Fit to be costumed

Fittings are an experience where you paid a very little money to usually go somewhere very far, and be abused by people who are very angry. Film is often called a collaborative medium, and because of the amount of people involved, it's often the communication that gets fucked up first. For the fitting we had today, it was told to us clearly: bring a white t-shirt, and bring water-proof shoes -- IF YOU HAVE THEM. Nowhere on the phone message did it tell us: if you don't have water proof shoes, don't show up. So, when the costume person went up to me for the fitting, the first thing they asked was "do you have waterprooof shoes?"

With my best apologetic voice, I said "No, sorry."

And then this person glared at me. "Hmmmmm."

As a peace offering I said, "I brought my white t-shirt, do you want me to put it on?"

"No, we specifically asked that people do not bring white t-shirts." I sat there feeling like I had failed this person in every way possible.

I let this feeling grip me for a few seconds while they took my measurements, and then I said: "Wow, on the tape they said to bring a white t-shirt and to bring waterproof shoes IF you had them."

"Well, the tape was wrong," the person spit out and STILL glared at me.

"Right, the tape was wrong, but I executed it's demands, so that doesn't make me wrong."

I got ignored. Just kept dressing me and ignored me I was glad I stuck up for myself. There's a fine line between being a tweaked out extra, railing at every injustice and vibrating with anger, and just sticking up for yourself. There are a number of people on sets, who want to yell at someone. These people most likely just got yelled at themselves. Wardrobe was fitting legions of extras, it must feel like they were at Burger King, and the bus full of hungry Baptists just pulled up. "In the shit," as they say in the restaurant business. So, when you're crushed by your job, who presents a better target then the extra? We have no power. We are the lowest of the low, the untouchables. You can yell at us, and be assured very little fallout, as opposed to yelling at the A.D. who was mean to you, etc. That's why I make it clear that when you are going to use me as the target to your anger, I'm going to answer all your assertions back, even if it takes me a while, because of the stunning nature of their audacity. My whole thing on set is not to get yelled at, to prove I'm the one extra who listens and executes. So, when I get barked at for doing exactly what I was told to do, I'm starting to talk back. The furniture talks back, I'm baaaaaaaaad furniture, and will prolly be thrown on the bonfire.

As I sit in this waiting room of extras to be fitted, I think how none of us will be remembered, and even if we are, so what. John Wayne is remembered, but he cares as much about that as Skeeter, the extra in all of his films. They're both dead to the fact they ever existed at all. Yet, there's that desire while alive, to not be buried in the unmarked grave, to say: Josh Ramsey was here. In a prison movie, when they toss the dead convict into the prison burial ground, that's always the saddest part to me. Unmarked graves. Staying an extra seems like getting buried in an unmarked grave.

We are getting fitted for a Stanley Spongymeyer film: Citizen Kane. The fitting is at Worldwide Studios, same place where our Hollywood Death Cab is allowed to go through. Same film I have to pretend doesn't exist, when we go past the sets. Although: this just in: I went up to the sets today, and talked to some folks, and apparently we are now plugging the movie and the sets. Huh.

It was nice to hang out with some of the Hollywood Death Cab tourguides, but we are all worried: the cool, second-in-command boss is leaving, and that means that one of the awful, toadies may replace him. Mean and Meaner they are, and I'm afraid one of them is going to get the job. Our job's only alure is doing the job itself, so if one of these clowns gets power, it's going to severly hamper that aspect. Both would be very suited at being in a carnival. During our training, it was such a revelation to me when I got someone other than these two to be my mentor. That mentor actually worked off the assumption that you had passed the audition for this job, because you were good, and that you had something to offer the Hollywood Death Cab. It was his job to bring that out of you, meanwhile acknowleging all the good things about you. Totally different from the approach of the two clowns, who's goal was to let you know they were the coolest and funniest tour guides ever, and you were soooooo hack. Meanwhile, within days of my first tours I was already getting favorable comment cards back from the guests and even crotchety drivers. Huh, go figure?

Back to the movie I'm getting fitted for: apparently there's a scene in the pouring rain, so we are getting rain gear, and are told to bring plastic baggies to put our feet in.

"You will get wet."

"You will be cold." They tell us.

I guess this gets them off the hook for anything the subject us to now. Oh lord, I've been reading some extra web-sites, and apparently they shot mud down people's lungs that stayed for two daze.

Finally, at the fitting was one of my favorite extras, a guy named Mort. Mort was saying that he was alive when the original Citizen Kane was broadcast on the radio.

Mort also will say to you: "You look like a thinker, son."

Me: "Thank you, I'm pensive."

Mort: "Pensive, that's a good word. Do you believe in conspiracies?"

"Well, uh, I believe that you are conspiring to lecture me Mort."

