Fit to be Wardrobed ...

I went for my fitting on the Sad Belgium.

It was out in the nowhere land of No Ho. No Ho Costume. Located on Plastic Boulevards of endless Nihilism, as my much-smarter-than-me friend used to say.

They cropped my hair.

They told me they would crop my hair.

"You know you're getting a haircut," said the person at the sign-in desk.

"Yes, it was on the hotline."

His eyes blazed with mischief: "You're okay with that?"

"Si."

The wardrobe fellow came to dress me.

"So they're gonna cut this all off?" sez he.

"So I've been told," sez I.

He was a nice fellow and went about finding boots to fit my enormous calves. I don't know how god misunderstood my prayers, I thought I enunciated pretty clearly, and the word penis and calves really don't sound all that similar, but here I am with enormous calves.

I got medals. I remained an officer of the Belgian army (which my on-set contact told me is where the work is going), and as I left the trailer:

"Man, you're okay with it all coming off,"

"Dude, I had so much hair once, I was sitting in the salon of my friend on a Friday, and all the gals decided to give me a french up-doo. They started flitting about me, singing songs, scattering rose petals and up-dooing my hair.

On Monday and I came in and got a Number One Fade in the very same chair. I'll deal."

"Okay," he sez, "but they are going to put it above your ears for period look."

He sends me to the gun holster dude. Gun holster dude fits me with firepower holsters, and sends me to get digitized.

And it is here, that I meet the ubiquitous wardrobe witch. The one celebrated in story and song. Fast becoming a folk legend on par with the angry ladies manning the Department of Motor Vehicle's windows.

"DID YOU GET YOUR HAIR CUT, YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOUR HAIR CUT, WHY HAVEN'T YOU BEEN TO HAIR?"

I've perfected this low-tone, one breath & speak delivery for these gals. It jams their signal, and doesn't allow them to cut you off mid-sentence with a scathing admonishment. Slow intake of air and say:

"I've been directed to move here by Smedley in the trailer, and I indeed asked him if I should go to hair first, but he told me to come in and get my picture, just tuck my hair under my hat, but I'll be glad to go wherever you would like me to."

A normal person should be satisfied with this answer. A wardrobe witch is not. She's not looking for a why, or that you are compliant. She really wanted this answer from me:

"I was told by several people to get my hair cut. Fuck them all. I have come in here in brazen disregard and hope by stuffing my hair under my hat that I'll fool a clever person such as yourself."

The, the WW could have brayed at me, making up for all the slings and arrows she's suffered all day from the higher-ups. The shoddy costume held together with so many safety pins the Nazi officer was in-danger of looking more sour punk then kraut. Apparently, she'd been shamed by a fellow co-worker in front of her boss on this, and she was lecturing him to keep his mouth shut when I walked up. When I walked up and disappointed her by not being a punching bag.

So, she changed tack. She started looking at my gun holster.

"Did you do this?"

Thought bubble answer: "Yes, I did. I don't know much about the improper way to wear a leather strap-on (like you do), but I've done my best to fuck it up JUST TO PISS YOU OFF."

Real words that came out of my mouth: "The Gun Holster Guy set me up, I just held my arms up and enjoyed it."

"Did you tamper with it?"

Oh holy hell. Tamper? TAMPER? It sounds so sinister, like I took a bottle of Children's aspirin and put in X.

"ma'am, his table is about 30 feet that way -- [she tries to interrupt here, but I have the low tone and one breath thing going and I focus and keep talking even slower and more forceful] --and I just walked over here after he finished fitting me."

Now, the rest of the crew is watching. The other extras waiting. The people behind the sign-in table. It's not just me and her in a tiny wardrobe truck. You can feel the group lining up behind me, the reasonable extra vs. the rag-hag harridan. Even she can feel it. She knows that she can't prosecute the murder rap she wants to hang on me.

"Well, this period is all about the waist!" and she huffs and puffs, putting my holster in the waist-management position.

Nice wardrobe dude walks in, the guy who dealt with my ENORMOUS CALVES and sez:

"Oh, he looks great Gretta, just snap the damn picture."

She does. But not before she tells Smedley in a sniff:

"It's all about the waist!"

It would be too easy to look at her expanding girth and ask, what does your waist scream? Too easy, but certainly a delicious thought.

All of this makes me wonder: what's the problem with these ladies? No one sets out to be a shrew. And yet, the witchy wardrobe lady threatens to become stereotype of the year. The WW we all roll our eyes about. I'm guessing over-work on a creative person, stuck in a very planning-orientate environment. If you're a really good planner, you don't end up in costumes. Yet planning skills are needed when dealing with the multiplicity of costumes a set demands. Creative people, while genius at getting the collar right on the 1870's dandy, tend to get shrill when overburdened with the cast of thousands needing attention. Where'd those damn medals go? Why are you letting them go on-set with out butting their shirts to the chin (weird WW send-them-on-set jittery tick: buttoning modern-day shirts to the top, even though only nerds do this)? Who lost the ascots? Why are the grips wearing our ascots as sweat bands? Add in overweight, a crappy love-life, and just maybe some of the more tiresome of our extra ilk, and you get the the boiling cauldron that is the WW. Which wardrobe witch, indeed!

Gated Community

Today I went to sign up with an agency that is casting the new Ferdie Feganburger movie "The Sad Belgian." My family is from Belgium, so I hope to work lots on this.

