Indira Pawn's Butt Crack ...

... quite possibly the highlight of my background career last night: Working on this movie called "Checkers." I got to view Indira Pawn's Butt Crack. Whilest she writhed on a mechanical bull. Had a front row seat, because I looked hilarious in this costume they had for me. It was more halloween, then a real redneck (that was my category), I looked like a dude from Urban Cowboy. Or BJ and the Bear. Certainly no one goes to redneck bars looking like this in the year 2004, but my cartoonish look got my favorably placed in the front row. The AD said the camera was doing a slow dolly shot of us. With the ten-gallon cowboy hat they outfitted me with, I thought I looked like the guy who was escorting Oswald when he got shot. So I just did that sort of a suprised-assasination look, but it was about seeing Indira's bum slice, instead of a man executed in my arms.

Indira Pawn is quite possibly the Audrey Hepburn of the moment. Melt-in-your-mouth cotton candy. She's an english gal who made it big in an empowerment movie about Women's Rugby called "In the Scrum." Since then she's been on a lot of magazine covers and a few more movies. She was bubbly and sweet in person, talked to extras, just about all you could ask for. She almost made me wish I was straight. Almost.

They placed duded-up backies around her in a mechanical bull pit, with an inflatable floor in case she was thrown. They had a stunt double do it once, but then Indira did the same speed as the stunt double on the mechanical bull, so I'm not sure what the point of that was. She had on these teeny pants, with teeny thongs, and the thong rode down so you could witness:

HALELUJAH!!! BUTTOCKS CLEAVAGE!!!!!

It's not as good as a guy's ass, but Indira was world-class. I'm sorry to go on about this, but I could have been witnessing the modern day Marilyn Monroe-white-dress over the sewer grate swoosh.

I was standing next to the lone black guy they had in the bar and asked him

"Is this your worst nightmare? Being surrounded by not only white people, but frothing red necks?"

He replied: "Son, I feel like a lynching could happen at any moment."

We had a great time looking at Indira together, and he felt that made up for any unease he felt previously. Curious if Indira knew she was showing. Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman claimed she did not show her nipples were trying to break-outta the fabric of her wet dress. I would believe it from Indira, her focus was all about riding the bull, she's young and naive, she didn't seem the kind of girl who knows at every second what particular part of her is being showcased.

There were two new additions to the background brood last night. One was Tommy Whisk. He was from Alabama and babbled on endlessly about his show he was developing, and then tried an assortment of food/misundertanding/hick jokes:

I got off the plane and someone said "burrito." I took a swing at em!

This girl asked me if I wanted a Sex on the Beach, I said sure!

oh boy. a true dullard. the dullards abound, unfortunately. back was the sweaty bozo pig from the shoot at the Whorehouse Hotel and Diner. At one point he tried to sit with me, and I closed off our circle, turning my back to him, pretending to play cards. the newest and bestest was this fella who walked in circles and talked to himself. Like he was a part of the machine, the guys walking around-and-round in Midnight Express. I thought he was a perfect metaphor for a backie, walking around in your cell creating a fantasy life. how to do hard time. many of the background activities while we wait are fairly analagous to prisoners. throw in some barbells and a gritty soundtrack and you'd have it right. folks said he had suffered a car accident. he looked very nebbish, like Larry from the Three Stooges. As Hunter S. Thompson once said: "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

The Limitless Litany of Complaints, just passed a Backie in the hall:

"We were left out in the rain."

Later, I heard this one: "What non-union has the cahonies to argue for six more bucks?"

Apparently the hero telling the story did.

Or: "State labor laws totallly back me up."

Of course, when I had a meltdown for the show Sheckey, well it was different. Uh huh, sure. When confronted with the brisk and exacting wardrobe specifications for the show I railed against all of humanity's crimes. As it turned out, they only needed my pants, and I was able to change off set in a shirt they gave me, before camera rolled, and tossed my shirt perfectly to my own seat in the bleachers. Felt live Favre, the scrum clutching me I still fling it, up and over the linebackers it goes, spiraled to the streaking split end for the touchdown.

Meanwhile ill-tempered extra's continued to moan about various injustices. This show Shecky is apparently not long for this world. It's cute enuff, has the Arknasas thing down, nice specific detail that feels real, but it reeks of its forebearers. Sitcoms have set in, like too much candy, and our stomachs grumble at the form. Say a word over and over and you have the metaphor for sitcoms losing their meaning. They all feel even moreso like an exercise in commerce, rather than art. Please watch this show so we can all buy houses and sell you shit. Not, please watch this show because I have something to say to the world.

"It's weird, we may not be working next week," the craft services lady said. They didn't bother to feed anybody at lunch, this feels like the "Do NOT recistate" order has been posted to the bed of this patient. The sitcom parents were giving long hugs to their sit-com kids, I'm sure losing your sitcom family is painful in weird ways.

Got to chat with the classic songwriter Sammy Mack. he's playing the dad, and he's still funny. Looks great for being a 70s TV star. Had his own show: The Sammy Mack show. Wrote songs for Elvis, which I had forgotten until a black lighting guy came up and complimented him on his personal fav: "The Projects." I asked Sammy Mack if he desired a Rick Rubin revival for his musical career, and he said you have to be a legend like Johnny Cash. Also didn't care for any of the Cash/Rubin stuff, he liked the good old chugga-chugga Cash.

I got a script today, the first time for this courtesy. We are playing a large family at T-giving, an unwanted motley crew that invites itself. Have to make precise movements that hinge on us hearing the lines. This appears to be too much for one particular stupid Backie. I have to cue him EVERY time to move. He looks like a woof-woof character in a cartoon, doggy dumb face. The kind of face disney animators would use to animate an animal.

One of the sight gags to our Thanksgiving Day Meal is this Big Fat Pig. This extra has a horrifying, bitter look on his face, looks like he wants to take a bite outta the world. He's a fallen Chris Farley, the Judas to Farley's Christ. He demanded movement of all bodies when he thundered through. Meanwhile another extra sez he speaks seven languages. Other's appear to be on seven crack pipes. Nobody every socialized them, what is appropriate, how to communite, how to LISTEN. They shuffle around like the mentally ill at an institution, brains lathered in meds ... despite the ADs repeated please for alacrity. He actually said the word "alacrity."

Sitcoms seldom use extras, he's got a mob on his hands today. Extras want something for nothing, and get indignent when you ask them to be much more than an animated chair. Cognitive decision-making? They might have to call a union rep. Hanging out with extras reminds me of a great line in an alkie-haul warning film we watched in High School: you will find yourself continually lowering your peer group to continue hard drinking over your life-time.

The lead actress of Shecky was a chubby girl (by Hollywood standards. anywhere else she would be normal). She was the opposite of a snooty review I pulled off the internet about the show. Eminient TV critic who has grown lazy, hitting a cut & paste function to write his sitcom reviews, dreaming of reviewing ballet for a living.

Shecky, the star of the show is blowing it in my mind. If he is single, he should be booking as many hot extras as possible, and then invite them over to his house for a pool party. It really is amazing that you can stock the pond with hot girls just from the extra rolls.

