Happy Birthday Dana Grant

Dana Grant's stand in on our Love Boat movie was so-Dana Grant you gasped. If you had not seen Dana on set already, you were sure this was Dana. Once you looked at her for a second, you realized that she not only looked like Dana, but a lot like Helen Hunt. It made me wonder if black people always confuse Helen Hunt and Dana Grant, they look so similar. I immediately know the difference, but to someone of another race, they look like the same white girl with stringy hair, slight, and more handsome then beautiful.

This stand-in made me want to see a movie where the stand-in is almost perfect, and then gets a little surgery to become dead-on. Before long, the star is dead, replaced by the stand-in, who's aging better, and is actually a nice person. She's not as good an actor, but no one seems to care, especially when she hits a slew of dreadful, but financially successful blockbusters. Or the stand-in and star play twin tricks on directors, you never are sure who's playing who that day on the set. The director trap. A look-alike stand-in has many dramatic possibilities with mistaken identity, envy, lovers (the husband fux the stand-in by mistake), and if the gal is a lesbian, the ultimate actor fantasy: she gets to make love to herself!

We had twins in the background that looked a lot like Ray Liotta. I had a run-in with one on this Boat movie set earlier, when we were in Carson. He kept talking right-wing politics with me after:

"Hey, I think it would be best if we just agree to disagree."

Despite this, he continued to talk. I start pantomiming in my best big extra-pantomiming way that, look: I'm writing in my journal. Back off. He kept yapping like a stuck CD. So I had to leave. Actually got up and gave up my coveted chair, sat behind the cramped backstage of the children's auditorium we were housed in. God forbid, I get told I have to do scene with him and pantomime non-verbal communication. Ewww, like making love on camera to an enemy. Yuck.

Over the last four daze, I kept seeing him on the set over and over, and I was like: damn, why is this guy freakin' everywhere? Then I slowly realize there may be two of these guys. Another backie confirms it: yup, they're twins. And get this: his twin is as left-wing, as his brother is right. Somehow Ray Liotta needs to do a scene with these two. Maybe on the HBO show Entourage, about the h-wood star and his possee. I love the show, and once got to see the star of the show pull up to a premiere in a pal's beat-up caddy, jump out and walk up the red carpet, no big deal. Later he had two ladies hanging on him, and I didn't even mind. The Ray Liotta twins need to be on the show with this guy. And Ray Liotta. If only I could perfect my mind control and accomplish these kinds of things.

The haul on this set semmed to pull in a lot of world-class kooks. The Ray Liotta twins with their political zealotry. I noticed they spent no time together. At all. I have cousins who are twins and they hang out all the time. They must be those diametrically opposed kinda twins, like the ones they make a sitcom about when they're young and cute, and end up old and bitter, can't get work, one in a wheelchair, the other walking around with a butcher's knife muttering about "god's will be done." There was also a whole India-Indian family. Because it was a travel movie, they had dressed the Indian family in native garb. Uncle Indian was obvioulsy the go-to-guy in the family. He told me he had gotten them all extra gigs. I got the sense they were all wealthy, and bored with their real lives, so they started doing movies. It looked like Uncle Indian ran his dry-cleaning business from the set, he was always huffing and puffing around on his cell phone during breaks, and he had lots of conspicuous and orante jewlery on. From Bollywood to Hollywood. The family hung out, shared jokes, was very high-spirited. I want to be in the India-Indian family.

Backie Bitch was here too. She sat out with the smoker's circle. One of the probs of being in smoker's circle, is your group is so small, you can't really exclude a fellow smoker. Backie Bitch has a husband who's 10 years younger, and a "no good hippie." She works like a fiend, and he blows their money. To hear her tell it, he also lost their business. Her car broke down today. Her daughter's in dutch with the IRS. This is why most peeps can't stand her, the constant bitch about her life. I guess if you bitch about going union all day, that's different. I can handle her in small doses.

