| Current mood: |  cheerful |
Coffee Shop Musings #1
You see a lot of interesting characters in coffee shops. Not so much during peak hours as everyone tends to blend with the crowd, but if you go between breakfast and lunch, 3PM and dinner, and anytime after 9 you can be guaranteed a good show.
Around 11 this morning I finished up an early meeting in Santa Monica, then walked over to Swingers for a late breakfast. This time the show started even before I was in the diner, for whom should I encounter striding up the sidewalk but Captain America. Truth to tell, I've seen him look better. Though he still looked reasonably fit, his face was craggy, aged and sunburned. He wore no mask, only a red cap upon his thinning blond hair. His red gauntlets had been replaced by woollen mittens and if he was wearing his traditional boots, I don't remember seeing them. As he turned to cross the street, I noted his "uniform" was a padded one-piece Halloween costume tied on over a checkered shirt and jeans. As Santa Monica has a lot of street people wantering the beach areas in castoff clothing, I presumed he might be a homeless person who had adopted the costume for extra warmth. In any event, Cap's path took him on up the boulevard and I turned left into the restaurant.
I like Swingers. Our pal Coop did the menu cover illustration so the place always has a bit of a homey feel to it. The waitresses there have a kind of Coop "Indie Girl" look going for them, too. I have noticed though that a few of them will cut off the soles of their black motorcycle boots and wear sneakers underneath, a variation on the old department store Santa Claus boot toppers. Speaking of The Kringle, I had just taken my seat when a trio of workmen ambled in. One was a big brawny guy with a head of flowing white hair and a full white beard. He looked very close to the big, mean fatherly Santa that Stephen DeStefano draws in "Jingle Belle." In the three weeks since Christmas I have seen a lot of guys like that, which leads me to suspect quite a few older men out there pick up some quick holiday cash by doing the St. Nick routine late in the year, and then trim their beards back after New Year's. I have no way of knowing if that was this gent's story, but judging by the way his ivory beard and locks were cut with such care, I figured he'd had more than his share of crayon-scrawled wish lists and homemade cookies pushed into his hands during the past month.
Having a full schedule and only a half hours worth of change for the parking meter, I wanted something quick and ordered the first thing that looked good, a spinach, swiss cheese and mushroom omelet. Soon as my coffee was delivered, I settled back to scope out the rest of the patrons. The guy in the booth directly opposite me looked like Patton Oswalt, but as I've met Patton several times I knew it was not he. At the table just beyond him sat a girl who could have passed as a dead-ringer for Linda Ronstadt during her Stone Poneys days. Her dining partner was a young woman whose nearly every inch of exposed skin sported a tattoo. If she had a couple on her face she would have looked just like a Maori Warrior. At the table next to them sat a couple of young dudes, one of whom was also tattooed head to foot. The tattooed boy and tattooed girl eyed each other and flirted like tigers sizing up potential mates. The Ronstadt lookalike busied herself with her food and did not acknowledge the other dude in the booth, though the poor chap looked like he would have liked to have said something to her. Off to the side sat a writer-type fellow equally engrossed both in his laptop and his bluetooth. His waitress brought him a muffin but he never acknowledged it. Twenty minutes later it was still sitting uneaten on its plate as the writer continued to click on his laptop and mumble into his headset. As my plate was taken away, I watched another woman enter, a businesswoman I guessed by the style of her suit, with the exact same early Linda Ronstadt haircut and hippie makeup as the girl in front of me. It must be a trend making its return. As it was in 1994 when every other girl had her hair cut like Jennifer Aniston on "Friends", apparently we can now look forward to more women adopting the look first popularized by Ms. Ronstadt on the cover of her "Silk Purse" album.
I paid my check and headed out only to spot Captain America again. Now I understood the reason for the costume. He was standing halfway down the block, spinning a cardboard sign that both adversted and pointed the way to a new suite of condominiums. I was sorry to see America's Sentinel of Liberty reduced to such a menial job, but he was dead the last I heard, so seeing him in this state was not really a surprise. Idily wondering if a cardboard sign could provide much protection from a sneak attack by the Red Skull, I turned back toward my car and encountered a Boston Terrier and a weiner dog out for a stroll. Seeing such fine and dapper canines strutting around haughty, brazen and cheerful in the Santa Monica sunshine put a huge smile on my face and I set off for home in high spirits.
This entry is for Grandma Pat, who misses the updates if I go too long between them. Feel better, hon.
***
SIGNING NOTICE
While I may show up as a fan at Comic Con in July, my schedule has grown too insane to do regular sit-downs and signings. Thus I'm calling it quits for the near future, but not before appearing this Saturday January 19th at Comic Oasis, 3121 N. Rainbow Rd. in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'll be signing there from 1 PM to 3 PM with the new Detective creative team, penciller Dustin Nguyen and inker Derek Fridolfs. Come by, say hello and hear about the latest goings-on with Batman, Mirage, Jing, Rashy and the rest of the creatures that mess around in my head.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
kingofbreakfast) wrote,