I noticed the director had "TV Show Parking." After a long shoot on Monday, the rest of us trudged out in the rain to our cars, but his car was parked at the door to the sound stage. My friends coined the phrase to reflect a great parking spot next to where you want to go, the kind that people always get on TV, the dashing star pulls up in convertible, parks right next to where he needs to go, and then hops outta the car. This director looked like Chris Penn, he felt like kindofa hack, but a competent hack.

All the stars would speak to the extras. I don't know if this happened because they were humbled by their imminient cancellation, but it made for a pleasant work environment. I was worried that given this heady freedom, some extra would blow it for all of us, but people generally behaved. I've heard on Tom Cruise sets you are off the set if you are simply caught LOOKING at him.

We had four extras on the show who had won a contest. They won a contest to do what we do for a "living." They were shepparded about by some sort of network publicist, girl friday. Teeny lil' thing with great big plasticine boobies. Fake rack rocks in her body. I waited until she was in the restroom to talk to the real Arkansas folks. They said she was a horrid driver, and they were all terrified for their lives anytime she was behind the wheel. They felt the show was fairly broad, not really reflective of Arkansas, but their pretty use to show biz peeps coming to the south and fucking it up by this point in their lives.

The woof-woof dirt dumb backie who I had to cue everytime told me he's been doing this for EIGHTEEN years. I'll kill another convict in the yard and hope for the death penalty before I get that far in. He claims he can't find another job. That's a legitimate claim given his listening skills and intelligence. He obcesses about lunch, pay, time. When I look at his incredibly blank face I see a LED readout keeping track of time, meals, grievences, etc.

I have to pretend to converse with this cretin, which is another oddity in extra land. It's one thing to have a conversation with a complete stranger, I can do that no problem at this point in my adult life. But the level of intimacy required to pantomime a conversation seems obscene to me. I always feel like I'm in a porno with my clothes off with my brand new co-star when I have to start pantomiming with a person I don't know. I think it's the degree of non-verbal communication it requires, forcing you to be immediately intimate or aware of all that is intimate in our communications.

Another extra told me Gypsy Boots died. He was in his 90s. He was the model for Nature Boy (the Nat King Cole and the Moulin Rouge song). He was an extra's extra, they had a party for him every year at Paramount. Kirk Douglas would show up. Being a 90 year old extra sounds like god has started my eternal punishment early. He sounded like another legend of the background brigade, but I looked him up on-line:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_Boots

I passed by the Seinfeld stage today. The show was on for 8 years. Now it's all gone, except for a plaque. Sometimes I think we're a nation of plaques, using them as a bread crum trail to find our way home.

Dance Fever Blister

Did a fitting on Thursday. Got paid 13.50 to drive into Hollywood and try on clothes for this new Dana Grant movie. I joked to the receptionist as I left: how I should invest my windfall, bonds? mutual funds? El Pollo Loco?

I'll be playing a european tourists on a boat. I've decided I'm an amusement park engineer, traveling from Antwerp. The whole thing takes place on a cruise ship. It should be a "taut, pyschological thriller." Ha. Ha. I love how hollywood words come in vogue, and every publicist- hack, invokes them like magic cants.

These "taut" films are all Dana Grant seems to do these daze. She got her start as a child actor, and then played a child slut. She did the curve of cutesy-pie roles to overtly sexual roles to sexless roles about being fearful. She does fear very good. I wonder if the world scares her as much as movie choices seem to indicate. I had a friend-of-a-friend, who was in a movie with Dana Grant once. It was one of the films for which she won an academy award. He said she almost kissed him. This is quite a feat, as she is a noted gal-pal girl. Of course, the veracity of his story lies on my friend's ability to tell the truth just once. Our friend made a couple more movies and then ended up fry cook in Canada. He once did ectasy on the roof of a loft I was living in, and then went to hollywood bars where girls wanted to fuck him based solely on his role opposite Dana Grant. Being very original and deep, I told him, "Don't mess with them, they're just star-fuckers!" I always turn into a parent for stars when they are tempted with the E True Hollywood story downfalls.

I was once in the Formosa with Pals! star Luke Hazzard, just before Pals! went on to become the juggernaut of sitcoms. Luke Hazzard was buying the whole bar drinks, and I warned him against this:

"You never know when the money will run out, Luke."

For Luke, who eventually got a million an episode, it should be a long time. In fact, Luke even considered buying the Formosa later in his career. Luke also dated the most bankable and liked female star of our times: Opal Bob. Opal Bob was from an acting family in Canada, and she and her brother went on to become huge movie stars, she moreso than him. (She blew up in the movie "Cute Lady.") Luke slept with Opal a couple of times, and came back to the Formosa and bragged about the shape and cut of her jib. Luke eventually fell away from our circle, but he did come see my band play a couple of times, and then when he went into Rehab, he became friends with a friend of mine named Chelsey.

Chelsey's worth her own chapter, but suffice to say, she's the kind of gal that Hollywood thrives on, an enabler, a star-fucker, dog-sitter, she of the fucked-up life, that you can plug into your life for convenience, partying, etc. Chelsey would know people like Heidie Fleiss, or her friends would do things like run massage places, where they would give you the pancake flip. One minute you're on your stomach getting a masssage, FLIP!, next your lying on your back getting jerked off. Chelsey claimed to know the gals who went over to the Sultan of Brunei and came back $80,000 richer ("I didn't do anything, he just gave me this money to come home." Uh huh.) Chelsey is one of those unseen people who run under the rocks of Hollywood, but who run long and far, and keep many secrets (well, at least she didn't blab to the tabloids, just lil' old me).

Anyway, I digress. I got a message late to do this USA Spend! commercial for Friday. USA Spend! is prolly one of the biggest credit card companies in the world, and they have tasteful commercials. This braying, blaring cow on my voicemail implored me to come PERFECT! to this shoot, because it's UPSCALE! and the crowd for MARGIE! is UPSCALE! and we aren't going to feed you, unless you're SAG, and don't EVEN THINK ABOUT PARKING near the set! and you must be ENERGETIC and PERFECT!!! MARGIE! being the show that we are supposed to be on.

MARGIE! is for Marge Pervasia, the famous comedian, uber gal-pal of gal-pals, and host of her own talk-show MARGIE! Apparently there's a part of her show where she always dances with the audience, so we hired to "portray" her up-scale audience, and go in and dance in the asiles with her. Somehow this will help USA Spend! get more credit cards out there.

We arrived at the Equistrian Center in Burbank. They had extra parking, and lots of horse-shit in the parking lot for us to step over. There were a series of lines to wait in before being shuttled to the show, and the 200 extras used this timely wisely, to moan about the complaints of life, should you be so foolish as to make eye conact with anyone. Finally, after watching the Union extras eat breakfast, inspected for wardrobe, and mug-shot poloroids taken of us, we were bussed the short distance to the UBC studios where MARGIE! is shot.

I thought I was being smchart by sitting myself in the front row. But, after they had the crowd dance a coupla times, they wanted to move me. I figured it was for a hot girl to sit in my seat, and I told the A.D., "I'm a funny dancer, you sure you want to move me." He replied that I had been noticed, and they wanted me on the aisle. Meanwhile the shuffled out all the older people to the last aisle, as they needed a "younger" look for the crowd. Youth culture is not a made-up concept.

