11/19/2025
I first met Steve De Jarnatt briefly circa 1983 at a screening of his classic noir short “Tarzana” which I attended with Tom Waits and his wife Kathleen in Hollywood. 42 years later I met Steve again tonight at a screening of “Tarzana” plus his 1989 L.A. apocalypse noir masterpiece “Miracle Mile,” a film I’ve loved since I first saw it when it came out in 1989. I brought my copy of his brilliant short story collection “Grace for Grace” for him to sign and gave him a copy of the newly published “Chumpy Walnut Conquers the World.” This fictionalized memoir, essentially my life as witnessed from my fictional character’s perspective, recounts that fateful evening made even more memorable when, after dinner with Tom and Kathleen at Musso & Frank, the 64 T-Bird that Mickey Rourke had recently bought for me was nearly broadsided by a cop after I pulled out too suddenly into a perpendicular street, with Tom narrowly avoiding being crushed in the passenger seat. Tonight there was no such drama, except of course for the end of the world on the big screen.
