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."