Funny dancing is something I'm good at. Once I realized that I was on a comedian's show, her dancing with the audience was not about Twyla Tharp, I realized I could work it. SO I hammed it up, and even made the super hottie girls next to me go, "You're good. You're funny." Yes, I am. Felt like this was a pitch I could hit for a home run. What a mongoloid I am to get so excited over my ability dance like a mongoloid, eh?

They put me on the aisle, and sure enuff, Margie came down the aisle and stopped to dance with me. Spotlight dance. She even tried to cop my moves. Twice she stopped and soloed with me. I was dancing as gay/hammy as I could, with all my energy in my upper body like a proud peacock (just once I want to meet a peacock with low self-esteem). Will this end up in the commercial? Hmmm, they shot it a coupla different ways, so I'm at the whim of the editing room, hollywood's oldest heartbreak. But, if I survive in, I could be featured, which would mean an automatic bump up to the union.

That's all people talk about on the sets, how to get in the union, the catch being once you're in, the work is much harder to get. As I was leaving, with all the other cattle, an AD spotted me, and said "You looked great." That made me feel good. Hollywood is about being noticed, and I'm sure this goofy dancing thing will lead to my own show, and eventually all buy the Formosas and the Network my show is on. I know it. I can feel it. I'm gonna make it in this town!

The Creatures at Rabbit Studios

Booked a job on the Rabbit Studios lot for a show called "Bucket." Just like when they darkened Broadway when Gershwin died, I was on the dark NY lots, late at night. The Rabbit New York sets are really run-down, they aren't the gentrified look that the ones over at Worldwide Studios. Felt like I was about to be mugged at any minute.

The peeps you meet on a set are incredibly varied. One guy was from Nepal, who first came over for a rowing competition. He said he doesn't want to go back, he'd have to work on his uncles farm and the politicians are all corrupt. Another lady was from China, she was told that capitalism was bad when she was in school, now China sez it's good. We had a very luvely retired couple. They work togther and as a hobby. He was in the Coast Guard in WWII. Been doing it for eight years. He's from the City of Orange in Orange County, which now has only one Orange Grove, that they planted in a park to preserve their heritage. This guy remembers being let outta school early to help combat the frost hitting the groves. Put gasoline in the groves. Another fellow was this cool gay guy with all this music. Kept playing his boom box and narrating to some girls who were dressed as doctors. A latino girl danced to the songs, and said that she had her wedding dress specially cut to look like the one Stephanie Seymour wore in the Guns & Roses September Rain video. Short-short wedding dress, really wedding dress mini.

I talked to a latino guy who said "girls are weird." He was considering doing steroids to build himself up. And our A.D. was also doubling as an extra. First time I've seen that. He sent me home, they didn't use about 10 of us. Thank god we still get paid. Have my first costume fitting today. They pay you for this, but not very much.

Just a Pawn in the Designer's Game

Down in the County Orange today, playing a cool kat shoe techinican. Got to dress in labels (usually a no-no in extra world.). Dress like you have a creative job. This induces longing and envy in me that allows me to really get into dressing for the part. I'm not paid to be creative, but I play one in the movies. I like the challenge of looking at my closet and seeing what works to achieve the character (did I just say "the character"??? oh lord, I've lost it, I'm a full-on deluded Backie now.) Satisfaction is derived when the costume person gives me a nod and I don't need to change.

It was a mild fuckstick drive down today. Started at 5:30AM, but that didn't mean there wasn't the usual junk to fight through. Some of us (who??? must find out) took a more expedient route. One of my fondest LA dreams is to have a helicotper to commute and today on the set I watched a helicopter land. Damn. That's one impressive display of power and wealth, especially in LA. It also made for the ultimate Backie sight-gag. A dude who looked like he was born with a kick-me sign on this back was standing near a tent when the copter landed. Because of the rain yesterday, water had collected on top of the tent. The poor Backie was drenched in water as the blades whirred and made everything blow, just like in a 'Nam movie.

Starting to recognize a lotta folks on sets, after just working 2 and 1/2 weeks. Makes my conspiracy theories come alive: we're all newbies who are given all the work for a couple of months, and then: no more. Wind whistles through our abandoned hearts, tumble weeds blow over the desert of our job opportunities.

Start talking to a Backie I worked with on Some People Like Soda. Funny gay black fella. We start talking and I'm telling my story about how frustrated I was with the background peeps dodging work, hiding during the one scene on Soda.

He laffed and said "That would be my people."

Whoops, I had forgot they were all the young black kids doing this, and hadn't counted on anyone remembering this detail. I felt kinda bad, but then he went on to slag another black young girl who was fired from the set for sassing an A.D. I didn't realize she was fired, but he pointed out she vanished after her incident. This same young girl was running down gays, and all the black dudes around here were doing the same thing. As my pals, older & wiser black folks point out often, some black folks "is ignorant," and it's not the first time amongst younger, less educated black kids I've noticed strong homophobia. Which accounts for the reason my gay compadre, the black gay fella I was talking to, was so contemptuous of the black kids behavior on set, and willing to set himself apart from them. He's not wanted by a large part of his own culture, meanwhile white folks in Hollywood, despite all our other shortcomings, won't give him a hard time.

Also noticed they're tagging folks on this movie, which is called "Norton's Gap". Folks are wearing union tags (SAG) and others say "BG" (Background). I was given neither. The security on this set is pretty tight, despite the laid-back director's reputation as being a "nice guy." His ADs and Second-Second ADs treat us nice, and attest to the fact he's nice too. Nice to be nice to the nice. (that's my all-time favorite quote from M*A*S*H, Frank Burns). And yet, amongst the sea of niceness, we are required to fill out confidentiality forms, saying we'll never let out what happened on this set.

I'm sitting here thinking about the god-awful early requirements of LA film-making and how they turn all the wacky/crazy/creative types into the modest mouses. Gotta go to be early to make the 5:15AM calls. And if you buck this, like the star of "Boo-Boo," Danielle Donnigan, you have crying jags on the set. Peeps whisper about your drinking problem. Backies who have been on the set of Boo-Boo confirm Danielle Donnigan has been showing up hung over and causing production delays. If you've been to set and seen the enormity of people and machinery mased to pull off a production, now picture an 18 year star disrupting this process because she was out clubbing last night. It won't be tolerated very long.

Damn, they just made me change. I was proud of my lil' hippity-hop-kool-kat outfit. I had on b&w camoflauge shorts, my orangey "Alley" t-shirt, and a spacey looking silver jacket with a "TEXACO" emblem I took from one of my distengrating hats. Oh, and b&w Vans dock shoes. At 36 I'm struggling to hit this "hip" niche without looking foolish. The wardrobe chick loved "The Alley" t-shirt, nixed the camo shorts for camo pants. Urrr.

Oh well, it could worse, i could be trying to put together an "executive" costume on $50 a day. "Please come dressed as an executive." I think of some of the accounting firms I worked at, and their stipends for newbie accountants: $500. A Backie drops a zero from that figure and he has his day's pay.

