LOS ANGELES – It’s a tragedy when a youngish man dies in his prime. When an old man dies, people take it in stride. “He was old,” they say.
Karl Malden was old. He was 97 years of age when he succumbed to natural causes at his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles on July 1. And yet, just because he was old, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve some kind of public send-off. A memorial service, full of celebrity friends and family members.
I decided to send my avatar-cybernaut, The Man From B.L.O.G., to scout some possible locations. And, with the current economic situation such as it is, it’s important to secure some sort of corporate funding. After all, a goodbye soireé of the kind Mr. Malden deserves will not be cheap. I could go the route of the LA City Council and party first, then ask for donations. On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good idea. I have some sponsorship ideas. But first things first.
The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) requires adequate parking and traffic flow in order to issue the required permit. We thought it best to run a scenario on Google Maps Street View with the GE ForwardThinker plugin. This handy little setup allows us to previsualize (much better than actual visualization) certain scenarios based on time of day, projected panhandling density, street cleaning schedules and other traffic flow, etc.
The Staples company would surely be game to host another memorial event at one of their facilities. With the fabulous Michael Jackson service at The Staples Center still fresh in my mind, I ran the numbers on a similar (though much smaller scale) event at their art deco store in the Hair District of Miracle Mile. Right here in the neighborhood. I know that a popular event held every evening here at this Staples is the Avoid The Staples Ingress/Egress Traffic game, played by Jewish grade school students as they ride home from the academy on their bikes.
Next, I had the crack scenic dept. over at CBS create a giant fedora, more or less of the kind Mr. Malden was known to sport. They used construction-grade vapor-lock material. It fit perfectly (at least virtually) on top of the flying saucer portion of Staples. I’m looking into a way to make it glow at night for the week it’s supposed to be up there. A row of huge bus stop posters of Mr. Malden from his Streets of San Francisco days, mounted side by side along the Wilshire Blvd. side of the store, finished off the look.
The American Express company agreed (again, virtually) to provide a San Francisco-style Hot Pretzel cart in the parking lot, located at the rear of the store. If you want a free pretzel, all you have to do is say “I left home without them” and those little magic words will work their charm. They will also give you a credit application for a gold card with a pre-denied stamp right on the form. Just write through the red stamp ink. Amex and Mr. Malden go way back, to a time in the mid 70’s when he began what would become a hugely successful series of TV ads for their travelers cheques. They started off, “Do you know who I am?”, and ended with “Don’t let a thief spoil your vacation. Get American Express Travelers Cheques. Don’t leave home without them.” Johnny Carson famously had a lot of fun at the expense (and to the delight) of Karl Malden, bulbous rubber nose and all. We’ll miss you, Karl.
Credits: The original Staples photo is from Google Maps Street View. The hat is from an eBay listing. The crane is of unknown origin (from my files). That’s Karl Malden as General Omar Bradley in Patton. The Karl Malden poster image is from a publicity shot from The Streets of San Francisco. The Epilogue in the title comes from the old Quinn Martin Production shows. On each bumper back into the show (from a commercial break), viewers would see the act number. Act I, Act IV, etc. Epilogue of course was the final act and these act designations were on most if not all QM Productions.
Think back to the late ’90s and imagine you are the great comedic actor, Wayne Knight. Newman from Seinfeld. You have achieved success in comedy, but you are also known as one of the detectives on the receiving end of the Sharon Stone 
leg-crossing upskirt shot from Basic Instinct, as one of the velociraptor victims in Jurassic Park, plus many other roles. Your successful run on Seinfeld has just ended, and you are on top of the world. Your future is very bright.
You might recall that at the time, I was able to send my Man from B.L.O.G. avatar/cybernaut back through the space-time continuum (with the help of Raytheon and Google Maps Street View) to see what I could see. What I saw turned out to be a bit of a red herring.
