This is Spinal Tap

It was a surreal experience living in Hollywood almost 20 years ago. Charlie and I would be getting groceries or gas and run into folks like Charlton Heston standing in the express lane at the Safeway in our neighborhood. I'm experiencing some of that again now that movies and television shows are being filmed in Shreveport since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans a year ago.

Friday nights I go to work at 10pm. I was dealing blackjack in pit three Friday until they closed my $25 table a little before 3am and sent me to pit one to the sit down table (it's lower than the other tables to accommodate guests in wheelchairs).

It's a $15 table so it's not full. There's a black woman on spot two and a white guy on spot seven. She leaves before the shoe is finished. He hangs in there and starts pissing me off. Instead of scratching the table to indicate he wants another card he does this wavy flying hand thing and then dives his fingers to the table for a scratch. It's a good thing I'm not the fastest dealer in the world otherwise I'd have taken that gesture for a wave off and flipped my cards over when he showed an eight.

He keeps doing it. I contemplate calling the floor over to let them know I think he might be taking hits. But it's my break time and I'm tapped off the table at 3:20. Maybe he'll be gone when I get back. He's not. I deal another half a shoe and take his remaining money. He gets up and I recognize him from the side. He's a funny guy. I mumble I love your work. He doesn't hear me. It's the guy from the movie This is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. He has also appeared on X-Files and Smallville.

I rack my brain to remember what else I've seen him in. The floors are no help. They are all too young. Lenny and Squiggy. He was the tall lanky blond one. He's got good hair for a guy his age. I have to look him up on the internet before I know his name. Michael McKean. He's in town filming A Year Without Santa Claus.

The hand swoop? I slap my hand to my head. Comedy. He was performing C-O-M-E-D-Y for me. A joke. Private showing. One on one. Took a while but I get it now.