Dude, You're Blowin' My Mind
We reinforced the curtains in the hotel room with discarded, unnecessary pillows to ensure noon felt like midnight. Sometime in these wee hours of the day, I finally imdb'ed the most famous actor in Grundler Bend.
"Wait. He was in Short Cuts?"
Short Cuts happens to be my favorite Robert Altman movie, and one of my favorite movies in general.
"Holy shit, he was the news anchor!"
That meant that he was in that sad scene with Jack Lemmon.
And that weird scene with Lyle Lovett as the baker.
"No wonder he seemed so familiar."
"He was on the Harry & The Hendersons TV show," Holli pointed out from memory.
Holli, come on now.
I scrolled further down. He did a lot of TV.
Designing Women, thirtysomething, Hunter, Murder She Wrote, V, Hotel, something called Kiss My Grits (an Alice spin-off?), Lou Grant, Police Story...
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!"
I pounded the comforter with a big dumb fist.
"HE WAS IN DEADMAN'S CURVE!!"
Deadman's Curve was a 1978 made-for-TV movie about Jan & Dean.
I first saw it in 2004 on a dubbed VHS tape.
The guy from the original Battlestar Gallactica played Jan.
A couple of the actual Beach Boys were in it.
It's way too long.
When it finally ended, I found out Jan had just died that day.
"HE PLAYED FUCKING DEAN!"
Holli laughed and thought I was a spazz and a dork.
Her thoughts were facts.
I continued sitting up on the bed, my mind completely blown.
Blossoming In The RV
The production RV had become home.
I began to emerge from my shell a little.
Now I felt comfortable enough to speak the occasional word and crack up the occasional room with dry a Ringoism.
During filming it was usually me and Dan charging batteries and prepping sides in the company of vanities, while Holli and a revolving door of PAs would drop in for a respite from the pace-challenged DP.
Vanities were nice.
Kate in wardrobe had big sapphirine eyes like a compassionate cat.
Zhangela in make up brought with her a purry accent and a blunt logic from Hungary.
"You cannot bee shy in thees beesness," she stated.
I had been tossing around phrases like "trying this out" and "dipping my toes" in regards to my enthusiasm for PAing. I kept this odd, cold world at an arm's length. When things got tough, I told myself that I was doing this for writing experience.
"Yes, butchoo cannot bee a-shy."
She was right.
If I was going to write about this, I would have to dig in.
It's easy to be on the outside making fun of everything.
That's what I've done my whole life.
I wasn't really the class clown.
I was the kid in the back of the room muttering the pointier barbs to the few within earshot, hopefully girls.
So if I was really going to participate, I would have to make fun of everyone directly to their faces.
Right?
I was still unclear as to my role in this production.
It certainly wasn't Key Set PA.
Young Crew, Get Out Of My Mind
The few film crews I'd seen in action had contained a spirit of camaraderie.
People worked together on the same page and traveled in the same direction.
This crew seemed segregated into exclusive camps that wandered wherever they wanted and did little in the way to promote communication.
Walls of ironic T-shirted backs.
I asked Dan why this was.
"This is a young crew of hipsters."
The mean age of the crew was 24 years, 9 months.
The mean fashion was skinny jeans.
This meant that many of them still possessed an adolescent omniscience.
It's an annoying trait that doesn't age all that well.
I guess they're afraid of what's on the other side of cool.
Born-In-The-Mid-80's Trivia!
• They were the first generation to wear bike helmets.
• They were the first generation to be raised as precious geniuses.
• They were not the first generation to wear the craziest clothes, listen to the craziest music, and pretend they're always in Brooklyn.
I got it and I didn't.
I used to wear clothes and bike around and be an asshole, too.
But not like that.
Not everyone on the crew was a complete piece of recycled shit.
I gained respect from Marcie - the script supervisor - after I successfully made a set of copies for her. From here on out she would say things like "hi" and make eye contact with me. She was even open to things that the others weren't, like conversation.
Baby steps.
Genius baby steps.
Wilting In The RV
It rained pretty hard.
I flew over to the set with an umbrella for the other actor.
He had also been in an Altman movie.
The Player.
I still hadn't seen that one.
M*A*S*H, Popeye, Nashville, Gosford Park, Prairie Home Companion, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, California Split, 3 Women, Brewster McCloud, Short Cuts, I'd seen those.
But not The Player.
I opened the umbrella and accidentally poked him in the forehead with it.
"Sorry about that," I chagrinned.
"No, no that's okay."
We had nothing to talk about.
"I hope it didn't ruin my make up."
Back in the RV Dan was in a sharing mood.
"Alex said, 'I like Tony. He's a good guy...I don't think he has a future as a PA.'"
Then Dan let out a hearty laugh.
A Lost Episode of Barney Miller
Tonight we filmed in the Ft. Floyd Police Station.
One scene had to be postponed while they booked someone.
So we ate hot dogs in a training room.
For some reason a weapons specialist was on set.
He wore a leather Romancing The Stone vest with a Quigley Down Under hat, and spoke his resume at us through endless war stories.
The hot dogs were good and I focused on those.
Doug & Stu: Master Craftsmen
Around 5am the hot dogs wore off.
