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I should’ve been a rock star. It’s in my genetic make up. I don’t trust anyone over the age of thirty, I can’t drive 55, and any chance I get to paint it, I paint it black. I should’ve been a rock star and probably would’ve been if school band hadn’t turned me off of music for so long. Then, during my formative teen years when I was removed enough from associating music with that awful thing my class did on days we didn’t have P.E., I picked up the guitar and got to play music I actually liked. However, by this time, I was in high school, and much too busy sexing up exotic women (not sitting in my room playing Castlevania, as is popular belief) to be able to devote the necessary time it takes to master the instrument.

I should’ve been a rock star. I could’ve been a rock star, and today, I proved it.

Waking up at 6:15am Pacific Time (use your Midwest work ethic to convert it to Central Time on your own), I got ready to drive down to Inglewood for my 8:00am call time.

I arrived at 7:50, allowing plenty of time to sign in and wait, but whatever—that’s just the life of a rock star. So I, along with about 49 other people, waited under the shade tent for our call.

Before going on, let’s review the theme of this video shoot: the goal was to set a bunch of world records that would be documented by officials from Guinness, the official source for all things world recordy since 1955. There was even a representative from Guinness there to oversee the whole thing. Some records to set were World’s Largest Hootenanny, World’s Largest Custard Pie Fight, and so on. Others I would find out about as the day wore on.

The first world record to get underway involved a group of guys that looked like rock stars who would play Guitar Hero: World Tour (on the Xbox 360—the game will be released on all major consoles and handhelds, though) for 12 hours straight. The game doesn’t have a release date yet (scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2008), so this was kind of cool to see a working version of it this early on, however I have my doubts the game is completed being so far away from a launch date. My job during this portion of the video was to be in the background and cheer on the Guitar Hero players, which was hard to do because they only got about four notes into each song before failing. A representative from Activision had to keep interrupting to show them how to play. Finally, the faux rockers got the hang of it and filming began, along with their twelve-hour timer.

So myself and about seventy other Weezer fans at this point crowded around their tent, shouting, cheering on, looking like we were having a good time, while the director kept telling the Guitar Hero guys to, “Get more into it,” and, “Pretend like you’re rock stars.” I had a notion to show them how it’s done. I don’t need to pretend. Rocking out is as natural to me as breathing. Most of the principle shots were taken care of right then and there, but pickup shots were done throughout the day.

Next, more extras joined the ranks and we were all ushered to another area of the Forum parking lot, where we were to partake in the World’s Largest Dodgeball Game. The teams were split evenly by a long line of red dodgeballs in the center of the court. The rules were explained, the cameras started rolling, and the whistle blew—trumpeting pandemonium.

To brag is to use boastful language; boast. For example, “He bragged endlessly about his high score.”

What I am about to do is brag: I am one helluva dodgeball player (what can I say: the Olympic spirit fills me). It’s been my forte since I was in elementary school. And today, on the biggest dodgeball-playing arena of my life, I did not disappoint. I was merciless. Chumps were dropping right and left from my superior dodgeball skills. My kill count was close to that in Rambo III. When the dust settled, my team stood victorious. Sure, there were a few casualties, but so is the name of the game. The opposing team recovered their fallen, and reassembled for round 2. Again, my team would come out victorious. Although, I have to admit, I got out in this game. But it was a matter of sheer luck on the other team’s part. I threw a ball so hard at someone it bounced off of her backside and into the air, and just happened to get caught. That’s okay. Ichiro says he wishes he could have a perfect batting average, but it’s just not possible due to forces out of his control—a similar situation here. Not that it mattered—I’d already paved the way for Team Fizzlebottom to come up with the win. The third game was for the record. With all the world watching, and somewhat miffed at the dumb luck from the last game, I came out of the gates guns a blazing. In no time at all, I’d dropped half a dozen fools. When the game concluded, I remained standing, Team Fizzlebottom went undefeated with a 3-0 record, and we’d set a Guinness World Record. Go me. Go America.

Back at the shade tent, we all refueled with water. Shortly thereafter, the director came around and gathered the weird looking kids and hurried them over to stand around a giant flying W (Weezer signature trademark. It shows up in most of their music videos and concerts) made out of nachos. This was both cool and hilarious. Not being a weird looking kid, I did not get picked, so I sat back and took pictures on my camera phone. While waiting for our next assignment, a few people came up to me and complimented me on my dodgeball playing ability (no lie—if I’d had a Sharpie on me, they’d of probably had me sign their face).

