Alexander The Great

I saw a headline in a magazine today:

What made Alexander great?

I mean, really. The guy's been dirt for 1000 years and he's still Alexander the Great. That was one great dude. Or his publicist was great. Will I be "Josh the Great"? For a 1000 years? Or will I be "Josh the Schleep." I guess being known as "Josh the Schleep" for a thousand year run would have the same bearing on my carcass.

I stayed up too late last night watching "True Grit." I don't even like westerns, but I wanted to see what John Wayne got his Oscar for. Playing a drunk. As Eddie Murphy once lamented about the plight of the comic actors: "Don't forget, I'm black. So not only would I have to play a retard, I'd have to play a retarded slave to get nominated." Of course.

The gal, Kim Darby was the better one in my mind, and I totally forgot Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper where in this. 3AM. Stupid. Now I'm on set trying to stay awake. It's a good set, nice peeps, good vibe. It's a sitcom called "Don't Even Think About It." Has two cast members who are alumni of independent films. They are truly funny, and don't play every sitcom moment like catskills cyborgs. It's in its last season, but I think folks are OK with that. Not a lot of anxiety on the set. Had a longer run (four years) then I think anyone gave it credit for. As I said, the lines are delivered more like amongst funny friends, not uber-sitcom-inside jokes. On one hand, I support older peeps when they bitch about this industries ageism (cuz I am old), and yet there's no denying the youth is a lemon twist for this canned drink of sitcom.

Guy in front of me in the wardrobe line just got dissed. They make the extras go line-up before wardrobe to get their come-from-home wardrobe approved. If you are good to go, you don't have to give them your voucher, thus saving you a little time to get off set earlier. Every extra strives for this. I strive because it's the only creative decision I get to make generally. Look, I've gone into my closet, and come out a hot dog vendor! Anyway, the dude is dissed. We have been told to come as upscale shower guests. Wardrobe lady gives him the regal, withering glace and sez:

"Are you the hobo?"

Ouch. She okays me, and I start inventing backstory for my character. Yessss!

Lotsa knitting today on set. Four knitters. The Hollywood hip are recycling the granny generation. One of our best friends, a beauty who works a lot as the cutie-pie knits. The director jokes about one of the stand-ins knitting slightly more Walmart wear than one of the series co-stars.

The co-stars are sitting with us today, in the bleachers. This show has no audience, that's a seven grand expense. The warm-up guys, the guys who just keep the audience rolling, total hack comedians, showing up with unicycles and juggle balls-- they get Three Grand a gig. It's kewl on this show that the guest co-stars mingle with background. One background sez to a co-star before an entrance into a scene:

"hey, I'll move, I'm just background."

Co-Star: "Hey, we're all just unemployed actors after today."

Give that man a medal. The distinguished cross from the backie brigade.

Been giving thought to the chair question. Eventually, everyone has to figure out how they come out on the chair. Does it mean being a lifer? Once you get yourr fold-up chair, with the stirups to put your feet in and snooze, are you on-board for background as a career? And if you resist, does it mean you're just a dork with his pride still looking for a place to sit.

A black backie just showed up forty-five minutes late. She's doing a whole comedy routine, a sorta big-fat-momma-crazy-love woman, not to be limited by the boundaires of time. Uh huh.

Is it okay to notice cultural differences? To complain about them? Does that make me a racist? Or just like the comedians on my favorite show BET Comic Strip Live?

Reaching out and touching someone on the set. A cell chat with my pal Putt-Putt. Putt-Putt is a great character actor who gets gigs without an agent. He may be the smoothiest runner of a room I've ever seen. Has the Texas folky thing down cold. He's a republican in a town noted for unforgiving liberal leanings. Even having a goy german name in this town can be bad news. David Hasselhoff told stories about having agents tell him to change his name, no one would hire a son of the gestapo.

I respect Putt-Putt for his politics, even though our politics diverge. Putt-Putt works alot as the boob. The boob authority figure, FBI, Cop, Pit Boss. Putt-Putt and I did a lot of standup together in h-wood, before my nerves got me. Or, maybe my lack of funny material. Either way, he's been able to eek out a living as a bit player. Day player. He's telling me right now that he was at one point, up for the movie that made the star of "Don't Even Think About It."