It was up to Doug & Stu to ignite the morning.
Doug & Stu were our volunteer crafts service guys.
Stu was a laid off accountant.
Doug seemed unemployed.
Both had no previous experience in catering or film production.
They were working out of curiosity and the kindness of their hearts.
Doug was a knowledgeable guy with longish, oil-blond hair and a thick suburban Chicago accent.
Stu wore thick glasses that magnified his blue onion eyes, and a thatch of toupee-worthy hair protecting his scalp. He spoke in jazzed affirmations, repeating everything back like an excited distorted mirror.
"Hey Stu, do you have any Nature Valley granola bars?"
"Oh, let's see. Nature Valley. Yeah!! Y'know, I do!"
"Cool, where are they?"
"You mean where are they? Oh! They're in my car. Did you want them?"
"Well, the talent would like some."
"Oh.. Okay.... I guess I'll go to the car and get them then."
"How long on those granola bars?" asked Holli over the radio.
Stu turned around.
"Granola Valley, right?"
I fumbled with my headset, trying to find the button.
So around 5, Doug & Stu made little Denver omelets in the police station break room.
The famouser actor walked off set and followed the scent trail.
"Keep your eyes on him," instructed Holli.
I hung out in the break room while Doug & Stu poured eggs into a portable molded griddle and the actor paced, waiting for the results.
Doug placed the first completed omelette onto some aluminum foil. He planned to cut it into four pieces and serve it on a tray. Before he could do that, the actor had grabbed the foil and wolfed down the omelette right then and there.
"Mm. This is good."
Then he farted.
It sounded like a proud frog.
No one said anything.
"You got any more of those?"
Stardom!
The Plight of Chris
All night Chris had been on lock-up inside the police station.
It meant standing in a hallway for hours at a time staring at a cement wall, making sure no one walked into the shot.
Like Mikey, Chris was also not receiving any pay or college credit.
Unlike Mikey, Chris had an arrogant wise-ass streak in him.
I flipped out on him a couple of days ago.
We were in the rain putting up the tents when I scraped my finger on the same tent that had sliced it open a few days prior. I yelled something like "FUCK" or "GODFUCKING DAMMIT FUCK" or both.
He gave me a patronizing pat on the back and said, "It's going to be okay, man."
I was not in the mood for this.
"YEEEAAAHH, MAAANNN! EVERYTHING'S JUST SO FUCKING GREAT OUT HERE, MAAANNN!!! IT'S SO FUCKING GROOOVY AND COOOLLL ON THIS FUCKING MOVIE WITH THESE SHITTY FUCKING TENTS THAT FUCKING SLICE OPEN MY FUCKING FINGERS, MAAANNN!! EVERYTHING'S SO FUCKING GREEAATTT!!!"
People were looking at me.
A few days later, I felt a little bad about that.
So while passing out omelets to the crew, I offered him one.
"Does that have cheese in it? I'm lactose intolerant."
I asked Doug & Stu to make one without cheese for him.
Who needs "I'm sorry" when you've got two goons grilling made-to-order omelets in a police station break room at 5 in the morning.
The sun was starting to come up.
It was getting late.
We were behind schedule.
"I need complete radio silence while we are rolling, please," ordered Holli over the radio.
"Holli, did you still want me on this lock-up?" crackled Chris.
Holli whispered.
"chris shut the fuck up"
Chris took the next day off.
A Portrait of Wentley
Earlier in the day I asked Dan why the relationship between the director of photography and the assistant director was often an adversarial one.
"Because the DP wants to paint a picture while the AD's job is to make sure things are on time."
Wentley sure liked to paint.
Tonight he painted for hours and hours while we all watched.
He even painted the sky morning-colored before we wrapped.
During wrap, Dan asked me to get the camera reports for production.
The camera department loaded their truck under a gleaming sunrise.
Wentley talked to them about how great his painting was today.
"Camera reports for production," I called out to the rigid circle.
The data technician, who lives mostly in the back of that truck watching a monitor, acknowledged me.
"Coming up," he said politely.
Wow, it felt like I was making progress communicating with these different castles.
Meanwhile Wentley continued the conversation, now standing directly in front of me with his back to my face. If this type of behavior turned me on, I could have grazed his perpetually clenched buttocks with my erect penis.
But it did not.
So I took a step back and began sketching him.
Later at the hotel I showed it to Holli, Dan and Alex.
My sketch of Wentley had painted laughter on their faces.
Hot Tub Brine Machine
This morning our Jameson consumption took us to the hot tub.
In the soothing stupid bubbles, we bitched and dished and got downright salty about this fucking, fucking movie.
Ever since word leaked that we had lost two tables, the crew felt entitled to openly treat production like a bunch of idiots.
Dan tried to make light of it with daily jokes on the call sheets.
What did the production manager get his kids for Christmas?
Nothing but he promised to make it up to them on the next holiday.
We talked about Jerry.
He never slept.
During the day he worked on the movie.
Then he would spend all night on set.
He never stopped yawning.
In a rare moment of concern, my eyes widened.
"Jerry's going to die!" I warned.
The hot tub exploded with laughter.
Verdict: Win
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