Pauline went to some meeting of the minds today that culminated in a private screening of a new digitally restored print of “Bonnie & Clyde.” She actually asked me if I wanted to go, that silly, like I would have something better to do than that!

The screening was at the Academy, which is near my office, so she picked me up, we grabbed some dinner, then headed into the theater. As we filed in with the other people, someone from Warner Bros. was handing out little raffle tickets. “This one’s a winner,” the ticket hander-outer said to me. We sat down and listened to some guy from Warner Bros. yammer about the print we were about to see. He announced that they had some DVDs to give away of the new Bonnie & Clyde transfer, and prepared to call out raffle ticket numbers. “They better be the Blu-Rays,” I told Pauline, only maybe 10% joking. The first couple tickets got called and people started moving to claim their rewards.

“I hope you win,” Pauline said, “Since you’re not even supposed to be here!”

“Oh yeah?” I said, taking the challenge. When the next ticket was called, I jumped up. “Me! I got it!” I cried, and started running down the aisle to the Warner Bros man.

I got halfway down the Academy’s red carpet walkway when some woman stood up. “Wait! That’s MY number! NOT HIS!” she yelled, in a completely “STOP! THIEF!” sort of way. I stopped in my tracks and turned to see a very angry woman. I turned to the audience and shrugged, exaggeratedly. A few people laughed.

“Oh, let him have it!” the super sweet Warner Bros man called out. “Give him one,” he motioned to his assistant. I turned and smiled at Pauline.

By this time, the actual winner of the DVD had made it down to the front and was given her DVD…AS WELL AS MY ILLICIT DVD TO BRING TO ME!

As she handed it to me, I looked her in the eyes and clucked. “Jeez, not even a Blu-Ray!” I said, only maybe 8% joking. She glowered at me and took her seat. Jeez! I’m not against her! Damn!

[Obligatory film comment: I used to think “Bonnie & Clyde” was NBD, even after it comes up the first few times in Film School. But the last couple times I’ve seen it, I’ve been blown away by it. I laugh at every comic nuance of Beatty/Hackman/Pollard and the not so nuanced comedy of Wilder. Dunaway is a jaw-dropper! And all the weird love story/tragic heroes/fatalism stuff really builds up so devastatingly that when Hackman gets his forehead dented in I just felt like someone threw a medicine ball into my gut!]

Pawline and i were lounging around, I had my laptop open and made reference to something i happened across. “Read it to me,” she said.

So I did. I put a little effort into the nuances of my reading, trying to make it sound as articulate and thought through as possible. The more I read out loud, the more confident I became in my reading. I knew I was giving what I was reading the best reading it had ever been given!

When I finished, I turned to Pawline, and, expecting that she’d noticed my carefully executed narration, announced, “I should be a voice-over artist. Right? Don’t you think?” She asked me to read something else, and I began reading her a baseball story from a different browser window.”

“Maybe for cartoons?” she said, when I finished. Then, seeing my face fall, she tried to make it better. “Or any children’s show?”

As we sat watching Hugh Hefner celebrate his birfday a few weeks ago, I promised Pawline that I’d try and reciprocate. And soon. My chance came this week, when my involvement in the new “Dirty Harry” box set release (what, you haven’t visited the accompanying website yet?!? the widget’s not on your Facebook profile yet?!? WTFZOMG?) got me behind the velvet ropes to help fete ol’ Clint Eastwood at a party of his closest friends and industry types.

We had pretty amazing seat placement at the event, somehow we had all the stars walking by us (literally, Pauline could have stabbed them in the leg if she’d been better prepared!). Lalo Schifrin? Yup. Jon Voight? Uh huh. Tyne Daly? Okay. Jimmy Smits? Getting weirder, but ok. The evil golfer from “Happy Gilmore” slash helpful agent from “Breakin’?” Right behind us, talking about what “Five Easy Pieces” meant to him as an actor. Azmat from “Borat”? Yep…hey! WHY THE HELL IS HE HERE?!?”