Remember when I told you the co-stars of this sitcom are veterans of Indie movies? Ya know, lotsa art, little pay, but the chance to play. The Independent movie. Well, the sitcom star I'm with today was in a great movie called "Rockford Rules" all about a guy who bases his life on the Rockford Files. Putt-Putt was in the running for this part. Would Putt-Putt have disowned me if he got the movie, and then this series? Or would I have been his simmering stand-in, wondering why he can't get me a guest star shot. H-wood does nasty things to friendships, especially when you're prize is just across the table, and you are absolutely sure you friend could pass it to you if he wasn't such a dick. Meanwhile, he's thinking, why are you the 70th person hitting me up today? I thought we were friends.

I hadda friend make it once, he became a permanent cast on a sitcom. The first time I talked to him after the big news, he was wary. Like, oh yes, I've made it now, and what do you want? Or maybe, oh, this is that person from my former life, I know I shouldn't blow him off, that's too cliche, but it's tedious to talk to him now that I've passed through the mirror. Was I projecting? Maybe. I know that making it in a big way, prolly let's out a lot of suppresed egotism, a lotta supressed hostility for having to suffer the lower rungs with lesser lights than yours.

My pal actually called his own sitcom shot, not unlike The Babe pointing to centerfield where he would park his home run. We were on a double date, this pal-o-mine, and the girl was giving clear signals he could have sex with her. As an unemployed actor, this is like water in the wildneress. He said no, she wasn't pretty enuff. "You are in no position to be this picky, my friend," said I.

he sez: "When I get my sitcom, I'll get the kinda girls I want."

I used to tell this tale for the kind of tale it was: the cautionary tale. This is my theory on why so many decent, ordinary and okay-looking girls have a ruff time out here finding a guy: everyone's waiting for the BBD. The Bigger Better Deal.

"I know I said I would go to the play with you tonight, but I just got Laker tickets!"

Actually, it would suprise me if people even called to tell you this. Most of the time they just don't show up, and then seem peeved when you pressed them on why they ditched. Like your a dork who plans out his social calendar, when the wind could blow from any direction, at any time. Of course, my friend DID get a sitcom. Did buy a house off it. Did date stewardesses. So much for caution. Granted, he's the one in a million friend, the rest of them did not get shit. And, his sitcom lasted a year, and he's never been another in the ten-plus years since. But on that night, he was right in waiting, there was a bigger, better deal out there for him.

It would seem everyone on the set's crew are warriors. There's certainly enuff camoflauge wear to go around. I thought I was the only one who was into this craze, I got a bunch of pairs of camo shorts at the Army/Navy surplus store about a year ago, but it appears the hired hands have gotten themselves deep in the shit. Ya know, when in a good Nam movie and they say they're deep in the shit? With all of a set's testerone, and apparetus, war clothing seems an appropriate choice. There's certainly a campaign going on each day for the shooting. Victories and casualties.

"Medic, we just lost a craft services! Got dammit Medic, get me a bazooka ---

ARUGHGHGGHG. ... static ... [Viet Cong voices] ..."

The chief AD looks up back at basecamp after monitoring the foregoing scene on walkie.

"That was a damn fine breakfast burrito. I salute you craft services."

"Dude, are you gonna get em backup?" sez the Second Second AD?

"Fuck em' and feed em' beans" sez the Chief AD, and with that we know the grunts doing the fighting, the background, will be hoping those extra cheetos bags they stored in their jackets last through the night. Beyond the war parallells is the more obvious one: these sound stages look like a giant kids playhouse, with the different sets being large-scale barbie playrooms, and the fiefdoms of the technical support looking like forts.

The stars are the kids climing the monkey bars, and it's amazing how natural the star of "Don't Even Think About It" is. He's a genial everyman. Right now he's holding forth for the crew on the Lacy Peterson trial. He's doing the fake grief voice of the killer, talking to her brother:

"Ohh, yes, I'm so sorry. I wish I knew where Lacy was."