Okay, come to find out the helicopter is for a shot in the movie. Wasn't the director or star coming to work. The AD actually explained this and our purpose and motivation in the scene using the helicopter. The lead of "Norton's Gap," Largo Fleur is to get off the helicopter and walk down a corridor of shame. He's about to be fired, and we know it, and he doesn't. Largo was walking around the set with a dog he picked up in Morroco, throwing him chew toys before each shot. One of the extras commented how when he got here, they didn't have bathrooms set up for us, but the star's dog was allowed to shit anywhere on the set. Another nice Backie self-esteem moment ...

Right now the copter is whirring and the AD's and production folks are nervous: a helicopter, of course, being the key ingredient in one of the film industries most famous tragedies: The Twilight Zone movie. Vic Morrow, and 2 asian kids had their heads cut off by an out-of-control copter. John Landis, the director, narrowly escaped jail time.

Currently, I'm a pawn. The Designer of the film likes my look, thinking me an "Art Director" at our fictional shoe company. I love getting a specific role, even as a lowly Backie, it helps. This other person, a blonde stressed-out lady (the set dresser? not sure) does not like my look, and said

"Okay Texaco guy, go on this side," meaning the group of folks destined to be redressed. Then the Designer said I was "perfect," and sent me across the gulf to the land of the sharp dressed men.

Then the Stressed Blondie saw me, and barked for me to go to wardrobe.

At wardrobe the Designer who liked me said, "Fuck her, you look great," and sent me back. This is going to end badly, and I hope not for me. Well, they just put us in a lineup. 200 people snaked out one-by-one. Fellow, experienced Backies say they have never been given so much scrutiny over wardrobe. The Blondie is still bitching about me, I'm pulled outta line again, of course, because I didn't change my clothes per her demand. The Blondie and designer are arguing in front of me, and finally Blondie comes to the conclusion she doesn't like my camo pants (anti-war pacifists?). Then they decide they do like them, it's really my orange "Alley" shirt, named for a Silverlake eatery that has passed on. Two of the wardrobe people specifically commented favorably on this shirt, but I think my whole ensamble actually looks better with the grey t-shirt they put me. The orange shirt was too much with the green camoflauge pants, I only meant it for wearing with the b&w camo pants.

After all the haggling over me, I became a bad karma piece, and was left to rot in the Backies bullpen. Yup, they didn't put me on set, and I was let go at the end of the day. There was the real promise for a week's worth of work outta this down in the O.C. Decided to stay in O.C. and had dinner and a movie to avoid the traffic, tweaked by the rain. The car's were inching on the freeway when we left the set, so I avoided that unpleasantness.

When I get home I'm dog-tired. Beat. Didn't do a damn thing all day but wait, and still you come home from these things feeling like you slung a jackhammer all day.

stasis vs. mo

I think about people functioning in places like Iraq. Saying, okay, I'm going to go buy some paper today for my printer. And they are faced with danger and risk at such huge level for such a mundane task. Meanwhile, I fight the demons I have always fought: the ones who say: now, now, just stay put. don't do anything. don't risk. these demons can weigh in things like doing the dishes: now, now, let's just see if there's a good 3's Company re-run on. of course, when I do get going, it feels empowering and great. I don't know if everyone has them to the same extent I do, it just always feels like a constant battle to motivate me to move. On any level. And of course, in the business of show, that's what you are doing. you are taking risks, entering into zones that seem over your head. the whole caroling thing down in the O.C. (described in earlier posts) was one huge fight against all my very best nemesii. Getting up, in front of all those voice teachers, broadway vets, etc., and sing in a quartet, naked of accompaniment: well, that's walking through the fire. It may not be Iraq, but my own fertile crest of an imagination can give it enough pyschic energy to compensate. When you go to an audition, when you go to an improv class for the first time, call a big shot back, etc. These are all walking through the fire for me. Every part of my fight/flight response is yelling FLIGHT! FLIGHT! Don't do it! You could get hurt! And yet, that's what you must do. This is old news. Most people with creative sensibilities are sensitive. And to succeed in the business of show you must be able to handle rejection. Gee, who handles rejections better than sensitive people, eh?

This is why when normal folks scratch their head about star's outrageous behavior, I laff. On a certain level, a star is always acting out to the scars they had to accumlate to allow the sensitive part of their creativity to breathe. Not an excuse, just saying I get it. Dr. Seuss had his first book turned down how many times? Now, the proceeds from his estate prolly supports about 15 relatives! So, I need to leave Blog Land and go to DO IT/GET THROUGH IT LAND, because you will die someday, just not likely today, and not for the tasks at hand.

Some People Like Soda

I did the show Some People Like Soda on Friday. It was their 400th episode. One of my long-time pals coincidentially is the lighting director for the show, so I got to surprise him on set. A long time ago he had suprised me on the set of a show he worked for by licking my ear. It was a variety show starring a genuis lesbian performer, and on this particular day, she had invited the UCLA Lesbian club to come out and see her shine. I looked behind me at the line of lesbians, and marvelled how each one had seemingly picked out a folk singer to model her hair on (Tracy Chapman, Joan Baez, K.D. Lang). On a break, I felt a flick of wetness hit the back of my ear. I turned around and saw a lesbian flashing a kitty-kat grin. This happened about four more times, and my mind (which in the absence of information creates paranoia) constructed a worrisome paradigm of lesbians taunting the boy. Finally on the fifth lick, my friend, the lighting director popped his head up. He had been crouching down behind my seat.

Now he does lights for "Some People Like Soda." The show is still funny in it's Fourteenth year. Sitcoms seem headed the way of clowns: so overly stylized they are getting creepy. Friends signing off last year, makes me think the genre is on its last legs, like the westerns that dominated for so many years. The ADs and Second-Second ADs treated us well on this show, remarking it was fun for them to work with extras, the show sticks to the regulars generally. We were fed the same grub as the crew and extended the courtesy of treating us like humans. Which, of course, meant that some extras who had been treated badly over the years, took this as their cue to act the fool. You never seem to act out against the person who caused you to act out, but instead some poor fambah down the road who's only sin was being nice to you.

The background bunch was ducking out of scenes, not being on time (usually this gets you fired), and bugging cast members. Ugh. I had that feeling I was in a class that was acting up and we were about to get punished. This girl I was standing with during a car race scene had worked with me on the Fondue George movie, and also the fourth in the series of the U.S. Cake movies (this one being subtitled: Drill Team). She was overly made up, and had enormous breasts. Breasts so big I figure they had to be real, they seemed like glandlular disorder, elphantitis, etc. One of the Backies commented on them, and I said imagine if your balls were as big as her breasts. He didn't listen to me, and went on and on lavisoulsy about them, and I repeated it again: imagine if your balls were that big. The trick with many extras is to say things twice and look them directly in the eyes with your hardest stare. Otherwise, the backies will blather.