It was also around this time I first encountered two guys that thought they were 2 Cool 4 Skool. One was wearing an Incubus shirt and the other a Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt. Their presence solidified my hate for the band Incubus and might have soiled my love of the Chili Peppers forever. Any time they talked, it sounded as if they did not want to be at the video shoot. In no way were they forced to be there and could have left at any time. While everyone else was having fun, they’d have to say something to completely kill the mood, which got obnoxious really fast. Therefore, any time I have to reference them, I will lovingly refer to them individually as Incubus Fag and Red Hot Chili Fucker.

Around 9:30, we extras were beckoned to line up around a beat-up station wagon with a raised hood. The sun was beating down, and it gave the parking lot that watery oasis look. Through the mirage, entered all four members of the band: Brian, Pat, Rivers, and Scott. You could tell just by the way they carried themselves—they were rock stars. As they got closer, we all broke down laughing, everyone except Incubus Fag and Red Hot Chili Fucker. The reason the rest of us were laughing was because Rivers, who is about 5’ 7” and 135 lbs. had his hair slicked back underneath a hairnet, wearing a wife beater, baggy shorts that stopped a few inches above his ankles, socks pulled up the rest of the way, and vintage black Nike shoes. Even better, Rivers had temporary tattoos all over his body. There was a design crawling up his neck, a spider web on his elbow, and two hands praying on the inside of his left forearm. I talked with a fellow fan of Weezer about how nice it was to see Rivers having fun with things again (the same Rivers, who at one point isolated himself in a room for two years after the release of their sophomore album didn’t perform as well as expected). Then Incubus Fag tried to correct me, saying, “Yeah, if dressing up like a gangster is your idea of fun.”

As a matter of fact, Incubus Fag, that is my idea of fun. Now shut the fuck up, grab a wide ruled notebook, and write some fucking poetry. Better yet, save a tree, grab a knife, and write that poem down your jugular vein. Fucking bitch.

But back to the subject at hand, Rivers was there to pull this supped up station wagon with his teeth and set a World Record. Again, we were there to cheer him on. Someone forgot to take the station wagon out of park, and the first attempt almost pulled Rivers’ teeth out of his head. Rivers, in all his ghetto glory, finally got to pull the car a few meters before the bit in his mouth broke. But I think it had already gone far enough to issue him the world record. What a productive day so far, and it’s not even 10:00am yet.

They began setting up for the token footage of the band playing that is in every music video. Before going over to cheer them on as they play, first we had to get some shots of the words biggest skateboard. It was a really big skateboard. They packed well over thirty people on that thing. Then one of the grips pushed it into frame, causing about twenty-five people to lose their balance and almost fall off. The rest of us cheered.

With that business out of the way, and the band plugged in, we all huddled around the Flying Nacho, people desperately trying to get positioned where they thought the camera would pick them up. I noticed some people eating the nachos and cheese, forgetting that this thing had been sitting out for over three hours in the California sun. (Un)fortunately, some Production Assistants saw that and immediately asked people to stop. Some did.

With the band ready and the extras fighting off salmonella, we were ready to shoot. Our instructions were to look like we were having a good time rocking out to Weezer. No problem. The cameras rolled, the band lip-synched to the song, “Troublemaker,” and we rocked out. The “we” being myself and Weezer—everybody else was just faking. It’s not their fault. They weren’t born rock stars like us. After more jumping around and looking like we were having a good time, the song ended and we got ready to do it again, and again, and again. During the interim, people were voicing their complaints that the band wasn’t playing live. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it pretty common knowledge that bands don’t actually play when shooting music videos? It’s not like every band that shoots a video is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their fans—that’s just how it’s done so it doesn’t look goofy when you overlay the song in post-production.

During this segment, other members of the band set some records of their own. Pat Wilson, the drummer, played the world’s smallest drum kit. Yes, it was a fully functional drum kit, and Pat had two tiny drumsticks for which to play with. The man from Guinness came onto the set with an official Guinness measuring stick to measure every aspect of the kit to make sure it was a world record. While he was busy doing that, guitarist Brian Bell played his instrument using the world’s longest electric guitar amp cord. The thing ran from the set, which was at one end of the Forum’s parking lot, all the way to the other. It’ll be hard to grasp just how long this cord was until you see the music video, as I doubt any of my four loyal readers will have been to the Forum’s parking lot to know just how big that is. After running through the song a few more times with the band, it was lunchtime.

The Guitar Hero guys were still at it, looking bored out of their mind. The singer’s voice sounded shot. He was barely able to whisper into the microphone now. I keep hearing the same songs over and over again, and I’ve been busy doing things involving not playing Guitar Hero. Persevere guys—you’ve only got about seven more hours to go.

