Note: In keeping up with my “Past Blogs Not Posted Series (unofficial title), this blog has ceased to be a liveblog. The movie was released in theaters months ago and the DVD release is looming on the horizon. I saw the trailer originally in the theaters, and since I didn’t have my laptop on me (just a handheld camera to record “Land of the Lost” on), nor a tripod (handheld camera—gives everything an indie feel), I couldn’t jot down notes until a later date. So I guess you could say this never was a liveblog (you could say that—but you don’t have to be a jerk about it).
0:00
THE FOLLOWING PREVIEW HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR ALL AUDIENCES BY THE MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. Hey, that’s me!
0:03
Sam Witwicky (the alcoholic kid from the first Transformers) mentions college to his robot sex slave, Bumblebee. The retarded car starts playing, “I’m So Excited,” by the Pointer Sisters to express his excitement. The rug is pulled out from under him though when Sam tells his only friend he’s not taking him to college. The robot sulks and wonders who will fuck him late at night (I assume).
0:14
Swooping helicopter shot of a college campus (a trademark Michael Bay camera trick). Dad Witwicky cracks a joke about having to pay $40,000 a year for college. Not to worry, Dad. If I know college kids, Sam will put in one week of intense studying, then congratulate himself by partying the first weekend at a guy’s house a friend knows for the next sixteen weeks. After the end of the whatever $40,000 a year university you’ve chosen kicks him out, he can try a community college closer to home. And when he’s bored with that, he can find a job doing road construction AND keep his costly drinking habit he’s developed alive.
0:22
Megan Fox is straddling a motorcycle in the most awkward and unconventional way I can think of, wearing cutoff jean shorts that are so short I’m pretty sure I can see her vagina. We learn she and Sam are going to try a long distance relationship while he’d busy failing out of college. Okay, I buy the two story tall transforming robot aliens from outer space thing that inauspiciously hide behind trees in the middle of the suburbs breaking shit in the dead of night and no one seeing them, but a long distance college relationship working out? You have created something no one could suspend disbelief about, Michael Bay. Well, not you personally—the screenwriters that wrote the script that you probably didn’t bother to read did that.
0:31
Sam drops a piece of rock on the floor, probably an important plot point. Most likely it’s a plot device that will make no sense and be forgotten about over the course of the movie.
0:40
Sam flips out in the middle of one of his college classes, complaining of “seeing symbols.” It’s called math class. Those are addition and subtraction symbols. The California school system has failed you Sam Witwicky, like it has so many others.
0:44
Meteoroids* fly towards earth, quite possibly stock footage from "Armageddon." Michael Bay, you self-referential genius, you.
0:46
Optimus Prime stands in the middle of a college campus, in plain daylight.
0:50
Meteors** hit towering buildings. A shot-for-shot comparison to “Armageddon” is needed. Michael Bay might be plagiarizing himself.
1:03
Agent Simmons, played by, once respected character actor John Turturro, shows up for the sequel wearing a dickey around his neck, telling Sam, “What you are about to see is top secret. Do not tell my mother.” Does this imply that Sam somehow knows Agent Simmons’ mom? Oh wait, I get it. This is what Michael Bay calls characterization. Agent Simmons is telling Sam and the audience that he’s a mama’s boy, and he wants everyone to know that, because most mama’s boys love publicizing that fact about themselves.
1:08
We’re now in Egypt. I know this because there are pyramids and camels. Bumblebee is also there. So Sam wouldn’t take his love dummy with him to college, but he would drive Bumblebee across the Atlantic Ocean, to Egypt?
1:12
Another sweeping helicopter shot. This trailer could become a drinking game.
1:13
It has been confirmed that Shia LeBeouf has turned this trailer into a drinking game.
1:14
Decepticons are underwater digging up the remains of Megatron—I think. Truth be told, all of the Transformers look alike, and without any discernible features amongst them, I have no idea who the hell is doing what to whom.
1:25
“From Director Michael Bay” flies away from the screen. It confuses me how this is a selling point for the movie, because people who actually pay attention to who directs a movie would automatically be turned off from watching a movie that Michael Bay directs. For people that don’t care about this sort of thing (i.e. the people that go see “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”), this is meaningless information to them. The two seconds it took to mention the director would better be served showing Megan Fox getting fisted by an Autobot.
1:27
A Decepticon (I think) swats the United States flag off the top of the Brooklyn Bridge in an act of defiance. This makes the Decepticons no better than them sumbitch Al-Qaeda terrorists we went to Iraq to stop. And just like that Toby Keith song says, we’ll put a boot up their shiny chrome asses, too.
1:29
Some shit starts to blow up. A Transformer transforms with the aid of a several million dollars of CG. The same effect could have been done with some Reynolds Wrap and a match, because that’s kind of what the transformations look like anyway—just a bunch of shiny scraps flying around until they look like what they’re supposed to.
1:37
“And Executive Producer Steven Spielberg” lands on the screen. Okay, this credit makes more sense than the Michael Bay one to an extent. The laymen know Steven Spielberg. He has some capital to his name. It’s not worth as much as it was, say in the early-nineties, when he could have released a home video of himself trying to ride a skateboard in his driveway and have it gross over $100 million domestically, but he’s still a household name. But he seriously hurts his own credit by attaching his name to this project. The guy made “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List” and “Jurassic Park” and “Munich” and “Saving Private Ryan.” Ah, shit. Who am I kidding? He doesn’t care anymore. Spend less time going home and being a father and more time making good movies, jackass.
1:38
Megan Fox cries. This was done purposefully to bring in a female demographic. That one second of emotions shows that there will be plenty of stuff Hollywood thinks women are into, like sadness.
1:39
Some robots fight, some shit falls over, people scream.
1:46
In a forest full of coniferous trees now, Optimus Prime (I recognize him because Michael Bay decided to paint gay flames on his legs), chops at what I am once again assuming are bad guys with his arm swords. Wait, arm swords?
1:48
Sam contorts his face and screams, “OPTIMUS!”
1:49
Optimus Prime is launched into the air, landing with a thud by a tree he might have previously cut down with his arm swords. Then, an overdub of him saying, “Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing.” That’s probably supposed to be profound and meaningful, but it’s not. It’s just stupid and lazy. Fate, by definition, is the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably described. You don’t choose fate—fate chooses you. So there is no “rarely.” Ah, well. If that’s the only error this movie has, they should count their blessings.
1:55
Back in Egypt, a Transformer is climbing one of the pyramids. It also marks the start of a bunch of quick shots—sometimes with things happening. Other times they just settle for a shot of Megan Fox looking at something, or Marines running away, even though a Marine never runs away. Semper Fi.
2:09
The big Transformer that was climbing the pyramid starts to suck stuff up. Symbolism. It’s able to vacuum up heavy rocks and a two-ton Transformer, but not Shia LeBeouf or Megan Fox.
2:15
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” title made out of scrap metal transforms in front of our very eyes.
2:21
The title shatters, forming the Decepticon logo. Admittedly, that was actually pretty damn cool.
There you have it, summer movie fans. I hope you choose to read my dictations of what happened during the trailer as opposed to running out to the local YouTube and just watching the damn thing yourself.
*Any of the small bodies, often remnants of comets, traveling through space: when such a body enters the earth’s atmosphere it is heated to luminosity and becomes a meteor.
**See above.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
“My Anus Is Bleeding”
Note: This event came at the eclipse of 2008, if I’m not mistaken. Being a few months short of a year from this date in time, and without giving anything away, I hope the leak was dammed up once again and is not still running like a civ.
Los Angeles is considered one of the most stressful cities in the United States. Between traffic, hippies, and the cost of living, it is easy to see why. But it goes further than that. Even simple daily errands cannot be completed without a song and dance number.
Like paying my phone bill. Having some time to spare on my way to work, I stopped into my cell phone provider’s store in Koreatown (or K-Town, as the natives know it as). The simple task of leaving my car, strapping on a bullet-proof vest, doing the “roadie run” to the nearest cover, and walking into the Verizon store was complicated in a way only Los Angeles can make it.
Within moments of stepping out of the Cougar, a man either missing or ignoring my Iowa license plates waddled up to me and said, “Excuse me, neighbor. My name is…”
The man gave me his name at precisely the exact same time I started thinking about eggplants, so it escapes me.
“…And I have a favor to ask of you. You see I am a man that has been affected by AIDS. But don’t worry, you can’t get it from just standing here with me.”
With that information, it made me wonder how this man did get AIDS. My guess was unprotected gay sex while doing heroin intravenously and sinning against a Republican in the Eighties. The man proceeded to lift his right shirtsleeve to show me how AIDS has ravaged any muscle he might have had at one time. Then he continued.
“…Please good neighbor. I am a man that believes in keeping his word. My family is not home and I have started to bleed anally.”
At which time the man turned around to show me the ever-accumulating anal blood stain on the seat of his light blue jeans. At which time, I forced myself from laughing. Unfortunately, I could not stop myself from cracking a smile.
“…I am in need of an anal suppository immediately if I want to stop the bleeding. I have a prescription here in my hands…”
Now the anal suppository prescription was in my hands. I read it over. His blood plug was to be picked up at Rite-Aid. It came at a cost of thirty-seven dollars and some odd cents. Boy, anal suppositories have sure gotten expensive. And how am I not laughing uncontrollably right now? I’ve been handed a prescription for someone’s anal suppository.
“…I am short seventeen dollars, kind neighbor. I am a good man with a good family. If you can please give me a ride and the money to make up the difference, I will return you your money and give you extra for gas. Oh, don’t worry about the bleeding. I have a towel I could put down in the seat of your car.”
The immediacy of the issue forced me to think quickly. My thought process was along the lines of, “Okay, a man with AIDS has just run up to me asking me for money and a ride to the suppository store (giggle) to stop his anal bleeding, and he plans to put a towel down in the passenger seat of the Cougar to keep the AIDS blood from reaching my seat. I can’t wait to blog about this.”
My response was, “I’m sorry sir, but I can’t do it.”
His eyes widened and his mouth fell agape.
“I can give you a little bit of money to help pay for the suppository, but I don’t have seventeen dollars on me to cover the difference. But I’ll give you what little I can.”
This is true. I really did not have seventeen dollars to give. But I forked over a couple of dollars, said he did not have to worry about paying me back, and tried to get away, feeling slightly guilty, but at the same time, not wanting a complete stranger who was bleeding out of his ass in the passenger seat of the Cougar.
“Please sir. I have very good karma and will pay you back for your kindness just as soon as my family returns.”
His karma must not have been that good, as he was bleeding anally due to his immune system being destroyed by the AIDS bug, and I was turning him down for a ride to the drug store, where upon arrival, would have to purchase and use a suppository. I didn’t tell him this part. It sounded like he had enough problems going for him right now. For me to bring up that I thought his karma was not as good as he perceived it to be would just be adding insult to injury.
“I’m sorry sir. But I just can’t. I really have to go, but I wish you the best of luck and pray things work out for you,” I said.