Anyway, I was next to this lady for a spell during this race car scene. She told me how she was happy that her boyfriend could no longer steal money from her bank account and that she was happy he was back in jail. I commented that attractive gals like her seem to always make a beeline for the bozos, and she agreed, claiming she had low self-esteem. That's why she had gotten the breast job. She wanted a regular size, but her boyfriend goaded her into making them so big they require a wheelbarrow more than a bra. A squat producer walked by us and started shouting at her during a break. He was on his cell, and wanted her to go out with him. She asks me if she should. I said yes. Sex being her strong suit, why not use it? Then she went back to flirting with another extra.

We had a lot of black guys on this scene, and they all playah-play the ladies pretty hard. It's a funny thing to see the lines and all that. Lines always seem so corny to me, but they work on some ladies. Of course, as a backie, your at a distinct disadvtange, cuz the lady you are sweet-talking nows exactly how little you are making. These fellas were also all late, 6 black guys walking in about 20 minutes late. Of course, I'm thinking if they were on BFT ("black folks time") when this happens. And before you put me on a watchlist, I got that phrase from someone inside the culture.

U.S. Cake/Drill Team was another experience entirely. Beautiful setting in Topanga for the shoot, a luvely outdoor ampitheater. But the A.D. (actually the second-second) returned from my Fondue George movie with all her ugliness. The A.D. of the shoot, her boss, was actually fun, while still being stern. He felt like a game show host. The Second-Second commented on his geniality, and you could sense she hated the fact that he was liked and she was not. At one point she told us we should give catering a thank-you, prefacing this command with: "My parents raised me right ..." I looked around the room, I recognized the silent communication amongst all of us: this is one command of yours that we don't have to follow. So we won't. We all liked the food just fine, our parents were not rude miscreants, however we were not about to play her kintergarten class. It was a very good fuck-you moment to her. In fact, anytime she spoke, I just mouthed fuck-you-fuck-you-fuck-you to myself until she quit speaking.

The movie was directed by a guy who specializes in dumb-unfunny comedies, and this one is headed straight to video (they've already made that determination my in-the-know pals tell me). Finally, I've noticed this one extra showing up on all my shoots. He seems to get special treatment from the ADs, works one scene, and then spends his time circulating among the crew in a chummy way. He's an older Vietnemese dude, 40-50, looks like a weathered jockey, and wears expensive watches and rings. I heard his sister got him into this country, after he got his sister hooked up with a GI during the war. Keeping my eye out for him. Tomorrow I'm off to do a Swazie Bird film. One of those directors's who's career I envy so much, I always claim they stole mine. You stole my career! John Cusak is another one like this.

Fuckstop Hotel

I got paid $100 bux yesterday. I wanted to fall to my knees and kiss the Assistant Director's work boots. Actually he was the Second Assistant Director. That's who you are usually in the custody of: the 2nd A.D, or the 2nd-2nd A.D. Pretty sad that I was so grateful for $100 bux: it used to take about 3 hours of work for me to achieve. I can't imagine living on what I've been making recently, even if I lived five to a room, bought dollar t-shirts and took the bus, I would still be accruing debt. But, I could be a chick in a burka somewhere in Muslim land, about to be stoned death because my cousin raped me, and I brought sin upon our house. SO, I got that going for me, which is nice.

Speaking of bills, I saw the owner of our location (a funkified motel and diner out near giant power transformers: YES, it is a tumor!) going through his wad of cash. Large black fella, also had a new Vette, and some vintage caddies and such. Also had girlies poppin' their heads outta some of the motel rooms. We were right near the Five Freeway, so I have to believe this a trucker fuckstop. Maybe get your speed here too. Was it white of me to see a large black guy, old cadillac, roll of money, scantily clad women and immediately think "Pimp."??? Am I a realist or a racist?

I'm about to transcribe what I wrote on the set of this Diner/Motel/Fuckstop. I relied on a second grade skill--cram your work in the spaces--I only had one sheet of paper. Back in second grade a special conference was called with my parents to address this gross aberation from Midwest norms. The 2nd-2nd saw me writing and asked what it was.

"Scribbling," I said.

Well, here's the scribble: Big fat extra today named Blake. Blake told me people in the Midwest dress like slobs, although his demeanor suggested he is no stranger to the slovenly life. We were asked to come dressed (extras generally must come dressed in costume, with two complete changes) to the set as midwest truckstop patrons. Blake looked exactly like the pony-tailed know-it-all owner of the comic shop on The Simpsons. Right down go the balding and the greazy ponytail.

Blake broadcasts. Seems to be a commonality of the background bunch I've met so far: zero listening skills. No understanding of a conversations gift exchange. Just broadcasting. Now, he may listen to you, but just as a breath to reload his world views. Blake rode out from Culver city to our SUN-LAND location on a Vespa, which he polished, and rode around the parking lot on breaks. That's one very long haul from Culver City for a Vespa Scooter, but he assured me his scooter goes 60 miles an hour, and he was about to trade this in for one that hits 90. Blake repeated that "the midwest is a frozen tundra" (three times). Folks like Blake make me understand why our politicians repeat phrases over and over as soothing spells for our righteousness craved. Blake also clarifies for me the source of much background broadcasting impetus: despite our job's requirement that we are slightly animated chairs, our humanity is compelled to spill out whenever given the chance. Familiar equation: Repression leads to over-expression. Thus, you have the fatty chatty named Blake. Blake overeats on the set to compensate for his low status and perceived slights from the A.D.s, and he up his communication to radio transmitter wattage fighting against the job's demand for silence.

Blake's bretheran in the Fatty Chatty club worked with me two days ago on the hit sitcom: "Some People Like Soda." This guy's radio station W-MEE! was in danger of creating a lynch mob of his fellow Backies. Not to mention the vain tick of constantly combing his hair in-between takes, like a foppish fonzie. Other Backies on "Some People Like Soda" hid behind the sets. Hiding seems to be another theme: to truly disapear into the background. Some of it I get: you don't want to be placed standing on your feet for 5 hours, while the director admonishes the cast of 9 years to read the lines exactly how he hears them in his head. Then the director goes over (mind you, this is a rehearsal) and laffs SO LOUD at the jokes he wrote now being delivered by the cast in exactly his stylings.

"Look Mommy, I made a poopy, LOOK AT ME!" CLAP, CLAP, CLAP for Jerry the Director!

Anyway, we were supposed to be on a loop of leaving and coming into this long scene, to effect movement, and a lot of the Backies were ducking behind set pieces to avoid being shuttled back in. How lazy do you have to be to avoid doing the very few something, in a job that asks you to do nothing most of the time?

We had a super kind Second-Second on Some People Like Soda, unlike the certified C-U-N-T I had on my shoot with Fondue George, and who then popped up again when I shot U.S. Cake/Drill Team. She wore Peanuts shirts to each shoot, usually a good sign, although the slogan's she picked signaled her sunny demeanor: one had the great quote "I got a Rock" from the Halloween special, where all the kids examine their halloween haul's and Charlie Brown realizes he got a rock. The other one had something about "Not Liking People." Meanwhile she's dealing with 200 of them on set. She would start commands like "Well, my parent's taught me manners, so ..." implying we obviously were reared by goats, and selfish ones at that. While I've given some examples of loathseome backies today, remember, I'm describing the most henious, the one's that pop out. They broadcast in stereo, unfortunately, so they often become the stereotype. Extra's really do fufill the recipe for entertainment: equal parts revulsion mixed with equal parts empathy.

