Pomona edges into Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ novel

Quentin Tarantino’s movies tend to go on longer than is strictly necessary. The same holds true for his bestselling novelization of his own screenplay for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which runs 400 pages.

But the extra space does allow for digressions that weren’t part of his digression-filled 2-hour, 41-minute movie (which I liked, let me hasten to say). And in one scenic byway, brought to my attention by reader Allen Callaci, a Texas cowboy picks up a young hitchhiker and starts a conversation, as follows:

“‘So where ya goin’ in California?’ He turned Merle Haggard back up to a decent volume. ‘L.A., San Francisco or Pomona?’

“The blond girl asked, ‘Who would hitch from Texas to Pomona?’

“‘Well, I just might,” the cowboy confessed. ‘But I ain’t no blond bathin’ beauty.’”

She’s going to L.A. The route westward would, of course, take her through Pomona before she’d arrive at her destination. But even Tarantino doesn’t digress enough to pursue that angle.

Down and dirty

While we’re on the subject of literary quotes, Rachel Kushner’s acclaimed 2018 prison novel “The Mars Room” mentions the Inland Empire a couple of times (which is not, to be clear, why her novel is acclaimed).

A transgender prisoner named Conan has a syncopated walk despite being chained to others. “It was a walk that belonged on the streets of Compton, or in the parking lot of the Inglewood Forum, or at the Pomona car show,” Kushner’s impressed narrator says, “not in a line of shackled women headed into prison receiving.” (Thanks to reader Terri Shafer for the contribution.)

Meanwhile, a woman on the inmate-transfer bus from Chino named Laura Lipp says her maiden name is Culpepper, of the Apple Valley Culpeppers, not to be confused with the Victorville Culpeppers.

“My family goes back three generations in Apple Valley,” she continues. “Which sounds like a wonderful place, doesn’t it? You can practically smell the apple blossoms and hear the honeybees and it makes you think about fresh apple cider and warm apple pie.”

She adds: “It is mostly the baking and preparing of meth that is traditional in Apple Valley.”

Ouch. Anyway, I’ll overlook the slight to Apple Valley, because I’m still thinking about warm apple pie.

Mortgage lit

Getting back to mysteries, in 2013’s “The Heist” by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg a character named Tom Underhill meets with a banker to plead for mortgage assistance.

“When Tom bought the house in 2006, it was at the height of the Southern California housing market, and $557,000 seemed like a steal for four bedrooms and two baths in Rancho Cucamonga, a rapidly expanding suburban community in San Bernardino County,” Evanovich and Goldberg write.

“Thousands of homes were spreading across the valley and creeping up the hillsides toward Mount Baldy,” they continue. “But then the housing bubble burst, the market took a dive, and jobs in the area evaporated. Entire housing tracts became ghost towns.”

I didn’t read farther in “The Heist” to see if the fictional Underhill got to keep his house, although I’m rooting for him. Fifteen years later, $557,000 for a four-and-two in Rancho Cucamonga would be even more of a steal, possibly even a heist.

SGV pop

In “Arcadia,” Lana del Rey’s latest single, she sings that “my body is a map of L.A. … my chest, the Sierra Madre … my curves, San Gabriel all day … Arcadia, all roads that lead to you as integral to me as arteries.” (The music video ends with her driving under the Arcadia railroad bridge.)

This reminds me that Jenny Lewis titled a 1999 song “Glendora,” which begins: “It’s New Year’s Eve, I’m in Glendora, I’m the only living person in Glendora/Heading east, on the freeway, lost my prom dress on the bus stop in Duarte.” (I was in the audience at the Pomona Glass House in 2015 when Lewis invited a fan up onstage to sing it, and very credibly.)

Sierra Madre, San Gabriel, Arcadia, Glendora and Duarte, all cited in modern pop songs? The mind reels. At this rate it’s only a matter of time before some chanteuse records an ode to Irwindale.

brIEfly

In Palm Springs, graffiti in the city’s Mural Yard directing a vulgarity at the president was painted over Sunday by one of the city’s arts commissioners. Blotting out “F— U Biden,” Russell Pritchard cheerfully altered it to read “Luv U Biden.” But he told the Desert Sun that the entire mural would be repainted with a completely apolitical image.

David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, cheerfully. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.