This Fresh Hell

Young Babs keeps yapping. Extra with an Extra Loud voice that carries. She's letting everyone know about her "promotinal modeling." I think she's one of those gals who shows up at a bar with their jugs hanging out in a t-shirt that sez "Drink Corona." With all the young hopeful cuties in this town, not sure how this harsh harridan gets modeling gigs.

We're doing "Eighth Hell." It's the No. 1 favorite show of the family values crowd. Former star of the show tried to get off by doing a racy spread in Barely Legal, but God punished her by invoking contract clauses only a diety could see. She worked for another few years on the show, before she could be seen bouncing her wet betties in horror flicks. I'd love to creep her out, but apparently I have company in this category. There's an extra running around asking about this gal, repeatedly, and finally someone tells him she's off the show. This show has run for 10 years, people go through puberty on this show and come out the other side.

On set, some stagehad was agahst -- he had noticed TWO extras chewing gum!

"It plays terrible," he sez. He point them out. Our table of extras (we're sitting at a pizza parlor table, on the show's fake promenade set) tries to figure things out. What tipped their chaw? The motion of the jaw? The divot in the cheek? We settle on the divot. We bemoan the existence of gum chewing cells -- you break up one, and the hyrdra springs more heads. Meanwhile, other gum chewers go underground, and appear when most calculated to ruin the shot. Can gum chewing amongst the deep background really show up on camera? Don't people chew gum in real life?

Meanwhile, I got closer to my inner-Travis Bickle with each tick of my extra's clock. Accumulated slights and stings come out over a chair being purloined from me. I brazenly sit down in a chair with someone's stuff on the table in front of it, because I PUT MY GARMENT BAG OVER THE BACK OF THE CHAIR. ALL COURTS OF LAW WILL RECOGNIZE THIS CHAIR IS MARKED. PERSONAL PROPERTY IS ATTACHED TO IT. IMMINIENT DOMAIN. POSSESSION IS 90% OF THE LAW. Will the person who tried to put his stuff down on the table, in front of this chair argue: "eternal vigilence" is required to maintain property rights? Snooze-you-lose? Does my chair claim trump his table claim? The extra returns and I say in my most innocent voice: "Is this your stuff?"

"Yeah, and it's my chair, too!"

Huff, huff, Huffy! I try to put forth my defense: "Actually, my --" But he's turned his back to me. As soon as he turns around, I go to my garment bag, getting stuff out, putting it up and over the chair, making lots of noise, moving the chair 180 degrees around, she he has to see me working with this garment bag that is clearly attached to my chair, a dramatic display saying: "LOOK MOTHERFUCKER, YOU SAT DOWN IN A CHAIR THAT CLEARLY HAD BEEN CLAIMED BY THIS VERY VISIBLE GARMENT BAG!"

Yup, I'm sucking the marrow outta Travis Bickle. I imagine greeting my cell mates at County: "I got in a fight over a chair," before they visit me with prison butt luv. Weird Ray Liotta twin is here today. I don't know if he's rightie or leftie Liotta. The twins have polar opposite politics, you have be careful of what you say. This particular Ray is bugging me about eating my pizza. During the pizza parlor scene, I ate a few bites off my pizza. Not eating your prop food is some badge of experience thing. I could give a shit, they hadn't fed us breakfast that day when we got to the set, and one of the prop guys told me the pizza was fresh. "Just don't chow down," said the prop master. Indeed, the pizza was warm. I nibbled and I convinced our very cute and funny waitress to bring me some ice for my coke. It started as an ad-lib while were filming, and then she really did it. So, when Ray Liotta Twin came up to admonish me for eating pizza, with a Daddy Background tone, saying

"Are you sick yet?"

I snapped back: "the pizza was fine, props said to to, don't worry, it's not your pizza, breakfast wasn't, I didn't have any ..." I was frothing and still smarting from the whole chair debacle. One trip to the Arm's Supplier and my timebomb is ready to tick.

There's a dude here with a cool-shaped head. It's shaped like an arrow head, blunt in front, and the back tapers to a point. I would make him the background of the year. He'd get the award at the Oscars for the most outstanding background head. I want to win a "Best Cross" award and come up and mime my background speech.

There's an ICE MACHINE on set!!! Angelic "haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." How luvely to have your own ice machine, I put this down on my ever-growing "when I get rich" list.

The studio we are at is in Santa Monica, and one of my pals did sound here for a sitcom. The production facility was new at the time, and he couldn't get rid of all the crickets chirping in the sound stage. Maybe they should have done all scenes as outside then. An outdoor sitcom.

The creator of "Eighth Hell" is the single greatest living TV Producer in Hollywood. Vernon Speaking. His most famous quote is "I'm sorry, I love beautiful people," and his shows always have some breakout beauty. The background for this particular episode does skew cute. Lots of young hotties and good-looking dudes. Speaking is famous for his parties with "pros." Stocking the pond with prostitutes. Open the wrong door at one of his parties and see copulation. Hell, open any door. Apparently, he's also security-obcessed, we were warned sternly by the A.D. not to wonder to freely on set or risk termination.

I'm now speaking to a background lady who had 20 years of marriage. 10 good, 10 bad, she sez. Five years into my own relationship with my gay lover, you think five good years guarantees crossing the finish line. Not so. Puts a reality chill through your system.

The stand-in and star have the same jeans. They have a criss-cross on the ass pocket, and I'm noticing several extras with these jeans too. The current star now has a baby on the show, yet she's only 23 in real life. I'm wondering if this is a christian-have-babies-and-procreate thing for the show's fervent following.

I'm listenting to some good background stories off set: One dude tells about being in a Korean movie and how they just abuse every labor law on the books. Me thinks this is rampant in their culture, at my accounting firm, we had to help out a Korean Grocery Store that got in trouble this way with the California Labor Commission. I'm also hearing about these girls going to a party where they serve "jungle-juice," and that the host set up a confessional in his shower, rigged with a hidden cameras. Girls got drunk and went in and confessed for him. Sadly, I heard no mention of this being on a site on the internet. One of the girls sad she took an throw-away camera to the party, drunkely dropped it off at the photobooth that night, and went with extreme trepidation to pick it up the next morning. There was an actual picture of her giving a dude a blow-job, which she couldn't believe the processor had left in. Of course, she has no idea if the photo processor kept a negative.

The costume dude on this show is in costume. He's wearing a kilt, a hairshirt, his hair is in a Braveheart style mullet, and he's heavily tatted and pierced. Oh, and he's about 50 years old. Every day's a costume party in this world.

On the show's final shot, the extra who was looking for the former star of the show, runs up and gives the young teenage star some flowers. She's about 16, he's about 35. She looks horrified, and immediately hands to an assistant. He took the flowers from a flower cart set up for the scene in the promenade.