News Flash: Quentin Tarantino has agreed to introduce the 12:01 am Dome show on Thursday night for INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS.

I logged into the theaters website and bought 2 of the less than 10 seats still remaining. Having heard rumors of this film for the last decade and considering myself to be a pretty big fan of QT’s work I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Even if the movie didn’t start until about 2 hours after I usually go to bed. Yeah, I’m getting pretty close to 40 and I’m usually in bed by 10pm most nights. So?

Dani and I stopped at a grocery store Thursday night and loaded up on junk food for the screening. Dani was worried that her overflowing purse would be suspicious.  On the drive into Hollywood I was thinking about the Quentin moments I’ve had over the last 15 years or so.

I remembered trying and failing to climb a local peak back in Alaska. Must have been 95? My friend Mark and I tried for two days in bad weather with too much gear. Finally on the morning of the third day we high tailed it down, and went strait to the theater to see Pulp Fiction. I don’t think we even went home to shower first. We must have smelled pretty bad in the theater but it was a weekday and mostly empty. Like most people that movie blew my mind. Left me reeling. I returned and saw it several more times on the big screen and bought it strait away when it came out on VHS.

When I moved to Hollywood I remember the first time I saw Quentin. I remember the day. I had auditioned for the lead role in a little independent feature. They liked me, but I “wasn’t right for the part.” So they gave me one of the smallest roles in the move just to have me involved. I was thrilled of course. I remember getting up early on a Saturday to drive all the way to Tustin (about 50 miles) for the first table read before shooting started the next week. I stopped at Starbucks on Franklin and Highland to get a coffee for the road. I walk in and there was Quentin, in the corner with a woman, pouring over headshot’s. I remember specifically, Quentin saying he liked a certain actor because of his facial expressions. “I like expressive actors” he said. I just tried not to stare. I was 26. I took it as a good sign. Here I was, on the way to a table read for my first feature film and I run into one of my favorite directors of all time. I am admittedly more than a little superstitious. Superstitious isn’t the exact right word but its close enough. Anyway, the film turned out to be a disaster and I don’t think it was ever finished. I never saw a frame of my 2 or 3 lines of dialogue. But i do use it as filler on my acting resume.

The next time I saw Quentin was maybe 5 or 6  months later at work. I worked as a doorman at the House of Blues for the first year I lived here. Metallica did a secret show at one point and there were a zillion celebrity’s that came, including Quentin. The show was sponsored by a beer company and I remember Quentin in the VIP room getting very drunk with about 4 of the Beer company’s promotion girls. He was very soft spoken and very polite. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about that, there were a lot of vary famous, very drunk people there that night. But it was the night that a few hours later I saw my first dead guy.

The next time I saw Quentin was an April morning in 2002. We passed in the parking lot of a Coffee Bean. I was going in, he was coming out, on the way to the dusty dented Volvo station wagon he used to drive. I was stopping for coffee before the long drive to San Francisco to start work on a movie that ended up being one of the coolest experiences of my life. I still get a check in the mail for that movie, a couple times a year.

A couple years later Quentin was across the street at the Virgin Mega store to sign copies of the Kill Bill Soundtrack. I put Azure in her backpack and we walked about a half mile from our little West Hollywood apartment to get there. We were almost last in the long line that spilled out of the store and around the block. I think Azure was the only toddler in line. When it was our turn at the table Quentin complimented the “Calamity Jane jacket” she was wearing. A little leather fringed and beaded jacket made by my mother when Azure was about a year old. Quentin signed the sleeve of the vinyl soundtrack to: Ben and Zure W/ love. It’s hanging over the desk as I write this post.

When I see a QT film, it’s love I see. Real love. Love on the screen. In every frame. You see it and you feel it. And there’s a lot of directors I admire, respect and love. But I can’t really say I see love on the screen the way I do when I see a QT film.

Thursday night at the Dome, Quentin came out like a rockstar to a standing ovation. He spoke for about a minute, profane and loud and excited. He called the audience, “Thursday night baddasses”, not the “Friday Faggotts.” Then he slammed down the mic and was gone. I loved the movie. I’ll see a matinee again this week. I’ll pick a middle seat in the back of the theater at a more respectable hour.

This morning I met a recording artist in Hollywood to discuss directing a music video for her. She’s an MTV, VMA winning artist. Extremely talented with an amazing voice and deep lyrics. The song is awesome. But she spoke of having her creativity stifled by the industry of music and I can certainly relate in my parallel pursuit of a career in motion pictures. It’s hard out there. Hard enough to just get by, let alone make adequate commerce from your art. the walls are high and heavily guarded.

It’s people like Quentin that give me hope. His movies are food for my soul. Fuel for the engine that drives my own creative train. His movies are unlike anything I would or could ever make and yet they absolutely inspire me in the purest way. Love.

All I have to say is what I said to him when he signed the Kill Bill record almost 6 years ago… Thanks for the movies dude.

- Staley Out