Today we shot at the Millennium Park Ice Rink.
While they assembled equipment, I ran errands.
Veruca had me buy 500 of those hand warmer things.
The New Yorkers seemed to think they work.
While walking under the El, I got a call from her.
"Tony, can you-" (THE EL)
I explained that I was under the El and could she please repeat herself.
"Can you-" (ANOTHER EL)
Sorry. One more time.
"CAN YOU ICE SKATE!?!?"
Oh.
I told her that I had been ice skating once when I was 9 and that I hadn't been very good at it that day.
"SO CAN YOU ICE SKATE THEN!?"
I told her I would probably fall a lot.
"VERY WELL! JERZY WILL HAVE TO DO IT THEN! GET OVER TO HIM AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND RELIEVE HIM! WE NEED HIM IN THIS SHOT!"
Jerzy was not happy about having to ice skate.
He cited his race as the reason he shouldn't have to do it.
"How many black men have seen on ice skates?"
He told me that I owed him.
I sat in the cargo van and worked on my upcoming reading at Ray's Tap.
Ice Follies
Jerzy relieved me of my sitting in the van duties.
He scowled and complained about the spill he took on the ice.
I tried to point out that he was getting paid to ice skate.
He chose not to see it that way.
I made a joke about suing them for his injuries.
He seemed to like that.
"You still me owe me one," he concluded.
Veruca had also taken a spill.
When Chaz tried to help her up, he ate shit back-first onto the ice.
It's on the B-roll.
Along with the laughter of the assistant cameraman.
The Skater With "A Following"
I helped set up the next shot in the skate rental, making sure all the skates poked artfully out of their cubbies."You're arting the shit out of that," the DP complimented.
The DP and I noticed that many of the skaters were black, debunking Jerzy's earlier claim.
Then we noticed a woman in a professional figure skating dress.
She had perhaps the most perfectly sculpted ass.
Its curvature was mathematically flawless.
Science would have to agree.
She spun around and around in the center of the rink.
Like a toy made of candy.
Me and the DP stared.
She swizzled and twizzled.
She shot the duck.
She jumped a sheep.
She Sasha-spiraled, she choctaw-turned, she Besti-squatted.
She did a haircutter. a pancake spin, a Rittberger.
She even flutzed.
Me and the DP stared some more.
Then it was time to go back to work.
While wrapping at the skate rental, I noticed the woman with the perfect ass sprawled out on the ice.
Next to her on the ice was a gawky, Indiana-looking preteen girl.
It seems they had collided while the perfect-assed woman was continuing to show off.
I guess she wasn't looking where she was mohawk-turning.
I made several trips in and out of the skate rental, grabbing C-stands, sandbags, kinos and stingers.
The gawky Indiana girl was back on the ice having fun.
The perfect-assed woman was not.
She sulked inside by the lockers.
She hid in a ball, her head in her knees.
She seemed unnecessarily emotional and European.
A perfect ass in an imperfect world.
The Pitts
Jerzy had decided to still be mad about having to ice skate.
He stewed in the cargo van watching the gear while the rest of us ate lunch at Pittsfield Cafe, tucked inside the Pittsfield Building.
We ordered in its huge art deco lobby, reminiscent of where Clark Kent once worked.
I delivered a styrofoam cup of soup to Jerzy, then walked back to my French dip.
Halfway through, Jerzy called for another cup of soup.
Veruca seemed annoyed.
"Where are you going?"
Augie
Next was the bike messenger.
Augie.
I knew him.
In fact, I remembered him from my very first year on the streets.
Augie was one of the first messengers to give me the nod.
When established messengers encountered each other on the street, they nodded.
The nod meant you were worthy.
Rookies, crusties, and losers didn't get the nod.
It seems stupid now, but receiving the nod from Augie meant a lot to me in the year 2000.
We caught up in the van while they set up the shot.
He's riding for 4Star these days.
We talked about all the times we've tried to quit messengering.
And how we always came back.
It was really great to see him.
It felt good to laugh like that again.
And for people in the production world to see that side of me.
A less quiet, more confident version of me.
The me that still has some dignity.
We were behind schedule.
Augie had grown tired of being filmed and not making money.
We kept him out longer than promised.
He signed a release form and vanished.
We hastily packed up the gear and rushed to the next location.
The City So Nice, It Has No Vice
We drove to Humboldt Park.
The New Yorkers likened it to Brooklyn.
They also called Lake Michigan "the ocean".
Everything is an imitation of New York I guess.
That cornfield over there is like New Jersey as seen from Battery Park.
Those pigeons are definitely from Flushing.
New York invented Greece, therefore democracy.
Fine.
You win, New York.
You are important and original and the greatest thing that ever happened.
And you pretend to not give a shit.
Way to go.
Jenny From The Alley
We pulled into a snowplow company and set up.
It was soon discovered that in the mad dash to wrap the previous location, we had left behind a generator.
I was dispatched to retrieve it.
Rush hour traffic clogged the Ike.
I pulled into the alley where we last used the generator.
But it was nowhere to be found.
A $1500 ghost.
"We lost the jenny."
Surprisingly, Veruca took it well.
She sighed mostly.
I came back to find a chorus of coverall-clad ruffnecks spreading salt and lugging sand bags.
"WE ARE CHICAGO!!"
The lights from the snowplows lit the shot.
They were Chicago.
Movie Movies was the company that rented us the generator.
They are known for their horrible crappy gear.
In the van with the crew, I suggested that we could just put a cat in a cardboard box, shake it up, and Movie Movies would think it was a generator.
It got a pretty big laugh.
Except from Veruca.
"That's not funny!" she insisted.
But she was outnumbered.
The crew had taken the joke and were riffing it around the van.
"That's not funny!" she demanded.
Sorry, Veruca.
If people are laughing, it's technically funny.
No Sleep Til Andersonville (Park Slope)
I worked at the bar tonight.
I don't know how.
But I did.
I ate Harold's Chicken.
I drank Heineken.
I revised the Ray's Tap piece.
I kept going.
Verdict: Win
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