Booked my first job in slightly over a year. The strike didn't help. Not being registered at Extra's Management certainly didn't help. I had re-upped with them in January. Not unlike re-upping to go back into Iraq. Psychic-land-mines. Booby traps. Suicide Career Bombers.
Lulled into complacency by them not getting me work, I forgot that without a prior reservation from you -- if they get you work you must go. So I found myself driving into a parking garage at 6:30AM in Culver City, CA. As I was getting out my wardrobe, an extra came in honking for me to move so they could park. In a parking garage full of empty spots, I had to immediately close my door so this extra could park. I felt the ANGER surging up in me like an elevator in a high rise. I start calling her a "fuck bitch" (after she had left, of course). Back in background battle mode, willing to gut someone for early AM horn honking?
Having not worked for a year, I'm surprised to see the dude who walks around singing showtunes to himself. He's much more mellow -- medication?
Three seconds into it, a background person say to me, "You know, Robert Broms, right?"
"Ah, no."
"Oh, he has many power plus seminars where you learn how to maximize ..."
Ah, yes. I'm back in Wacky Backy Land.
Our Second-Second comes over to introduce himself. He looks to be 18. Nothing like having to ask 18 year olds if you can go poo-poo-pee-pee. His power extends to your functions on all levels.
"If you guys could just hang out for a second that would be so AMA-ZING!" he says with this little lilt on amazing I've come to notice in 20-somethings.
As I sit pondering the spread of a catch-phrase among the generation that will stomp me into oblivion, I notice that there are quite a few backies here from my past. How did these people make it during the strike? How can they still be doing this life? One extra admits he did porn extra work during the strike.
"Yeah, it was a take-off on 300. They called it
300 ... COCKS!"
He's telling this funny story and a garden variety extra dumb-ass interrupts him -- "Did anyone move my chair?"
I point dramatically at the chair sitting right next to him with all this stupid garden-variety extra dumb-ass stuff on it.
Not a word of thanks, but mumbles to himself as he starts picking through his wretched refuse. Maybe he thinks I moved it. It's already moved to DefChair 3 -- Code Blue -- Emergency status because the 18-year-old Second-Second announces "There are only 20 chairs, so if you could just use one -- that would be so AMA-ZING!"
And then while I gear myself up for the inevitable chair riot -- a doggy! An extra has brought a doggie! The extra addresses her as "Maggy!"

Oh, Maggy is so freakin' cute. I've never seen this before on set. The Second-Second seems okay with it. Maybe because in his 18 years on this green orb he's never seen an extra bring a dog to set and there's no parameters for such behavior.
Meanwhile the owner just bolts off. And grabs a voucher and breakfast.
He then comes over to feed the little gal a sausage. If this dog hangs around sets, she will get huge. People will feed her constantly.

This one background bitch starts bitching about the bitch. "Dogs suck." Someone laughs looking at Maggie-the-doggy eating a sausage. "Laughing sucks," this girl sez. Later she will burst into an australian accent for the better part of the afternoon, saying such common aussie phrases as "I want to rape you with a steak knife." One moron backie compliments on her accent, which means we are treated to this for another hour.
After this anger-bitch has turned my stomach, I decide to go to the Porta-potty to relieve myself of her toxins and my own. As I settle in down for a long-winter's-crap, the house indeed starts rocking. They are sucking the sewage out of the porta-poddy, and I nearly tip over. Not to mention there is an unholy suction on my dangling goodies as the suction seems to extend up the pipes to my own throne.
When I come back this girl is now lecturing someone close by "Always say 'Copy That" to an AD when you mean Yes." Oh boy. She also dispenses "Did you hear Tom Crack got his SAG card? I can't believe that's his real name, I thought he just said it on sets to be a shit, but he showed me the SAG card." Somewhere Tom Crack is plotting to see his name on a marquee.
Other backies are talking about the preponderence of felons in background work. I first delved into this on The Business, a KCRW program. My segments starts at 18:25 into the program:
http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tb/tb060501pellicano_wiretappinNow the 18 year old Second-Second calls out my name to go be placed on set. He's memorized all 20 of our sorry sobriquets. I am placed next to Brandon Walsh from Beverly Hills 90210. Well, not the real one, but a franklin mint facsimile thereof. Really close. I wonder if this show is about an alternate reality, where Brenda and Brandon owned an antique shop (that's where we're located today). The show is actually about these Dinasours who can skateboard. My pal Blankie worked on this show, which is a spin-off of a show about Crocodiles who could skateboard. She was on Croc-Freestyles! for five years. Blankie bought a condo off of it. I immediately called her up and asked her if she knew they were doing a sequel. She did not, and called her agent. Maybe we'll get Blankie back in the animal skateboard world.
As I'm contemplating all this, I realize I don't know where I'm supposed to walk. Panicked, I run to the 18-year-0ld-second-second. "You didn't tell me where to land!" I truly shreik. Why do I want to do a good job? Why do I want this 18 year old to realize I'm committed to the craft of background arts?
It's at this point that the freak makes his first appearance to talk to me. He's a young kid, I saw him claiming to the other backies he's done jail time and he's a rapper. Oh boy.
"Can you do the windmill?" he asks me.
"Is that on hip-hop dance moves VI?" I answer.
"Are you clowning me?"
"Yes, I am a clown."
He glares.
"I am. I am a clown. I admit it!" This confuses him and he leaves.
Later he comes back into a circle of background people on break and announces:
"Let's say a prayer before we go in there, let the home team win and everybody else lose!"
Everyone tries to ignore him. Then he starts laughing and braying like a homeless person wishing to be visible. The IGNORE button is pushed even harder by all the backies. This ups his state of agitation. He walks over to the prettiest girl on set and touches her arm saying:
"Every teacher tells you -- what are you all about?"
She loses it. For all of us. Afraid of risking a beat-down, an infection from this fool.
"I'm not your friend! Just shut up! Quit talking to me!"
He starts to argue with her.
"Why are you still talking to me? There's nothing to say, stop it, leave me alone."
The 18 year old second-second wonders over. He thought he was in show biz with his cute headset and "AMA-ZING!" but he's actually breaking up fights in the locked ward. This scene handled, the second-second walks back to the street, where they are trying to keep passerbys from walking into the scene.
"Just 30 seconds, just wait 30 seconds and you can walk." Angry Angelenos, fed up with films, production companies in their neighborhood ignore him, and walk thru. Background and real people mingle. I'm walking 20 feet, and then I'm going to wait 20 seconds and walk back those same 20 feet. But the man I'm walking with, has his son by his side, and they are going somewhere. He starts talking to me:
"My kid is fat. He starts asking about breakfast at dinner. But he's a good kid." When he gets to the other side where I stop, the other AD shushes him like he's a dumb-dumb extra who doesn't know he's suppose to pantomime, not actually talk. He flicks his hand at the AD, and the AD has to jerk back so as not to get popped in the face. And then he and his son go to wherever they are going. The AD pats me on the butt to walk back the same 20 feet I just came from.