Mirth with Dan and Jill

Grid-fucking-rotten-crotch-lock. With our increasingly profane and bombastic society, I'm ratcheting up the vulgarity to describe the vulgar traffic jam I sat in this A.M. Of all things one cannot hear in LA, one tunes out to immediately, it's the sentence that starts out with "The traffic ..." It's like when a parent tells you about a friend of there's that you don't know with some terrible affliction. It's enuff to stomach the ills of your own, without carrying others pain around. And yet, what will we do? When I first came to LA, you knew that as long as you stayed away from the Free Way during rush hour, you'd be OK. No more. There's about 2 hour window you can be on any LA freeway without sitting in the day, and you're time at night is from about 9:30PM to 4:30AM now. That's it. So, if you are traveling at any other time, prepare to stew in your vehicle. Surface Street Routes don't help either, many of them are gridlocked all day too.

One of the extra's on set today told me she just started yelling in her car. Yelling and thrashing, after sitting in stop-and-go traffic for 20 miles. I resort to fake Italian swear words at such moments: "Fambah Foo!" "Frickasee Chicken!" "Wombat Wooie," "Nig-Nag Nooper!" "Mah-donja!" As my faux swear words vocabulary increases, I realize some of it does sound more chinese, like "Wombat Wooie." I even conjugate latin verbs "Hic Hic Hoc!" as they can release steam when pronounced correctly.

I was so late to set today, I came in with the black folks! Whoops! Did I just say that? Am I allowed to notice this cultural phenomena? We're shooting "Mirth with Dan and Jill," the last day of their 110 day exodus. This movie stars Clubby Lug and Smartie Yamaha. Apparently they started shooting on Labor Day of 2004. They need us to be "biz caj" (business casual) for a party at the bosses place. The only fun part of a party at a bosses place is leaving your business floating in his toilet and not purging. This house we are at, looks like an airstream trailer that got square. In-human house, god only knows what kind of fuckstick lives in this maseouleum. I've been in houses like this in the Hollywood parties, where the whole house is scrubbed clean of hominess to conform to some strict aesthetic. Once, at an annual party, we brought garrish refridgerator magnets in our pocket to sully the dudes fridge, just to overwhelm him. We read in the trades he needed a week at Idlewild to recoup from the vandalism.

I was changed outta my french-riveria-expensive-dress-shirt into a nasty polo shirt. Squat troll of a wardrobe witch capriciously changing folks -- one is dressed down verbally for not being "biz" enuff. I worked for accounting firms for 20 years -- I know exactly how to dress for a bosses party, and can attest that both me and the satorically unsavory gal were perfectly attired. No matter, the know-it-all troll had her own vision. Later, on another set, I hear a passionate defense of this lady. "She won an Oscar!" For what, I don't know, typical extra exclamation of zero facts. In fact, some claim she won the Oscar for a modern story, not even a costume drama, which usually wins. That or folks in aluminum foil (Sci Fi).

"She has a vision, she sees everyone of us a character,"

OK, that's cool, I do that. "She's nice to you later, if she's mean to you at first. She bought me a beautiful outfit for a week-shoot, and then let me take it home."

Later that day I saw the troll admonishing a dude for missing a belt loop. ON A HELICOPTER SHOT!!! That's all we're doing today: Helicopter shots, and he's getting chastised for his belt not going through every loop. I made sure the minute the troll disapeared into the garage (that's where the crew was hiding during the expansive shots), that I pulled out my shirt just as a fuck-you to her. She had me tuck it in, as is the practice of all wardrobe witches&warlocks. In their scrubbed-up world, no one has ever not tucked in their shirt, unless they're a rapper. Dumb and not at all real. Smarty chubby dudes like me realize your gut is not nearly as prominient when your shirt's out, instead of tucking it in and making an extreme outline of your watermelon belly.

While wardrobe troll was lecturing me about me non-biz-caj shirt, I practiced my new technique. It's this hum filter that reduces nonsense. When someone of authority on set, a noxious A.D., wardrobe troll, starts broadcasting to me in regal/hostile tones, I just hum this low-level signal. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Not loud enuff for them to comment on, but they definately know their transmission is being jammed. It's the hum to blot out the hum drum. The braying jackass is flummoxed, and eventually gives up their transmission. This warning is brought to you by the Emergency Extra System, you are getting dangerously close to releasing a nuclear Travis Bickle with your blah-blah. In the event of an actual melt-down, you will not hear this hum, but feel my hands around your neck.

Chatty-fatty red head chick is here today. I try to talk to her, but she monopolizes the conversation and doesn't listen. Three times, I caught her yawning when someone dared to take the floor from her. She's a bright gal, but needs a stint at the extra school of socialization. We'll turn her around in no time, with our bzzz-bzzz electric socialization collars. Bzzzz! try listening! Bzzzz! don't start your stand-up routine on me because I gave you eye contact. Bzzzzz! There's a line at this table and you can clearly see your not in it.

The scene was done pretty quickly, we hoisted up a dude who looked like Smarty Yamaha on our shoulders. I was standing there before the shooting started, I thought "Gee, that looks like Smarty Yahama." Sure enuff, he's in the movie, and with the faraway helicopter shots today, they got look-a-likes. The look-a-like for Clubby Lug does not look that close. As the Helicopters swirl about, I bend myself over like Steve Martin in the Jerk. I was about to tell this to an extra standing next to me, but I realized he was in his 20s, and I would elicit the comment: "Steve Martin's not funny." Ugh, somewhere the funny bug left Martin as sure as it deserted Joey Bishop. But, back in the day, when Mr. Martin was the Beatles of Humor, he did this walk where he would bend way back, almost like a drum major does. I was hoping to get my face on camera, instead of the top of my head in this way. Total cheeseball hammy move on my part. But fitting a cheeseball ending a movie where everyone cheers and someone gets raised on the crowd's shoulders. ha ha.

As the helicopters swirl away, I'm reminded of how they make all the assistant director's on set nervous. At least the ones old enuff to know better, John Landis of Animal House nearly went to jail when set helicopters crashed and killed people. Probably the most famous production accident ever, so a helicopter's presence on set always ups the anxiety ante. But, for today, I made it outta the 'Nam alive. They feed us prime rib, AFTER we're done shooting for the day. That's a first, usually productions will try and scrimp if you are done shooting close to lunch/dinner. Style points for that. As I drive along the roads out in the canyons, having to turn around twice because roads have been rendered unpassable because of rock slides, I remember how often on the recorded message for this shoot, the lady had told us it was a beautiful drive. It was a beautiful drive, but I had no desire to do it again at rush hour. I went over to a pal's and played poker, and waited for the traffic to subside. I've asked my gay lover: can we buy a condo on the westside for such occassions? We've got the equity with our eastside digs, I'll bet it becomes the fashionable thing to do.