Place: Bourgeois Pig
Celeb: Quentin Tarantino

No, this is not my "hangout". In fact, on many levels, I despise it in spite of it being the haunt of indigenous screenwriters and the like. It's a den of youngins who all strike the pose of Hollywood hipster and pretend they are models from stylish magazines come-to-life. It's too dark, the drinks are expensive, the intellectual atmosphere is more akin to a bar than cafe but it is across the street, they do have good iced Thai tea, and you occasionally see celebrities pretending to some life of normalcy.

I was on a break from work, nursing a mild flu (if such a thing is possible) and still giddy from the prior night's Presidential debates where Kerry upstaged a petulant Bush. I decided to get a iced Thai and start my "Wittgenstein's Poker" book. No sooner had I reached the order counter, I noticed Tarantino on a plush chair adjacent to the bar, head down into a tight concentration of what may have been the LA Weekly. "You keep low, you stay to yourself, don't look for trouble or attention which is desperate but don't hideout in dark glasses and a wig like you're Madonna or something either." I had plenty of time to study his distinct features since the barely post-pubescent barmaid was unable to extract herself from some male patron's riveting retelling of some sensational news story about murder, arson, buried corpses and the like. Don't mind me, I'm just pretending to be cool while you take your sweet ass time as I casually employ my facial recognition program in my head.

After finally getting my order, I surveyed the room which was full of laptop goons with their faces aglow from their monitors. No one seemed to be furtively eyeing the pop-culture maestro as I would have expected. I envisioned dreamy-eyed screenwriters anxiously fantasizing a serendipitous meeting with Tarantino who ends up being impressed with their zeal and passion for cinema---yaddah, yaddah until a lucrative six figure deal crowns their wet dream.