same time so he wasn’t quite thinking straight, so when he addressed Ice, he went with the default Mr. [last name], but because he was such a big fan he could only think of him as Ice Cube, so he called him ‘Mr. Cube’ and his crew all laughed and someone said “man, I **told** you that was gonna happen”. He said that Ice told him “just call me Ice” and was cool about it and that was about when big dude #1 came back inside laughing and everyone walked over to the lobby to hear the story. Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything, just a good memory from a long time ago. Thanks for reading.