I left the man whose name I never learned to his own devices in trying to find a gooder Samaritan than myself. With my two U.S. dollars in his possession, he would have enough for a bus fare, and I’m assuming if he showed up at a Rite-Aid in the same state he was in for me moments ago, they’d have no problem waiving the prescription cost and fix him up. If anything, by the time he arrived, they’d show more sympathy for him because his jeans would look like the elevator doors had opened up in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”
After paying my phone bill, I saw the man across the street still looking for a ride. A sting of guilt hit my conscience. It was probably the severity of the situation sinking in. This man clearly had a serious malady and I was treating it like just another day in La La Land. On the other hand, this is just another day in La La Land. It’s this kind of thing that happens all the time here. Complete strangers come up to you and ask for help ranging from going into a store and buying them CO2 cartridges to watching their pet llama while they take a piss on a head of lettuce being held by a grade school aged boy in gym clothes.
But the man with AIDS and the line at the cell phone store had chewed up what spare time I had to reconsider my decision. I still had a job to get to, and there are 9 million other people in Los Angeles that can probably aid the man with AIDS. This is me paying it forward.
Los Angeles is considered one of the most stressful cities in the United States. Between traffic, hippies, and the cost of living, it is easy to see why. But it goes further than that. Even simple daily errands cannot be completed without a song and dance number.
Like paying my phone bill. Having some time to spare on my way to work, I stopped into my cell phone provider’s store in Koreatown (or K-Town, as the natives know it as). The simple task of leaving my car, strapping on a bullet-proof vest, doing the “roadie run” to the nearest cover, and walking into the Verizon store was complicated in a way only Los Angeles can make it.
Within moments of stepping out of the Cougar, a man either missing or ignoring my Iowa license plates waddled up to me and said, “Excuse me, neighbor. My name is…”
The man gave me his name at precisely the exact same time I started thinking about eggplants, so it escapes me.
“…And I have a favor to ask of you. You see I am a man that has been affected by AIDS. But don’t worry, you can’t get it from just standing here with me.”
With that information, it made me wonder how this man did get AIDS. My guess was unprotected gay sex while doing heroin intravenously and sinning against a Republican in the Eighties. The man proceeded to lift his right shirtsleeve to show me how AIDS has ravaged any muscle he might have had at one time. Then he continued.
“…Please good neighbor. I am a man that believes in keeping his word. My family is not home and I have started to bleed anally.”
At which time the man turned around to show me the ever-accumulating anal blood stain on the seat of his light blue jeans. At which time, I forced myself from laughing. Unfortunately, I could not stop myself from cracking a smile.
“…I am in need of an anal suppository immediately if I want to stop the bleeding. I have a prescription here in my hands…”
Now the anal suppository prescription was in my hands. I read it over. His blood plug was to be picked up at Rite-Aid. It came at a cost of thirty-seven dollars and some odd cents. Boy, anal suppositories have sure gotten expensive. And how am I not laughing uncontrollably right now? I’ve been handed a prescription for someone’s anal suppository.
“…I am short seventeen dollars, kind neighbor. I am a good man with a good family. If you can please give me a ride and the money to make up the difference, I will return you your money and give you extra for gas. Oh, don’t worry about the bleeding. I have a towel I could put down in the seat of your car.”
The immediacy of the issue forced me to think quickly. My thought process was along the lines of, “Okay, a man with AIDS has just run up to me asking me for money and a ride to the suppository store (giggle) to stop his anal bleeding, and he plans to put a towel down in the passenger seat of the Cougar to keep the AIDS blood from reaching my seat. I can’t wait to blog about this.”
My response was, “I’m sorry sir, but I can’t do it.”
His eyes widened and his mouth fell agape.
“I can give you a little bit of money to help pay for the suppository, but I don’t have seventeen dollars on me to cover the difference. But I’ll give you what little I can.”
This is true. I really did not have seventeen dollars to give. But I forked over a couple of dollars, said he did not have to worry about paying me back, and tried to get away, feeling slightly guilty, but at the same time, not wanting a complete stranger who was bleeding out of his ass in the passenger seat of the Cougar.
“Please sir. I have very good karma and will pay you back for your kindness just as soon as my family returns.”
His karma must not have been that good, as he was bleeding anally due to his immune system being destroyed by the AIDS bug, and I was turning him down for a ride to the drug store, where upon arrival, would have to purchase and use a suppository. I didn’t tell him this part. It sounded like he had enough problems going for him right now. For me to bring up that I thought his karma was not as good as he perceived it to be would just be adding insult to injury.
“I’m sorry sir. But I just can’t. I really have to go, but I wish you the best of luck and pray things work out for you,” I said.
I left the man whose name I never learned to his own devices in trying to find a gooder Samaritan than myself. With my two U.S. dollars in his possession, he would have enough for a bus fare, and I’m assuming if he showed up at a Rite-Aid in the same state he was in for me moments ago, they’d have no problem waiving the prescription cost and fix him up. If anything, by the time he arrived, they’d show more sympathy for him because his jeans would look like the elevator doors had opened up in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”
After paying my phone bill, I saw the man across the street still looking for a ride. A sting of guilt hit my conscience. It was probably the severity of the situation sinking in. This man clearly had a serious malady and I was treating it like just another day in La La Land. On the other hand, this is just another day in La La Land. It’s this kind of thing that happens all the time here. Complete strangers come up to you and ask for help ranging from going into a store and buying them CO2 cartridges to watching their pet llama while they take a piss on a head of lettuce being held by a grade school aged boy in gym clothes.
But the man with AIDS and the line at the cell phone store had chewed up what spare time I had to reconsider my decision. I still had a job to get to, and there are 9 million other people in Los Angeles that can probably aid the man with AIDS. This is me paying it forward.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Jack, Me, & Dupree
Note: This blog entry comes to us from the tail end of 2008. Nothing this cool has happened in the world since. So go ahead, Kremlin Joe—let fly with the nukes.
In a previous blog, I was quick to assume that were I ever to meet Jack Nicholson, my favorite actor, and quite frankly, someone whose life philosophies deeply intrigue me, I would begin to “infinitely crap my pants.” As it turns out, this is not the case at all.
On this day (December 19 for those keeping score at home), I arrived at work that morning only to find out in our morning huddle that we were to have a special screening that day upstairs and a VIP guest in attendance. It turns out this VIP is none other than Jack Nicholson. While everyone else looked around and murmurs of how cool that was could be heard, I stood with my mouth agape that the man himself would be frequenting my theater this day. My knees buckled a little and my heart was sent aflutter. I felt the same way I’m sure thousands of women have felt over the years after Jack has made passionate love to them for days, if not weeks, on end.
We have a little unwritten rule at our theater, but one that is abided by nonetheless: if an employee’s favorite actor pays a visit, that person gets to help that guest out. The night Al Pacino was in attendance, I was set to help him out, but another worker informed me Pacino was his favorite actor, so I stepped down and let him take my place. I’m not sure what happens if two people share the same favorite actor. It hasn’t come up yet. I assume it will be up to the actor him or herself to choose a favorite then.
While setting up box office, I was flitting around like a humming bird, hovering from one stanchion to the next. The next hour was essentially me talking at a rapid-fire pace about how awesome Jack is and how awesome it is that he was going to be there with my friend Jeremy between selling guests tickets. Jeremy being an aspiring filmmaker himself and also an admirer of Jack had lots of input on the subject. His favorite actor is Daniel Day Lewis, so if he is ever to appear at our theater, wearing mismatched socks and an overcoat that doesn’t match his pants, I predict a role reversal.
In no time at all, the people arriving for the special screening ambushed us—you know, the one Jack was supposed to be a part of. 250 people stormed up the stairs at once. They skipped the box office line and headed straight for the concessions. My bosses, being awesome and doing everything in their power to accommodate the unwritten rule, sent me over there to mingle with the crowd and get me in the middle of the action where Jack would be. Wave after wave of people came—producers, agents, Brendan Fraser, but no Jack. The guests got their complimentary foodstuffs and left behind nothing but dust and straw wrappers. Phooey.
Returning to Box, Jackless, Jeremy and I started making light of the situation. Whenever a new face would appear from the tip of the escalator, we’d both start jumping up and down, yelling in a hush, “Jack, Jack, Jack!” only to follow it up with a, “Nope. Old lady. False alarm,” or a, “Wait, no. Only Martin Scorsese,” or, “Never mind. It’s just Bruce Springsteen.” This went on for a while. Too long come to think of it. The novelty should have worn off well before it did. Come to think of it, the novelty never wore off. We just wore ourselves out physically from doing our little joke so many times.
After waiting all morning for our VIP, the fervor died down and we all accepted the fact that we had been duped. The movie was about to let out and still there was no Jack to be found. Jeremy and I were back to talking about movies, in particular, “The Aviator,” which has been a point of conversation for a couple of weeks now, and this and that, these and those.
And then it happened. Who should appear from the escalator? It was him. It was Jack.
I turned to Jeremy, who was busy texting underneath the box office counter.
“Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy,” I said over and over.
He looked up and saw what all the to do was about. As reported earlier, I did not begin to infinitely crap my pants, nor did Jeremy. But we were both in awe of the silver screen icon there in our midst. The man we grew up knowing as the Joker and later in life would come to recognize as Jake Gittes and Randall P. McMurphy and a deranged Johnny Carson. And just like that, he was out of our sight and on his way upstairs for the screening.
Reaching for a walkie, I radioed management to let them know our VIP was finally here. Based on their mannerisms coming out of the office, they were pretty excited to hear this too. Plans were set in place to accommodate the actor and the fellow he arrived with, who if I’m not mistaken, was a producer on the film. Bless my manager’s hearts, they assigned me the task of making sure director’s chairs were set up for the guests and that they had water bottles and microphones for the Q&A that was to follow the film.
The movie ended, the crowd applauded, I did my job and sat back and watched the Q&A. Had anyone have asked me to return to work, I’d have refused outright. Fortunately, such a ridiculous request was not desired of me.
Jack and the producer took the microphones and bottles of water in their director’s chairs, although both remained standing rather than sit in the director’s chairs I set up. The producer introduced the man that needed no introduction (Brendan Fraser looked a bit befuddled, but such is life for Brendan Fraser), and he spoke.
His voice was a bit raspy, but most definitely his signature vocal croon. He went on to talk about independent cinema and how hard it is for them to get made these days compared to back then (remember, Jack was involved with “Easy Rider,” one of the most successful independents of all time), because the studios don’t like competition, and how it is such a relief to see that the movie shown on this day at my theater could still get made in the current climate of filmmaking. It was a brief speech, but powerful and endearing. Jack sat the microphone back down on the director’s chair, took his water, and exited to a round of applause. He scuttled past my managers and me, and just like that, it was over.
Until one of my managers turned to me and said, “Go with him.”
Okay.
I hurried to catch up to Jack. He was making his way down the escalator this time. I called out, “Mr. Nicholson.”
He turned to me and we locked eyes. I couldn’t believe this moment was happening. I won’t say time slowed down or sped up or anything cliché like that—rather, it remained the same. It’s just at a moment like that you realize how quickly a few seconds goes by.
