Shooting in the Lake called Fourteen

As I said yesterday, I've been booked on Lake #14, the Sequel to Lake #14. It's a modern day ratpack movie, and this series is the longest-running sequel of all times, even beating out Police Academy.

Six-Thirty A.M. call. Amazing how much traffic is on the freeway pre-five-o'clock in the morning.

Get to Valencia. We arrive at a mall, they bus out to this location. It's supposed to double as a Laughlin Casino.

Weird Sixties, mid-century modern ampi-theater. It looks like Space Mountian a little. Mid-Century Modern is definately the darling of the design set right now. Funny that a design that was supposed to look futuristic is being valued now for it's retro look.

The ampi-theater is a theater-in-the-round. The stage actually rotates. I peek in and see a bunch of extra ALREADY seated. Shit -- they are moving fast here. Check in, get grub, never hear anyone send us to wardrobe (this shoot has one of the wardrobe witches I can't stand), and go to set myself to find -- the extras already seated -- were dummies. Yes, actual dummy-dummies, not the kind who give our profession a bad name. Really helps with one's self-esteem. I'm reminded of the Orson Welles speech in "The Third Man," when he's on the ferriswheel with his pal and points down to the people below and sez "Would anyone really miss those dots? What if I gave you $10,000 to remove a dot?" We're all just dots to fill in space. You always know this, but when the metaphor comes to life, and stares you in the face as a dummy-dummy in the seat next to you -- it's chilling.

We are witnessing a Curling Match today, and they've gotten some of the best curling people in Los Angeles. That's another thing -- in a city this big, every strange whim is accounted for. Did I know there was a CurlingLA website before today? No. I do now. Some of the curling guys are routound, and this one pig is wearing chaps with his pock-marked ass hanging out. Everytime he bends over to throw, the extras groan and hoot. Our Second-Second admonishes us "Act appropriately people! Act in the appropriate way for a curling match!"

The head curling guy is also in the scene, he's dressed as an upscale extra, like us. He keeps fluttering around, yelling at the Curlers in some strange langauge -- I think it's Canadian. The Curlers are also thrown by the ampi-theaters's rotating stage. At some point "the stone," (yes, I have all the curling lingo down cold now) flies into the audience, and hits an old lady extra. She is removed from the scene and the Second-Second admonishes people again to "act in the appropriate way for a curling match!" I guess this means duck, dodge, dive and dodge.

The call was upscale -- dress like you're going out for a big night in Laughlin. And yet, some clowns showed up in jeans. It was a huge call, but they needed everyone, so they weren't picky. Although, I did hear the Second-Second saying he had fired someone for taking a crew cup. There were nicer, bigger paper coffee cups for the crew, and we were told not to take them. With 600 extras, you can be sure some did not hear this, or chose not to hear this. I picture the forlorn backie returning to his wife that night, empty-handed.

"Well, how'd you blow this one dumb fuck," she greets him warmly.

"I drank out of the wrong coffee cup, honey"

"You're such a liar."

There were a couple of the ADs and PAs I did not like back from The Sad Belgium. One is this old mean guy, who still has his 80s part-in-the-middle do, and yells at all the male extras and hugs all the girls. Also this brittle chick who yells at everyone. However, there was my favorite Second-Second who is always nice to peeps. So it balances out. As you work a few different movies with the same crew, you get to watch people go from dolly grip, to actually being behind the camera. Growth and advancement happen before your eyes. Meanwhile, you are sitting next to a dummy-dummy.

Speaking of camera, it was cool that Ferdie Ferdenburger was directing. He is very camera-oriented, quick to get shots, gets behind camera himself, and is dynamic to watch. He was wearing a Lakes #10 hat, from the 10#th in the franchise, which he also directed. At the end of the day, he drove away in a VW microbus, chartruse, that had been restored meticulously. No boring BMW nazi sled for him.

Salvatore Trombino was on hand today. Star of Diety Dad, and giver of some of the best movie monologue rants of all times ("You think this shit stinks, well suck it down you're throat and tell me how it TASTES!") He's moving a little slower, his mane of hair looks more brittle, but he's still a huge, lovable ham. The scene was a speech welcoming us to his new casino in Laughlin, and Sal really worked the crowd. In between takes, he told jokes about "needing to find his muse," (this is an obvious popcorn film, hell it's the 14th sequel!), and after his first take, he claimed "I'm done." He also told a funny story about an old italian comedy short where the mayor gets such a big cheer when he lays firt ceremonial brick on a building that he ends up building the entire building (in speeded-up motion, of course, for instant hilarity).

Also back was Clem Gooney. He was kind and gracious and spoke to everyone. Cracked jokes and looked presidential in his tux. The man should stay in black tie at all times. He's just that fucking handsome. He's the real deal, movie star projection and a treat to watch. He even got up and started curling on the breaks to entertain the extras. Not to mention, he started the wave while during a particular long non-filming break. The Second-Seconds didn't know what to do, they extra were mis-behaving with their wave, but it had been started by Gooney.

Finally, the newest gal pal in these movies was there today too: Effin Yelling. She's amazing for her age. Early 50s? However, when she walked by, you could see the lattice-work of veins in her feet and hands. She still had that trademark smirk of hers, and the boys from the crew all hugged and gushed over her. And she encouraged it, she would walk up to grips for hugs and snuggles. Word is she's dating a much younger fellow. She asked the second-second for a cappicino, and when he brought it to her, she told him she would dogsit in return. He had just gotten a new dog and was showing pictures off to everyone.

