Nate and Alex's Big Adventure

I would like to begin this post by thanking our friend, the preeminent filmmaker Rosylyn Rhee, for opening her Venice home to us.  To give you a little background, Rosy and Alex became friends when they met at Centerville High in Dayton, Ohio.  Subsequent to graduating, Rosy spent a few years knocking around Middle-of-Nowhere, Massachusetts at some two-bit, no-account college for losers.  After earning a degree in pyrotechnic engineering (with a minors in cosmetology, Scientology, breakdancing and astrophysics), she changed course, picked up a movie camera and shook the world of documentary filmmaking to its very foundations.

Rosy may argue that I'm indulging in a bit of hyperbole.  I say she made two unbelievably good films, neither of which contained a single Transformer and which everyone who was ever born should see (sorry dead people; you lose). 

Without Rosy's disgustingly gracious hospitality (in what may be the most impossible city in the US), I would never have ever stumbled upon this:

Or this:

Yes, friends, the very bike that was ruthlessly stolen by Francis Buxton and obsessively pursued by Pee-wee Herman in his immortal Big Adventure.  And yes, that is the suit that Pee-wee wore every single day of his life.  I found these precious artifacts tucked in a remote, neglected corner of the Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles.  To encounter two objects so sacred to McBone was a singular stroke of good fortune and good friendship.  Thank you, Rosy, for making this happen (and thank you, wifey, for dragging me kicking and screaming to the Hollywood Museum).  Rosy, your grapefruit tree may produce the goddam worst citrus I've ever tasted, but your generosity to two wayward travelers will never be forgotten.

nwb