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I've been beat tired all day, and had to drag myself along through a seven-hour blizzard of errands, driving, waiting, errands, driving, waiting, lather, rinse, repeat. I finally got home around 7pm, planning to do little more than sprawl on the couch and watch something vapid on the tube.
But in a space of about 45 minutes, I got two phone calls, both bearing very good news from and for two very good friends. My batteries had a little charge left thanks to that, so I decided to head down to my bar for a mug and a few pages of the Lincoln biography I'm reading.
The place was Monday-night dead, just the bouncer and the bartender dealing with maybe three customers besides me. Perfect. Ipswich Ale in the mug, and the chapter about Lincoln's early attempts to deal with Douglas open before me.
A little while passed, and then the door opened. A clot of maybe seven people come in, well dressed folks who pretty clearly were fairly far into their cups. The poured into the stools maybe ten feet from me. One of them, a guy wearing a simple hat and brown coat, sits by the tap racks and turns his face towards me while talking to his friend.
I looked. Looked again. Third time. Damned if that isn't Kevin Spacey, I thought.
It was. I guess he's making a movie in town, and he just happened to stagger (pretty much literally, homeboy was tight) into my wee little bar beneath the parking garage.
Keyser fuckin' Soze. Right there.
Now, I'm the place where celebrity worship goes to die, for the most part. Meeting Muhammad Ali when I was a kid, and meeting Arthur Schlesinger a few years ago, stand waaaay out among a whole pile of actors, politicians and randomly famous folks I've come across.
Spacey doesn't rate with Ali or Schlesinger, of course, but I have to admit being more than a little bug-eyed as I watched him wrestle with a glass of Duvel. 'American Beauty' had a huge impact on me, something movies usually don't do, and 'The Usual Suspects' is in the pantheon of all-time amazing films.
And yeah, here was Keyser fuckin' Soze.
So I did the total cheese move, of course. I walked over, tapped his shoulder, welcomed him to the bar, told him I really admired his work, and toasted him. He smiled somewhat blearily but with genuine friendliness, toasted back, we drank, I said goodnight, and shuffled back to my stool. About 20 minutes later, he and the group reeled off into the night.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. Well, he does exist, because I tipped a beer with him in my bar tonight. Keyser fuckin' Soze.
Funny aside: the doorman recognized Spacey immediately when he and his crew first rolled up to the door, and likewise recognized that they were all fairly sauced. He told me later that he really wanted to tell Spacey he was too drunk to come in.
"Really?" I asked.
"Fuck yeah," he replied. "I'd get to tell people I bounced Keyser fuckin' Soze."
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