Whoops, now back at our Fuckstop Hotel shoot, Blake is broadcasting in my area again, oblivious to the fact that I'm trying to convey solitude by concentrating on what I'm writing. Blake sez he's got his teeth redone. $32,000 he sez. How? He was on a realtiy show called Mr. Nobody where hot chix date schmedly-looking dudes. Just an average joe with $32,000 teeth paid for by Mr. Nobody. Now Blake is telling us about $50 tips he gets from the prince of Botswanna, a frequenter of the night club Blake bounces for.

As I told you earlier, the set I worked on with Blake was a defunct diner used only for filming now. This should clue you in to the schlock factor of using a "diner." The genre and setting has been maximized. If you want real midwesterner's feeding, you need to create a fake chain, a "Dandy Lions!" The Lurleen-type diner waitress is an icon now, like a keystone cop, and she was paired with a trucker looking a trucker from the 80s. Our director and director of photography were german, so I forgave them.

I could not forgive myself. In a foolish attempt to see if anyone was being bothered by Blake as much as I was, I struck up a converation with very done lady in a folding chair (the super pro extras bring their own folding chairs). Her rack looked silicon-packed, and she was too old to be wearing a Jay-Lo hat, but I just had to confirm that Blake was annoying. She confirmed. She even told me she asked quite loudly to the A.D. if they had any duck tape to shut down Blake's blather. Then she went on for a long time about how you have to make sure you get tangible financial things from men, because they are all out for one thing. She was thinking about suing the doctor she was dating because he wouldn't take her to Spain. She was just about as bad as Blake, with a litany of woes and wrongs, and no real desire to converse.

Sleep sets in, but I'll try and describe some more of the Some People Like Soda escapades tomorrow. More fake boobs and fake modesty figure in this story.

Raise the Dead

I've booked another Dead Guy show. This one is called Slab Em' and stars Finnicky Masters. 8AM call-time in the fur reaches of the Valley. I'm playing a survivalist in a Army-Navy Surplus store. They said to dress like it's 1999. I have no idea how that's different from now. I know the early 90s involved more plaid and jeans with patches and holes, but I'm at a lost to peg the late 90s fashion-wise. How would a 1999 Survivalist dress vs. today. I guess his fatigues would be less dessert storm and more green? It feels good to be a working man, and officially part of the working poor now.

Byzantine

I have a Hollywood Death Cab tour shift tomorrow at 9:45AM. Hours away. I'm just back from extra work on this new movie with Fondue George called Byzantine. He looked great in person, and walked around muttering to himself and then would say "Twelve O'Clock" at the end of every scene (letting folks know that's the latest he would stay). As an extra, your job is to hurry up and wait, so eavesdropping is a worthwhile entertainment. I saw these newly minted lesbians next to me, rubbing each other, lezzing go on the set, and I could sense that one was a lesbian for life, and the other a curious straight girl. The straight girl would go back to her straight life and leave the lesbian devestated. Body language indicated this, and sure enuff, they started talking and it was about how the lesbian-for-life girl was getting too serious. They still continued to rub and bump against each other, however, which was not unnoticed by all the guys in the vicinity. This bothered a hot girl standing nearby, who previously had all the guys looking at her by taking every opportunity to push her boobs out and her ass back.

Hot girl was in a clubby bustier, cuz we were in a club scene. If you ever had a cutie-pie relative who thought of making it in movies, I should take her to the set and let her see all the hot girls, and then tell her: these are the extras, honey. they make minimum wage. these aren't even the bit players with one line. Of course, all these extra dudes, were hitting on these extra girls tarted up for the club. Not much luck, the gals were all keenly aware how little these guys were making. The club seemed abandoned, it was one of those downtown LA clubs that have a nice 2-5 year run, and then they're done. Downtown is a favorite for filmwork with it's forgotten banks & buildings, but the gentrification of these buildings is making shooting venues more scarce. One of my drivers from the Hollywood Death Cab was working on the set, he was on set until 5AM, and had a call at Death Cab the next day at 10AM. As a Teamster, he was making a boatload of money. It's always weird to know when you're on the tour, that the silent guy driving you around is making a multiple of your salary. You may be the star, but you ain't paid like one.

Another girl on the set was complaining that today was her birthday. She was playing a waitress (which they picked the hottest extra girls to do). She also said she was in a lot of hip-hop videos, playing the one white ho hangin' by the pool. Nearby I heard the wives of the producer and director, complaining quite loudly how about the "Ritz doesn't satisfy." I think they had their volume up for the benefit of the extras, to let us know they were so wealthy they could be disdainful of Five Star Hotels.

The scene we were shooting was where Fondue snakes through the club with a lady. It reminded me of the scene from Good Fellas a little, not that intricate, but in the hand-held nature of two folks walking through a bustling night club. As background, we provided the bustling, making lots of crosses before and after Fondue and his lady walked by. Crosses meaning, you stand until Fondue would pass, and then you walk behind him, as soon as he passes you. The AD in charge of us had about 200 extras under his wing. Sneaky, seasoned extras, who would say they were in a particular area, if they sensed that area would get to leave the set early. They also would leave an area that he had just set, if they figured he was distracted. I saw this happen twice, he put a bunch of people standing, and within a half hour, they were all sitting in a different spot (they had no intention of being on their feet for 3 hours at a stretch). It was weird the cat & mouse game being played.

We were fed separately from the crew, and the crew even had catering people making the rounds, bringing them sandwiches. Not us. I think it's tacky when you make up levels of feeding people. We already know the salary gulfs are wide, but in something as basic as food, it's nice to have it more egalitarian. Makes people want to help you more and forget in a sense your cattle that needs to be prodded. Been on lots of sets where everyone ate together, Steven Soderburgh did that for Full Frontal. You'll jump outta window when you sense that you are not actively despised by the director and crew. The person who signed me up for the extra job, said that most people can't hack extra work because "they like to feel special." Uh, no. Part of the burden of extra work is the disdain you get, that you are a necessary evil to the production, but a pain-in-the-butt one at that. It's not about being invisible and needing attention, it's that from the moment you get on set, there's a feeling of "ugh, the extras are here. ugh." Wasn't too bad on the TV set, peeps seemed nicer there, but I think that's part and parcel of TV folks having more security, should they be on a series that's rolling.

Space Invaders

One of the most important aspects of people and rats is our ability to determine how much space we need. If we are compacted into too little space, we get more aggressive. Sure, every now and then, a family will get murdered on the plains, in a sprawling suburban complex, but mostly the aggression bourne from too many rats in one place is visited on the cities. This topic has a sub-heating: heat. Add in oppressive heat to the too-many-people mix, and next thing you know a rock is in your hand and you're chucking it a soldier. Damn it's hot and crowded, I think I'll throw this rock at this pig! Damn it's hot and crowded, that scummy freak just threw a stone at me, I think I'll shoot his ass. Put a bow around it and package it for your Nightly News at 6 in the P.M. ("Today in Baccravuch, angry mobs throw rocks, as soldiers opened fire!")