She's a recovered alcholic, and from where we are filming she can see one of Hollywood's greatest bars, right across the street: The Formosa. The Formosa has autographed pictures of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart above the bar. It's been used in Swingers. I spent a few nights her myself in the early 90s, and one of our crew was actually a minor character in Swingers. I also hung out here with Luke Hazzard, the star of the collosal show Pals. This is where I warned him about the fleeting nature of Hollywood. All during this shoot, I kept thinking how nice a dark dank bar would be, with a cold g&t. I'm getting dreamy ...

Back to the smoker's circle, I quit staring at the Formosa. I'm being told about a backie, large lady on the movie Byzantine with Fondue Reeves. Apparently, she had to pee, so instead of asking an AD, she walked up to Fondue Reeves, on set, and said very loudly "I gotta pee!" He graciously found an AD, and then they graciously fired her. That's one of the nice things about background, in world where everyone cowers from law-shits, hesitating to fire anyone, if you are freakish background person busted for being odd or having a 'tude, you are gone.

Another Backie got canned on this set, and he started throwing chairs everywhere, and they had to escort him out with security. The standards to get on a set are astonishingly low. I've often thought, if I was a stalker/terrorist/bad guy, it would be so easy to get near my target by being an extra.

Did you know they actually brand you on a set? Before they herd you off to slaughter? They have hand-stamps for the union extras, that way they can quickly indentify, should you try and sneak treats. The craft services tables are carefully guarded on the huge shoots, and if you are not a union extra, you have no business taking that gum. Often, the non-union treat table will have only the remnants of three apple-raisin bagels, while if you could just get past the guy they have guarding the craft service table on set, you could have piping hot breakfast burritos. Sneaking treats, stealing CREW and CAST food is a big no-no for non-union background, and thus a highly covert operation. There are background artists who are known for their stealth and generosity, they come back to small clutches of us, brandishing their booty, taken while others of us distracted the treat's sentinal. One ex-hippy dude, we just called Furry, he could get three hamburgers in his pockets faster then a villan in a Dicken's novel.

Fat clown Blake-the-Bozo fool is back today. He of the vespa scooter, and $35,000 teeth paid for by the realtiy show "Mr. Nobody." (http://no-biz.blogspot.com/2004/10/fuckstop-hotel.html)He has some knowledge today. It's Dana Grant's birthday. Fat Clown Bozo has decided to go up to and sing Happy Birthday to Dana Grant. He's telling anyone who will listen his plan. Another Backie tries to dissuade him: "It's in appropriate."

Fat clown Bozo: "It makes it fun! I just try to have fun while I'm here!"

"It's not about your fun. She's working, birthday's are personal." Or, how about she had a fan who tried to blow up the New York Times building in a bizare attempt to garner her love. Fan is short for fanatic, ya know? Another Backie and I decide we need to talk Fat Clown Bozo into his celebration. We jolly-boy him up, what a swell idea to sing to Ms. Grant. If he gets placed on set, it's a go. We are excited about seeing him combust in such a spectacular fashion. Fat Clown Bozo was running around singing "We are the World" yesterday, changing the words to "We are the Extras." People were parting in his wake, like a cheesy red sea effect. His existence is inappropriate. You have to wonder if its glandular. Does he have a gland that just secretes inappropriate deeds and annoying actions against his will? Or -- does he actually contemplate which behavior is the most obnoxious and then proceed for full effect? The numbers of peeps I meet who loathe Fat Clown Bozo grow daily. Even the sweetest old man, a nice WWII vet turned to him and said: "You're TOO out there!"

"I'm just trying to have fun!" The theme being: my fun trumps all other concerns.