Mort is also a faith healer, a layer-on-of-hands. I've seen the most henious A.D., the ugliest wardrobe person, healed by his presence. He simply puts a hand on them while talking to them, and they calm down. He's a kindly old man of 70-something, and his presence takes the anger and hate out of people. He's probably the most key person on any set, and has prevented any number of disasters and break downs. There are so many people on set that have that too-cool-for-school, hollywood hostility, brimming beneath there jocular demeanor. When things go bad, the monster face comes out in them, and Mort is the best at both teasing out the monster face, and then making them parachute back down to earth.

School for Scandal

I'm here on this new show starring Elie Sonthomp called "Jane Smith." We're way the fuck out in post-Pomona, Clairmont being the actual city I believe. We're in a neighborhood of MacMansions, look-a-like pimples sprouting up on the hills like a nasty outbreak. This particular McMansion has a enuff expensive bad taste to be used as a mafia wedding host. Every now and then the owners walk by, and I can't believe they bought all this junk. The ceilings protrude down like the layers on a gaudy wedding cake. Everything looks like a wedding cake, the columns, the ornate touches.

Elie Sonthomp looks great, she was the star of that most famous trilogy, Front to the Past, much of which was shot at Worldwide Studios, a place our Hollywood Death Cab gets to go through some times. She played a small-town girl in Front to the Past, but today she's dolled up to look like a mob moll, although I suspect she's an FBI undercover. Not sure what's going on in this plot, and the AD's weren't kind enough to explain to us what was going on. We have this one A.D. who I'd like to light on fire and watch burn. She's got on a form-fitting top so her jugs jut out. She has this harsh, throaty party-voice, and she uses the condescending kintergarten teacher tones when speaking to us. I had just gotten to set, and she started to yell at me about something I had done wrong, and I was like: "WHAT?"

She realizes she's in a bit of a bind, I bite back, and tries to tell me what crime I've committed, and I cut her off with: "I've executed every command I've been given." She shuts up and wanders away, trying to chat up someone higher on the chain. She flirts shamelessly all day with the males, and turns up the charm super high for one of the male actors. He's from a great cop show, he's an ex-basketball player, looks like Dean Martin in his prime. Kool degenerate look. She is trying to catch his eye and suceeding. I have no problem with this, but it's the drastic change in tone and posture everytime she sez one thing to one of us background folks. Like she's had to go back into the leper pits of Calcutta and is disgusted. She is like so many of the other A.D.'s I've noticed. SO intent, treating this like a war, and us like cannon fodder, hoping to throw their pebble in the pond and have someone notice the waves.

Everyone does it on a set, to a degree. To try to be noticed. To end up not just a grip, but a key grip, to be the D.P, to be the director, to be the star. All the crew has either got their own, or worked on a buddies short film at one time. I get the healthy desire to rise, but some are so feckless and ugly about their stomp to the top. This chick is a Glick, a Sammy Glickette, from the greatest of all LA Tales "What Makes Sammy Run."

I'm talking to an extra who assures me that "Rob Morrow is a dick." He was on a show with him where he walked around glowering the whole time. Rob did, not the extra. This extra and I decide to open an School for Socialization, to help out some of our more backwards backies. Some of our lesson plans include:

Try Listening! You know when someone else is speaking, it's not just your cue to breathe and gather more things to say about yourself when they stop! If you say something that pertains to their last comment, it might actually engage them!

Don't talk about your health ailments all day.

Don't Playah-play any girl in sight. You look like a dog trying to pee on every vertical object, when he's clearly outta piss.

Don't brag about your impending stardom.

Don't do your stand-up routine because someone gave you eye contact.

Try to talk about things other than joining the union. It gets old fast.

Don't shove your political beliefs down people's throats. Think that they might actually disagree with you before you bray!

Don't interrupt crew members when they are doing their job.

Listen to the A.D.'s blocking directions and try to follow them!

This guy and me are having a great time relaying all the various things our school could teach. We like the idea of the Sophisticated Background Artist emergeing from our school, able to walk with a script balanced on his head, and use the right fork when stealing from the craft services table.

Meanwhile, we are set up on these tennis courts, and two background dudes dressed as waiters, have figured out how to play tennis. They're using a ball left behind, and sandles for paddles. quite skilled actually. I can't believe the A.D. lets them play, I was sure I was going to hear the word "liability" at some point. Later backies start pitching at a water bottle they set up across the court. One guy just jumps in and starts demanding the ball, instead of waiting his turn. Yup, we'd sentence him to Background Breeding school.

I wonder, can normal, sane people only do this job so long, before they go "backie-ballistic" or get feral, or just get out. I look at the backies' books around me on the tennis courts, they are all self-help: food, diets, pysche, colon-cleansing, religion, etc. Everyone's trying to cure themselves. This show is bad, lots of lame, bad obvious mob jokes, but I do like the director using a lot of hand-held camera, and trying to get different shots, that he's coming up with on the fly.

At one point, he's musing about his shots, and the camera grip sez "Comon, we got a man on a stick here," telling the director to hurry up and make up his mind, the camera dude is lugging around a very heavy camera on a stick that's attached to his body. Breach of class, was surprised the director didn't fire the dude.