Lunch was served. It was Pizza Hut pizza. Maybe the greasiest Pizza Hut pizza ever served for lunch. The grease from my two slices of pizza soaked through my multi-layered paper plates and actually dripped like a leaky faucet onto the asphalt. But the lemonade was just right.

Once us extras had finished eating their bottle of Crisco, people started pulling out their instruments brought along for the hootenanny and played along together to Weezer songs. We ran the gamut, playing things like “Buddy Holly,” from the Blue Album all the way up to “Pork and Beans,” the most recent single, and even some B-side stuff, like “Suzanne.” Everyone had a good time playing along and singing a song—everyone except Incubus Fag and the Red Hot Chili Fucker. I think they were busy uploading sad photos of each other on myspace or something.

Going to grab more lemonade to neutralize the grease base ripping apart my small intestine, I bumped into Guinness World Record holder for playing the World’s Smallest Drum Kit and Weezer drummer, Pat Wilson. We chatted briefly—he was respectful enough to know that I was really busy with the shoot today, but I did let him take a picture with me on my cell phone. He thanked me for the opportunity, I told him it was my pleasure, and we parted ways. The first thing I did was sent the picture to my way hetero life mate Dallas and his cell phone. He texts me back the following message:

“I don’t know who that is. Is it Pat? It looks like Pat.”

I text Dallas back, informing him that it indeed was Pat. His response:

“I hate you.”

Ha ha. Today just paid for its self. But it gets better. Next, I run into Guinness World Record holder for playing guitar with the World’s Longest Electric Guitar Cord and Weezer guitarist Brian Bell. Once again, I was more than happy to let him take a picture with me on my phone. We too exchanged pleasantries and went our separate ways—Brian to do something important, me to do something even more important—I had to send this picture to Dallas.

Dallas text messaged me again:

“Where is it that you got to meet them?”

I told him I was on the set of the “Troublemaker” music video. After a moment’s delay, I receive a text back saying:

“I’m not talking to you for two weeks.”

The director came around asking for all extras to return to the set. It was now time to take part in the World’s Largest Air Guitar Session. We all once again huddled around the Flying Congealed Cheese and Stale Nacho while we went over what we were going to do for this part of the shoot. Someone is eating a damn nacho. No wonder Weezer fans look so sickly. California school system, loyal reader. California school system. Once again, my inner rock star shone through. I played the air guitar better than the Devil can play the fiddle. I had the look, the stance, the windmill strum, the stage presence. Pete Townshend would have been proud.

But it was during the hootenanny that I really shined. Did I say hootenanny? Yes, I said hootenanny. I said it earlier too. Our next record to break was for World’s Raddest Hootenanny. Those of us participating in the hootenanny picked up our guitars (I picked up Rose’s guitar—thanks again, Rose!), our snare drums, our accordions, and our spoons, and went to playing with the band. The song, “Troublemaker” is really easy to play. Aside from a bridge in the middle of the song, you only have to strum an A major chord and an A7 chord, over and over again. That’s all the song is for the verse and chorus. Writing a rock song is easy. Being a rock star is tough. That’s why so many bands never make it—they just don’t have what it takes to be a rock star. Weezer is both good at music and they have the chops to be rock stars. I’m bad at music, knocking me out of the running. But the potential is there. The hootenanny sounded just like a hootenanny would—a little outdoorsy. It didn’t sound great, but considering the eclectic mishmash of instruments in attendance, it turned out better than anyone could have expected. Weezer looked pleased, and we all had a lot of fun.

We did another round of pickup shots, which entailed more jumping around and looking like we were enjoying ourselves. After twelve hours of doing this, it started to wear on everyone.

Another record fell during this portion of the shoot. Weezer set the record for number of guitars smashed in a music video. Once again, the director came around and hand picked a bunch of people to go on stage and smash them while the band lip-synched. I was pretty bummed when I didn’t get picked. The director looked right at me and then past me. It egged me for a few minutes, and then I looked at the group of people that got picked. Again, it was just a bunch of weird looking, sickly kids. Then, I felt better about not getting picked. Not a single normal looking person got pulled from the crowd to smashy smashy. These kids will probably go on to be graphic design majors in college (or already are), and do quite well for themselves, sure, and I’ll probably live in a hostel with Gweat’s for the next five years with no future prospects, but at least I look normal. If ever I accidentally got in a line for a hipster concentration camp, someone would see that I didn’t fit in and pull me out of there before I got on the train.