Eventually, Clint Eastwood walked down. He was charismatic even in his walk! Up close, his face kinda reminded me of my old friend Saylor’s face — except Clint’s about 80 years old, and Saylor looked like that at, like, 25. He’s also pretty bald. I feel okay saying that since he joked about it to the crowd. His daughter was there too. Part of the party included a screening of “Dirty Harry” in bee-yoo-tee-ful restored 35mm, but Clint very visibly took off during the opening credits. As he got up and walked away, you could literally see dozens of people turning in their seats to watch him go!

After the party, we all got some schwag. I was hoping for the blu-ray box set, but instead they had pressed up all these solid chocolate life-size .44 Magnum Dirty Harry guns! I took a couple for guys at work who’d done all the actual hard work for me. Then I took one to mail back home, either to my Mommy so she’d be proud of me, or to Susan so it could be archived into all her film stuff. Pauline and I got in the elevator to go to the garage, and a giant pock-marked man was standing next to me. He was huge, he also had an Amazon black woman on his arm. She had the most enormous fake boobies, and I felt like I needed to look down at my feet so that the big tough mean man wouldn’t think I was checking out his girl (I wasn’t! She looked like a drag queen!) and kill me.

“Muaahdafda lijsah!” the big man said, interrupting my downward gaze. “Oh shit,” I thought. “What’d I do?!?” I looked up at the man, quizzically. “Pardon?”

He nodded at my stack of boxed chocolate guns. He was holding two himself. “I haven’t seen anyone with *FOUR*!” he said, smiling. “That’s a bold move.”

I smiled, “Well, three of them are my wife’s, I’m just holding them.” He stared at me. I don’t think he got my humor. I waited a few minutes, then told him, “I have some liquor stores I want to stick up on the way home, I figgered these would help out.” The rest of the elevator laughed, but the giant man looked blankly at me. He and his tranny girlfriend got off the elevator and took off.

“Did you recognize that guy?!?” a friend of mine said, afterwards. “Mickey Rourke was just harrassing you for taking too much chocolate!”

BA-BOOOOOOOOM!

Celebrity Sightings are one thing, I guess, but how about this weirdness?

1) Friday night, we’re at El Carmen, a local taqueria slash awesome bar. There’s a long wait for a table, but after a few Tecate, we’re not noticing as much. We finally get seated…when Oscar from “The Office” walks in, meets a buddy, and starts angling for a table. No dice, wait like everyone else Mr. Bigshot! He was joined by another C-lister, but I can’t even remember who…I don’t know if it was the multiple beers and tacos clouding my brain, or Oscar’s puffy mexi-fro

2) Saturday morning, we go to the Starbucks near our place. The same one where I had my hobo fight with Hobo #2. There’s a long wait for a beverage, but we’re not noticing because we’re half awake. Pawline elbows me, and gestures ahead in line. I look at the redhead she’s motioning towards. Redhead. Yoga outfit. Oh! REDHEAD! Its Meredith from “The Office!”

3) Sunday afternoon, we go to IKEA to pick up some drapes for the new place. There’s a long wait for the frozen yogurt that we need to shop effectively, but not that long. I killed it by looking at the clothes of the people in front of me. “I’m really glad we don’t dress like this,” I thought, taking in the cargo capri pants of the girl, especially. Pawline elbows me, and gestures towards them. “I know,” I think, “Cargo Capris.” But she makes a weird “look at her face” gesture, and I peer around and gawk. It’s Pam from “The Office!”

I feel blessed. Now if only we can get a Kevin sighting in!

[inspired by Post-Pessimist’s Homeless entry, sorta, but I was already writing this one on my way to the office today]

Most days, my lovely wife wakes up a little before me and fires up a pot of homebrew to jumpstart her husband’s caffeine habit for the day. She had other plans this morning, and had to bolt from the house before I even had a chance to roll out of bed and grab my laptop (which I need to do before even hitting the john in the morning). No problem, because I have no guilt about my love for Starbucks and would do it every day if I was less accountable for my spending.

