Timid Reporter Interviews Clint Eastwood

Coffee Club Newsletter ©
Volume 18, No. 39 - June 10, 2008

Any similarity to persons actually living or events actually happening is coincidental.

TR: Good afternoon. Are you Clint Eastwood?
CE: Oh, C'mon, you know I am.
TR: Yes, I do.
CE: Come right in then - let's have a beer. What do you drink?
TR: Corona Light.
CE: I don't have any. Let me fix us both a Tequila Sunrise.
TR: Just one for both?
CE: Of course not, one for each - maybe two for each - nice and strong.
TR: I remember watching you on Rawhide.
CE: Yup, everyone does.
TR: Your voice has hardly changed since then.
CE: You have a faulty memory, my friend.
TR: Oh.
CE: I think there's less nonsense in it now.
TR: You've made a lot of movies as an actor, director, producer....
CE: ...and musician.
TR: Yes, it's amazing.
CE: Well, I'm no Michelangelo, but I do what I can.
TR: You also went into politics for awhile.
CE: Yes, I was Mayor of Carmel.
TR: But you tired of it.
CE: Well, there was hardly anything for me to do. People there take care of their own problems so the government doesn't really have to get involved in anything. They pretend they have problems, but they really don't. As the saying goes, any time you can afford to buy your way out of a problem, you don't have a problem.
TR: You also like to fly.
CE: Yes I do. I do it to save time.
TR: Do you own a plane of your own?
CE: I don't. I think a jet is just a status symbol and I'm not into status symbols.
TR: But you own a golf club.
CE: I own it because I want to preserve the environment. If it weren't there, a thousand apartments would be there in its place.
TR: Oh. Can I have another Tequila?
CE: I'll give it to you straight.
TR: The Tequila?
CE: No - my response to your golf club question. It bothers me that people think it's out of character for me to own a golf club. I'm a rock climber and a vegetarian, too, so everyone thinks I'm some sort of amateur naturalist.
TR: Yes.
CE: Let me talk.
TR: Yes.
CE: Please let me talk.
TR: Yes.
CE: Shut your face up already.
TR: I'm not saying anything.
CE: Ok, ok. Just let me finish. I hate to simply state the obvious, like so many politicians nowadays. My ownership is actually in the best interests of the average person. I just want everyone to understand that. After all, I used to be an average person too. I never even went to college. I know people think that just because the club's entrance fee is a fistful of dollars - upwards of half a million in fact - that it's exclusive and elitist. I'm telling you that nothing could be further from the truth, like it or not. I contribute all that money to environmental causes and conservation organizations of every stripe, including the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and Al Gore . I just don't make a big deal of it.
TR: How did you get to be so smart?
CE: I've always been a thoughtful man and I'm also an autodidact.
TR: A what?
CE: I'm self taught.
TR: Oh.
CE: Education has nothing to do with teaching - it's about learning. If you want to learn, you learn. You don't need me to spoon feed you.
TR: I can fix the Tequila Sunrise myself.
CE: That's not what I meant. I could use another, too. I haven't given a speech like that since The Unforgiven.
TR: You can put less tequila in it this time.
CE: Drink it the way I fix it or don't drink it at all.
TR: Ok, I'll drink it any which way you fix it.
CE: Here - salud.
TR: You speak good Spanish.
CE: I learned from my second wife. You speak it too?
TR: I learned it during the Spanish Civil War.
CE: You must be older than I figured.
TR: Much older.
CE: It's ok, age doesn't really matter. I'm 78 and still considered a sex symbol, you know.
TR: Well, I'm not.
CE: I'm not surprised. You're much too timid.
TR: I'm working on it. You can help me with that.
CE: I really have no time for it. I have two new projects to complete and a lot of other stuff. Just watch all my movies.
TR: Thank you sir.
CE: Thank you, and watch your step.