As the shoot went on, the extras were starting to get unnerved from all the clapping required of the curling match, and many had hidden among the dummy-dummies. They were moving the dummy-dummys to a section that wasn't being seen on film, as they seemed to have enough human extras. Human dummies would duck in among these dummy-dummies, and you couldn't tell where they were.

I manged to get down to the first row, right around the curling match. I figure if I'm going to be there, I myswell try and get on film. The dude next to me got to shake Sal Trombino's hand. He was excited about this, he was a young kid from Spain. He was cute, I did have unpure thoughts about him. I also set next to two girls who were arguing because the one had deleted the other from her friends on Myspace.

"Hey, it is called Myspace, not Yourspace!" the one finally shot back.

It ended up being a 12 hour day. And one of the drivers from Hollywood Death Cab was our shuttle driver back to the parking lot. It was fun to see him wielding this big bus around and making all the drivers in the parking lot make way for him. I got so into chatting to him, I lost my 30 dollar black tie.

I went straight from the parking lot in Valencia to a porn event gay lover had gotten me into. At the porn event I got to talk to a columnist from the LA Times who is really good at avoiding humor in his columns. I lambasted him for the one he wrote about the Hollywood Death Cab tour being in bad taste, by doing my dead-on, Salvatore Trombino imitation: "You think your shit don't stink, well suck it down you're throat and tell me how it TASTES!" 12 hour day, free booze, and beautiful blue boys everywhere -- good judgement was something for other people.

I ran into a photog friend. We decided to try and get the LA Times columnist in a photo with a gay boy porno star, so we could blackmail him, or at the least -- humiliate him. He kept covering himself up everytime the photog tried to snap him. I told the photog "It's Nam, the helicopter dropped you off, there's burning children everywhere -- you must get this shot!" He did, and we're hoping to post it on every gay porn site there is, and out this hypocrite. The dude loves talking to gay porn stars, but most likely will write one of his slight&obvious columns where he uses porn as a way to make himself look clever. Yet, when the camera tries to catch him soliciting a gay porn star, he ducks, dodges and dives. To bad the camera did catch him.

Lake #14

it's a swirly-twirly time for me and my gay lover. the Santa Anita winds blow no good things our way. recently, I lost out on a big audition at Hollywood Death Cabs. They put on a talent show each year, and often some industry people will check it out. I had brought my concertina to play an original composition I wrote. They liked the song, but not me. I kinda choked, not having done music in front of people for a while. Meanwhile, a lot of the same people who get in every year, got in again. Hey, maybe they're just that talented.

Then I get home and find out Gay Lover has lost his gig. He's got another one lined up at another studio, but it just sucked. He had worked so hard to build up his publicity department, essentially from zero. It was his creation, and the thrill of creation has effected him so, that just being a flack again seems lame. He knew something was up, that they were thinking of dropping the entire department, and his pre-emptive visit to his boss proved true. Yes, he's landed okay, but he's freaked out by where's landed, and what will happen.

Which puts the spotlight back on me and my moras. Miasma. I don't know why "M" words work so well at describing the muck of our lives. I've been given a lot of leeway, and I feel like I need to have some major things happen this winter. Things that accrue $$. Hollywood Death Cab slows down in the winter, and I really need to speed up.

Have I so far? Um, not really. I've settled back into a drifty experience, poking around at the biz. Last time I checked, people who poke at show biz don't puncture much of anything. So how to turn myself into a task achiever? Prescribed Chemicals? Rare herbs? Guru seminars? Yellow Post-its all over my house -- "You ARE important!!!!"

I do have work tomorrow. I'm gonna be on Lake #14, a big movie with big stars. It's the 14th in the installments, making this the longest franchise since Police Academy. The big star from The Sad Belguim is on this too -- the luvely Clem Gooney. I hope he's there, but it's a huge cast, so who knows?

Our scene is taking place at a big auditorium, where they are creating a Curling Exhibition, complete with those cute wisk brooms. I'm a wealthy patron of Curling, so I will be showing up in my nicest dudes. I hope they approve. It's a 5:30AM call, so ...

It was also a weird summer at Hollywood Death Cab -- felt like I put myself in harm's way more than I needed to, fighting all the imagined injustices and slights. Manufactured drama, although some of it was quite real. I was pursued by several of my fellow Cabbers, who made a call to Management, trying to implicate me in an incident of stolen strawberries. I managed to prove that I could not possibly have had the key, and thus my strawberry innocence was preserved.

We also debuted a brand new route this summer, and with it management tried to control much of our speil. The clunky speil was poorly reviewed in the press, but management, drunk on its management kool-aid, ignored all of this with aplumb. Now, things are generally back to normal, Cabbers have started making the speil into recognizable human communications and we can be oursevles again. The changing of the route, involved new death areas (we went to the spot where Mansfield car be-headed her), and we even had an animated version of one of the deaths, where the death car of Soupy Sales heads over a cliff. This was highly hyped in the press (they spent (a million with a PR firm), and was a bit of a flop. The car would start dancing, after it had burst into flames and ejected Soupy from it, and people felt that was a bit too much, even for the Hollywood Death Cab crowd. Using "Disco Inferno," was also somewhat off-putting. Sales' surviving relatives boycotted us, and this resulted in more scrutiny.

Ah well, burn in hell I always say ...