“Mr. Nicholson. I just wanted to let you know that you are my favorite actor and I wrote a screenplay with you in mind and I hope someday we’ll get a chance to work together,” said I. Ugh. So stupid. He hears crap like this all the time. Way to be a jackass in front of Jack, ya jackass.
“Well thank you, I appreciate that.”
Huh. Did I just get a thank you from Jack Nicholson? I turns out I did, and from there we continued to make small talk. He asked me my name, I told it to him, and we shook hands. Now on the escalator, I asked him what his affiliation was with the movie today, not having seen it when I last checked his filmography on IMDB. Turns out there was no affiliation with the movie whatsoever. Tommy Lee Jones was supposed to show up for the Q&A but could not make it, so the producer, a longtime friend of Jack’s, asked him to come down today to say a few words. Whatever works, I guess. I’m not complaining.
From there, we continued our small talk. Jack told me how he never had a problem knowing if a movie was going to suck or not, and neither could people that work at the box office. It was around this time we passed the box office, Jack and I side-by-side, when another one of my managers saw us. His eyes got wide and had a kind of, “What?” look on his face. It was delightful.
We made our way down another escalator to an elevator that would lead to the parking garage floor where Jack was parked (G2). It was here that we parted ways. Jack wished me luck on everything, and I thanked him, and told him it was an honor to meet him, which it was. The elevator door popped open, Jack did a funny-looking hop, asked if it was going down, and was gone, probably making whoever was in the elevator’s day.
Back at work, the managers wanted to know every little detail. I thanked them for letting me do everything I just did, and they sort of played it off with a, “Well, we can’t just let Jack Nicholson leave the theater by himself.” Thanks managers. You’re the best.
Over the next several days, lots of actors will wander the halls of Landmark Theatre—Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood (all there for a Q&A of, “The Wrestler,” and Benicio Del Toro was there for the special road show edition of “Che” (of note, Jack and Benicio worked together on the movie, “The Pledge”). Diane Keaton, who teamed with Jack in the movie, “Something’s Gotta Give,” also came through box that day, but nothing quite lived up to the golden standard, nor could it.
Thus far, California has had some major lows, but some serious highs too. For every Pas’Ta Weat playing “Kandy Store” at six in the morning there is a Jack Nicholson wishing you the best of luck on all things. Neither of the above examples would’ve happened were I still in Iowa.
In a previous blog, I was quick to assume that were I ever to meet Jack Nicholson, my favorite actor, and quite frankly, someone whose life philosophies deeply intrigue me, I would begin to “infinitely crap my pants.” As it turns out, this is not the case at all.
On this day (December 19 for those keeping score at home), I arrived at work that morning only to find out in our morning huddle that we were to have a special screening that day upstairs and a VIP guest in attendance. It turns out this VIP is none other than Jack Nicholson. While everyone else looked around and murmurs of how cool that was could be heard, I stood with my mouth agape that the man himself would be frequenting my theater this day. My knees buckled a little and my heart was sent aflutter. I felt the same way I’m sure thousands of women have felt over the years after Jack has made passionate love to them for days, if not weeks, on end.
We have a little unwritten rule at our theater, but one that is abided by nonetheless: if an employee’s favorite actor pays a visit, that person gets to help that guest out. The night Al Pacino was in attendance, I was set to help him out, but another worker informed me Pacino was his favorite actor, so I stepped down and let him take my place. I’m not sure what happens if two people share the same favorite actor. It hasn’t come up yet. I assume it will be up to the actor him or herself to choose a favorite then.
While setting up box office, I was flitting around like a humming bird, hovering from one stanchion to the next. The next hour was essentially me talking at a rapid-fire pace about how awesome Jack is and how awesome it is that he was going to be there with my friend Jeremy between selling guests tickets. Jeremy being an aspiring filmmaker himself and also an admirer of Jack had lots of input on the subject. His favorite actor is Daniel Day Lewis, so if he is ever to appear at our theater, wearing mismatched socks and an overcoat that doesn’t match his pants, I predict a role reversal.
In no time at all, the people arriving for the special screening ambushed us—you know, the one Jack was supposed to be a part of. 250 people stormed up the stairs at once. They skipped the box office line and headed straight for the concessions. My bosses, being awesome and doing everything in their power to accommodate the unwritten rule, sent me over there to mingle with the crowd and get me in the middle of the action where Jack would be. Wave after wave of people came—producers, agents, Brendan Fraser, but no Jack. The guests got their complimentary foodstuffs and left behind nothing but dust and straw wrappers. Phooey.
Returning to Box, Jackless, Jeremy and I started making light of the situation. Whenever a new face would appear from the tip of the escalator, we’d both start jumping up and down, yelling in a hush, “Jack, Jack, Jack!” only to follow it up with a, “Nope. Old lady. False alarm,” or a, “Wait, no. Only Martin Scorsese,” or, “Never mind. It’s just Bruce Springsteen.” This went on for a while. Too long come to think of it. The novelty should have worn off well before it did. Come to think of it, the novelty never wore off. We just wore ourselves out physically from doing our little joke so many times.
After waiting all morning for our VIP, the fervor died down and we all accepted the fact that we had been duped. The movie was about to let out and still there was no Jack to be found. Jeremy and I were back to talking about movies, in particular, “The Aviator,” which has been a point of conversation for a couple of weeks now, and this and that, these and those.
And then it happened. Who should appear from the escalator? It was him. It was Jack.
I turned to Jeremy, who was busy texting underneath the box office counter.
“Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy,” I said over and over.
He looked up and saw what all the to do was about. As reported earlier, I did not begin to infinitely crap my pants, nor did Jeremy. But we were both in awe of the silver screen icon there in our midst. The man we grew up knowing as the Joker and later in life would come to recognize as Jake Gittes and Randall P. McMurphy and a deranged Johnny Carson. And just like that, he was out of our sight and on his way upstairs for the screening.
Reaching for a walkie, I radioed management to let them know our VIP was finally here. Based on their mannerisms coming out of the office, they were pretty excited to hear this too. Plans were set in place to accommodate the actor and the fellow he arrived with, who if I’m not mistaken, was a producer on the film. Bless my manager’s hearts, they assigned me the task of making sure director’s chairs were set up for the guests and that they had water bottles and microphones for the Q&A that was to follow the film.
The movie ended, the crowd applauded, I did my job and sat back and watched the Q&A. Had anyone have asked me to return to work, I’d have refused outright. Fortunately, such a ridiculous request was not desired of me.
Jack and the producer took the microphones and bottles of water in their director’s chairs, although both remained standing rather than sit in the director’s chairs I set up. The producer introduced the man that needed no introduction (Brendan Fraser looked a bit befuddled, but such is life for Brendan Fraser), and he spoke.
His voice was a bit raspy, but most definitely his signature vocal croon. He went on to talk about independent cinema and how hard it is for them to get made these days compared to back then (remember, Jack was involved with “Easy Rider,” one of the most successful independents of all time), because the studios don’t like competition, and how it is such a relief to see that the movie shown on this day at my theater could still get made in the current climate of filmmaking. It was a brief speech, but powerful and endearing. Jack sat the microphone back down on the director’s chair, took his water, and exited to a round of applause. He scuttled past my managers and me, and just like that, it was over.
Until one of my managers turned to me and said, “Go with him.”
Okay.
I hurried to catch up to Jack. He was making his way down the escalator this time. I called out, “Mr. Nicholson.”
He turned to me and we locked eyes. I couldn’t believe this moment was happening. I won’t say time slowed down or sped up or anything cliché like that—rather, it remained the same. It’s just at a moment like that you realize how quickly a few seconds goes by.
“Mr. Nicholson. I just wanted to let you know that you are my favorite actor and I wrote a screenplay with you in mind and I hope someday we’ll get a chance to work together,” said I. Ugh. So stupid. He hears crap like this all the time. Way to be a jackass in front of Jack, ya jackass.
“Well thank you, I appreciate that.”
Huh. Did I just get a thank you from Jack Nicholson? I turns out I did, and from there we continued to make small talk. He asked me my name, I told it to him, and we shook hands. Now on the escalator, I asked him what his affiliation was with the movie today, not having seen it when I last checked his filmography on IMDB. Turns out there was no affiliation with the movie whatsoever. Tommy Lee Jones was supposed to show up for the Q&A but could not make it, so the producer, a longtime friend of Jack’s, asked him to come down today to say a few words. Whatever works, I guess. I’m not complaining.
From there, we continued our small talk. Jack told me how he never had a problem knowing if a movie was going to suck or not, and neither could people that work at the box office. It was around this time we passed the box office, Jack and I side-by-side, when another one of my managers saw us. His eyes got wide and had a kind of, “What?” look on his face. It was delightful.
We made our way down another escalator to an elevator that would lead to the parking garage floor where Jack was parked (G2). It was here that we parted ways. Jack wished me luck on everything, and I thanked him, and told him it was an honor to meet him, which it was. The elevator door popped open, Jack did a funny-looking hop, asked if it was going down, and was gone, probably making whoever was in the elevator’s day.
Back at work, the managers wanted to know every little detail. I thanked them for letting me do everything I just did, and they sort of played it off with a, “Well, we can’t just let Jack Nicholson leave the theater by himself.” Thanks managers. You’re the best.
Over the next several days, lots of actors will wander the halls of Landmark Theatre—Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood (all there for a Q&A of, “The Wrestler,” and Benicio Del Toro was there for the special road show edition of “Che” (of note, Jack and Benicio worked together on the movie, “The Pledge”). Diane Keaton, who teamed with Jack in the movie, “Something’s Gotta Give,” also came through box that day, but nothing quite lived up to the golden standard, nor could it.
Thus far, California has had some major lows, but some serious highs too. For every Pas’Ta Weat playing “Kandy Store” at six in the morning there is a Jack Nicholson wishing you the best of luck on all things. Neither of the above examples would’ve happened were I still in Iowa.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sorry I’m Late. I Was Stuck In Traffic
Hey there what’s left of my small but devoted fan base of readers eagerly awaiting an update on things that occurred months ago. Sorry to keep you waiting for a new entry, but not really, because I know you weren’t waiting. In the interim, you went out, got married, signed a loan on a nice but modest home on the corner that doesn’t have much of a yard, but it’s in a good neighborhood and you like the school district, so you took it, settled in, had kids, got that promotion, and it’s a good thing too, because braces aren’t cheap, and set up online banking. With all those things going on, how could you find time to read my anemic blog?
I’ll keep this one short, and hopefully, you can fit this little nugget into your schedule. I also apologize for not getting a new entry out sooner. Hell, even Dallas has updated since I last posted. But I have my reasons:
First, this past year has been extremely busy. I think you would agree if I had had time to write about those incendiary times throughout the past eleven months. Unfortunately, I did not, so you will forever be left in the shadows. When I have not been bogged down with work, things have just been hectic overall and not conducive to anything productive.
