Even Macy Gray and Silent Bob had to wait in line for an iPhone

Leading up to the iPhone launch, Apple made it clear that unless you were one of the four nationally respected journalists who received advance test units, you’d have to wait in line on June 29th to get one just like everyone else – no matter who you might be.

I was on a list of credentialed journalists who had been invited to come into the store when it opened at 6:00 pm and report on the iPhone hoopla but if I wanted to actually buy one, I was told I would have to get in line. Because I felt compelled to provide editorial coverage of the iPhone lineup at the Apple Store at The Grove in Los Angeles (including photos and interviews with people in line) before joining the line myself, I ended up with more than two hundred people standing between me and the store’s front door.

No worries. Trusting that Apple had prepared enough for the event that they would be able to process sales quickly, I wasn’t concerned about having so many people in front of me; if I received my iPhone at 6:30 pm instead of 6:00 pm, it wouldn’t significantly impact my ability to get back to iPhone headquarters and begin publishing my initial iPhone experiences. Sure enough, by 6:15 I was inside the store and by 6:20 I was a proud new iPhone owner.

But back up a few minutes. Jjust as I was about to enter the store, someone emerged from the front door to the flashbulbs of cameras everywhere. Sure enough, none other than Macy Gray had just walked out with her new iPhone in hand. Judging by what time it was, she’d been waiting in line as well (or more likely, she’d had a friend waiting in line in her behalf – why wasn’t I that smart?). The irony is that I was just close enough to the front window of the store that I could make out the iPhone advertisement on the interior wall, which included a rather large photograph of – you guessed it – Macy Gray.

Here’s the thing: if your face is pictured on the wall of the Apple Store and you still have to wait your turn in line to buy an iPhone at that store? Wow, talk about not showing any favoritism.

Shortly after I entered the store I noticed another familiar face a few spots in front of me, or I should say a familiar trenchcoat and beard. Back in January, movie director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Jersey Girl, Silent Bob, etc.) gave the Feature Presentation at Macworld Expo, the biggest annual Apple-related event in the world, so he’s not exactly an outside when it comes to the Apple universe. And now he too was being made to wait in line for his iPhone.

I caught up with Kevin briefly, but in all the hubbub there wasn’t time for anything more than a quick hello. But here’s what I really wanted to ask him: “Does Silent Bob, who never actually speaks, even need a phone?”

Pity I didn’t think of that one until after I’d gotten home. And for the record, I have no legitimate explanation for why the look on my face is even stupider than the look on Kevin’s.

But the way I figure, if the musician whose face is displayed on the wall of every Apple Store in the country and the movie director who gave the Feature Presentation at the last big Apple event both had to wait in line for an iPhone just like everyone else, I was happy to wait my turn as well. Congrats to Apple for managing to keep the line moving so swiftly once the doors opened, and for having the chutzpah not to play favorites.