Awhile ago, an old friend and mentor gave me some sage advice on dealing with panhandlers. “If you’re in your own town? Ignore them. But if you’re traveling? Be generous.” I didn’t really understand it too much, but I didn’t try either. I absorbed the “ignore them” part, and then made sure to only vacation in places where there wern’t any hobos around. Done! And that’s the way I was thinking this morning when I made my way into Starbucks. There was a hobo lady waiting by the door, and she caught me a little offguard.

Hobo #2: Priscilla “Popeye” Jenkins

I actually wasn’t ready for there to be a hobo by the door, it seemed so close that you’d think those corporate piggies would come out and shoo her away. I accidentally made eye contact with her, and those sad tender eyes haunted me the whole time I ordered my double-cupped quad skinny latte. I imagined all the Beverly Hills denizens refusing to acknowledge her with their callous stares…did I have to be one of those types? The Starbucks guy gave me back my change, and I feigned a tipping motion before pocketing my money.

I fixed my drink up with about 76 Splenda packets, stirring them in until the straw wouldn’t move anymore. While I was mixing, I watched people walking in and glaring at the homeless lady, her Keane/Gig size sad eyes superimposed over my vision of their apathy. I pulled out the cash I had on hand, $4, and folded it up so that it felt like at least $6. Confident in my ability to do the right thing and overjoyed at my rising stature in the universe, I walked outside and handed the clutch of bills to the woman.

“Thank you,” she said. “Oh thank you!”

“Have a nice day!” I said, and walked to my car. I got only a few steps however, when it started.

“Excuse me, sir?!?” the woman called out. “Sir, I hate to bother you, but…” I pushed my sunglasses up my nose and walked briskly, away.

“SIR!” she cried. It was too late, she was rising and chasing after me. I looked over my shoulder quickly, and saw her waddling side to side after me, her feet no doubt covered in blisters and grossness. I walked faster, trying hard not to run and jostle my beverage. “OH SIR, PLEASE HELP ME!” she cried. I slipped quickly into my car, but she had covered the ground faster than I expected. She was knocking on my window. “Sir, I really don’t want to take up any of your time, but I really…” I rolled my window down a crack.

“I’m sorry, I need to get to work, I can’t help you!” I said, as cheerily earnest as someone who’s obviously been running away from the situation might be able to. I put my car in reverse and started to back out.

She slammed her palm on the top of my car. “WELL FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE! GO TO HELL!”

I sped away, but not before opening my sunroof and sticking my head out. “I hope you get rabies, lady! RABIES!”

As soon as we looked at our new place, before even signing the lease, Pauline had her tape measure out and was sizing up the bedroom. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Seeing where the King size bed is going,” Pauline responded, writing down her measurements. “Huh?” I said. “We don’t even have a ki…”

I trailed off, Pauline wasn’t listening, she was already browsing Crate and Barrel and EQ3 on her phone. Our old bed was a swedish cheapy, not quite IKEA, but similar in the type of pressed wood and veneer construction that we’ve been systematically ridding our house of. That’s not really important, except it sorta explains why our current bed had started to break — moving half a dozen times over the past decade has taken its toll on sawdust glue, and the situation had become so bad that we actually were using underbed storage tupperwares to support the mattress.

That’s why we needed a new bed. Why we needed a king size bed is a different story: we have two little dogs that are bed hogs. They insist on either sleeping horizontally across the bed, or in our arms. It had gotten to be too much for Pauline, and she knew the King was the answer. I wasn’t a hard sell, our honeymoon bed was so comfortable that I had already agreed to devote an entire paycheck to having my apprentices recreate the mattress.

We bought our mattress like grown-ups — I think this is the first mattress I’ve ever owned that I didn’t inherit from a dead relative (mmmm…comforting smells!) or a yard sale. We went to Macy’s and lay on mattresses for an hour or so until we found the perfect one. It was so perfect that I came dangerously close to falling asleep right then and there in the store (and to jump forward a little bit, my lifelong sleeping issues have been solved now — I fall asleep immediately, I sleep through the night, I need an alarm clock, etc. No more whisky and tranq cocktails for me!). We picked a delivery date for when we’d be in our new house, and for sometime after our bed frame would be delivered.