Second, the lack of an Internet connection played a large part in me not posting anything. Supposedly, there is a whole mess a Internet out here in Californee, but they want you to pay for it. Not being a believer in paying for things that are basic human needs—food, shelter, and Internet—I refused to buy me up any. That’s also why I’ve lost about fifteen pounds and have lived in squalor.
Finally, I’m just damn lazy. I like to write. But like all things you enjoy, you never want to actually do them if you are supposed to. Someone could come up to me and say, “I want you to sit around in air conditioning all day, playing video games, listening to music, having noncommittal sex with an assortment of beautiful women, eat Oreo cookies, and re-alphabetize a movie collection,” and the first thing I would want to do is tar a rooftop under the noontime sun all while doing wind sprints in full Eskimo gear and Crocs.
I won’t lie to you and say this is my return blog and that there will be frequent posts from here on out, although I am going to try to post more often. However, the aforementioned hurdles mentioned above (see: above), are still present. But I will post some of the blogs I wrote over the past few months of latency and hopefully come at you with an ample sampling of more current blog writings.
Keep your eyes to the skies. This blog and the anniversary of my expedition out to California is coming up (one year already!), so expect a retrospective entry some time in 2011.
I’ll keep this one short, and hopefully, you can fit this little nugget into your schedule. I also apologize for not getting a new entry out sooner. Hell, even Dallas has updated since I last posted. But I have my reasons:
First, this past year has been extremely busy. I think you would agree if I had had time to write about those incendiary times throughout the past eleven months. Unfortunately, I did not, so you will forever be left in the shadows. When I have not been bogged down with work, things have just been hectic overall and not conducive to anything productive.
Second, the lack of an Internet connection played a large part in me not posting anything. Supposedly, there is a whole mess a Internet out here in Californee, but they want you to pay for it. Not being a believer in paying for things that are basic human needs—food, shelter, and Internet—I refused to buy me up any. That’s also why I’ve lost about fifteen pounds and have lived in squalor.
Finally, I’m just damn lazy. I like to write. But like all things you enjoy, you never want to actually do them if you are supposed to. Someone could come up to me and say, “I want you to sit around in air conditioning all day, playing video games, listening to music, having noncommittal sex with an assortment of beautiful women, eat Oreo cookies, and re-alphabetize a movie collection,” and the first thing I would want to do is tar a rooftop under the noontime sun all while doing wind sprints in full Eskimo gear and Crocs.
I won’t lie to you and say this is my return blog and that there will be frequent posts from here on out, although I am going to try to post more often. However, the aforementioned hurdles mentioned above (see: above), are still present. But I will post some of the blogs I wrote over the past few months of latency and hopefully come at you with an ample sampling of more current blog writings.
Keep your eyes to the skies. This blog and the anniversary of my expedition out to California is coming up (one year already!), so expect a retrospective entry some time in 2011.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Work?
Right now, our nation is in economic turmoil. People are losing their jobs right and left, and big companies, the ones that aren’t going belly-up that is, are laying off large chunks of their work force. The United States is staring down the worst recession in eighty years, and I’m starting anew in a California economy running on life support after a writers strike and an impending actors strike. I am so grateful to have a job right now, you have no idea, even if it is a job meant for seventeen-year olds that need gas money so they can drive to their magic shows or buy magazines to flip through or whatever the hell it is kids do these days for fun.
Tonight was my first night of work. Myself, along with the other one they hired on to do the job had an evening of training. One of the coordinators (think assistant manager) sat us down and went through a packet of information that told us all the ins and outs of the job. We each took a turn reading a paragraph; similar to what you probably remember doing when you were in second grade. Remember how you would groan and roll your eyes when it came time for the kid to read that had problems with all consonants and you just could not wait for them to finish so that someone competent could do their thing and continue the march of time? The other hire had a tough time getting through his first paragraph. It took approximately three minutes longer than it should have to navigate to the space break. He fumbled over words like “similar” and “greeting.” Whatever. I’ve already seen the fruits of the labor of the California school system. This does not come as shocking, simply disappointing.
I proceeded to read my paragraph with the utmost of ease. Thanks for reading to me when I was younger, Mom. Also, for not giving me Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Then it came time for the coordinator to read (remember: coordinator=assistant manager). The coordinator was having just as much trouble as the other new hire getting through his paragraph. That was disheartening for several reasons. But you, dear reader, probably see this as disheartening for your own reasons, so I’ll let you fill in the blanks yourself.
After writing my signature and date multiple times on several different sheets of paper regarding protocol we didn’t actually go over, it was time for hands-on training. I liken it to taking center stage at a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus show, but I have been known to embellish things before, and this time is no exception.
Tonight, we were trained on how to seat guests of the theater. This involves waiting for a guest to arrive with a ticket, walking them up the aisles to their designated row and seat, march back down the stairs and proceed to wait for the next guest. That’s it. And I’m getting paid $9.00 an hour to do it. I worked at a grocery store as an assistant manager for that rate, where a slow day consisted of doing the nightly bookwork, hopping on a cash register when lines got too long, running stock, solving any grievances that came up regarding a food stamp card that had been used so many times the electronic strip would no longer read, and keeping a Bosnian from cracking the skull of some black guy with a tire iron. I worked at a meat packing plant for $9.00 an hour with a man from Laos named Tom Rasavong (enough said). Now I’m getting paid $9.00 to show people to their seats at a movie maybe a dozen times an hour. Once all the movies go in, there is nothing required of me until it’s time for a movie to let out, at which time I open the door and thank people for frequenting our theater. It feels like there is more that I need to be doing. Should I be building something? Maybe do some high dusting? Any pedophiles in a van out front I need to call the cops on? Nope. I was told just to seat and not worry about anything else. After the shows have started, I find myself wandering in and out of theaters, watching tidbits of several different movies over the course of my shift. Within the first week I’ll have probably watched the semi truck flip over in “The Dark Knight” at least two dozen times. I’m strangely drawn to “Vicki Christina Barcelona.” I’m not a huge Woody Allen fan and had never actually seen one of his films until a couple years ago when a certain someone turned me on to them. Yet, I keep coming in time and again to watch it. Maybe it’s because the other movies playing right now include some snobby French film called, “Tell No One,” that has such overt symbolism it would make Oliver Stone blush, a documentary called, “Man On Wire,” (which I predict you will come to know as an Academy Award winning film in 2009) that is really a movie you don’t want to just jump into select parts of (plus, it too, has a glut of French people in it), “Bottle Shock,” a movie about wine (again, too French), “Traitor,” starring Don “Hey, Remember When I Was Bankable In Everything? Remember?” Cheadle, and “Mister Foe,” a movie starring the boy that was Billy Elliot.
As things would have it, I made my first industry connections at Mister Foe. I seated two gentlemen the next night, whose names were Brian Taggert, a writer, and Bob Thompson, a producer. After asking if I were in actor, I explained to them that no, I was a stunt performer/ writer. If I had still had my nametag from the Santa Monica rooftop pool party, there would not have been any question as to what I was. Nevertheless, we chatted until the movie started, exchanged information, and made plans to talk in the future.
When the call of duty is not calling for me and I’m not sneaking in to watch The Joker perform a magic trick, I talk to the other people I work with. Most are high school kids; some are young community college upstarts. As I do so, I carry somewhat an heir of superiority about me, coming as no surprise to anyone that has ever talked to me. However, this is different because I feel this job and the current situation is below me. Yet, seeing as how this is the only job I’m apparently qualified for, maybe my erudition is falsely acquired. Maybe this is exactly where I belong. No, that’s not true. I know the difference between a nickel and a quarter, and I also know not to put them in my mouth and swallow them (we’ll keep working on that one, Max. Remember, baby steps). But hey, it’s a start. Something to keep me in Los Angeles until something more up my alley comes along.
Returning home to the hostel, Ruby and Rose were already asleep, as it was past 8:00. Both need approximately ten hours of sleep a night, and then they awaken early so they can get a start on tilling. That left me alone with a glum Sait. He was sitting at the dining room table, catching up on episodes of “24.” I went up and asked, “Hey Sait. How was your day?”
“I miss Marko,” was his response.
Poor guy. Sait arrived from Turkey around the same time Marko showed up in California andboth hit it off immediately. They would wake up at the same time, spend practically every waking moment together, and both turned in at the same time every night. They were inseparable—like Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, or Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, or Jay and Skittles. Now, circumstance has driven them apart.
Fortunately, during one of my breaks at work—okay, not so much a break as it was down time—I made a Marko finger puppet for Sait and that kept him busy for hours.
Tonight was my first night of work. Myself, along with the other one they hired on to do the job had an evening of training. One of the coordinators (think assistant manager) sat us down and went through a packet of information that told us all the ins and outs of the job. We each took a turn reading a paragraph; similar to what you probably remember doing when you were in second grade. Remember how you would groan and roll your eyes when it came time for the kid to read that had problems with all consonants and you just could not wait for them to finish so that someone competent could do their thing and continue the march of time? The other hire had a tough time getting through his first paragraph. It took approximately three minutes longer than it should have to navigate to the space break. He fumbled over words like “similar” and “greeting.” Whatever. I’ve already seen the fruits of the labor of the California school system. This does not come as shocking, simply disappointing.
I proceeded to read my paragraph with the utmost of ease. Thanks for reading to me when I was younger, Mom. Also, for not giving me Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Then it came time for the coordinator to read (remember: coordinator=assistant manager). The coordinator was having just as much trouble as the other new hire getting through his paragraph. That was disheartening for several reasons. But you, dear reader, probably see this as disheartening for your own reasons, so I’ll let you fill in the blanks yourself.
After writing my signature and date multiple times on several different sheets of paper regarding protocol we didn’t actually go over, it was time for hands-on training. I liken it to taking center stage at a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus show, but I have been known to embellish things before, and this time is no exception.
Tonight, we were trained on how to seat guests of the theater. This involves waiting for a guest to arrive with a ticket, walking them up the aisles to their designated row and seat, march back down the stairs and proceed to wait for the next guest. That’s it. And I’m getting paid $9.00 an hour to do it. I worked at a grocery store as an assistant manager for that rate, where a slow day consisted of doing the nightly bookwork, hopping on a cash register when lines got too long, running stock, solving any grievances that came up regarding a food stamp card that had been used so many times the electronic strip would no longer read, and keeping a Bosnian from cracking the skull of some black guy with a tire iron. I worked at a meat packing plant for $9.00 an hour with a man from Laos named Tom Rasavong (enough said). Now I’m getting paid $9.00 to show people to their seats at a movie maybe a dozen times an hour. Once all the movies go in, there is nothing required of me until it’s time for a movie to let out, at which time I open the door and thank people for frequenting our theater. It feels like there is more that I need to be doing. Should I be building something? Maybe do some high dusting? Any pedophiles in a van out front I need to call the cops on? Nope. I was told just to seat and not worry about anything else. After the shows have started, I find myself wandering in and out of theaters, watching tidbits of several different movies over the course of my shift. Within the first week I’ll have probably watched the semi truck flip over in “The Dark Knight” at least two dozen times. I’m strangely drawn to “Vicki Christina Barcelona.” I’m not a huge Woody Allen fan and had never actually seen one of his films until a couple years ago when a certain someone turned me on to them. Yet, I keep coming in time and again to watch it. Maybe it’s because the other movies playing right now include some snobby French film called, “Tell No One,” that has such overt symbolism it would make Oliver Stone blush, a documentary called, “Man On Wire,” (which I predict you will come to know as an Academy Award winning film in 2009) that is really a movie you don’t want to just jump into select parts of (plus, it too, has a glut of French people in it), “Bottle Shock,” a movie about wine (again, too French), “Traitor,” starring Don “Hey, Remember When I Was Bankable In Everything? Remember?” Cheadle, and “Mister Foe,” a movie starring the boy that was Billy Elliot.
