September 2009: Melvin Van Peebles rocks a Spongebob backpack. He slid open the side door of the van, and asked me to grab it. Then he got in after it, thought for a second, and then climbed up into the front with me. "Hey, Young Man, I'm Mr. Van Peebles."
He couldn't have been off the plane for more than ten minutes, and he already had the stub of an unlit cigar in his mouth. He kept calling me Young Man, and I kept calling him Mr. Van Peebles.
I asked him if he had been to Seattle before. "I don't fuckin' remember. People ask me if I've been to Saigon... I don't fuckin' remember that either: maybe it was Bangkok. I've been everywhere."
I told him I live in Oakland. "Oakland. You know that lake there?" Lake Merritt. "Yep, I used to live in a boathouse on that lake." We talked Oakland for a while (no more boathouses on Lake Merritt), and his time there, but he only spoke for a quick flash about the Panthers.
He talked at length about his old jobs: being a cable-car operator in S.F., working on airplanes, etc. He talked about his apartment in Paris, his place in NY, a little about Mario, and about his new film and the companion graphic novel (Neither of which I've checked out yet- I've heard they're "not great" from trusted sources. I want them to be great; I'm rooting for this dude).
After I let it slip that I'm a drummer, he put in his new cd and we listened to it for the rest of the ride to his hotel. I don't remember much about it, I was trying to think of respectful-to-the-music ways to bring back the conversation. I nodded along (it was funky, I remember). We didn't speak again until he was getting out.
I said, "so if you ever need a drummer on West Coast..." he nodded, shook my hand, closed the door. Then he opened it and said, "what's your last name?" I told him, and it really looked like he was going to try to remember.
(Rider Review: A+)
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