I've decided I want to see a show that uses one extra. You dress him up, send him on crosses both ways. It would be like: we're the cheapest show, we'll only use one extra. After a while, viewers would start to notice, "Hey, that same guys always in the background! They don't use anybody else! Wasn't he just the doctor, now he's an orderly!"

At last I hear those pavlovian words we backies love to hear: "Martini shot!" (last shot of the day), "Checking the Gate," (makes sure film fired okay, and means your through with that particular shot). I wonder when God comes to get me, he'll say: "Hello Josh, I'm here to check your gate."

Pull a string, win a prize

"I played Billy Starbuck in the Rainmaker, my director said I was great. It was in Farrow, tiny city outside of Denver, but I can sing, you know, I can sing really good, did karaoke last night and this skank started slinking all over me, I've done several roles, several that should have been principles, I'll do whatever it takes, I'm thinking of selling these pills, this Dr. Schultze, he's not saying he's curing cancer, but he can fix your liver, I mean, it can't be lies, they can't say this unless it's true?"

My first chance to say something: "Well, actually herbal pills get a lot of leeway."

[blank stare from the blabber. I try harder to reach him.]

"If you are a pharmaceutical drug, you have strict FDA monitoring of your claims, but herbal gets away with a lot more boasting. Think about all the penis enhancement ads you get in your e-mails. Those are all herbal."

[blank stare from the blabber. I try more harder to reach him.]

"If you have a pharmaceutical product that sez it makes your penis hard, then it has to work. But herbal ..." I stop talking, I can see the extra is not enjoying this conversation in the middle of his monologue.

"Well, yeah, I just really hope I can get this job. My girlfriend sez in a good way "Ohhh, you're an actor," and I'm like, you're not from around here, and she's not: she's from Luxembourg. She wants babies, house, etc., but I don't want all that. I went up and approached her on the beach, she's in her undies, basically, that's what a swimsuit is, but I just went for it. I don't want to get married, but right now it's going okay, I just need to get some lines, cuz when I was in the Rainmaker ..."

All of this from an extra to whom I exchanged a few pleasantries. I think of many of these extra as talking dolls, by saying just a few words to them, or nodding their way, you've effectively pulled their string, and then the unload their tortured speil. When they are finished, they fall silent again, head slumps forward, and they wait for the next person to pull their string.

I was hearing all this in Irvine, we were shooting a commercial for Kaza, the file-sharing company. We were at a giant field hockey stadium, and it was a mass cattle call. Which means, they often cheap you out on food. The craft services was a joke, and they had In-and-Out for lunch. No fries either. They had us in the stadium, yelling for four hours, with very few bathroom breaks and no water available or craft services. On one break, when extras tried to leave to find some water, they had PAs close the gates to the stadium as we ran toward them (it felt very war-time) and then not let us out any exit.

Yelling makes you thirsty, and it was fairly cruel to not give peeps access to water. When we went to leave, we first got our vouchers, and we had to wait in line to get them, and wait in line to get them processed. This added an extra hour onto our day that we didn't get paid for. In a word: butt-fucking-bonanza.

Of course, because of the large number of extras, people we're hiding in the stadium's restrooms, not coming back to their seats, etc. Clowns. We had a tiny chinese director, who was dressed in the most predictable flashy hip-hop ensamble and trucker hat. The commercial was fairly predictable as well, belly dudes with their naked guts hanging out, proclaiming "Kazaa" on their painted bodies. A funny-ha-ha mascot for Kazaa. Superbowl commercials are long on $$$, but short on ideas. They generally suck. As overblown as the fucking game itself, and I am one gay man who loves football.

Oh, this commercial we were filming is meant for the Superbore. At one point the A.D. was exhorting us to cheer "as if we were at the Superbowl." Well, we were cheering as if we were at the superbowl. As one who's been, it's a bunch of corporate fucks on a marketing hoedown, wondering what next free trinket and food will come there way. About 100 real fans who've scalped their way into the game, but the rest ... ugh ... disinterested business dudes ...

Afterwards, a few of us found a Norm's on their mobile internet unit, and we went and had breakfast, lumberjack breakfast, steak & eggs, etc. We talked about American Idol and sang 80s songs to the annoyance of the other customers.

Dig this Grave

Did the popular show: Grave Diggers yesterday. About a family who operate a private cemetary. Never liked the show, felt the director/creator was a bitchy theater queen who viewed normal people as sideshow freaks. This director did a movie about suburban people that had no resemblence to any cul de sac culture I ever knew. The movie had housewives in the 90s listening to Bobby Darin singing South Pacific (ah, no, they would have been listening to Sting, or Kenny G.), military fathers beating their kids like outta James Dean 50s movie. Oh, and a girl searching the internet to have breast-enlargement surgery, and, when she reveals her breasts in a scene: they're huge!!! Oh, the irony! Fraud! Liar! Big-breasted girls want reduction surgery! They are as equally weirded-out by the unwanted male attention their boobs have been getting them as small-breasted girls are weirded-out by the lack thereof.

