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MIRTH
IN YOUR MAILBOX! |
Chocolate is as chocolate does.
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I'M
KING OF THE P.A.s!
July
18, 1998
All
good things must come to an end,
and sometimes the end can be the
best part. Perhaps I should
explain. I
can safely say that today was one
of the more surreal days of my
young life. I risked my life,
terrorized a McDonald's, saw
gender-bending hijinx... and
that's just the start of
it. We
have been shooting for the last
three days at a restaurant called
"Lumpy Gravy," the interior of
which resembles the Louvre by way
of Fritz Lang. Lots of neon, even
more of post-modern sculptures
glued to the wall and way too
many snotty Hollywood types
behind the bar. Head
snotty Hollywood type, whose name
escapes me at the moment
(probably a good thing), was the
sort of youngish
angry-at-the-world failed artist
that seems to think that his
corner of the world is somehow
the most important corner out
there, and has little regard for
anything else. In my short filmic
history, I've seen a lot of this
type, and they all seem to work
at restaurants. They must breed
here like cockroaches (an ironic
comparison, as you will
see). Everytime
I saw Mr. Lumpy (and I had to
resist the urge to call him that
each time I bumped into his sorry
ass), he had another beer in his
hand, and he progressively got
drunker and more surly as the
night went on. Admittedly, his
was a low-key kind of anger, more
like contempt than outright
rudeness, but I still couldn't
help wanting to give him a smack
upside the head each time I saw
him. But
I had other things to worry
about, not the least of which was
catching a little shut eye. Early
on, the other interns and I
agreed that we would sneak off to
the Honeywagon (a strange
multi-compartment trailer for the
less important actors) to catch
about an hour's worth of sleep
during the night. I had just come
off of a full 12-hour shift the
night before, which led directly
to a shift at the magazine. Then
it was a brief nap, and back to
the set. I was starting to
resemble one of those Children of
the Corn. One
of the other interns, Amber,
snuck off to take her nap, and
never came back. We searched the
Honeywagon, and didn't find her.
So we were down to three PAs,
myself included. My good pal Bob
snuck off to take his, figuring
we could get by with only two
(trust me, we could...), and he
got caught by the hardass
producer, who told him "No
sleeping." This producer is the
type that you can never tell
whether it's sarcasm or real
criticism, so it's best to err on
the side of real criticism. That
was the end of naps for the day,
which, by the fifteenth hour, saw
me with that glassy look that you
usually only see in rabid dogs,
serial killers and amusement park
mascots. I felt like the human
equivalent of toe
funk. Somehow,
probably through copious amounts
of sugar (which is available in
massive quantities from the craft
services table -- that's
movietalk for "free food"), I
managed to keep in good spirits
through most of it. It didn't
hurt that I was within spitting
distance of more beautiful women
than you can shake a schtick
at. Or
so I thought. One of the
beautiful women turned out to be
a man in drag, a fact not so
obvious from all angles. She (he?
it? aww, who cares...) looked
like a Hispanic Catwoman, only
with a five o'clock shadow. As
the "extras coordinator"
(Catwoman was an extra) I was the
first to encounter her, so I got
to watch the rest of the men on
the crew clumsily hit on him and
then try to diplomatically
withdrawal once they realized
their mistake. (And,
trust me, grips -- the guys who
assemble lighting rigs and
generally move stuff around on
set -- are a notoriously horny
lot... I've seen them hit on
post-op transsexuals.) That
wasn't the only gender bending I
saw. I was waiting for the
bathroom in Grumpy Gravy, when
the door opened and Tia Carerre
walked out. Of the men's
bathroom. Bob
just stared,
incredulous. "Bet
you didn't expect to see me come
out of there," Tia
purred. Not
missing a beat, I say, "Are there
more of you in there?" Now,
normally, I'm the type who thinks
of the funny line about three
hours later (why do you think I'm
a writer and not a stand-up
comic?), but everyone (including
Tia) got a good laugh out of
this. Bob still compliments me on
it. From
there, the night progressed more
or less normally. We were mainly
shooting exteriors in the parking
lot of Dumpy Gravy, though when a
shot called for real, live
cockroaches to be spilled onto
the Gravy's floor, I made sure to
be standing next to an unknowing
Mr. Lumpy, to see the expression
on his face. It was that
delightful mix of helplessness
and sheer panic. It
was when morning was looming that
things got seriously weird. It
became obvious that the sun was
rising, yet all the scenes we had
left were night. I have never
seen filmmaking this fast and
furious this side of Robert
Rodriguez. If we had only worked
at this pace the entire movie,
one buddy later remarked, we
would have been done in three
days. But
even the Flash (or the Streak,
for that matter) could not have
finished in time. But strangely
enough, they didn't stop. The
director kept shooting, even when
the sun was fully up. Hoo doggie,
can't wait to see how those shots
turn out. Oh,
but it's not over, sports fans.