A backie called me by my name the other day. "Hey Josh," he said. Ugh. It really knifed me. I had hoped to slide through this life anonymously, and he had broached that. Hollywood is transient, and nothing is more transient than the background life. People are so dense here, that they forget from one set to the next who you are. Someone will start to tell me there lifestory for the third time. Stop! I know you joined the merchant marines at 17. Stop! I know you hate that lady over there in the hat. And yet, another Backie yelled to me as I passed by "Tequilla!" He had remembered I liked patrone tequilla. My hope to pass unnoticed is starting to evaporate. The guy who called out "Tequilla," then went back to singing an original blues song he wrote about the Bible.

Other freaks on set today: The Incest Family. Well, maybe. Pure background conjecture at this point. They book as a family, and the father is always going on about how beautiful his daughter is while he strokes her hair. He also tries to pimp her out to stars, once on a movie he called out to John Travolta to come say hello to his pretty daughter. This is the kinda guy that gets the background put in their own tents, their own food, and on strict notice not to talk or look at anyone. There's a freaky-dekie Michigan kid here, talks with a lisp, blurts things out. Doesn't take medicine, doesn't believe in it. Had an operation performed without pain-killers. Seated across from me is a lady making childish shape drawings. Not childish, as in the beauty of children! Just childishly bad drawings. She showed them in a coffee shop once. I can't imagine the weirdness trying to get a blueberry muffin that day in the coffee shop, while she showed her pathetic paintings. Her eyes flit about, she can't hold serve with your eyes while you chat. She declares she can't be in the sun, hasn't been outside much since the early 90s, when she surfed an El Nino wave. She went to a school with the sons and daughters of Hollywood's rich and famous, and has decided she likes poor people the best. She considers people who make $50,000 a year "rich." You can't buy a house on a $50,000 salary in LA. She's a former vegan who's doctor made her eat meat. She looks a painting of the big-eyed ghost children. Irrevocably haunted, yet she keeps repeating her mantra "Happiness is contagious."

Then there's the nutsy kid across from me who declares "I want fame, fame, fame!" He wants to shoot his own film, it's about coffee swirling in a cup. He seems to have no story ideas, and blames his lack of success on not having connections.

"The Olson's are sluts," he sez. He goes up to the foreign people on the set and asks them to write his name in different languages. He's decided to take out a free ad, in a free weekly paper. It will have his picture, and proclaim his ability for acting, writing and directing.

There's an orthodox jewish kid across from me, who hails from Paris. Sez his mom can't drive. He just sits down and starts talking to me, mid-story. Non-sequitors. I think a lot of these folks had the shit beat outta them as kids, I've never seen more pathologies, and nervous ticks.

Meanwhile, it's Dana Grant's birthday on set, the crew surprises her. Sadly, she was not surprised by big Fat Clown Bozo, he was never placed on the boat today, set in extra holding all day. Because it's such a big amount of extra's in holding, they've rented out an entire soundstage to house us. Inside the sound stage, people are playing the game of Life, playing Beatle's songs on guitars, gambling for small amounts in Poker, knitting, watching DVDs on computers, making bad paintings, or scribbling in self-important journals.

Back on the boat, the extras are forced to stay in the one area, while the crew assembles and sings happy b-day to Dana Grant. The famous producer Ryan Mulch shows up for the birthday, and they have a giant blow up of her hanging from the rafters of the soundstage. Mulch is a big part of my tour at Hollywood Death Cab. I have to talk with him on the DVD, pretend to have an interactive conversation. I saw "have to," because various tour guides have tried to leave out this part of the tour, and it always gets back to Mulch, and we catch hell. I think he sits in his house, ear pressed to the window, listening to hear himself pontificate over our loudspeaker all day. I tell the guy next to me that I should say "Hi" to Ryan, and tell him I have to "deal with him five times a day," over at Hollywood Death Cab. The Backie tells me this would be an excellent way to get fired twice today.

Meanwhile, I can see all the hoo-ha for Dana Grant's birthday, but we are told not to move near the party. I hear quite possibly the best description of the background experience from one of our more well-adjusted members: "Being an extra is like being at a family gathering where you are not technically family --- you don't belong, but you can't leave."