As things would have it, I made my first industry connections at Mister Foe. I seated two gentlemen the next night, whose names were Brian Taggert, a writer, and Bob Thompson, a producer. After asking if I were in actor, I explained to them that no, I was a stunt performer/ writer. If I had still had my nametag from the Santa Monica rooftop pool party, there would not have been any question as to what I was. Nevertheless, we chatted until the movie started, exchanged information, and made plans to talk in the future.
When the call of duty is not calling for me and I’m not sneaking in to watch The Joker perform a magic trick, I talk to the other people I work with. Most are high school kids; some are young community college upstarts. As I do so, I carry somewhat an heir of superiority about me, coming as no surprise to anyone that has ever talked to me. However, this is different because I feel this job and the current situation is below me. Yet, seeing as how this is the only job I’m apparently qualified for, maybe my erudition is falsely acquired. Maybe this is exactly where I belong. No, that’s not true. I know the difference between a nickel and a quarter, and I also know not to put them in my mouth and swallow them (we’ll keep working on that one, Max. Remember, baby steps). But hey, it’s a start. Something to keep me in Los Angeles until something more up my alley comes along.
Returning home to the hostel, Ruby and Rose were already asleep, as it was past 8:00. Both need approximately ten hours of sleep a night, and then they awaken early so they can get a start on tilling. That left me alone with a glum Sait. He was sitting at the dining room table, catching up on episodes of “24.” I went up and asked, “Hey Sait. How was your day?”
“I miss Marko,” was his response.
Poor guy. Sait arrived from Turkey around the same time Marko showed up in California andboth hit it off immediately. They would wake up at the same time, spend practically every waking moment together, and both turned in at the same time every night. They were inseparable—like Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, or Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, or Jay and Skittles. Now, circumstance has driven them apart.
Fortunately, during one of my breaks at work—okay, not so much a break as it was down time—I made a Marko finger puppet for Sait and that kept him busy for hours.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
You Get Job!
Round two of the job interview went down today. This time I had to face down the manager known as Nida. After a grueling twenty minutes of interview questions, she handed me my first job in California—floor staff at The Landmark Theatre. Mark this momentous occasion, September 8, 2008, on your calendars, people. I was informed I was one of two people to make the cut. Take that all you high school sophomores and juniors. I took your job. Guess you’ll have to bum marijuana cigarettes off mommy and daddy for a little bit longer.
For whatever reason, I felt pretty good about myself after this slight victory, so I celebrated. On my drive back up Pico, I hit up a Ralphs and bought a half-gallon of chocolate milk and a bag of chicken.
The celebration continued. Remember the greasy longhaired ponytail guy? He was pretty confident that he dropped a $100 dollar Go America! bill through a crack in the patio in the back yard of the hostel, so I watched him for about half an hour, bent over, ass crack peeking out over his faded black jeans, trying to retrieve this imaginary money with a car antennae smeared with cake frosting on the tip. Even after I lost interest in the spectacle, he continued on, pursuing this $100 bill well into the early hours of the next morning. I also couldn’t help but think that if instead of trying to retrieve this money, if he went out and worked for a day or two, he could recoup his loss. But I think he worked a day already this month, so maybe the antennae/frosting technique is the best alternative.
This job couldn’t have come at a better time. For one, Ruby and Rose will be leaving at the end of the week, so I’m going to need something to do to while away the time. For two, I’m practically broke. I have just about enough money to return to Iowa on, which I don’t want to do. It’s only been a month. I still want to try my best to survive at least until the first of the year out here.
Although later that night, a harsh reality set in—Marko informed us he was heading back to New Jersey. It was abrupt and came out of nowhere. We were all stunned. His plane was to leave early the next morning. Previously, he had been working part-time on a paint crew run by a distant relation. This job was not proving viable to pay for the extremely high cost of living out here. Having already lost Hiro, losing Marko was another constant exiting the hostel.
Such is life; people entering and exiting on a whim. By the end of the week, Ruby and Rose will be leaving. We have cell phone numbers. We have emails. We’ll stay in touch. But it won’t ever be the same. We’ll always have that special bond of the six glorious weeks we spent living the hostel life together, and who knows? Maybe our lives will intertwine again. Stranger things have happened. But no matter what, it won’t be the same as it was. Such is life.
For whatever reason, I felt pretty good about myself after this slight victory, so I celebrated. On my drive back up Pico, I hit up a Ralphs and bought a half-gallon of chocolate milk and a bag of chicken.
The celebration continued. Remember the greasy longhaired ponytail guy? He was pretty confident that he dropped a $100 dollar Go America! bill through a crack in the patio in the back yard of the hostel, so I watched him for about half an hour, bent over, ass crack peeking out over his faded black jeans, trying to retrieve this imaginary money with a car antennae smeared with cake frosting on the tip. Even after I lost interest in the spectacle, he continued on, pursuing this $100 bill well into the early hours of the next morning. I also couldn’t help but think that if instead of trying to retrieve this money, if he went out and worked for a day or two, he could recoup his loss. But I think he worked a day already this month, so maybe the antennae/frosting technique is the best alternative.
This job couldn’t have come at a better time. For one, Ruby and Rose will be leaving at the end of the week, so I’m going to need something to do to while away the time. For two, I’m practically broke. I have just about enough money to return to Iowa on, which I don’t want to do. It’s only been a month. I still want to try my best to survive at least until the first of the year out here.
Although later that night, a harsh reality set in—Marko informed us he was heading back to New Jersey. It was abrupt and came out of nowhere. We were all stunned. His plane was to leave early the next morning. Previously, he had been working part-time on a paint crew run by a distant relation. This job was not proving viable to pay for the extremely high cost of living out here. Having already lost Hiro, losing Marko was another constant exiting the hostel.
Such is life; people entering and exiting on a whim. By the end of the week, Ruby and Rose will be leaving. We have cell phone numbers. We have emails. We’ll stay in touch. But it won’t ever be the same. We’ll always have that special bond of the six glorious weeks we spent living the hostel life together, and who knows? Maybe our lives will intertwine again. Stranger things have happened. But no matter what, it won’t be the same as it was. Such is life.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
An Open Letter to Geneball
Mr. Ball,
I believe it was Wayne Newton who famously said for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. To put it in layman’s terms, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, so too must there be a tree not falling over and someone is in fact there to hear it.
Which brings me to the concept of the good luck penny. As a scientist of science, you seemed to be the leading authority to turn to on such manners. But first, a little back-story:
The other day someone showed me his good luck penny.
First and foremost, I feel it is necessary to establish if it is within the realm of plausibility for such a thing as a good luck penny to exist. How does one measure the different gradients of luck found in a penny, or is one good luck penny just as lucky as the next good luck penny? If it is conceivable for a good luck penny to exist, is it not also conceivable for bad luck penny(s) to exist? Again, do they have different degrees of bad luck attached to them, or does their bad luck come at a flat rate?
What about an indifferent penny? If superhero movies have taught us anything, it is that nothing is painted in black and white. So perhaps there is such a thing as a gray area penny, a yin and yang penny if you will, that neither affect luck one way or the other.
After showing me the good luck penny, this person proceeded to introduce me to their good luck Go America! dollar, which of course, raised more questions. Is it possible for other denominations of currency to carry with them a specific luck factor—perhaps the pence, the rupee, or peso? What about other objects altogether? Is it possible to have good luck zip cords, love seats, and hot dog buns? Or is the luck a characteristic of only a select few forms of objects, similarly to how Asians are blessed with the ability to do math really well?
It seems like after finding one lucky penny, the chances of finding more lucky objects would increase, lest of course, there are lots of unlucky objects acting against it. I don’t know. You are the scientist. In theory, I am a theoretician that theorizes theories, not a scientist, so aside from proposing these issues, I am useless when it comes to pursuing these issues further than the hypothesis stage. Please let me know what your scientific method finds.
Sincerely,
V.
To read Geneball's beautiful mind, copy and paste the below thing to your internet thing:
http://geneball.blogspot.com/
I believe it was Wayne Newton who famously said for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. To put it in layman’s terms, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, so too must there be a tree not falling over and someone is in fact there to hear it.
Which brings me to the concept of the good luck penny. As a scientist of science, you seemed to be the leading authority to turn to on such manners. But first, a little back-story:
The other day someone showed me his good luck penny.
First and foremost, I feel it is necessary to establish if it is within the realm of plausibility for such a thing as a good luck penny to exist. How does one measure the different gradients of luck found in a penny, or is one good luck penny just as lucky as the next good luck penny? If it is conceivable for a good luck penny to exist, is it not also conceivable for bad luck penny(s) to exist? Again, do they have different degrees of bad luck attached to them, or does their bad luck come at a flat rate?
What about an indifferent penny? If superhero movies have taught us anything, it is that nothing is painted in black and white. So perhaps there is such a thing as a gray area penny, a yin and yang penny if you will, that neither affect luck one way or the other.
After showing me the good luck penny, this person proceeded to introduce me to their good luck Go America! dollar, which of course, raised more questions. Is it possible for other denominations of currency to carry with them a specific luck factor—perhaps the pence, the rupee, or peso? What about other objects altogether? Is it possible to have good luck zip cords, love seats, and hot dog buns? Or is the luck a characteristic of only a select few forms of objects, similarly to how Asians are blessed with the ability to do math really well?
It seems like after finding one lucky penny, the chances of finding more lucky objects would increase, lest of course, there are lots of unlucky objects acting against it. I don’t know. You are the scientist. In theory, I am a theoretician that theorizes theories, not a scientist, so aside from proposing these issues, I am useless when it comes to pursuing these issues further than the hypothesis stage. Please let me know what your scientific method finds.
Sincerely,
V.
To read Geneball's beautiful mind, copy and paste the below thing to your internet thing:
http://geneball.blogspot.com/
Friday, December 5, 2008
A Landmark Moment
After a night of carefully crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s on my application for the movie theater, I got up bright and early around 10:30am so I could be at the open interview at noon.
