It's Official: March 9th is Samuel L. Jackson Day in Shreveport, LA

(Note the little kids dressed up as flowers, spelling out "Samuel Jackson." Welcome to the Twilight Zone, people.)

Samuel L. Jackson's surreal visit to a Shreveport, LA Head Start educational program was well-covered by local media. You can read coverage by Alex Kent of The Times here, and see a few of Times photog Shane Bevel's great photos here. But the stranger-than-fiction fact that almost no one is mentioning is that newly-elected Mayor Cedric Glover actually proclaimed March 9th "Samuel L. Jackson Day" in Shreveport, LA (KTBS covers it here). This is amazing news, and should be celebrated as such. We need to celebrate this day in the future with Big Macs ("A Big Mac's a Big Mac, only it's le Big Mac"), $5 milkshakes, gangster suits, s-curled afros, and pistols. Or maybe just the first two will suffice.

I attended Mr. Jackson's appearance and I have to concur with some of my friends in the local media that the event was poorly conceived and executed. There was literally no security at the event (I, for example, just walked right in - pretty scary considering that this is a pre-school we're talking about), but the poor planning didn't keep the event from being amazing, weird, beautiful, and quintessentially Shreveport in every way. The strangest moment came when a dozen or so children dressed up as flowers lined up in front of the stage and sang Samuel L. Jackson a song ("If I Was A Little Daisy"). Weird moments were peppered throughout Jackson's speech, which was fairly brief and off of the top of his head. For example, he cautioned a group of pre-schoolers to "stay out of prison." Pre-schoolers.

I'm including a link to The Robinson Film Center's Flickr account, where you can see some of the photos I took at today's event and more, if you're interested. You kids stay out of prison!