last daze of Mr. Dubois

I go back to props, and ask if they have any signs. Oh sure, they'll give me one. I point out that I'd like to have the one with "Amanda DuBois" on it. The dude's annoyed, but he hands it to me. I guess I asked for too much. Ha, ha, whatever, I've got my sign again.

Props has asked the P.A.'s to tell us to quit ditching our props at various places in town. To take them back to props, or they'll keep us the extra HOURS it takes to gather them. An elderly black extra sez loud enough for the P.A. who just got off the megaphone admonishing this to us

"they'll never do this, that's total bullshit. they're gonna pay all these people the extra two hours? just drop your props and get outta this bullshit."

I can see the P.A. walk away steaming. Oh well, try not lying next time. I am finally on placed on the dreaded bridge. Till you've been to the bridge, you're not really battle-tested. It is here that we have read of the double-headed-hydra STEVE SIMON and his mud cannons of death. It is on this bridge that Backies dreams of the cush life have perished, that lungs swell with dirt. You can feel the tension everywhere before camera rolls, Backies craning their heads to find the Mud Thrower, and its master, STEVE SIMON. The bridge sits over a swollen river bed, an old railroad bridge, very scenic. But for us 300 nervous folks, it's a suspended target for STEVE SIMON to assail. We wonder if our tales will end up in song and story. Finally we hear "action!" And all we do is march, they don't even turn the sprinklers on us. I feel like I enlisted for combat in Iraq and ended up a cook in the mess. I'll come from this battle with no mud on my uniform. But also not in my lungs either.

The union extras are having it tough on this shoot. I've seen some shooed away from craft services (that's a no-no, union's supposed to be able to eat what the crew eats), and they can't bring their beloved chairs. The ubiquitous beach chair, that folds up in your satchel. I was so green my first day on set, I thought this black dude in dreads was carrying a musical instrument in his satchel. The chair has stirrups to put your feet in, some have built in toilets and T.V.s, massage fingers, a microwave, fridge, etc. Nope, no chairs today, just the curb and your suitcase as a pillow.

I love when non-union extras say "I'm in this for the money! I don't care whether I'm in the shot, as long as I get paid." If you're in this for the money, you can go work at Starbucks, get better money, and a uniform. You don't have to stare up at some Queen standing on the back of a wardrobe truck denouncing you for not bringing three extra business suits, sheilding your eyes from the blinding sun and the rage. You're in this cuz you think showbiz is glamorous, and you want to be close to it. Period. Maybe if you're in the union, you've gotten use to the life, the meals, the small amount of exertion. Maybe.

I was a good boy the night before, stayed with my group, and got reamed. Last in line for wardrobe, last in line for the buses back to the parking lot. We got out at 7:30AM. SO late, I decided to just sleep in my car for 2 and 1/2 hours before dealing with the Rush Hour traffic.

It was still raining on Friday morning. Friday rush hour traffic in the rain. On the Freeway Five. No thanks, my seats recline. I told one extra my plan before we got off set, and he said "the P.A.'s will make you leave the parking lot for liability." Bullshit. Extra's love to make grave pronoucements that sound based on fact, but I noticed several cars all who stayed and slept with me. If I could of, I would have slept till the calltime, that would have bought me almost 1.5 more hours of sleep, but I couldn't hack it in my car after a while.

The basecamp was a quagmire. The rain had reduced it to mudbath, our extra's tent had a hole in the roof. They had strewn hay everywhere to try and erdicate the puddles of water and mud. I was hanging with peeps I knew from early productions, one of them knew a fellow Hollywood Death Cab tour guide. Another pal was there, she's always ditching and avoiding work on set. She's quite good at it. I felt annoyed that she had spent so much of this shoot inside, whilest I got rained on, and had vicious reprisal dreams of being an A.D. and placing her under the sprinklers, or in the way of the mud cannon.

You get crazy on a set. The makeup lady and I had bonded. She kept painting my face with this streaky tears, like my face was muddy, but I had cried on it for days, because: "have you seen her? have you seen Amanda DuBois." Yup, I'm Mr. Dubois. I love sitting in the makeup chair and having someone attend to me. I'll even miss a meal for it, if you went to makeup at the start of the day, you risked having them shuffle you off to set without a first meal, they were hustling folks pretty good. I actually got my food and hid behind these giant crates, eating standing up in the rain, so that I could enjoy my food. I had showed up on time, waited in lines for makeup and wardrobe, I was going to have my food!

Extras kill me when they try to say that us getting fed is "nice." That we should be "grateful." Us getting fed is a convenience FOR THE PRODUCTION. It keeps us close at hand. It's the middle of the night in a small town, we can't wander and eat. Then, while we eat, they can yell at us. That's the worst. Remind me if I'm ever a director to let extras eat in peace. They've been getting directed around all day by bullhorns, let them have their half-hour meal in peace. Even in a horrid office environment, when you step out to lunch, you are free from your boss lecturing you. Unless you lunch with your boss, and then you're a toady or just stupid.

I talk for a long time with the gal who dated my Hollywood Death Cab pal. She was a former beauty pagent winner. I keep asking her pageant questions. She tries to defend the swimsuit competition as "showing off your athleticsm." I say it's girls in their underwear walking around. I convince her to get up front and crash the party on Cat Bruz's car. We've been set in the back of the scene, but we just sneak up front. This time his car is going very fast around a corner. We chase it, and she laffs the whole way. Then we hear the P.A.'s yelling at us again for smiling. I was grimacing cuz I was sprinting, but I wasn't smiling.

Oh, and Stanley Spongymeyere gets from out behind the camera. He was filming the scene, riding on an arm, sticking out precariusly from the camera car, in front of the picture car that Cat Bruz was in. As it gets closer to the end of the night, I notice one of the other groups is heading towards props. I leave my group and de-prop with this group, and follow this ride all the way through wardrobe and getting on the bus. I've ditched my beauty pagaent friend (when you're going stealth, you need to travel light), and I'm going home, a good hour before all my pals in the other groups. I was afraid right until I got in my car, they'd out me for ditching my group to go home early. But, I escape, it's all done and I drive home as the sun comes out for the first time in days. It's beautiful, the mountains are beautiful, I notice little hamlets tucked amongst the mountains and hills which are so green in the California winter. I promise to take my gay lover through here and back to set, and we do on Sunday. I show him all the places: Look, here's where the guy drank a forty ouncer every night. Here's the lady with the geese. Here's where they tied the eastern-looking-leaves on the trees. This is the place the turned into an antique store. This is the house of the family who complained it was 3AM and their kids couldn't sleep, so 100 extras on their front lawn tried to be quiet. Here's where all the heat lamps were, and the Mocca truck, and the In-and-Out burger truck, and this is where make-up put up little pup tents to shelter themselves from the rain. All gone now, like walking the battlefield at Antetim, the old soldier tries to explain the battleground to someone who wasn't there.