A little about the Landmark Theatre:
It’s quite immaculate. First, it takes up an entire side of the mall, it is three stories tall, the bottom floor being renovated to put in a restaurant, and the second two floors house twelve movie theaters between themselves. It has your typical amenities you find at a any movie theater—box office, concession stand, ticket taker, etc.—but it goes above and beyond in so many ways. When purchasing tickets, you pick out the seat you want at the same time. That seat is then reserved for you and you alone. The concession stand has your standard Raisnets (milk chocolate and dark) and Milk Duds, but also has Hebrew National Hotdogs, pizzas, Toblerone (milk chocolate and dark) and something called a Tim Tam, which later I find out is a delicious Australian chocolate wafer snack. Once you pass the ticket taker, there are employees there to show you to your reserved seat. Before the movie starts, someone presents the movie, it’s title, running time, and MPAA rating, all while trying to pimp some wares available at the concierge desk, such as DVDs, soundtracks, and books based on the movie you are about to see.
The place is nice. However, as I sat waiting in the wine bar (there’s a wine bar) with my neatly composed application, across from a bunch of sixteen and seventeen-year olds, one whose application was folded in half, and a girl, who upon learning that I was from Iowa, asked me, “Oh, where’s that at?”, I felt the most humiliated quite possibly ever in my life. On the other hand, right now I’m jobless, so beggars can’t be choosers. On the other hand, upon asking these kids what their plans were after graduating high school, they stared blankly at me before one of them chirped up and asked, “What do you mean?”
After this display of the merits of the California school system, I went into the interview quite confident. Seeing as how I could enunciate words without drooling and understand the first half of this sentence without getting confused, I should be fine. Even if I don’t get the job, I’ll be fine, all things considered.
The interview went swimmingly. General interview questions were asked. General interview questions were answered. I was asked back for a follow-up interview, which I had to sign up for at the concierge desk. There, I met someone named Xavier and Spencer. Spencer assured me I’d love working here and wished me luck on Monday.
Part II of my day involved driving down to posh Santa Monica for a meet and greet with a bunch of people in the industry. How did I learn about such an event? A large woman living at the hostel who is quite unpleasant to be around and converse with, informed me of it, and since I ignore all of her other attempts to get me to go to things, I thought today I should reciprocate the offer with a quick appearance just so she’d leave me alone.
After driving around for twenty minutes looking for a parking space, I found one in a supermarket’s lot reserved for customers of that supermarket’s lot only. Violators would be towed at owner’s expense. Gotta love California.
The box social itself was on the rooftop of an apartment complex. A quick description of the party would look alarmingly like the pool scene from “Boogie Nights.” The centerpiece of the get together was of course, the rooftop pool. No one was actually swimming in it, but it forced people to huddle closer together and converse. There was a potluck barbecue to the side where I ingested as much free food as I could. Not ironic at all, so too was the large woman that invited me to the party to begin with.
Everyone was wearing a “Hi, My Name Is” nametag on their shirts. People would give their name and their profession. There was Steve, a director/writer, and Brad, an actor/writer, and Rhonda, producer/writer and on and on down the line. It seems as though everyone here is a writer of some sort. To break the mold, on my nametag, I wrote writer/stunt performer. I listened to several of these people rattle on and on about what they did while I shoveled handfuls of free Ruffles into my gullet. For all of the actors/writers, directors/writers, clergymen/writers in attendance, not a single one of them had directed, acted, produced, lighted, mixed a damn thing. You’d imagine all of that time not doing what they said they did would leave them plenty of time to write. But no, no one had actually written anything either. They all had ideas for things they wanted to write—shorts and features and webisodes—but no one had actually written anything down. This blog entry alone probably has more words written than the cumulative of everyone else on that rooftop. This wasn’t a party for people in the industry. It was a party for industry wannabes to get together and sound like they were somebody. To that extent, everyone was quite successful.
After excusing myself from a discussion with one of the caterers/writers, I hightailed it back to my not towed car and cruised down the Ten back to hostel purgatory for the final act.
Having been in Los Angeles for over a month at this point, outside of Venice Beach, I had yet to do any touristy things. That all changed when Ben took me down to the Hollywood Bowl. This is where the Walk of Fame I skimmed previously rests, along with the Kodak Theater, the Scientology Museum, and other Hollywood attractions you’ve always heard about but have never seen reside.
It’s also worth noting that everything you would associate with Hollywood resides within a two block diameter. It’s also not as glitzy and glamorous as you might think. It’s quite dirty, actually. Bums and panderers are everywhere. So is their poo. But you can spend a lot of time in that area, like Ben and I did this particular evening. In traffic alone for those two blocks, Ben and I were there for an hour and a half. We were in a parking garage for another half hour looking for parking, then spent about 15 minutes seeing all the sights to be seen.
Ben and I went to a rock n’ roll concert so Ben could see a friend. Shortly after our ears started to bleed, we left, agreeing the no-name band performing wasn’t worth permanent hearing loss, nor was the friend, who clearly didn’t mind the thumping bass that jiggled your stomach acids. Fortunately, Gramm’s Chinese Theater was close by and we stood in a bunch of living and dead actor’s cemented footprints. It’s worth noting that John Wayne’s feet are beyond tiny. They are maybe one size larger than a newborn baby’s foot. His tough guy persona must be to compensate for something. Will Smith’s feet are about the size of my forearm. Big Willie Style indeed. But Burt Reynolds’s feet were juuuuuust right.
Being close to midnight at this point, Ben and I decided to pack up and head home—Ben because he had to get up early and work the next day, me because I aged 34 years the day I turned 23 and was tired at this point. So ended another glitzy, glamorous, superficial Hollywood day.
A little about the Landmark Theatre:
It’s quite immaculate. First, it takes up an entire side of the mall, it is three stories tall, the bottom floor being renovated to put in a restaurant, and the second two floors house twelve movie theaters between themselves. It has your typical amenities you find at a any movie theater—box office, concession stand, ticket taker, etc.—but it goes above and beyond in so many ways. When purchasing tickets, you pick out the seat you want at the same time. That seat is then reserved for you and you alone. The concession stand has your standard Raisnets (milk chocolate and dark) and Milk Duds, but also has Hebrew National Hotdogs, pizzas, Toblerone (milk chocolate and dark) and something called a Tim Tam, which later I find out is a delicious Australian chocolate wafer snack. Once you pass the ticket taker, there are employees there to show you to your reserved seat. Before the movie starts, someone presents the movie, it’s title, running time, and MPAA rating, all while trying to pimp some wares available at the concierge desk, such as DVDs, soundtracks, and books based on the movie you are about to see.
The place is nice. However, as I sat waiting in the wine bar (there’s a wine bar) with my neatly composed application, across from a bunch of sixteen and seventeen-year olds, one whose application was folded in half, and a girl, who upon learning that I was from Iowa, asked me, “Oh, where’s that at?”, I felt the most humiliated quite possibly ever in my life. On the other hand, right now I’m jobless, so beggars can’t be choosers. On the other hand, upon asking these kids what their plans were after graduating high school, they stared blankly at me before one of them chirped up and asked, “What do you mean?”
After this display of the merits of the California school system, I went into the interview quite confident. Seeing as how I could enunciate words without drooling and understand the first half of this sentence without getting confused, I should be fine. Even if I don’t get the job, I’ll be fine, all things considered.
The interview went swimmingly. General interview questions were asked. General interview questions were answered. I was asked back for a follow-up interview, which I had to sign up for at the concierge desk. There, I met someone named Xavier and Spencer. Spencer assured me I’d love working here and wished me luck on Monday.
Part II of my day involved driving down to posh Santa Monica for a meet and greet with a bunch of people in the industry. How did I learn about such an event? A large woman living at the hostel who is quite unpleasant to be around and converse with, informed me of it, and since I ignore all of her other attempts to get me to go to things, I thought today I should reciprocate the offer with a quick appearance just so she’d leave me alone.
After driving around for twenty minutes looking for a parking space, I found one in a supermarket’s lot reserved for customers of that supermarket’s lot only. Violators would be towed at owner’s expense. Gotta love California.
The box social itself was on the rooftop of an apartment complex. A quick description of the party would look alarmingly like the pool scene from “Boogie Nights.” The centerpiece of the get together was of course, the rooftop pool. No one was actually swimming in it, but it forced people to huddle closer together and converse. There was a potluck barbecue to the side where I ingested as much free food as I could. Not ironic at all, so too was the large woman that invited me to the party to begin with.
Everyone was wearing a “Hi, My Name Is” nametag on their shirts. People would give their name and their profession. There was Steve, a director/writer, and Brad, an actor/writer, and Rhonda, producer/writer and on and on down the line. It seems as though everyone here is a writer of some sort. To break the mold, on my nametag, I wrote writer/stunt performer. I listened to several of these people rattle on and on about what they did while I shoveled handfuls of free Ruffles into my gullet. For all of the actors/writers, directors/writers, clergymen/writers in attendance, not a single one of them had directed, acted, produced, lighted, mixed a damn thing. You’d imagine all of that time not doing what they said they did would leave them plenty of time to write. But no, no one had actually written anything either. They all had ideas for things they wanted to write—shorts and features and webisodes—but no one had actually written anything down. This blog entry alone probably has more words written than the cumulative of everyone else on that rooftop. This wasn’t a party for people in the industry. It was a party for industry wannabes to get together and sound like they were somebody. To that extent, everyone was quite successful.
After excusing myself from a discussion with one of the caterers/writers, I hightailed it back to my not towed car and cruised down the Ten back to hostel purgatory for the final act.
Having been in Los Angeles for over a month at this point, outside of Venice Beach, I had yet to do any touristy things. That all changed when Ben took me down to the Hollywood Bowl. This is where the Walk of Fame I skimmed previously rests, along with the Kodak Theater, the Scientology Museum, and other Hollywood attractions you’ve always heard about but have never seen reside.
It’s also worth noting that everything you would associate with Hollywood resides within a two block diameter. It’s also not as glitzy and glamorous as you might think. It’s quite dirty, actually. Bums and panderers are everywhere. So is their poo. But you can spend a lot of time in that area, like Ben and I did this particular evening. In traffic alone for those two blocks, Ben and I were there for an hour and a half. We were in a parking garage for another half hour looking for parking, then spent about 15 minutes seeing all the sights to be seen.
Ben and I went to a rock n’ roll concert so Ben could see a friend. Shortly after our ears started to bleed, we left, agreeing the no-name band performing wasn’t worth permanent hearing loss, nor was the friend, who clearly didn’t mind the thumping bass that jiggled your stomach acids. Fortunately, Gramm’s Chinese Theater was close by and we stood in a bunch of living and dead actor’s cemented footprints. It’s worth noting that John Wayne’s feet are beyond tiny. They are maybe one size larger than a newborn baby’s foot. His tough guy persona must be to compensate for something. Will Smith’s feet are about the size of my forearm. Big Willie Style indeed. But Burt Reynolds’s feet were juuuuuust right.
Being close to midnight at this point, Ben and I decided to pack up and head home—Ben because he had to get up early and work the next day, me because I aged 34 years the day I turned 23 and was tired at this point. So ended another glitzy, glamorous, superficial Hollywood day.