To the side of the living room he's sitting in, is a faux back yard for the house. Here the cheerleaders are practicing. This is the second sitcom I've been on with cheerleaders. Cheerleaders pose problems for me. I remember wrestling once, getting pinned, and looking at the lights. I had always heard the phrase "look at the lights" from the older wrestlers, and now I was like, "Hey, I'm getting pinned, and wow, you really can see the lights!" All of a sudden through this haze, I looked my head to the left while I was fighting the pin and saw the cheerleaders yelling

"Go Josh Go!"

Go? Go fucking where? I mean, isn't there a "Fight that Fucking Pin" chant? Or, was wrestling so lame, they just thought they had done us a favor by showing up? I really focused on them shouting

"Go Josh Go!" They were not focusing on me. They were looking all different directors, chewing their cud, wiggling ass for old perverts. I gave up. Ref's hand slams the mat: PIN! I truly remember thinking, what's the use. What a joke. Go Josh Go! Fucking cheerleaders.

So I get off the set of "Don't Even Think About It," where I've been working as a lowly extra, and I met a pal of mine with big-time connections. We get into a show at the ultra cool John Anson Ford Theater for free, and then I get to meet one of his friends and one of my favorite directors: Bob Barker. Not the gameshow host guy, but the director one. He calls himself Robert Barker to differentiate. He looks like a wrestler actually. I'm tempted to say to him

"Up or Down? Ready, WRESTLE!"

He's wearing non-descript clothes that don't have a h-wood look-at-me-I'm-dressing-down look to them. We chat about his new movie on wrestling. It's a remake of one of my favorite movies of all times, Visionquest. He's even got a female wrestler who can wrestle. He sez he cast for wrestlers first, actors second. He's legendary for getting great performances outta first-timers, and he came up through the Indie Movie scene with one of the slyest documentaries ever: Little Red Car, where he took a little red car, a black guy in rapper gear, and then had him drive through the south. A camera crew and helpful bouncers were hidden in a Hostess Snack Products truck following him. The black guy would follow all posted signs, yet invariably he would get pulled over by the cops in the small towns. He would mouth off to the redneck cops, not anything illegal, but just defying the natural order of things down there. It made for compelling drama. It made the Justice department get on some local lawmen in our southern states.

So here I am talking to Bob Barker. While he's called Robert in the credits, he quickly corrects you to call him "Bob." I tell him wrestling stories, we laff. We both watched too much daytime TV, we start trading our favorite Dinah Shore stories. I tell him the tale of the huge stoner wrestler who threatened to beat me. Every day I walked past stoner wrestler dude. He had a moustache at 13. He had a manson-like posse of chix, one who even scratched her forehead one day, like Squeaky Fromme. Every day the dude called out:

"he's a NARC!" at me.

I was dressed in total preppy clothes, I was an honor student, on way to being gay, etc. I would dread walking past this guy, but there was no other way to cut through the yards to my house.

"Narc!"

Finally, one day I found my voice and said: "You know, I walk past you every day, I see you smoking pot, and yet you never get busted. So why do you continue to call me a Narc?"

I was sure I would get punched, and in the most dramatic pause of my life up to then, I waited for the fist to come at me.

"HEY MAN, THIS GUY'S COOL! HE'S COOL! HE'S NOT A NARC!!!! MAAAAN, YOU'RE COOL!"

For the rest of the year, anytime he saw that, he would shout it out to whoever was around. One time he shouted it out to a science teacher who thought I was perfect, and when the stoner wrestler guy shouted this out, I went down some in the science teacher's eyes. He started accusing me of going to smoke pot every day when I used the restroom pass at precisely 1:45. He did not know that my bowels had aligned into their most perfect short-lived symetry ever. When he broke up my routine, but not issuing me the restroom pass anymore, I think he broke my bowels heart, and they were never that regular again. This story brought many laffs from Bob Barker.

In the end, I got a drink and talked to a friend at the concert and lost Bob in the smoke, sound and haze. Should I have hit him up for some union vouchers? And ruined a night where the director treated me like a human being? After the concert I alternated between thinking I was a fool, a goy without moxie, and feeling glad I had just been another dude, hanging out with Bob Barker that night, trading tales.