On this show, Grave Diggers, I watched the opening epie, and said "no thanks." The first scene is the wife being told her husband is dead. She's cooking, dressed like she's on the Donna Reed show circa 1950, not a houswife today, and when she hears the news, she tumbles and bumbles through the kitchen, knocking off all the pots and pans and ladels (oh what a metapor!), with this weird movement, that feels more coregraphed by a modern dance instructer. Then, sitting on the floor, she looks up at the camera and sez dreamily "the potroast is burned." Wow. What a bunch of hooey.

Anyway, we were doing a scene at a convention for the Mortuary crowd, and one of my favorite actresses, Zillie Stewart was on. She was the longtime gal-pal of the director Bart Goali. He's easily one of the great art-house/commercial directors we have in Hollywood, hasn't made anything good in a bit, but his resume includes such films as Sulke Driver, Before Daylight and the gangster classic: Bad Dudes.

Zellie Stewart gets lil' parts here and there, and always brings great engergy and zest to whatever she does. In today's scene Zellie was seducing a guy in a graveyard, and they started shimming up and down a rather large obelisk. We were milling around the graveyard, it was a daylight scene, with commercial booths being set up on the graveyard hawking products to the Graveyard Association convention goers. Apparently, it's based on a real event. I got a convention nametag for "Thomas Lynch," someone on the show is in the know. Thomas Lynch is a real-life Michigan funeral director, a world-class poet, and the author of this great book: The Undertaking. I've given the book as gifts to several friends, and I can no longer find my copy, I must have loaned it out. I kept the name-tag (for shame! return all props to props), and am sending to him with a story of being on the set. Hope he gets a kick outta it. I have a sneaking suspicion this show was based in part on his book, but he never got any credit or money from the project.

I was paired with a patrician lady, who was doing extra work as a lark. I think she is star-struck. She's also a wiz at scene stealing. She ignored the directons the A.D. gave us, and steered us right to where the camera would get the meatiest shot. She was from my neck of the woods, Michigan, but she was from a different tree than me: Gross Pointe. She's got kids, she's a former world-class dressage rider. And yet, some 24-year-old A.D. is talking down to her like she's a convict. The lady doesn't care, she just smiles politely, and then goes and sticks herself in the shot. She literally yanked me into the scene once, when I thought the backies had congested an area. They were all congregating in this area, because they too had figured out it was the most visible place to be. She yanked me into the shot, and shoved people outta the way. Fierce. Then she started waving her arms as if to say hello to a friend across the room, taking the focus off the principles.

Great lil' momma-bird, I'll bet her kids never missed a worm. Looked like a pint-sized Anne Bancroft, and yet she's played spanish folks often. What irony, the person making 50-bux-a-day playing the maid in a scene, actually employs one for her Calabasas McMansion. Her maid prolly gets 100 dollars (+) a day ...

I had to do a costume change for two different scenes, with costumes I had brought myself. This should mean a bump in pay, but the brisk PA, Franielle, said "no" when I brought this up to her as I was signing out. So, I walked back a few paces in line, asked one of my fellow Backie's the A.D.'s name, repeated loudly ("Franielle?"), loudly enuff to get Franielle's attention, and dramatically brandished my cell phone as I walked outta the holding tent. My perpiph-real vision showed her staring daggers at me. Yes, I called SAG and informed them of her name, and her not letting me get a bump for this. May she rot in hell. I am tired, tired, tired of the braying phone messages telling us to bring 3 costume changes, 3 armani suits, etc., when no one informed us we would need to outfit our own lil' wardrobe department when we signed up for this life.

It's ... just ... fucking ... tacky. Grave Diggers is a hugely successful show in it's Fifth season. Your wardrobe department should be just that: a wardrobe department, not a place where bitchy people can yell at you for not having three three-hundred-dollar dress suits on your $50-a-day salary. As I've said before, McDonald's pays you the same, but at least they give you polyester to wear, and all the fries you can stomach. (I can't wait till I get the call to be an extra on a McDonald's commercial: "PLEASE BRING THREE POLYESTER SUITS. IF YOU DON'T HAVE THEM YOU WILL BE FIRED.")

I don't think I would have the nerve to be standing high up in my wardrobe truck, on my successful show, looking down at some background performer making $50 a day, and castigating him for not showing up with three business suit changes. I just don't have that kind of gall. This explains why I went snitch-mode when Franielle, the A.D., would not give me my costume penalty I was due.

Pound of flesh

Did the movie yesterday, "My Pal's Hoochie." Should be a good flick, the director did my flavor-fav movie about Los Angeles: "Defective and Mundane." The movie has a scene in it where the lead character makes his girlfriend tell him the truth about his dick and love-making ability. Not the nice things you say, but the absolute, real truth. He's in that rare mood to hear the truth.

Anyway, "My Pal Hoochie" was shooting down in my old stomping grounds of Hermosa Beach, at the Fabulous Atkins Diet Center. The good doctor got very rich, so he built a castle on the sea where he served people eggs and bacon, but no hash browns.