(Wait, where are you going?)
First on the agenda is breakfast.
But wait: The bar owner is passed
out drunk! And he was supposed to
provide the vittles! What, oh
what shall we do? The
answer, of course, is send the
PAs (which does not, as
previously thought, stand for
"production assistant," but
rather for "peon anonymous") to
McDonald's to buy 200 breakfast
meals. In order to save time, we
called ahead and gave our order.
But, of course, like any
reasonable McDonald's crew, they
assumed that such an order must
be a collegiate prank. And so we
waited. And waited. I found
myself turning into Mr. Lumpy,
only chewing out these people
would have the same response as
shouting Portugese in the middle
of Times Square. The only words
of English the crew knew were,
"Would you like fries with that?"
(Which puts them about on par
with many University of Iowa
athletes and liberal arts
graduates.) Sitting
in a McDonald's at 6 a.m.,
waiting for 200 EggMcMuffins
gives one a sense of perspective
on this world. Fortunately, I
have a very selective brain, and
I was able to ignore it and move
on with my life. Ignorance truly
is bliss, and don't let anyone
tell you otherwise. (Unless you
choose to ignore that bit of
advice, in which case... oh,
never mind.) But
it didn't end there. After
delivering the McPayload to a
sleep-deprived crew, another,
even more bizarre duty fell in my
lap. Central
to the plot of the movie is a
chain of delivery grocery stores
in Los Angeles called Pink Dot.
Pink Dot drivers drive VW Bugs,
and not the trendy new ones,
either, but the suicidal version
produced in the seventies. And
from the looks of them, these
were some of the first off the
assembly line. They are painted a
garish blue, with pink dots all
over the car. To top it off, all
the cars are decorated with an
oversized baseball cap, complete
with a propeller that really
spins, though sadly, does not
actually allow the car to fly.
The whole thing looks like Herbie
Takes Acid. We
had four of these cars, and they
had to be returned to home base,
all the way across town, which
meant taking many of LA's already
suicidally dangerous freeways. To
top it off, each car was missing
certain vital components, so only
if you combined all four of them
would you have a whole car. Not
realizing what I was doing, I
dazedly raised my hand when they
asked for "help." I'm a trusting
lad, who usually assumes that
"help" doesn't include mortal
danger. They handed me a set of
keys and pointed me to a
bug. This
was dangerous with a full night's
rest, but not having really slept
in three days, it was downright
Quayle of me to try. My Dotmobile
had a hole in the floor, not
unlike the Flintstones car, that
if if my brakes wore out, I had
the alternative of using my
feet. I'll
spare you the details. Obviously
I made it out alive, thought not
before losing track of the rest
of the Dotcars, stalling on the
highway (twice!) and accidentally
turning off somewhere in the
vicinity of Compton. When
I made it back, the last of the
crew was loading into the van to
head back to the parking lot,
which meant I had missed the
satisfaction of hearing, "That's
a wrap!" That's
okay, though. Still to come: the
wrap party. That
piece was (c) 1998 Patrick
Keller, Gern Blansten
Productions. Feel free to
distribute it as long as the
article is complete and contains
this notice. Questions, comments,
news tips, weird stories and
other minutia, no matter how
strange should be sent to
me.
Employees and their families are
not eligible and will be
juggled. |
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