The casting agency was in a bunglow at the very back of an enormous complex called "X Marks the Spot" in Hollywood. It was raining today, and I was looking for the office amongst the lack of signposts until I found the spot.

I found the address and I walked up to a door that had a child gate on it. I looked down at the gate, and looked up at a women who was on the computer behind the gate.

"Hold on," she said very firmly.

I guess I would be outside the gate.

In my sheepish no-harm voice: "I'm here to see Boss?"

More firmly from her: "Hold on."

I guess I was to remain outside the gate.

Finally Boss came around the corner. He was very nice, I had spoken to him on the phone the other day, and he was waiving my fee since I knew the art director on this movie.

"Hey, here take this and fill it out."

"Okay, thanks," I said, and then I looked down. Did he really want me to do this standing up, outside in the rain?

Under his breath, "They don't let you guys inside."

Under my breath as I walked away "This is so fucking rude."

I was just about to start writing on the form, which was getting splattered, when Boss sez:

"hey, come here. Come in, I'm getting you a chair."

I think Boss had a chat with someone. I'm allowed in the actual office. I step over the gate. As I'm sitting down, a dog runs up to me. Now I know the reason for the child's gate. A dog.

The women who had commanded me to stay outside the gate started furiously admonishing the dog: "Stop it, stop bothering him."

I swear-to-god, it translated as "Go away from the strange extra filth, you're above them. Don't get their scent on you."

As in, oh, why do dogs lick their penis?

Why do they trifle with these disgusting sub-humans?

Then, Boss told her that I was so-in-so's friend. She immediately warmed up to me, although not before she quizzed me to make sure I was his friend, and not someone who'd looked up his name on-line.

"He probably smells my dog on me," I said about the dog as I was about to pet him.

"NO, he doesn't." she barked, which translated as "don't pet him, you're an extra."

I was glad to leave the gated community.

Back with Blacks

Wow, seconds into my first background gig in months, I have the urge to decapitate the wardrobe witch. I may not last this year -- my anger is definately unmanaged.

It all started in typical ADD-fashion for me. I forgot my wallet, and thus no picture I.D. to get on the Pentultimate Studios lot. As I was about to give-up and drive back home (and face the balls of rush hour clanging in my face), when I notice I have my Hollywood Death Cab picture I.D. with me. Not government issued, but not without iconic value either. The guard let me know he loved our tour, and he took his nieces everytime they were in town. The guard let me right in. Nice as pie. Too nice, he'll be fired by some hateful overlord.

Back to the wardrobe witch, she chastised me for having no clothes change. The phone message had said we didn't need a change if we were union. I started to inform her of this fact and got the

"I've been doing this for fifteen years"

I interrupted with "I've been doing this for one day."

A slight deception, but it stopped her cold.

Then she went into a kintergarten teacher voice with me and preceded to tell me how to do all the rudiminterary background behavior. Long lecture about labels on clothing (I had brought a jacket with a label. Not as wardrobe, just in case it was cold on set).

It's the tone really. The condecending tone that sez I think you're less then human. The tone that sez: I'm talking to someone short on chromozones. It starts my inner "disgruntled extra bomb" ticking. I think I was programmed in a government experiment to kill upon hearing this tone.

The wardrobe white witch is definately in the minority on the set. It's a minority set for show "Gal Pals," and just about everyone is african-american. Can I make a cultural statement here??? I like being on "black" sets. Working "black" shows. There's a lack of needless anxiety and class-baiting I see all over Hollywood. The director walked right up to the extras waiting for the Second-Second to sign us out for the day and started chatting.

"What's it like to be an extra?"

"Can I ask you, how much you get?"

We asked him questions back.

"How'd you get to be a director?"

He said he got a film into Sundance and then got hired to write for a show. It took off from there. He had never done extra or crew work. Came in the writer door.

"I'll go get the A.D. so you can sign out and go home." That's how the director concluded the session.

Now, it would be naive and racist of me to say this incident means "all black folks are nice!" I've had friends who've been in the minority on Spike Lee films and say their the crew stares daggers at anyone not of color. But, in my experience, this isn't the first time I've worked a "black" television show that was really enjoyable. The class lines didn't seem so securely drawn among different members of the crew&cast. The grub was available to everyone, no one deterred us from eating -- either union or non-union. Our Extra Wrangler was a nice person, lots of humanity, explained what we were doing in the scene, etc.

Plus, were on the Pentulatimate Studios lot. Gorgeous lot, reeking with history. Walk past a trophy case full of Oscar statues. A first-time extra is next to me, and he stops and stares at the academy award wealth of Pentulatimate. It's just the best and most well-kept studio in hollywood.

I run into one of my old pals who survived the Citizen Kane shoot we did last spring. Blood&Mud&Rain&Tears on that one. She still is searching for that last union voucher. I'm card-carrying union now and tell her "all I want is my fucking doughnut." I think they should have that on the Union seal, in Latin.

"Volo meus rapui doughnutus"

A beautiful extra sitting next to me in the scene introduces herself.

"Hi, I'm Mandy."

"Hey Mandy, I'm Josh. Are you --"

Mandy turns her head from me. I guess the conversation is over. I feel like I'm in sixth grade again. She started to talk to me! I'm gay! Crimeny!!!!

Later I see a guy who could be Brad Pitt's double. I ask my pal from Citizen Kane and she confirms -- he is Brad Pitt's double from time-to-time. Smoking hot dude, with sizzle blue eyes. He appears straight, otherwise I'd, I'd, I'd be intimidated by him.