The ballroom we are in is exquisite, it's decked out to look like a charity auction. I'm a rich patron, sitting at a table with my young trophy wife. In a tux, nice tux I might add. Just yesterday I played a non-vocal local yokel from Ohio, today I'm a swell.

At the table next to me are the STARS. And they are some big ones. Shrimpy Dude from Mally McGuiver show, Fanny O'Shea ACADEMY-AWARD winner from the movie Ferretville, Jan Poolbag (great character actor and sister to Don Poolbag), Chelia Curious (genuis star of the aforementioned "Defective and Mundane") and the mega-watt woman, of the JUMBO-fied celebrity marriage: Genuine Whalepound.

Genuine Whalepound (parent's were actor/hippies, named her Genuine high on the dope), called "Genny Whale" by the Tabloids. She has carried on the celebrity marriage of the decade to Mean Spittle. Mean Spittle. Once in a movie, his close-up was so lush, I thought, "I'd fuck him twice for good measure."

Mean Spittle and Genuine Whalepound had carried on a public courtship, a public marriage, and it would appear now, a public breakup. Genny Whale was at the table, trying to act, to laff at the jokes, but she looked distracted. And of course, every extra was sneaking looks at her, the crew, all of us wondering how she was holding up. My gay lover told me that three publications had moved up their publishing date just to accomodate issues devoted solely to the breakup.

The pappa-ratsies were circling the building looking for Whale carrion. Even the Key Grip on this movie was a fucking star. He's prolly the most famous Key Grip on planet earth: Opal Bob's hubbie, Stan Nazgul. I have never heard a Key Grip called to by name on a set, and often. And deferred to.

"What should we do now Stan?" Almost as if saying his name invoked the magic of the Cute Girl herself, Opal Bob. I had to give it up to Stan, he's definately the hottest Key Grip ever, an occupation usually reseved for trolls and root-hogs.

I saw Opal Bob and Stan Nagzul arguing outside of a 7-11. There were two very young peeps in a very expensive car, and they both had on baseball caps and shades, meanwhile it was overcast and raining. Opal Bob flashed her crocadile teeth and I knew it was them. If you have a nice car in LA, you can have one young, nice-looking person in it, but if it's two, one's gotta be old and decripit. The ATM machine of the relationship. Two beautiful people in a nice car, can only be a celebrity hookup. Plus I knew they had property in the neighborhood.

The My Pal Hoochie scene was snappy and wicked: they were making fun of the dumb shit people have at charity auctions in LA. Dialgue:

"Rat Fallenfork will knit you a sweater-vest."

"Be an Extra on the show Governor!"

"Who would pay $1000 to be an extra?"

Only the uninitiated thought I. Chelia Curious was definately trying to keep spirits up here. She kept joking with all the other stars, but Genny Whale would give her only the polite laff, and then look off in the distance.

We had guards posted at the various entrances to the ballroom, it was tense. The film was also crawling with gal-pals, me thinks the director is a lesbian, and good for her. Was nice to have such a girly feeling on the set. Do chix colloborate more than dudes? My experience has shown it to be true, lest I get dragged in front of the Stereo Typers.

Most sets feel like warzones, the folks dressed in camoflague, the walkie's talking, and yet no one's dying. Here the A.D.'s were not of the overwhelmed variety, just doing their job on a movie set. Met a nice kid who's parents own a cute lil' playhouse in Arcadia. I talked to him a long time, and then he excused himself to go to the bathroom. I hope I didn't freak him out as the gabby extra eccentric. The kid is going to play Curt Flood (the man who broke Baseball's Reserve Clause) in a play at his parent's place. I had noticed this playhouse before, and in my other life in accounting had tried to book it for our accounting christmas party.

My pal from Nepal was back, and I saved a seat for him. I tell him the weird contrast of my jobs: at Hollywood Death Cab it's talk, talk, talk for four hours, and here's it' shut-the-fuck-up for 8 hours. odd.

Weird chick from Paris who looked like Pricilla Presely sat next to me. When I first sat down, I was amongst all girls (they had been to wardrobe first for some reason), so I was one of the first guys in this all girl-section. I remarked to Pricilla that I felt like I was back in the choir. Ya know, the choir being the domain of the gals, with a few gay dudes like me innit. She looked at me blank. Okay. Finally, she started to talk to me about her Learn Spanish! workbook she was filling out. She had found a story funny about a pilot who turned out to be a "hitchhiker."

I corrected her misread: "I think that's hijacker."

She started to tell me about being at a party in Paris and being hit-on by Mickey Rourke for about an hour. She thought he was perfectly charming. Then she went to another party where Mickey was also at that night, and she said hello.

"Who are you?" said Mickey. She was sure he was on drugs, and we talked about his speed habit, how it pockmarks you skin, makes your cheeks puff out, etc. Our conversations peetered out, and I was staring straight ahead again.

She starts laffing again, and I ask her whasso funny?

