Drumming up trouble, celebrity division

So you think your life is tough?  How about the horrible sad woes inflicted on our wealthy entertainers?  Check this out! (from the New York Post)  

Al Roker nearly “pulled an Alec Baldwin” on an American Airlines flight when he refused to give up his aisle seat for rocker Alex Van Halen and his wife, Stine Schyberg, and remained glued to his phone after the gate closed to tune out the pushy couple’s protests.

After hosting the Rose Bowl in LA, the campy “Today” meteorologist avoided a fiery confrontation on AA flight No. 4 to New York when his first-class companions, the Van Halen co-founder and his wife, bitterly complained to the gate agent that Roker was sitting between them as the plane sat on the ground.

 

Witnesses said Alex was seated by the right- side window, his wife in the center of the cabin, with Roker in the aisle seat between them. Alex’s brother and Van Halen co-founder Eddie and his wife, Janie Liszewski, were seated in the row behind them.

“Alex complained, ‘We’re not together, Mr. Roker’s seat is between ours,” a spy said. “Al was looking at his phone, desperately trying to ignore the whole situation.”

When the agent asked Roker to move to the aisle seat in the first-row center, he stated that he’s “allergic to dogs,” a source tells us. A passenger with a little dog in a crate was in the row behind Roker, and moving to the aisle would have put him three seats away, rather than four.

To sit together, Alex and Stine then swapped with passengers in business class, our spy said, adding that a relieved Al “said ‘Hello’ to the new people when they sat down, after hiding from the Van Halens by texting.”

Roker, who then turned his phone off, seemed to have better etiquette than “30 Rock” star Baldwin, who was bounced from a flight last month for unleashing his rage on a flight attendant who asked him to put his phone away.

While the situation was uncomfortable, “There was literally not an ounce of rock star bullbleep,” a spy said of Alex, “But his wife was making a big deal complaining about it.”

A rep for Van Halen told us the band “couldn’t be reached.” NBC declined to comment.

Now, as we were saying last week, I don't fly, and here is why.  If I thought there was the slightest chance that I would have to witness Al Roker - the man whose costars obsequiously call him "Mr Roker" - having a snitfit with Alex Van Halen and his wife over who was sitting where on a jet flying coast to coast I might have had to say this:

"Hey weather guy, would it kill you to move over one and let this man and his wife sit together?  And drum guy and wife, did you think of asking nicely, or was this a big 'Do you know who I am?' thing?"

He sticks with it!

I use a little scale for gauging dumb celebrity spats like this one.  If I brought Alex Van Halen before a group of people of all ages and backgrounds, how many could ID the flamboyant drummer?  They might know his brother, Eddie, who was married to Valerie Bertinelli, but Alex?  And conversely, how many people would recognize Al Roker without his weather paraphernalia all around him?  

Maybe it's crazy, but maybe our pampered celebrities just possibly could start getting along with each other.  Picture Al Roker, sitting there faking like he's reading messages on his cell while Alex Van Halen's third wife crabs about who's sitting where.  

It almost sounds like an oil painting, ready to be made into a tapestry to decorate the homes of people who read the tabloids.