Skeet Shooting

You're sitting in an office in the mid-90s, and you have a hot ass-istant. You work for a major record label, go to lotsa free concerts, listen to lotsa free records. You deliver contacts to Mick Jagger, you get the best weed on planet earth. And what are you today today, on October 11, the year of our lord 2004? Background work. Playing a skeet shooter out in Pomona.

Or: you are sucking the mother's milk from the corporate teet of IBM. You've been there fourteen years, you have a high-tech, high-demand, computer job. The kind that could never be replaced, the kind that could only be done here.

Or could it? Hello, my fellow background artist, let the AD know before you go to the restroom. Put your hand up and ask if the teacher if you can go poddy. There were actually two former computer guys out here today. One was still driving a flashy Mercedes, but willing to work in the film biz for 50 buckos a day. Makes me wonder if the bottom ever falls out of the Indian computer industry, that they will all go Bollywood and be extras.

Ran into this guy I met on my first day of signing up for service. If it sounds military, it is. Just like the military, we can't refuse our assignments. If you haven't told your calling service you are NOT available for the day, you must accept whatever work they book you on. We hung out and talked the whole time. I think I judged him harshly the first day I met him. Anyway, he told me a great story about talking to a guy on set for a day, and then the guy wanting him to TRADE apartments! He has a Venice beach apt., and the guy wanted him to trade for some dingey dung-hole in Valley Village.

"We could, you know, trade."

He also said that there is huge stoner culture in the Backies. What could be better to bake and then sit around munching on free food (yup, they have Cheetos on almost every set) and having intense converations about conspiracies? People have offered to bake with him, one guy farted the minute he walked off set, and then pulled out a pipe while the fart was still floating. Barely off-set, the guy who almost farted on him then wanted him to inhale pot fumes, not ass-gas.

We talked about mutual backies we loathe: the bozo-haired clown freak (http://no-biz.blogspot.com/2004/10/fuckstop-hotel.html). He also knew the background guy who walks around talking to himself, although he said he thought he had tourette's. Got thrown off a set once for saying "fuck!" Hmmm, I think this guy is the subject of much conjecture, but little cooroberation. We also talked about the background culture of complaint, usually the worst from the union folks, the one getting the good $$. They're absolute insistence on doing the least work, on a job that really is about doing the least work even when you're working.

This same backie tells me about being on a depression-era drama. Everytime you shoot, they have to give you a fucked-up haircut. He knows this, so delays getting his hair chopped until the series wraps. Then, he spends 50 bux he doesn't have on his hair. His one extravagance in a Ramen-noodle existence. Guess what? He gets a call, he's been booked on the Depression-era show again. They are doing reshoots. His hair, being just shorn a week ago, will get him past the hair gargoyles. He knows he's supposed to go to hair, but he toys with the idea of just going to set. Finally, he figures there's no way they could have an objection. He pokes his head in the trailer:

"Sit down in the chair."

His thought balloon reads: "FUCK FUCK FUCK"

The Backie allows himself a rare unedited moment, his sub-serviance breaks and he sez:

"Do I really need a hair cut, I just had one last week."

The hair care club is bored. He has given them purpose, life.

"You ARE getting a hair cut. Do you have a problem with that? Do we have a problem here? Do I need to contact the AD?"

He's being hit with shrapnel stares from all the cutters.

"No, no, I just had my hair cut a week ago, it was expensive, and ..."

"Well, how much was it?" He's sitting in the chair now. The cutter has the sharp object in her hands.

Meekly: "Fifty dollars."

She shreiks: "Fifty dollars for this!"gesturing to his head. And it starts. The kalediscope of shame. Each turn of his viewpoint reveals another hair shrew taunting him.

"You paid Fifty dollars too much."

"That's one sorry-ass fifty dollars."

"Let's see if we can get it to about 30 dollars."

So he sits and grits. Grits his teeth, indulging in fantasies of mutilation, leaving carcasses to rot out in the Angeles National Forrest. And they hack the shit outta his hair, hateful of their low-paying hair trailor jobs.

We're out in Pomona at a shooting range. Prolly the most democrats they've ever had at this place. I'm sure they'd like to use us instead of the skeets for target practice. Hills are starting to turn green, it's pretty out here. The hills even have decidious trees, it could pass for the east coast, or midwest if you navigate your shot away from the odd palm tree.

It's a show about Confidence Men, called "Cons." Stars the dude from Animal House, and he looks EXACTLY, I mean EXACTLY like he freakin' did. I sure don't look like I did 20-plus years ago, but this guy does. Fucker. They've got live bullets out here today, because the scene requires a guy to hit the skeet. The first shots fired by the actor, are just blanks. But they have color-coded shells for the shotgun, to know which contains the bullets. One of the backies points out that we are shooting the guns in the general direction of the freeway. I wonder how far the bullets carry?

Women director, quite possibly my first woman director. She has a really nice long down jacket on with cool fur collar. Easily the most stylish director I've ever seen, most of them dress like Schlubs. I thank Stevie Speilie for that, but it would be hilarious if as a director you started dressing over the top-again. Big and showy. Not on the mark of the old time ones, you should dress in today's garb, but it still should be broad.

I start yakking to the Union extra. He's also a stand-in, looks like he had to memorize some lines for a scene i see them rehearsing. He sez, no, I'm not an actor. Has too much respect for real actors, but then goes on to say most of them are crap actors. Respects Jim Garner a lot, was on Rockford for years and talked to him all the time. He also was on a TV show recently, one I had never heard of.

I asked him who the star was. He said:

"Fuck if I know. I don't give a shit about some star. All I know is if we reach for the doughnut at the same time, I'm gonna get it."

We didn't shoot shit today. They let us go without using us.