This translates to a set. A set is a city that moves. Not quite Brigadoon moving through time, although there are elements of that, but mostly moves from location to location. Because in Hollywood, space of all kinds is at a premium, rarely do you have enough space to really fufill all your needs. So, people will find a spare room on set that is not being used, and that becomes a sub-satellite of costumes. Don't step your drink down on that platform in front of the make-up man's trailer, that's his closely guarded fiefdom. Hang up your clothes on a nail behind the sets, and find them on the floor later, because that's where the carpenter's stow their toolbelts when they lunch. Extras being the sub-humans living below zero, must find somewhere to be immdiately available when they are needed, and yet, out-of-the-way. So they are the kings of taking scrap space. Most people will not sit under a two-ton Kleig light, dangling from twine that could unwind, but to an extra, it's a space not utilized that won't get him in trouble. On a set where everyone is yelling at everyone, we are the dog that gets kicked at the end of the day. So OFF-camera we also try to be background, inanimate objects that could not possibly offend. Occassionly the new fool will not understand this concept. Yesterday an extra-gal started chatting to the soundman while he is listening to a SHOOTING scene. She was rebuked, and then made a face saying "what an asshole" that guy is. This lady also went on for about 3 hours about her sick dog, and then mentioned to the AD she might have to leave because of her sick dog. This kind of excuse is why the Extra Agency told us that only death or hospital or allowed as sick excuses. Take care of your dog and we'll think you're a nice person, but we won't hire you again. never-ever. One extra showed up with a cylndrical cloth carrying case. It looked vaguely like a music instrument, but I might have ascribed this to the dreads he was wearing. Then I thought maybe he rolled up his costume changes inside this. When we were on the stage, however, I saw it was a beach-chair carrying case. A beach-chair (actually more of a chaise lounge chair) for sitting and sleeping on the stage. Then you are not dependent on the vagaries of folding chairs, or remembering to decorate your folding chair with articles marking this space as yours, a book, a magazine, a coat draped over the side. ("Today in Hollywood, two extra throttled each other to death over a tiff regarding someone's sweater being thrown on the floor from their folding chair.")

Dead Person

I walked around a corner today at Summit Studios and faced my failure. ... maaaan ... ouchy momma ... I got booked just one day after signing up with a service, to be an extra at Summit Studios for the fabulous new Dead People show: DIGGING UP DEAD PEOPLE'S GRAVES in Cleveland! or DUDPG/Cleveland!! what a show concept! 3 of the top 5 shows right now are CSI shows, CSI Pomona being the highest rated show of all. I was playing a Plumber. Or at least, I was there to have my picture taken as a Plumber. A Plumber's Driver's License. I think I was more of a Prop today than "Background Talent." I know I end up a dead plumber, and I think it's by auto accident. that's what I could pick up as I heard the AD speak. The Assistant Director looked suprisingly like the guy from Withnail and I. I.

Anyway, it's McWages, of course, but they don't pay for parking totally (you have to chip in 2 dollars out of 5: You have Five dollars, now you have Three!), and you have to supply your wardrobe. I was questioned by a hostile somebody on the set, who had made up her mind that all extras are stooges, and when I was pleasant and helpful, she glared at me longer. How dare I not conform to her preset assesement. Then they took my picture, and I sat around the sat after that for about four hours before freedom. In that four hours I read an entire racist/sexist book that had the good fortune to be written by a gal with a spanish surname, so it was sanctioned and good uplifting fun! I ate breffast at the Treats Truck. Yummy tri-tip for breakfast. The Treat Truck sure makes a lot of hurts healed. Oh, and I ran into one of my peers. Former peer actually.

Let me tell you story about a man named Josh. 20 years ago this spring, I had hitched up the Chevy Cavilier and moved to Beverly. Okay, actually Studio City. A bunch of us from Nebraska State (NS), Cornholios as we called ourselves, had established a beach head at Studio City, we called it NS Terminal West. One of those residents, on who's couch I stayed, was a miserable wretch named Phillip. Phillip had a brother-in-law who worked on The Molly McDugal show. Phillip crawled right up his ass into a career. Phillip was ambitious, willing to take favors from you (but do none in return), and was constantly in your face about how much money you were making. So much so, that one of our pals got a job on CNN's Crossfire, and his first paycheck stub came back to me, (to give to Philly at my discretion) with all the money places blanked out, and the words: NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS. We would see Philly over the years, and he continued to get more plumb positions, a steady march to the gravy boat.

Well, today, when I turned the corner, there he was. I hadn't seen him in years, and I hoped-against-hope it wasn't him. Alas, the person he was talking to said "Thanks Phillip." I made a quick call to one of my good pals who works at Entertainment Tonight and has access to all sorts of data bases. "Who's some of the people involved in DUDPG/Cleveland?"

"Like who."

"Like the director."

"Oh, that's Phillip Fart-Face." Shot to the solar plexus number one. But I recovered gamely. If, with all his butt-plumbing this was all the farther he got, I could handle it. He's directing a show that I'm an extra on, but as long as he was just the director. I know he had been directing for quite a while. Nope. That sad little bit of rationale was not even given to me. He was the EXECUTIVE PRODUCER and DIRECTOR of the show that I, his former classmate (summa cum laude classmate dammit!) was being a non-union extra on at the age of 35. If that's not enough to put the self-judges in their chambers and considering all sorts of stern penalties, I don't know what is. I was glad when he didn't notice me. And yet, after I called my pal back at Entertainment Tonight (who voluntereed a shitty personal thing about him, "here's a bullet to shoot him with," he said) after I called my gal, I managed to deal with it. In fact, I was hoping I could run into him and say hello. I've come to realize it's usually more uncomfortable for the person who makes it when he's talking to the person he left behind. Sadly, they cut us loose for the day, and I didn't hunt him down. Ruined a nice day on a beautiful lot, the Summit Studios are really my favorite lot in Hollywood. Very pretty, green spaces, etc. Executive Producer. Of a Network show. Casting Decisions, Writing Decisions, Music Decisions. All the things where I feel I can make really good choices on. But today, I plumbed. In the Background.

Line up, single file

went down to join the huddled masses. sign-up for extra work. you would think this work was for a factory paying $25 an hour by the big crowd it drew. it's more McWages, but it's McWages paid for being on a movie or TV set, so folks do it. must have been 200 people. one dude in a business suit cut in line in front of everyone. didn't cut in front of me, but the people behind me. they didn't say anything. another lady there looked like she was a gal from the 80s, dressed in her best clubbing outfit of denim jump suit. always the danger as you get older, you could have missed the retro-bells going off, signifying this look is cool again. amazing how many good-looking people trying to be extras. you always think that it's just scruffy mammen, but actually it's folks better looking than you and me. the kid behind me in line said that he hoped the casting directors would see his face and he'd get discovered. Oops. We all paid $20 bucks to have them take a picture they put on computer for us. $20. Times 200. Remind me not to rob a liquor store when I get desparate, but this place on a Mon, Wed. or Friday (sign-up days). Easily four thousand dollars in cash they took in today. the women signing us in seemed rather despondent, complained that life was all about getting up and going to work, then coming home and paying bills. and cooking and cleaning for everyone. life does seem more of its usual absurdist joke to me lately usually I laff at it, but lately it seems less funny than stupid and sad

Bah dah, Munday, Munday

Monday morning is miserable. It was miserable in the 9-5 office existence for me, back to the gulag for another week, and I find it equally unnerving in my new existence. The Office, for all it's stricture, was structure. God knows we need a purpose in this life, no matter how flawed that purpose is. Getting up on a Monday, with no real plan is overwhelming to me at times. Sure, I can scrounge up some things to do, but it's the realization that I have to hustle. No one is going to give me a paycheck this week unless I hustle it. From the first job I ever tried to ask for, this has always been a problem. Because at the bottom of the hustle is your self-worth. And for me, that is a wildly-vascillating barometer, dependent on mood, time of day, time of season, if I just spoke to Mom, etc.

