Post Chapter News V.1
What do you do when you’re looking for a place to rest pre-boarding and you see some cozy steps away from the crowd save for one young man sitting on the steps talking on his cell phone? Well, you sit. And you eat your breakfast. All is great save for the conversation in your ear coming from the young man. But you’re a writer so you get curious when you hear certain pieces of dialogue and you wonder, is he an Austin-based musician? Then suddenly, a man stops to talk to the man sitting next to you and the man blushes. They chat for a few minutes. Then another man stops and does the same thing, gushing over the guy sitting to your right with his backpack in the middle of you and him. Then, a beautiful blonde girl approaches, with a big-time blush. “Are you… Taylor… ?” You miss the last name. But obviously this guy is a really important dude. “Can I have a picture of you and me together?” asks the blushing blonde. “Sure,” he says, ever so politely. The other guy, who works in tech, takes the shot and the blonde moves on to catch her flight with her pixilated moment in hand. That’s it. I jump up. “Okay, I don’t know who you are, but can I have a picture, too?” I ask. “Sure,” he says with a smile. “So… who are you?” I venture. “Taylor Kitsch,” he replies with a softness in his eye and a gentle smile. We chat for awhile, sharing some Hollywood experiences in common, i.e., his new agency is my alma mater, where I first began my career. I discover he’s been in Friday Night Lights and Lone Star Survivor and now the upcoming HBO film, The Normal Heart… with Julia Roberts, who I was supposed to meet in a limo during the production of Mystic Pizza, when I was dating her then accountant who invited me to NYC to hang out with this new actress named Julia Roberts. Years later though, I got to meet the producer of Mystic Pizza and work on a film with him… then later again, I got to meet the director of Mystic Pizza and work with him on what you’ve been reading here right now, The Funeral Planner. Alas, perhaps one day, this writer will meet Julia Roberts in a conflagration of delayed time warps and 1 degree of separation among a dozen people, including Taylor Kitsch. Meanwhile, Taylor and I swap a few words, a grin or two, and a thousand pixels to remember the moment by on my mobile phone. And for the heck of it, I add to the Cast List of TFP on Wattpad/LynnIsenberg, Taylor Kitsch as Derek Rogers.