A couple of weeks ago I drove out to El Monte and bought a little white Chinese-made scooter for $1500 — brand new, tax and license and registration, all in. It costs $60 bucks to fill up my car and $5 to fill up the scooter tank, and it gets about 100 mpg. And I can get to places much faster on the scooter than I can with the car, and you never have to pay for parking, ever. And it’s a lot of fun. I rode a scooter through Paris three weeks ago and it was heaven.

I’m going to the premiere of Larry Crowne (Universal, 7.1), in which Tom Hanks plays a laid-off 50ish guy who joins an LA Scooter club, etc. I read this morning that a few dozen scooter riders “will accompany Hanks and possibly costar Julia Roberts on an escorted Scooter convoy through the streets of Hollywood en route to the Larry Crowne world premiere on June 27.”

I wrote my Universal p.r. pally about riding along with this swarm so I can shoot video and stills and whatnot.