I heard Incubus Fag and Red Hot Chili Fucker pipe up again, saying something impish. Apparently, everyone else has had it with them too today. Some other extra harangued them for being little fuck tarts and a couple other people jumped in to attack too. Looking back, it seems a little harsh and excessive, but when Mom comes to pick them up, she’ll probably take RHCF and his friend to McDonald’s to cheer them up. They’ll be fine.

After that, most people got to leave and prizes were handed out at the end of the day. These consisted of forty-fives, who probably more people there had a player that could spin them than should, to Weezer tote bags, to a guitar signed by the band. But I was out of the running for these prizes, as I had one more record to be a part of.

With the sun going down, we had to get this taken care of quickly before we lost all of our natural light. The groups were split again 50/50, and we all lined up on each side of a folding table lined with custard pies. The final record to go down was…you guess it, the World’s Largest Custard Pie Fight. The Guinness representative informed us for it to count as a world record, it had to last at least a minute. However, there weren’t enough pies to go around, so we had to drag the fight on by doing it in waves, the same way our founding fathers fought the English. The whistle blew, and the first wave got creamed (pun intended). Then the second wave went, then the third. I launched my pie at my opponent, and in turn, I got nailed big time. My entire head was covered in delicious custard. I couldn’t see through all of the creamy goodness. Wiping my eyes, I saw the next waves go. Everyone was a mess. We got it to last longer than a minute, though. Even with pies gone, people started picking up shells off the ground and chucking them. The pie fight continued on. It was a blast. People were slipping on residue left and right—a few even wiped out. By the end of it, there was more pie on people than on the ground. My entire head was caked in it, there was a good portion of custard resting on my shoulders and some going down the front of my shirt. My right pant leg had a healthy amount covering the span of hip to ankle, and my shoes were more crust than Converse.

The director yelled, “That’s a wrap,” we all cheered, and began wiping off custard. Apparently, no one thought a pie fight would get messy, and we were left to ration about two paper towel rolls amongst ourselves. Fortunately, a Production Assistant found a hose we could spray down with. Within a matter of minutes, I knew what it was like to be at Woodstock and the Civil Rights protests all in one.

Now, soaking wet and still pied, I hunted down the Cougar and called it a day. On my way, I crossed paths with Karl, fifth member of Weezer and their online site manager. We talked for a bit—he got some pictures of me in my baked goods glory, and went about our separate ways. On my way to the car, I spotted two of the Guitar Hero guys. I asked them how it was to play Guitar Hero for twelve hours. They said it was one of the worst things they’ve had to do in their life. I can’t even imagine. I get about three songs into Guitar Hero and get bored. Just like I assumed, they didn’t even have a full build of the game. In fact, Activision only gave them nine songs to play the entire day. Nine songs! Average each song to be about three minutes, that’s less than a half hour of material. Since this blog has run long, and you already had to convert Pacific Standard Time into Central, I’ll do the math for you on this one. That means they played each of the nine songs roughly twenty-four times. The toy guitarist told me, “If I hear another Bon Jovi song in my entire life, I’m going to fucking kill myself.”

Then the plastic drummer chimed in, “The only song I would listen to again is ‘Heartbreaker,’ by Pat Benatar, because she’s hot.” I hope Bon Jovi wasn’t in earshot to hear that.

I drove back through Inglewood and Los Angeles without my shirt on, and my seatbelt still got custard on it. That’s going to smell so bad. Of course, the nearest open parking space to the hostel was three blocks away, so I lugged my dirty clothes in one hand, and Rose’s guitar in the other (my hands were clean, at least), walked past Sait, Marko, and Ruby, who were all busy doing work on their computers. I hear running water in the bathroom. Gweat’s is in there singing. Who knows if he was actually showering. I hoped he’d be out of the bathroom by the time I dropped my clothes in the laundry.

On my way down the hall again, I still hear water running, then I hear the toilet flush, followed by Gweat’s saying, “Holy shit, that’s hot.” There are so many things wrong with this picture. One, the shower is too far away from the toilet for Gweat’s to even reach the handle to flush it. Two, why would he flush the toilet in the first place if he were in the shower? A paradox.

Upon returning upstairs after starting my load of laundry, Gweat’s emerged from the shower, so I hopped in. When I was finished, the bathroom smelled like a bakery, and it wasn’t because the Dutch Letters Gweat’s was making in there were finished cooking, either.

All in all, it was an excellent day. I’m really starting to dig California. There’s just so much stuff to do and see. Even though I haven’t done much of anything yet. I’d never have seen or done the things I have done here back at home.

Lastly, I’ve got to thank Weezer and their crew. They were great to work with today, and it was a lot of fun. I’ll remember today now and forever. Should I somehow forget, I’ll simply be able to watch the music video as a quick reminder.

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