I won’t bore you with any more details, I know we’ve reached your breaking point as it is. As long as “solid wood” and “big” and “waiting forever” are instilled in your mind, we can flash to the present day.

SCENE 1
ME: [rapping knuckles on the wood] I can’t belive its really all wood, I love it! There’s a walnut tree in here! I can smell where a squirrel was sleeping!

SCENE 2
PAULINE: [screaming] OW! [cacophonous crash] OWWWW! … The headboard fell on my head, oh god … I can’t stop crying … That really hurt. Please get this off of me.

SCENE 3
ME: [cacophonous crash] Holy Fuck! The whole frame came down on me… OW … My head is pinned. Holy Eff this is heavy.

SCENE 4
ME: They didn’t install this piece correctly, we have to take everything apart and wait for something to get Fed Exed to us.

We slept like angels last night, that’s for sure!

Spotted wheatpasted up all over Hollywood…the above Chihuahua. It looks close enough to my sweet little Chalmers that I got kinda excited the first time I saw it, but the more I look at the fake stencil part (and especially the more I watched the video on the accompanying website that a pal just hepped me to), the more I wonder if its less guerilla chihuahua uprising and more “return of the Chalupa” Taco Bell advertising or something. Still…there are a lot worse things to see while driving around town.

UPDATE!P just linked me to this awesome explanation of my new favorite movie of all time!!

My friend Greg (above in my favorite pic of him) recently came across an interview with Alan Cage and sent it to me. I was a little confused, I had no idea why I should care…but I still started skimming. Ohhhh, yeah.

When Greg and I both worked at the campus newspaper, it was a little more than getting promo items, selling promo items, and collecting our $200 bi-weekly tycoon salary (and yeah, i remember just how RICH that $200 felt!). For Greg, it was some sort of a career move cuz I heard that now he’s working for like Al-Jazeera or something, and for me it was a good way to find a number of different ways to goof off under the guise of journalism. Part of my job was dealing with PR and record label types, they’d call all the time to try and get us to earn the steady flow of promo goods coming our way, and when i’d run out of excuses sometimes I’d have to write an actual band review or interview of some sort. It was on such a day when the phone rang, interrupting my then internet regimen (a lot of text browsing, it was 1995). “Uh…can I call you back in 10 minutes?” I asked. “I’m not quite ready.” I hung up the phone, my hands and voice shaking.

I’d scheduled an interview with Alan Cage from Quicksand, and completely forgotten about it. This wasn’t the first time I’d done something like that, I remember getting taken to task by the Matador publicist (who I had a great relationship with since I was pretty firmly in my “Matador Sycopant” phase) for “making Barbara Manning cry in a phone booth” for something eerily similar. “Greg,” I called out. “Do you know anything about Quicksand? I need help with an interview.”

Greg rolled his eyes. He promised to help me with interview questions as long as I promised to ask his questions without, uh, questioning him. “Start dialing,” he said, “I’ll bring you the questions.” I dialed Alan Cage’s phone number, he picked up as Greg handed me my interview list.

[reprinted here by request of Greg and probably of no interest to anyone else]

Fredoluv: Do you cover Gorilla Biscuits songs?
Alan Cage: Nope.
F: Tell me about the new album. Did you guys try to have a different focus than your debut album Slip?
AC: We just tried to make as good of an album as possible.
F: What do you have planned for this year?
AC: A lot of touring. Tons of it.
F: How are you guys celebrating the year of the pig?
AC: I don’t think we are.
F: Who’s the tallest guy in the band?
AC: I am.
F: What’s that like for you?
AC: It doesn’t really matter that much.
F: If you could be a state, which one would you be, and why?
AC: Hmmm �Alaska.
F: Why?
AC: I’m not quite sure why.
F: Oh, c’mon Alan!
AC: It, uh, seems like a cool state to be?
F: Why did you quit Burn [Cage’s other band]? I thought they rocked!
AC: I was doing two bands. You can’t really tour and do two bands. That’s the main reason.
F: Yeah, I guess that’s a problem for John Reis [from Rocket From the Crypt and Drive Like Jehu] and others. How has your band’s sound progressed?
AC: I don’t really know … It’s really hard to tell. There’s so much distance between the two.
F: What’s the Quicksand live show like?
AC: A lot of energy. We do our best stuff live.

