WHO ARE YOU?

The regal tone in which she said it, she may as well have said: "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" It's 5:30AM and I am leaving the set of Citizen Kane for the first time. I got to the parking lot at Knott's Berry Farm at 3:30PM. I hear peeps on the bus talking about how to get to the Five, which back roads to take. I'm thinking, and soon find myself saying "We're parked right next to the Five."

All the hard stares and silence on the bus confirm for me: I'm on the wrong bus.

"WHO ARE YOU?" sniffs the Queen of England next to me.

I want to say "I'm a mass murderer, I've got leprosy and I voted for Bush, you bitch!" But all I say is: "I think I'm on the wrong bus." It was so late, and some A.D. yelled at me to get on the bus in the middle of our base camp, so I hopped in. It was a crew bus, taking them back to crew parking, a vastly different location then ours at Knott's Berry Farm. Once I said "We're parked right next to the Five," this lady and the others fingered me for what I was: an extra on the bus, just trying to make his way home. I guess it was a karmic payback for ditching my props two shots before the martini, for sneaking to the very back of the set, the closest part to base camp, and ignoring the P.A. who told us to stop when we started running over this railroad bridge to get to base camp first, and get outta wardrobe. Still, even getting on the wrong bus, I was so ahead of the other 950 extras, I still ended up getting home an HOUR earlier then other peeps who waited paitently to be let off set, put away their props in a long line, etc., wait in the forever-line for wardrobe.

This fourteen hour day, in the middle of the night, getting rained on, smoked, it's all on non-union wages for me. Once you've tasted the nectar of union money, to work for McMoney again is a bitter pill that lodges in your throat. No luck mining a friend's connections, the First A.D. never helped me out. I'll try another short, chirpy e-mail today.

We are so large in extra numbers, we've been divided into groups, with giant signs saying "A," "B," "C," being carried around by P.A.'s like they are marching up to Golgotha to meet their maker. Or, like at a political convention! At one point, the P.A. asks me to carry the sign (like christ collapsing and Simon carrying the cross for him). I do so, but we have small numbers, and another P.A. holding a sign, mistaking me for a P.A., chides me in a competitive way "where are all your people?"

"We are from the Proud State of Rhode Island!," I say, "The smallest state in the union, but the toughest, and we cast our votes for Goldwater!" and then pump my sign like they used to do at the political conventions.

The P.A. just looks at me totally flummoxed. Ha ha to him. Our groups emerge from base camp, from wardrobe lines, and make-up lines (and getting lines put on my face in make-up) and march up the street to the small town director Stanley Spongymeyer has rented out. We are all herded through props, where they give us suitcases, bicycles, wagons, etc. All things to take our belongings on a mass exdous from town. Some backies try to avoid getting "propped" but they catch these people on set and give them a suitcase. Or a lantern. My suitcase is not too heavy, and when I put it on it's side, I can sit on it.

Our scene is walk from the town, and when Cat Bruz's car comes by, to mob him for help. At first peeps not only mob him, they act like they will drag him from the car, and kill him. The A.D.'s admonish we need to be desparate not homicidal. Also, some folks are literally pushing their face against the car and saying "Hi Cat!" and this ends up on camera. NO smiling! No laffing! There's a lot of megaphones out there, and they're all shouting at fever-pitched hysteria! I think this is why defying P.A.s is so delicious, after your every action is directed, running across a railroad bridge against their will feels like escape from Stalag 13. You've heard you're in a movie with Cat Bruz, but you really can't believe he's gonna show, till he leaps outta the car after a take, and goes bounding down the street, shaking extra's hands, smiling the grin that wants to take a bite outta the world, a webster's entry for "exuberance." He literally starts sprinting down the street once, admonishing his personal assistant to "come on!" and race him.

They brought him in by helicopter, and when it landed, it knocked over my kool-aid and stained my clothes. But it was Cat Bruz's helicopter, so you felt stained by a STAR! All the stories we had heard of him being mean and bad: just totally wrong. Extra's rumors seem to get stories 180 degress polar opposite wrong at times, when talking of the star's behavior. It makes me think the stars are all bi-polar, and depending upon when you catch them, you could hear tales of love, or tales of hate.

It's a cute lil' town we're in. As we arrived to set, the town's folk were streaming outta church, ashes on their head for this Ash Wednesday. I talk to some of the local tuff kids ("P.T. Loser" they say when a P.T. Cruiser passes by), I tell them we are all fleeing, and they need to run pack their shit. "Get out while you can!" I admonish them. Apparently Cat Bruz has the only car during this mass exdous. We bang on his car as he goes by, and one dude (stuntman) throws himself on the hood. I start to recognize the stuntmen when they place themselves amongst us to do stunts. "I detect the presence of a professional" I say to their backs, and they turn around and grin at me. Stuntmen prolly stunt their lives, but what lives, eh? Doing all that cool stuff while others rot in offices.

I'm playing the camera hog game. I keep inching towards where I think I'll get the best shot at getting at Cat Bruz's car. It's getting fast and furious around his car, I think other peeps in this 1000-strong call are thinking the same thing. I'm a big dude, and I'm literally lifted off my feet by the teeming mass boiling around the car. Once again, they caution us to PLEAD with the car, not ASSAULT it. They've closed off the streets of the town, but people still look from their windows. One guy stands on his porch, drinks a 40 ouncer, and then goes to bed. He'll do this every night.

The lil' town is off one of my favorite get-away roads in California. Several houses have geese, chicken, goats. An extra sez to me "A movie set is like a mini-country, and Stanley Spongymeyer is like the dictator." Really, he's a God, cuz he can make it rain. They have these huge rain things, water spouts, hung up by giant cranes. They make rain, and then the car with Cat Bruz innit has a spigot shooting water from it too. People avoid the rain, and the P.A.'s are literally shoving them into the water. "Follow the herd," I think, like the cattle going around the curved laybrintyth before they are slaughtered. I pass the railroad bridge, the same one I heard about extras being shot with mud on. I shudder. Hopefully no retakes on that scene. Clumps of extras are using this bridge to go back to basecamp, and a P.A. yells at them to not use the bridge, it's unsafe! Later, they'll pack almost all 1000 of us on this very same bridge. Liars. Liar, burn in fire.