"Oh this story I'm reading, it's about a pilot who's really a hijacker," and she proceeds to tell me the whole story of the spanish-book airline for the SECOND time! What the???

There's a big mirror in front of me in this waiting area. I keep making faces in it, animated faces, proud faces, determined not to get that beaten-down extra face.

It's odd to see all these well-dressed extras pumping water like 18th century farmers. We've been given a strange water contraption for drinking out of, you have to pump it to get water. It's also eerie to be so close to the ocean, an angry ocean at that. It's blowing hard today, and the elements make you think of how tiny you are should the shit go down. The Tsunami claimed many folks, and there's a big scary ocean right next to us, with earthquake faults no doubt running under it. In fact, in our extra's tent, the tent threatened to billow up and swallow us at any moment, leaving the extra's swimming in canvas, trying not to get hit by the sharp nails used to fasten joints. I didn't bring a book today, no pad to write on, so I'm forced to fancy.

I'm constructing elaborate fantasies about suddenly speaking in a scene, improving a genuis moment that makes the director realize I'm the missing element of the film. Has this happened? Ever?

This shit is a lot harder to do once you've tasted the union $$$. I'm working non-union today, and for a bit, until I have cleared the forty-five day period for union joining. Has to be forty-five daze from when I did my union jobs on Visionquest.

What about being an extra is so desparate? It is it a legitmate thing to do? A trap for all the goys with stars in their eyes? The only jewish person I ever met in this had Tourette's. Wait, that's not true, the gal's who's sister wrote a best-selling book was doing my last boat movie. I even saw an extra on some HBO documentary today, and he looked off. Extras always seem beaten to me, and like smudged duplicates of the originals. Originals like Genny Whale, forced to divorce with cameras crammed up her ass.

I'm working on Governor! (the musical), one of the longer-running drama shows still left on the reality-landscape of television. And, I'm working with one of it's biggest icons: Nala Neldon, the star of the great sitcom: S*Q*I*U*S*H. Today he's on Governor, which is the show I'm booked on. Long-running TV shows have laid-back peeps, no one's too worked up. Wardrobe is tough on this show, because it's about the Ohio Governor, they frequently want you to have expensive suits. Network show, successful, but the wardrobe department is required to lean heavily on the peeps just above the poverty-level to supply their product.

Nala plays a gubentorial candidate, and during breaks waxes nostalgic about S*Q*U*I*S*H. He talks about their head writer, an alumni from the Alqonquin Roundtable of Comedy Writing: Sid Ceaser's show of shows. Their headwriter would knock out a script in seconds, not unlike the Governor's [roducer/creator/headwriter, who wrote 96 of the episodes. That's a lot of writing. When Nala plays his scene he looks directly at me, in my eyes, and I try to give him a skeptical look. Then the young latino star, Denny Spatz shows up, and he plays his scene to me as well. I even talk to him a bit. I'm playing an Ohio farmer today, got my Carhart hooded jacket on, which now has been picked up by the hipsters. I was in a swanky kitchen store the other day, and I saw a man wearing shot-sleeve t-shirt over long-sleeved flannel, work boots, and a mesh hat with "John Deere" on it. In my youth, he would have been the 155 pounder on my high school wrestling team, dressed up for the dance, but now he's a gay man, borrowing rural icons. I've decided to stay a gay man, dressing like a gay men, not a cartoon character.

I'm thankful to be dressing rural/hip today, so at least I didn't have to show up in a suit and get yelled at for not having three more ... Nala Neldon finishes his scene to an older extra saying "How do you think they keep the prices low at Walmart?" I interject, when the older background guy stays mute,

"Because they sell cheap crap."

"Cheap Crap?," sez Nala Neldon laffing.

"Well, where do you shop?"'

"Kmart of course. Walmart sucks," I say, and get a laff.

The extra all give me shit and buzz about the Kmart vs. Walmart fracas. The director thinks this improv brilliant, thanks me, and shoots the scene again with a close-up for me. I open my eyes and realize I've been asleep dreaming.

Our director has opened up the ice cream bar. We're filming in a real-life Arcardia diner, I actually use to come her in my accounting life, makes me feel weird. The director has opened up the production budget to include ice cream for everyone. One extra asks for ice cream, but I don't feel impertienient enuff to ask.

I hear the owner saying he wants to "drop the hammer" on one of his real-life waitreeses, she's been lazy lately. I tell this to the extra playing the waitress, just to past the time, and she sez she's gonna ask him for a job! She may play a waitress on TV, but she is one in real life! Our bartender in the boat movie, was actually a bartender in real life. Had those stand-up, bartender rythms to his delivery. I get called to be on set by the A.D., she sez "fresh face," and points at me. I haven't been called a fresh face in many-a-moon. It only means I haven't been on set yet, but so what.

It's raining like a mutha here, and yet the irony is, most of it will not show up on camera. You need to put milk in your raindrops to get them to play on screen. I also like what one of the grips sez when he gets asked by passerby's what they are filming: "Mayonaisse Commercial. Makes them go away every time."