Monday, November 17, 2008
It Hurts To Swallow
After a wild last week, this week was about as mundane and uneventful as you can possibly imagine. Since the majority of my reader base is from Iowa, you can possibly imagine. The general breakdown is this: I sat at my computer, applying for about five jobs a day, hearing nothing back from any of them, and spending my evenings with Rose and Ruby. I was more than happy to do the latter. Rose and Ruby are great. The hostel and its inhabitants have taken the form of a perverse surrogate family, and Rose and Ruby feel like the siblings I can relate to the most because either, a.) they speak English, b.) are not absolutely bat shit insane, or c.) are closest to me in age and interests. To stick with that analogy, Gweat’s is our older brother that came back from the war…a bit different. I will be sad to see Rose and Ruby leave to go back to Ohio next week. Very sad. But the former, me not being able to land a job, is getting somewhat obnoxious and scary.
As an English major, I am no stranger to feelings of inadequacy. But to have graduated from a respectable college (an oxymoron, and a phrase used maybe more than it should be) at the top of my class, coupled with a strong work ethic and can-do attitude, and still not being able to land a single entry level position job is disheartening. To not even hear anything back from a one of them is simply humiliating.
So be it. I’m in the eleventh hour now. My funds are evaporating. It’s do-or-die time. My options are either to find a job, any job, no matter how below me I think it is in order to stay in California, or trek across the country in the Cougar back home, broke and broken, live with Jay and his current wife until I can land a menial job, save up money to return to California on, and return to California, and start from scratch again. Might as well cut out the middle-man and try to make it out here.
I chewed up my pride and swallowed it. The taste and consistency reminded me of Children’s Tylenol. Then I got out there and pounded the pavement. The Cougar and I strolled up and down Pico Blvd. looking for jobs. I picked up applications for Starbucks, Subway, Barnes & Noble, and any store I saw that might have high turnover rates and low standards for what they hire. I happened across a movie theater that just so happens to be having open interviews tomorrow. I’ve always wanted to work at a movie theater, seeing as how I love movies and they are the reason I left for Los Angeles in the first place, but the opportunity has never been feasible until now. Besides, I’ll need something to do when Rose and Ruby leave.
Returning to the hostel, I banged out a few applications before preparing to meet up with Ben for what is becoming a weekend tradition. Over the past several weeks, we’ve frequented a karaoke bar in Burbank called Dimples. Aside from the Gaza Strip, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unpleasant experience in this world than the one you’ll have at Dimples. But that’s a story for a blog I didn’t write. Tonight, Ben and I met with a fellow Iowan making her way out in California named Christy and her fiancé Wayland.
Through circumstances out of my control, I arrived in Burbank to meet with Ben later than expected. Then, Ben and I got lost on our way to the meeting place roughly three miles away from Ben’s apartment. Christy and Wayland were kind enough to not mind we showed up forty minutes late. Or if they did, they covered it up really well.
It was nice to meet with two people that have a similar background to myself. Even in the global village we all now live in, where everything is homogenized, everyone has access to the same everything, and the world is very much at our fingertips, that common bond goes a long way. We know of the same streets and buildings and things and people, and have similar ideals. That goes a long way when you’re in unfamiliar territory. It gives complete strangers an automatic linking bond.
Christy informed Ben and I that Ashley Tinsdale, a High School Musical alum was eating at the same restaurant as us. Neither Ben nor I knew it was Ashley Tinsdale—we only saw a group of attractive girls sitting at a table outside—one of which happened to be a popular actress. This will be my first run-in with a celebrity to my knowledge in Los Angeles. I could also give a damn less. That’s not to say I don’t find it cool to be eating at the same restaurant as someone famous, but I don’t get too hopped up just because someone has been in a highly popular television movie(s). Now, if Jack Nicholson were to be within a football field’s length from me, chances are I would start to infinitely crap my pants. I respect his work as an actor, I’ve read many an interview with him, and love what he has to say about life and the lessons he’s learned along the way. I would get star-struck for someone like Jack. But it’s based around a respect for what he does and how he does it. It is out of an appreciation for his craft, not just because he is a recognizable face and a marquee name. Oddly enough, I tend to react the same way when I hear an ice cream truck and its driver.
After the celebrity dinner, it was back to the hostel, back to reality.
As an English major, I am no stranger to feelings of inadequacy. But to have graduated from a respectable college (an oxymoron, and a phrase used maybe more than it should be) at the top of my class, coupled with a strong work ethic and can-do attitude, and still not being able to land a single entry level position job is disheartening. To not even hear anything back from a one of them is simply humiliating.
So be it. I’m in the eleventh hour now. My funds are evaporating. It’s do-or-die time. My options are either to find a job, any job, no matter how below me I think it is in order to stay in California, or trek across the country in the Cougar back home, broke and broken, live with Jay and his current wife until I can land a menial job, save up money to return to California on, and return to California, and start from scratch again. Might as well cut out the middle-man and try to make it out here.
I chewed up my pride and swallowed it. The taste and consistency reminded me of Children’s Tylenol. Then I got out there and pounded the pavement. The Cougar and I strolled up and down Pico Blvd. looking for jobs. I picked up applications for Starbucks, Subway, Barnes & Noble, and any store I saw that might have high turnover rates and low standards for what they hire. I happened across a movie theater that just so happens to be having open interviews tomorrow. I’ve always wanted to work at a movie theater, seeing as how I love movies and they are the reason I left for Los Angeles in the first place, but the opportunity has never been feasible until now. Besides, I’ll need something to do when Rose and Ruby leave.
Returning to the hostel, I banged out a few applications before preparing to meet up with Ben for what is becoming a weekend tradition. Over the past several weeks, we’ve frequented a karaoke bar in Burbank called Dimples. Aside from the Gaza Strip, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unpleasant experience in this world than the one you’ll have at Dimples. But that’s a story for a blog I didn’t write. Tonight, Ben and I met with a fellow Iowan making her way out in California named Christy and her fiancé Wayland.
Through circumstances out of my control, I arrived in Burbank to meet with Ben later than expected. Then, Ben and I got lost on our way to the meeting place roughly three miles away from Ben’s apartment. Christy and Wayland were kind enough to not mind we showed up forty minutes late. Or if they did, they covered it up really well.
It was nice to meet with two people that have a similar background to myself. Even in the global village we all now live in, where everything is homogenized, everyone has access to the same everything, and the world is very much at our fingertips, that common bond goes a long way. We know of the same streets and buildings and things and people, and have similar ideals. That goes a long way when you’re in unfamiliar territory. It gives complete strangers an automatic linking bond.
Christy informed Ben and I that Ashley Tinsdale, a High School Musical alum was eating at the same restaurant as us. Neither Ben nor I knew it was Ashley Tinsdale—we only saw a group of attractive girls sitting at a table outside—one of which happened to be a popular actress. This will be my first run-in with a celebrity to my knowledge in Los Angeles. I could also give a damn less. That’s not to say I don’t find it cool to be eating at the same restaurant as someone famous, but I don’t get too hopped up just because someone has been in a highly popular television movie(s). Now, if Jack Nicholson were to be within a football field’s length from me, chances are I would start to infinitely crap my pants. I respect his work as an actor, I’ve read many an interview with him, and love what he has to say about life and the lessons he’s learned along the way. I would get star-struck for someone like Jack. But it’s based around a respect for what he does and how he does it. It is out of an appreciation for his craft, not just because he is a recognizable face and a marquee name. Oddly enough, I tend to react the same way when I hear an ice cream truck and its driver.
After the celebrity dinner, it was back to the hostel, back to reality.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Another Conversation I Had Today
The conversation I had today happens on a different day from the previous conversation I had today. It is a brand new conversation I had today, and a brand new today, so today is not the same today as the before today. Today is its own day, with it’s own conversation, separate from the today and conversation in an older blog, and having had another conversation since that today’s conversation, I have a now taken part in another conversation—this conversation is that conversation. I thought I should clarify, as the title can be slightly misleading.
Reprising his role from “A Conversation I Had Today,” is me, who will be playing the part of I. Her will once again be played by Old French Whore. I, and by I, I mean me, not the character I, who is actually me, still does not know the person that plays Her’s real name.
I exits the kitchen with a peanut butter sandwich sandwiched in his mouth. Her is walking down the hall in his direction.
I: Hello.
Her: Do you know anything about computers?
I: Um, no.
Her: Dammit. I can’t get the Internet to work on my laptop and have homework that has to get done right now.
I: My roommate is pretty good with computers. I could go ask him if he would know what’s wrong. Do you use a PC or Mac?
Her: PC.
I exits to talk to his roommate. While gone, Her does whatever it is that Old French Whore did while I (me) was away. I returns.
I: My roommate really only knows Macs. Do you know Ali?
Her: No.
I: Ali used to be a computer programmer. He lives downstairs, but I don’t know which room number. You could ask in the office to see what room he’s in. Maybe he could help you.
Her: Maybe I’ll do that later. I have to leave now.
Her, not believing in exchanging pleasantries, exits abruptly. I is left wondering how much he dislikes Her. Later, I learns he dislikes Her very much.
Later (approximately ten hours later)…
I sits near a window playing a handheld video game system. Her comes up the stairs and sees I.
Her: Did you get a hold of Ali?
I: Um, no.
Her looks disgusted at I.
I: I thought you were going to go talk to him earlier.
Her: Well, I didn’t want to just go knocking on doors randomly.
I: (thinking) And I did? That’s why I told you to go to the office approximately ten hours ago and ask for his room number, so you wouldn’t have to randomly knock on doors, you old French whore. Besides, this clearly wasn’t a top priority for you, so why should it be a top priority of mine?
(said aloud) I don’t know what to tell you.
Her exits angrily. I flips her off as she leaves, unbeknownst to Her.
For the rest of the night, Her looks angrily at I whenever their paths cross, as if he did her wrong. I just flips Her off for the rest of the night whenever she’s not looking.
End scene.
Reprising his role from “A Conversation I Had Today,” is me, who will be playing the part of I. Her will once again be played by Old French Whore. I, and by I, I mean me, not the character I, who is actually me, still does not know the person that plays Her’s real name.
I exits the kitchen with a peanut butter sandwich sandwiched in his mouth. Her is walking down the hall in his direction.
I: Hello.
Her: Do you know anything about computers?
I: Um, no.
Her: Dammit. I can’t get the Internet to work on my laptop and have homework that has to get done right now.
I: My roommate is pretty good with computers. I could go ask him if he would know what’s wrong. Do you use a PC or Mac?
Her: PC.
I exits to talk to his roommate. While gone, Her does whatever it is that Old French Whore did while I (me) was away. I returns.
I: My roommate really only knows Macs. Do you know Ali?
Her: No.
I: Ali used to be a computer programmer. He lives downstairs, but I don’t know which room number. You could ask in the office to see what room he’s in. Maybe he could help you.
Her: Maybe I’ll do that later. I have to leave now.
Her, not believing in exchanging pleasantries, exits abruptly. I is left wondering how much he dislikes Her. Later, I learns he dislikes Her very much.
