Smoking a bowl with Quentin Tarantino

So now Quentin Tarantino has a fucking blog. I don't know whether or not to believe it's actually him but there is some cool shit on there, like some post where he goes off on some mom and calls her kid a dumbass. The blog does seem as though its genuine but I guess he has some people who work on it too or whatever. But whatever, the point of this post is that it reminded me of this time I actually smoked a bowl with him in Austin, Texas.

It was the spring of 1999, I think it was spring. I was at the University Of Texas and it was a Saturday night, I was sitting around bored and my friend JT came over too see what was popping tonight. Shit was dead for some reason and we couldn't find a cool place to drink with our under 21 asses. So JT tells me he has some passes to this film festival thing at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema that was showing Tarantino's favorite movies. We didn't have shit else to do so I said alright lets hit it up.

Turns out this thing was going on the whole weekend, like all night and day. Tarantino was there hosting the event and they played all these movies he had picked out. Some people actually brought sleeping bags determined to make it through the whole event. Before each movie Tarantino usually went up on stage and talked about why he liked this certain movie. Dude likes to talk and usually had something amusing to say so it was entertaining.

That Saturday night was the "exploitation" part of the whole thing. The movies he played that night were Coonskin, Alligator, Death Collector, Nashville Girl, Little Cigars, and a surprise wake-up movie. When we got there Coonskin was about half way through, the seats were full so we ended up sitting in the aisle which kind of sucked but whatever. Between movies they had little intermissions, at the time I was underaged so we couldn't get beer. JT had some weed on him and I said fuck it, so we went into the alley and smoked. I usually don't like smoking weed because I think its boring but without any beer I had to resort to something. Anyways after that we came back in and saw Alligator which starred Robert Foster, most of you probably remember him in Jackie Brown as the bailbondsman. Death Collector is a low budget mafia film starring Joe Pesci as the death collector who likes to beat the shit out of people. Nashville Girl was about this young girl who dreamed of becoming a country music star and was fucking her way to the top. Little Cigars was about this gangster movie about a mob of midgets out to get theirs. We left after Nashville Girl even though I really wanted to see Little Cigars I just couldn't stay awake much longer, the weed was making me sleepy.

Once Nashville Girl ended we headed towards the lobby of the theater where we saw Quentin Tarantino. JT asked me if I didn't mind sticking around because he wanted to say hi to him and I was like go the fuck head. Well JT walks up and then turns around, I'm thinking what the fuck is he scared or some shit. JT comes back and asks me if we should see if he wants to smoke a bowl. I'm thinking shit why not, all he can say is no. So now I go over with him because I just have too see what he says. JT says hello to Tarantino and mentions how he really likes his work. Quentin is pretty cordial and says thank you and its nice to meet you guys and he shakes our hands. JT then tells him how we are about to head out but before we do we'd like to know if he would be interested in smoking a bowl with us. Quentin kind of thought about it for a second and then said "you know that sounds like a good idea." So we walk outside and figure shit this is as good a spot as any and JT breaks out his pipe. Quentin has some dude with him who seems to be his yes man or something. I don't know who he is but the guy just seems to agree with everything he's saying. Quentin talks about meeting some woman early and how he felt strange telling her it was a pleasure to meet her when in reality it is her pleasure to meet him. I pass Quentin the pipe and he chokes on it a little and complements JT on his pipe "that hits like a motherfucker."

We pass the pipe around until it's dead and say our good byes. Quentin goes back inside while JT and I kind of star at each other thinking "did that really just happen?" Then some girl runs up to us all excited as fuck screaming, "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE SO FUCKING COOL! You just smoked with Quentin Tarantino, that is so awesome! You guys are so cool" I told her "yeah I know." It was weird because that girl kept trying to talk to us but only because we just shared a pipe with Quentin. What kind of half ass groupie are you, I bet she would have had sex with the pipe if we let her. But anyways after that me and JT started our long walk through downtown Austin stoned and tired as fuck but yet pretty fucking stoked on what just happened.

That was my first run in with a "star" I would say he is probably the most famous person I ever met.