Picked Russel McLean up at the Burbank airport yesterday. We ran the luggage out to CDV & Adam’s place in Porn Valley (where Russel’s crashing, since there’s barely enough room for me and my dog in my miserable little ghetto shack) and then it was off to Westwood for his signing at the Mystery Bookstore. Kinda strange first impression of LA, going from the charmless minimall sprawl of the Valley to the sanitized, slightly unreal neighborhood of Planet UCLA surrounding the Mystery Bookstore. I’m hoping the East Los taco crawl I have planned for Tuesday night will more than make up for that.
We had some time to kill in Westwood before the signing, so we met up with Stephen Blackmoore, one of our sista hos on Pimp Daddy Guthrie’s string. The three of us made a pilgrimage to Billy Wilder’s grave. I snapped what I thought was probably the best photo of Russel ever taken in that graveyard, but you’ll just have to take my word for it, because a faulty card reader ate all my photos.
And speaking of things that suck, what the hell happened to all my LA peeps yesterday? Because not one person showed up for Russel’s signing. Not one. Way to make a Scotsman feel welcome, Angelenos. Afraid you were gonna hear that damned fan-dabi-dozi song from the Krankies or be subjected to the word “cuntybaws?” Anyway it was your loss, because we had a swell time hanging with Linda and the Mystery Bookstore staff. (Well, Sue Ann Jaffarian stopped by to take care of other business and graciously stayed to listen to Russel’s explanation of why you need to move your sporin to the side for dancing. Thanks, Sue Ann!)
Then to cap it off, my plan to take Russel to see Point Break Live (yes, the Reeves/Swayze film, performed live on stage with an audience member chosen to play Johnny Utah) was foiled by inexplicable cancellation. We ended up taking a beautiful magic-hour drive up the coast to Topanga Canyon and then just heading back to Russel’s crash pad for a lazy evening watching Strikeforce. In the end, this was probably for the best, because I think poor Russel really needed the downtime after his whirlwind tour. We tucked him in early and let the boy rest, because I’ve got even bigger plans for him today.
Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle. At first, anyway.