Mr. DuBois, what's your life path number?

I've chosen a placard for myself today on Citizen Kane. "Have you seen my daughter, Amanda DuBois?" So, I'm Mr. DuBois. Once again, the most deluded background artist in all of Hollywood, I'm building backstory and character for myself. Apparently, during our mass exdous, many of us are missing loved ones. On the railroad bridge there is a bulletin board of missing family members, and other background carrying signs saying who they are looking for. I never fail to ask any P.A., or passerby who looks at my sign (and most do), "have you seen her?" I do it with this overly pathetic face that makes people laff. Some of the response I get are:

"No."

"She's face down in the river."

"Yes, I see her, she's on your sign."

"She's tricking on main street."

To which I replied, "Awww, Daddy taught her well!" In fact, the video guy doing the "making of" dealie shoots me saying my "have you seen her" bit. Could this be my first spoken word in a Hollywood movie? Even if it ends up on the special's section of the DVD, I'll be happy. The sign I have has a picture of this pig-tailed cutie, Amanda DuBois. Real little girl, she's been joked about all day, and she doesn't even know it. Prolly a prop master's niece or nephew.

I brought my valuables today, and put them in a plastic baggie. I'm ready for rain now. It's really raining today, fairly hard. Our group leader today is awesome. Adam. Nicest P.A. or Second A.D. I have encountered. He gets us to lunch quick, gets us outta the rain, when the other P.A.s are letting their guys sit in the soup when the camera's not rolling. I'd climb a cliff for this guy. The first day, my group had a nasty chick who I've encountered on other movies. Harpy harridan shrew. Has that unhappy kintergarten teacher tone of voice that indicates her displeasure at having to talk to you. I ditched my group pretty quick that day, I couldn't deal with her.

Loads of doggies on set. Extras were picked to bring their dogs, and they get a special tent. Yes, the Dogs are treated better then the people. I try to go in their tent to steal food, but it's all kibbles and bits. My dogs are too ill-behaved to do this kinda work. They'd freak out with the stimulation of all these people&animals&mayhem.

Director Stanley Spongymeyer is unhappy. He's unhappy, because we're too happy. Extras are again laffing and smiling when they chase the car with star Cat Bruz, and it's showing up on the shot. They've got camera inside the car. The dalies have shown us to be grinning. Why not just CGI frowns on our faces? And for the first time, I see the man himself, Spongymeyer on set, come waltzing through smoking a big stogie. He's barking orders, but not too tweaked out. I remember seeing him once in Toys-R-Us, years ago, after he had finished a film shot on location in the orient for a year. He was filling up TWO shopping carts with toys for his kids. Daddies sorry he missed a year of your lives, but here's some toys!

I ask a couple of extras: what if this was real? this hurried exodus. Could Americans handle it? Iraquis, Europeans, Africans have all had to grab their shit and book in the last 50 years, but not us in the U.S. Most people gave the dirt-dumb answer:

"Fuck it maaaaaaaaaaan! I'd just stay put in my crib."

Yes, of course you would, you inconoclast. I want to see a scene in a movie where someone sez and does that exact thing, and then you see a giant boulder smash them while they are on the toilet.

Or, this one, "I'd grab a lady and make love." Yes, of course you would playah-player. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. These fools would be running for their lives.

Funny how New Yorker's love to make fun of Angeleno's for their illiteracy, yet everywhere on set I see cast&crew reading books, many of them staples of academia. The sky is so pretty tonight, looks like a backdrop, the clouds a violent pink. A matte painting almost. In this sky, we see Cat Bruz's helicopter land.

Meanwhile, I hear an extra holding court with two silly girls. I've enjoyed watching these ladies, oblivious to the rain, the cold, the standing, just laffing and laffing at their own jokes, making strange sounds, weird voices, their own orbit. They're having a grand time, punchy as drunks. Like Laverne & Shirley. Then this dude walks up to them and starts broadcasting:

"I really resonate with citrine. I love metaphysics. Many people are not ready for that kind of information. They need to let go and follow. I've been drinking water that I soak gems in. Emerald water."

The kid is kinda smart, but N-U-T-S. Now he's got the formerly giggly girls all sober and talking self-help, astrology, numerology, any logy that's dodgy.

"Vibrations, resistance, manifestations."

He won't drink black tea cuz it contains the wrong leaves, and he won't ingest sugar. He's from Columbus, Ohio. He tells them,

"I wanted a stereo, but I knew I wouldn't buy a new one. Then my stereo broke and I had to buy a new one. I manifested this."

"I wanted a surfboard to make a table, and I found one."

He went on some more about numerology:

"Fives are big things for manifestation. What's your life path number?"

What draws us humans to so patently foolish things? What causes us to crave the order of things unorderable? He keeps on spouting

"I'm giving power,"

"I'm into angels, Rapheal is my personal angel, but I actually communicate with Michael."

At this point our group has been un-used for a while, I lie down on a filthy street and put my head against my suitcase. I don't care, the sleep feels glorious, and we all look like street people at this point, beaten down by the rain and our lot in life. We haven't had access to sodas on this set, and I can only stay up drinking Mountain Dew. I hate coffee.

You really start to run down on a set at 3AM, after you've had lunch. I remember I used to say some night I would stay out drinking till the bars opened up at 6AM, but I always folded around 3AM. It's a black hour, 3AM, to try and stay awake and perform commands in the rain. Finally, we get to chase Cat Bruz's car again, and this time I manage to get up against the window, and I hear an A.D. yell to me "press your sign against the window!"

I do so, and I mouth to Cat Bruz "have you seen her?" and he's acting right back at me, shaking his head, disoreinted by the chaos around his car. It's cool, I didn't have to audition, to go to Julliard, to suffer the rounds of casting for this film: I just signed up to be an extra, and here I am looking Cat Bruz in the eye, and he's looking back at me, and we're acting up a storm.

Mr. DuBois I am, looking for Amanda. "Have you seen her?"