The End! I think I did better intentionally bad interviews, but this one was pretty good due to the circumstances.

Driving around town this week, Pauline casually noted our changing environment. “We only drive through nice neighborhoods now,” she lamented. It’s true, we live in a quaint historic neighborhood now, hemmed in by big ol’ fancy neighborhoods like Hancock Park and Beverly Hills. It’s gotten a little worse for me, however, because I no longer walk to work languidly taking in the city’s “character” while moving my wallet from my back pocket to my front pocket and looking as “bad” as one can while wearing pink sunglasses. I’d like to keep true to my roots however, and periodically document the awesome hobo culture that’s here in the Big City.

L.A.’s hobos are a little different than the hobos I used to encounter in Tucson — those hobos were typically old hippies and/or out of work construction workers, eager to swap stories from their transient travelogue in exchange for a few drops of hooch or a plate of leftovers. It wasn’t uncommon for the Tucson hobos to have a bicycle and a dog with a bandanna around its neck. People would seem to have the same three conversations about the Tucson hobo: 1) “Don’t you think its mean for that hobo to own a dog? If you can’t provide for yourself, why have a dog!” or 2) “Those gutter punks on 4th Ave. probably live with their parents!” or 3) “I can’t believe they wait outside for your leftovers, that’s so annoying!” In contrast, I think you’re a lot more likely to ask yourself “how did all that blood get on that hobo?!?” when you see the L.A. hobos. They’re so edgy and sociopathic that I’ve seen a few just start crossing Hollywood Blvd in rush hour, forcing twenty cars to slam on their brakes to let them walk across the street. They no longer fear the human world! These though, are the ones worth watching…and I know there’ll be more to come.

#1: Roscoe Pigpen
There used to be two similar looking men near our house. They were both about 6′5″ tall and overweight, black men so dark that you often couldn’t see their eyes — or had their desperation just sucked those eyes into the void they occupied? We’d get the two confused, which was important since one of them smelled so bad that a stink cloud with a 20 foot radius surrounded him as he walked up and down the street. We figured out one was older than the other, but as soon as we started calling them “Methuselah” and “Pigpen,” Methuselah up and disappeared. Roscoe had a slooow shuffle up the street, if you saw him in time to hold your breath to avoid the stench, your lung capacity would get tested. But it was that slow shuffle that sorta endeared him to me: he really ended up seeming like a gentle giant compared to the spazzy hobo maniacs twitching up and down the street beside him. Some mornings on my way to work I’d see him slouched on a bus bench, his enormous frame turning the bench into doll furniture beneath him as he looked his face up to the sky with his eyes closed — he was soaking in the sun in a moment of bliss you just don’t typically see the LA hobo engaging in.

Roscoe was around Hollywood just about as long as we were, and we saw the environment take its toll on him. He went from having a sizeable belly to being completely unable to keep his pants up. As he shuffled along, his bare ass (and sometimes his pee-pee!) would be hanging out for all the Hollywood tourists to see. I would make jokes to Pauline, “I’d love to know his weight loss secret,” I’d sigh. “Such discipline!” But as the months wore on, my sympathy built up and I felt compelled to hit the Army/Navy surplus store in the neighborhood; I wanted to get him a big jumpsuit or something to help out his cause. Unfortunately, Roscoe disappeared about two weeks before we moved, and I never got to lend a hand. Farewell, sweet Roscoe…I hope you’re on a Greyhound to Davenport, Iowa!