Tom Arnold is starring in this basketball-related CBS Interactive web series called Heckle-U, which will begin in February and run for ten episodes…fine. I met Arnold back in ’99 or ’00 at one of Jonathan Kaufer ‘s chinese-food-and-DVD parties, and I liked him right away for something that happened before we shook hands or said hello.

I had parked my car down the road and was approaching Kaufer’s home, which was located up in the hills inside this gated McMansion community, in the darkness. I saw a group of three or four people standing outside the black-iron gate. Usually you just push the intercom button and the owner buzzes you through and that’s that, but this group, which Arnold was a part of, was just standing around and murmuring to each other. (I had noticed them as I drove up so they’d been there a couple of minutes.) So I said out loud, not knowing who anyone was, “How come all you guys are just standing there?”

And Arnold replied in that unmistakable voice, “Because we’re assholes?”