My dad had been courting a local pharmacist for years for my employment benefit. When I came of age to work, I went over to see him. Not even a cold call. I walked around the Pharmacy for about 45 minutes until I got the courage to go talk to him. He was agitated when I showed up back there, he had noticed me flitting around his store, seemingly without purpose. I don't know if he thought I was a moron when I looked at the Hallmark cards for the 40th time, or checked the price on the Luden's Cough Drops. I just remember him being annoyed with me. I didn't get the job. Rejection and me are bad bed fellows, so it's important for my absurd existence that I pick a bed to lie in that is replete with rejection. Urrrrrrr.

I worked the Hollywood Death Cab Tour on Saturday and that was healthy. I got my first tip ("Try Food Service as a Career!" Cymbol Crash!). Nah, it was a nice five dollar tip, from a nice lady. Since it was found money, I put four of it on the lottery. That's another new one for me. Playing the lottery. All my life, being raised by pragmatic realists and mathematical folks, I knew that winning the lottery was akin to me guessing the phone number of a distance relative. Even spotted the area code, I couldn't do it (my mom did this to me once to show the futility of the lottery). In my younger days, I felt assured that I would make my own fortune. Now, I don't believe in myself, so I happen to believe in a lucky draw a little more. Yikes, that's sad.

Our giant robot on the Hollywood Death Cab Tour, Big Bear, was not working properly on Saturday. We have a deal with Worldwide Studios, to go on their lot, for part of our tour. Inside one of their soundstages, they have a leftover creature from a kid's TV show of the late 1980 -- Big Bear. Big Bear's breath is supposed to smell like honey when you go by (I always make a comment about this: who wants graham crackers?), but there was no honey. I like to put my head out the windows and face his angry mewl on the tour. We're inside a soundstage at this point, it's dark, no one can see, but I just like to do it. What's up Big Bear?

The Wall didn't work either. We have what an attraction on the tour called "The Wall," and it didn't tumble down on cue when we approached it. You set up those jokes, that you do over and over, and when the attraction doesn't trigger, it can catch you by surprise. Sometimes you have a great ad-lib, other times you say clever things like "well, I guess the wall didn't fall down today."

It was fun in the Hollywood Death Cab break room. That's easily one of the perks of the job. A bunch of entertainers sitting around entertaining each other. Sometimes it can be too much, you have the I'm-funny guy, who will try to suck the wind out of the room for anyone but him being funny, or the political pontificator. But for the most part it's just the crew waiting to get a Cab and go do the Tour. We all hooted and hollared as the Dodgers won the pennant on Saturday with a grand slam homerun.

Everyone hopes they don't have to do too many tours in a day. It can be grueling to do five. Usually 3 is just about right. The tour takes from an hour to an hour and one half. So that's a decent amount of jabbering you have to do. You spin to get your place on the day's schedule, you spin once you are there to get the amount of tours. More lottery fun, reminding me of Fortuna's Wheel and my place on it. It's a weird vibe to do what we do. We are paid McWages, and yet most of us have college degrees and are fairly bright. It's the ultimate fun job, and yet it's the ultimate un-fun wages they pay. The pay is abysmal, because supposedly we make it up in tips. Meanwhile, we are supposed to turn down tips as the guest have already paid a sizeable amount to take the Hollywood Death Cab. Totally disingenuous and accounts for a lot of the bad vibes in the air that no amount of cutesy-poo management distractions will abate. The saddest one they did was making the people who load the Death Cabs do a "Trash Olympics." Pick up Trash and be just like the people in the Olympics! It seems like an exercise from the back of a Scouting manual for 12 year olds. Added on to a McJob with McWages, it's really insulting. I know I have a shitty job, but do you have to emphasize this with rah-rah management exercises? Employee Core value: Have Fun! Corporate Core Value: Don't Pay Them!

And yet, despite all this, the people who actually have wages that allow them to have lives, our Union drivers, usually have the worst attitudes. Not all of them, but that sense of entitlement does pervade quite a few. If it's near quittin' time, rest assured that Tour Car will fly around the park in a NASCAR minute. Some hide their nametags, so you can't have a conversation with them, others won't talk to you, period. All their pay has not bought them job satisfaction.

you're in the army now

Out the door to be atmosphere (hello, I'm a charged ion!), elaborate later.

Woke up at 3AM last night in the cold-dark-night-of-the-soul space. You can tell yourself that everything isn't hopeless, it's just a feeling, but the feeling is so pervasive, it overwhelms the logic. Sunlight comes and restores hope. Your dogs jump up and press against ya on each side. Anyway, give me a few ticks to talk attya later ...

Went to get pictures for extra work. Four looks required: I chose Soccer Dad, Republican Dad in Blue Coat, Western Preacher Man, and White Trash dude. It really is troubling how white trash I can look. Sometimes I want to go to a city where they're filming COPS and commit a crime because my look is that perfect. Do you think they never show when guys outrun the cops? Always these footchases, always the cops win. I have to believe every now and then a fleet dude can outrun the police. I hold no illusion about car chases in this day and age, but not all cops are track stars.

The Extra work is being referred to as Background work. I think "atmosphere" has fallen out of vogue. I was told the three reasons one could decline extra work: recall, hospital, death. they seemed pretty serious about this. if you're puking sick, puke in your car on the way to the job, and then puke on the AD, and they'll let you go home. The guy signing up with me had a bruised fingernails from the gym and a girlfriend who helped him dress in his change of clothes. She really liked him in his suit, I thought they were going to have sex in the dressing room. I get the feeling the guy is a gym rat, so she had herself a little fantasy to see him in a dress suit. Uniforms. They really work magic on certain ladies. I've always heard that lesbians love em, if you're a gal wear the UPS uniform, it's a big turn on. As I left the EXTRA! place a scary, babbling, lady told me she had been a stand-in for Kathy Bates often. It seemed about right, this was the kind of stand-in poor Kathy Bates would get. I wondered if a stand-in could ever look so close to someone, they could murder them and take over their life. CSI Burbank could figure this one out in a two part episode. At any rate, I'm officially hooked, and required to show up wherever and whenever they need me for not much $$$. Once you get SAG, you get more $$$, but the rub is you also get less work, especially in this reality-show world. all of this would seem like a lot more like an exciting adventure if I was 22, as opposed to an underscored and italic condemnation of my life of 35 years.