I saw Justin Brock at a bar and told him I was a big fan and dude looked at me like I was crazy as fuck.� I'm just going to assume that he was drunk or something.
Brock is a super nice guy, this is probably a situation like Fenzadill mentioned.
Imagine being approached by a random person and having them tell you how awesome you are, and how big of a fan they are. �Pro skateboarders are just dudes, and will be as weirded-out by a forced and unusual social interaction as anyone would be.
So very true. Especially when it's someone humble or shy. You also don't know what they're dealing with and they might be bummed that day, maybe they just caught their girlfriend blowing their roommate, or they might have a family tragedy going on. As far as signing autographs, that's something they expect to do for 12 year olds and teeny bopper girls, but I don't get why a grown dude would ask some other guy to sign his name on a napkin. If you do want an autograph, get it at a signing, not when they're out trying to chill. Start fanning out and asking for autographs and it'll be a more awkward experience than if you just hang out and treat them like the normal people that they are.
I've skated with a lot of well known guys over the years, and most of them are super mellow. I'll call out 2 guys though who came off as complete assholes though: Tony Alva and Moses Itkonen. Fuck those guys.
One time around '96-'97 I accidentally upset some guy who rode for or was flow for Girl and he started kicking his board around and acting pissy. I went to the old Venice boardwalk driveway ramp and within a couple tries I ollied this tall construction sign that the guy was unsuccessfully trying to clear, and I guess he felt shown up. It probably didn't help that I was riding a wide ass Capital board with green griptape and had a mohawk so might've looked like a kook, but for whatever reason he didn't like the fact that I did it so easily, and I went on to backside 180 the thing, when he couldn't get the height to straight ollie over it. I wasn't trying to 1-up him, just trying to skate and before my meniscus shattered to pieces high ollies were my strong point, whereas this guy could probably skate a ledge 10x better than me, but instead of getting stoked on someone else doing well at the session he had a hissy fit. I've seen that happen quite a bit with flow guys and rookie am's, some of them seem like they have something to prove and don't like it when they're not the hottest shit at a session.