The extra sitting next to me has a thumb that doesn't work. Doesn't point up all the way in the classic hitchiking pose (thumbs up). He sez it's worked to his advantage when hitchiking, people pull over to see why he's making such a weird signal, and not the traditional one. When he tries to make the "thumbs up," signal, it looks more like he has finger on the pin of a grennade.

Our setting is Ohio, but and they've figured that foreign cars are against the law in the midwest. They may be scarce, but certainly in the parking lot, you would see one. Not for Governor. They've taken out my car, which is foreign. They've also put fake license plates on all the cars, and little bits of carpet on the bottom of shoes that clack too much on the diner's floor surface. All day, I realize how foreign these peeps are to the midwest, all the dumb and broad assertions they make about the midwesterns. When people of any group complain that hollywood unfairly portrays them I always think: well, duh. That's their stock and trade: generalize and broaden to abstraction.

Model Waitress

Back at it. Sitting in Extra's holding, belly full. I think they should call it "steerage" instead of "holding" as this is another Boat Movie. Boat terror is big this year.

We got off the shuttle from the parking lot, and they fed us immediately. That will get you much goodwill from the extras. It's sad how simple it is. Feed us, give us a chair, tell us what's going on: we'll jump through hoops. At least most of us will, some might hide to avoid "work" ... the taxing work of being in a movie scene ...

This movie is called "Wavey Gravy." It's would seem the pond is stocked here, I've never seen so many hot chix for no good reason. A good reason being you need a waitress. Apparently, hollywood people have never seen a homely waitress. Or, even an okay-looking waitress. Needing a background performer for waitress is code for HOT GIRL. One step from being a model.

One of the hot girls playing a waitress today was nice college kid from Nebraska, she had speaking role in Spiderman (she even gets residuals) as one of Kirsten Dunst's friends. Beautiful, well-mannered girl. But, it's okay, you can have an normal-looking waitress once in a while. It's all part&parcel of the Holly-wood looks trade-up. Everybody needs to be better looking then their real-life counterpart. As Aaron Spelling said once: "I love beautiful people."

The amount of pretty girls as boat passengers is staggering. Is this a Ford Modeling convention on a boat? After talking to one of the producers ("Fuck the Love Boat," he sez about the other boat movie I was on, "they can burn in hell, I'm about competition.") I get the feeling there's some heavy-duty testerone at work here. I've also noticed the same producer talking to lots of the female extras, so the fix must be in and the fuck is being chased. I talk to him later and confirm, he's put a lot of friends and femmes on this shoot.

OK: I'm confirming this trend: butt cleavage is the new shocker. Blondie in front of me is sporting plumber's crack, but she actually encourages plumbing. The extra who was paired with me yesterday wouldn't speak to me for the first 20 times we crossed. I just pulled out my cell and turned us into the dysfunctional power couple. She's hot and knows it. It's funny how all the hottie girls have already aligned their heat, sitting together in a clatch. I feel like plopping down next to them and watch them scatter, like a pebble in a pond-making waves.

My former sit-com wife is here. She was an extra who was paired with me on a bad sitcom. She's 10 year's older than me and the girl they paried me with the other day was about 15 years younger. Arranged marriages in the extra world are kinky, forced to love against your will, you change into LOVERS!!!!

We are at an actual boat part in San Pedro, and actual boat passengers have wondered into our scenes. One latina tuff gal was noticed by an Assistant Director who noticed and shouted "bogie!" This means someone not belonging in the shot.

"Why you gotta call me Bogie?" she said in agry rap posture, a cartoon-carciture of MTV-gang-culture. Silly. The way rage has been polished into a marketable and predicatable trait both bothers and amazes me. We all laffed, and she shot back "Don't laugh at me, you don't gotta do me like that."

The drive-out today was like a vacation. Middle of the day call, I took the scenic route. Sunday drive.

It's weird when you are picked to go on set. You feel like you're back in gradeschool hoping to get picked by the older kids to play kickball. Or, if you're really dramatic, like in a holocoust movie, hoping to escape a terrible fate. The A.D. just walks in, and starts meeting eyes with people, determining what produce he wants from the grocery store of people. Some people avert their eyes to not get picked, but I usually try to meet the A.D.'s, so that I have something to do. If you can establish yourself (just like in kickball, where I was the 4th grader "who could catch"), you'll get picked.

As I mill around the set, waiting for a scene, I wonder: do all these folks get paid? Lotsa folks seem to have nothing to do. Are they office interns? Pals hanging out? One white kid over-dressed in hokey rap gear every day shows up, and does nothing. Is he someone's kid? There seems to be a crew of 20-somethings extras who are doing this as a lark, I notice them talking a lot to the producers and crew. The writer is on set almost every day too. He even ends up in a few shots. Every now and then, when the producer and writer get bored, they do crosses.

Basically being an extra is like being the extra-outfielder in softball. You have to stay alert on the small chance of action. Fuck off 99% of the time, but be ready that .001 when they need you. Don't be caught at the treat truck, in the toilet or on your cell phone.

Cell phones are getting to be a problem for sets. Morons forget to turn them off, and they go off in the middle of a scene. Nothing makes a director more angry then to have his scene ruined by an extra's cell phone. Also, folks are getting the camera kind, and the picture get out on the internet. So, should you happen to be on set with a disraught Jennifer Aniston, you can sell pictures of her to the tabloid looking all raggy.

On this boat movie, Wavey Gravey, I've been placed next to the principals in a bar scene. Boat bar scene. The director was admonishing our scottish star to make the conversation a game, to play at it. The scene is a cat-n-mouse establshing scene between the bad guy and the good girl. What a drag for this actor to be constantly admonished in front of the whole crew, holding up an entire movie crew because he can't manufacture the precise emotion the director calls for. That's the un-glamorous, high pressure side of movie acting. The director felt the scots levels were too narrow, and he's missing the key element of play. The director is famous, he's the creator of the Monty Gurcrew series -- horror staples.

Meanwhile, this snobby property person is making fun of my drinking style to his pals. The way I'm drinking my beer at the bar. Remember, on a movie set, we have to do our movements not so broad as to deflect attention from the foreground, and to not drink the beverage, so they don't have to worry about the levels in the glass jumping from take-to-take. This is called "continuity." The property flunkie wears a Villanova sweatshirt, and feels i'm hoisting my glass in a tortured way. He goes on the list.

I got busted for soup. A real-life Soup Nazi told me that they crew had not had theirs, and he took mine out of my hands. He didn't give it to anyone, he just took it out of my hands. I was embarrased enuff, I didn't hear that this was crew-only soup, a simple admonishment would do. But to take food out of a man's hands? God damn Soup Nazi.

Failure, desperation and delusion in Backie-Land. Will it infect me? When the waitress is always a model, do we normal folks have a chance? It makes me cringe and wince, to hear the desires and dreams of some of the extras. They are extraordinarily plain folks, yet they feel they have been called to this. They are sure they have talent. Of course, it's me hearing them and wondering: do others hear me in the same way? Perceive me as being so lame?

The sister of a big chick-lit novelist dances with fervently with her suitcase while we wait. I talk to her and tell her she reminds me of Freddie Mercury, dancing with his vacuum cleaner. "Is it funny? Wasn't it funny?" she sez to me more than once. She was an extra on her sister's movie, and now she's in the life.

Why does the wardrobe person straighten out our clothes? We've been on a boat for hours, people's collars get tangled. No, perfectly, uncrumpled clothes on movie people. stupid. Some of the A.D.'s lose track of who's an extra and who's not, we're in a bizzy boat area.

"are you a real person?" they ask someone who they think is a real boat passenger.

The boxer, Sweet Sam is about to get on another boat in our area. I rush down to meet and greet, other extras get a picture taken with him. I say that I know the producer, maybe he wants to be in the movie?

His wife sez: "Only if you kill him!"

I go down to the Producer and tell him Sweet Sam is here. He seems non-plussed.

Okay, whatever, I go to the bathroom. When I come back, Sweet is being filmed. Apparently someone else on set thought it was a good idea, or maybe he changed his mind.

After a few daze on this production, I notice there are no kid passengers. So today, they've booked kids. One cute lil' kid starts free-style rapping to me, the most filthy lyrics. Mom stands by beaming proudly.

The hot chix are now making newspaper hats, and one girl giggling, giggling, giggling. She looks fourteen, but I asked her, and she said she's 21. Smokes on breaks. She was placed in the bar scene with a man who looked like her father. Some of the bar patrons decided she was his babysitter, and they were having an illicit affair. She told her parents she was going to cheerleader camp, but she was spending the weekend with her LOVER!!! I told her our scenario and she said "Baby's gotta pay bills!"

I was in the bar for quite a stretch, it's a pivotal scene. My buddy in the bar (we were called the drunks), just told jokes and acted silly. Bonded. Then, when it was done, we didn't exchange phone numbers. So transient. You act like best buddies for 3 days in a row, and then off you go.

Other girls were sent home for lipstick offenses. Apparently, they weren't touching up their lipstick before going to set, and nothing brings down a movie quicker than extra's with low lipstick. So they sent one girl home. She was back the next day. She was the one with her ass-crack hanging out, so I guess she had some pull.

These shoots have all been union for me, and they start in the middle of the day, and go to 3AM. It's starting to feel normal to have bacon & eggs at 1:00 P.M. The union money is good, I like bringing home the bacon to my lovah.

On the last day of the shoot, I leave straight for Vegas at 3AM to join some pals at the porn convention. I pull into town as the sun rises over Vegas. After many hijinks and hooksups, I find myself with a real-life Carrie-Sex-in-the-City, a sex columnist for a respected New York paper ends up in our partying Vegascrew, and I watch as she takes a young marine, by the hand to sneak him into the woment's bathroom. "It's got a fabulous view," she sez. As they exit, her friend whispers to me "She's famous for writing about anal sex."