Later (approximately ten hours later)…
I sits near a window playing a handheld video game system. Her comes up the stairs and sees I.
Her: Did you get a hold of Ali?
I: Um, no.
Her looks disgusted at I.
I: I thought you were going to go talk to him earlier.
Her: Well, I didn’t want to just go knocking on doors randomly.
I: (thinking) And I did? That’s why I told you to go to the office approximately ten hours ago and ask for his room number, so you wouldn’t have to randomly knock on doors, you old French whore. Besides, this clearly wasn’t a top priority for you, so why should it be a top priority of mine?
(said aloud) I don’t know what to tell you.
Her exits angrily. I flips her off as she leaves, unbeknownst to Her.
For the rest of the night, Her looks angrily at I whenever their paths cross, as if he did her wrong. I just flips Her off for the rest of the night whenever she’s not looking.
End scene.
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Envelope Please...
And the 44th President of the United States of America is Barack Hussein Obama. Shortly after the voting booths closed on the Pacific Coast, it was a decisive victory for the Illinois Senator, coming away with 364 electoral votes to John McCain’s 163. 52% of the popular vote went Obama’s way to 46% for McCain. McCain conceded in a graceful way I expected from the Arizona Senator. Obama took the stage reiterating the change that will take place for the United States under his presidency. It was an historic day for the United States.
Obama winning seemed like a sigh of relief to supporters who had been holding their breath for the past six months, wondering if the Republicans were going to run away with another elections. News stations across the nation, afraid to call the game early after the debacle in 2000, and in an attempt to drum up ratings, billed the race to the White House “too close to call.” Obama’s landslide victory resulted in a simultaneous exhalation of air.
Shortly after Obama was christened President-elect, I got a text from a friend saying, “We did it!”
I replied back, “We’ve done nothing yet. But the wheels have started to turn.”
In no way, shape, or form did I say that to belittle my friend or to distance myself from the Obama camp. Barack Obama has won. That in and of itself is a step forward in progress for our country as a whole. It suggests some of the bigotry so deeply ensconced in our nation’s history has been eviscerated. But he as a President has done nothing yet. Between now and January 20th, 2009, he will be busy building his cabinet and prepping for when he does take office. This is an important first step. A President’s cabinet has huge influence over the President himself. Look no further than the Bush administration as an example (I’m looking at you Vice and Rummy). The important thing to remember though is Obama has done nothing yet. It will be up to us, the United States citizens to keep him correct. Should he slouch or break his promises, it is up to us to criticize and let our voice be heard, just as it was when we elected Obama to the Commander-In-Chief position. We can’t let Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do all the grunt work.
Later in the evening, I called my father, a McCain supporter. He said to me, “It looks like your guy won.”
It’s true, the guy I was supporting in this election won. But the second he won, he ceased to be my guy. He became our guy. Our democratic voice was heard. I don’t expect people to simply endorse a President simply because he won, so I won’t say something like, “He’s now our President and you have to support him whether you like it or not.” On the contrary—I think it is up to Obama to prove he is the right man for the job and stick to the policies he promised his supporters in the first place. He also needs to convince the other half of the country that did not vote for him that he can handle such a lofty position. Actions speak louder than words and Obama needs to prove his actions are the right ones for the country and its people.
Noticing a lack of bread in my basket and a hankering for a peanut butter sandwich, I took to the streets in search of sliced staff of life. Driving down the road, people were honking at nothing and anything. In the parking lot, I could hear people shouting, “Obama” as they whizzed past. Entering the grocery store, people were doing the same thing—strangers uniting under the Obama banner. It was really a sight to behold. Never have I seen this kind of celebration for a President elect. Had Bob Dole won in 1996, maybe a similar ebullience would have been present, but I doubt. This display might have been exclusive to my area. Living in Los Angeles, one of the most liberal cities in the country, they were probably more vocal about Obama’s win than in other places. Furthermore, the part of Los Angeles I live in is largely a Black and Hispanic area. Given that Obama is the first Black President of the United States, I can see how they would be thrilled with the results of the elections.
This display is part of the appeal of Obama. He is able to unite people under a common cause. No other Democratic or Republican candidate for the 2008 election had that zeal. It is unique in a politician really in any election. His ability to bring people together is key to his term. A lot of his presidential legacy will be determined by if he can bring a country together that has been separated by a schism for roughly eight years, if not longer.
Returning home, I heard on the radio about Obama parties across the country. It’s great that people are celebrating. Like I said, it was a step forward for our country. Take a night to enjoy it, but it’s back to business now. It’s time to make sure those promises of change are not empty. At the same time, the election proved we have a long way to go. In California, Proposition 8, a proposal to ban gay marriage in California, passed. Not once did I think Prop 8 would actually pass, given the general outcry from everyone in Los Angeles and the huge number of people with influence strongly opposing Prop 8. But California is a big state. Apparently, much of the state is largely conservative. In fact, Bakersfield, CA is one of the most conservative cities in the nation. News to me. A black man is President, but same-sex couples cannot marry. One step forward, one step back.
In short, congratulations Obama. Congratulations America. The first step has been taken. But it’s a long road ahead of us. By Obama being elected, our economic crisis isn’t just magically going to fix itself, nor are our healthcare and social security problems. We still do not have a concrete exit strategy for our occupation in the Middle East. Our country still adheres to the adage that, “All men are created equal, but some men are created more equal than others.” The 2008 Presidential race was one for the history books, but I don’t think Obama wants his legacy to be only the “First Black President of the United States.” I think it would serve him well, and the people of the United States, to have his legacy be the change he promises. This is the beginning.
Obama winning seemed like a sigh of relief to supporters who had been holding their breath for the past six months, wondering if the Republicans were going to run away with another elections. News stations across the nation, afraid to call the game early after the debacle in 2000, and in an attempt to drum up ratings, billed the race to the White House “too close to call.” Obama’s landslide victory resulted in a simultaneous exhalation of air.
Shortly after Obama was christened President-elect, I got a text from a friend saying, “We did it!”
I replied back, “We’ve done nothing yet. But the wheels have started to turn.”
In no way, shape, or form did I say that to belittle my friend or to distance myself from the Obama camp. Barack Obama has won. That in and of itself is a step forward in progress for our country as a whole. It suggests some of the bigotry so deeply ensconced in our nation’s history has been eviscerated. But he as a President has done nothing yet. Between now and January 20th, 2009, he will be busy building his cabinet and prepping for when he does take office. This is an important first step. A President’s cabinet has huge influence over the President himself. Look no further than the Bush administration as an example (I’m looking at you Vice and Rummy). The important thing to remember though is Obama has done nothing yet. It will be up to us, the United States citizens to keep him correct. Should he slouch or break his promises, it is up to us to criticize and let our voice be heard, just as it was when we elected Obama to the Commander-In-Chief position. We can’t let Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do all the grunt work.
Later in the evening, I called my father, a McCain supporter. He said to me, “It looks like your guy won.”
It’s true, the guy I was supporting in this election won. But the second he won, he ceased to be my guy. He became our guy. Our democratic voice was heard. I don’t expect people to simply endorse a President simply because he won, so I won’t say something like, “He’s now our President and you have to support him whether you like it or not.” On the contrary—I think it is up to Obama to prove he is the right man for the job and stick to the policies he promised his supporters in the first place. He also needs to convince the other half of the country that did not vote for him that he can handle such a lofty position. Actions speak louder than words and Obama needs to prove his actions are the right ones for the country and its people.
Noticing a lack of bread in my basket and a hankering for a peanut butter sandwich, I took to the streets in search of sliced staff of life. Driving down the road, people were honking at nothing and anything. In the parking lot, I could hear people shouting, “Obama” as they whizzed past. Entering the grocery store, people were doing the same thing—strangers uniting under the Obama banner. It was really a sight to behold. Never have I seen this kind of celebration for a President elect. Had Bob Dole won in 1996, maybe a similar ebullience would have been present, but I doubt. This display might have been exclusive to my area. Living in Los Angeles, one of the most liberal cities in the country, they were probably more vocal about Obama’s win than in other places. Furthermore, the part of Los Angeles I live in is largely a Black and Hispanic area. Given that Obama is the first Black President of the United States, I can see how they would be thrilled with the results of the elections.
This display is part of the appeal of Obama. He is able to unite people under a common cause. No other Democratic or Republican candidate for the 2008 election had that zeal. It is unique in a politician really in any election. His ability to bring people together is key to his term. A lot of his presidential legacy will be determined by if he can bring a country together that has been separated by a schism for roughly eight years, if not longer.
Returning home, I heard on the radio about Obama parties across the country. It’s great that people are celebrating. Like I said, it was a step forward for our country. Take a night to enjoy it, but it’s back to business now. It’s time to make sure those promises of change are not empty. At the same time, the election proved we have a long way to go. In California, Proposition 8, a proposal to ban gay marriage in California, passed. Not once did I think Prop 8 would actually pass, given the general outcry from everyone in Los Angeles and the huge number of people with influence strongly opposing Prop 8. But California is a big state. Apparently, much of the state is largely conservative. In fact, Bakersfield, CA is one of the most conservative cities in the nation. News to me. A black man is President, but same-sex couples cannot marry. One step forward, one step back.
In short, congratulations Obama. Congratulations America. The first step has been taken. But it’s a long road ahead of us. By Obama being elected, our economic crisis isn’t just magically going to fix itself, nor are our healthcare and social security problems. We still do not have a concrete exit strategy for our occupation in the Middle East. Our country still adheres to the adage that, “All men are created equal, but some men are created more equal than others.” The 2008 Presidential race was one for the history books, but I don’t think Obama wants his legacy to be only the “First Black President of the United States.” I think it would serve him well, and the people of the United States, to have his legacy be the change he promises. This is the beginning.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The State of the Union
I’m not one to hide my political affiliations, mostly because I don’t have any. To label something either Republican or Democrat or one of the offshoot hippie political parties is to label something by genre. It’s like going to a video store and looking for something under “Drama,” or “Horror,” or “Comedy.” The problems arise when there is overlap. “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly,” is a “Western,” but it also has a “War” element to it. But through and through, it’s also filled with a lot of “Action.” So what heading do you look for it under? Do you see how defining something by genre can get confusing?
Political parties are the same way. Trying to define an elected official or candidate under a specific banner is limiting and does not do justice to him or her. It takes away their individual beliefs and thrusts them into a category they must adhere to or face scorn from their opposition and the people they represent.
Speaking of the people our elected officials are supposed to represent, I think being affiliated to a party prevents said elected officials from effectively representing their people. The United States is a republic after all. They are elected to represent the people and what the people want. However, in order for a representative of the people to represent the people, he must first squash his own beliefs on an issue, a hurdle in and of itself, and then also fan the flame that comes from other representatives with their own agendas and special interest groups. Oftentimes, this requires a Senator or Congressman to make strange bedfellows, signing documents they might not believe in, but in order for them to get the necessary signatures needed on their own documents, they do it anyway. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. As an outsider looking in on how the system works, it’s easy to see that the system doesn’t work.
The world is organic. Business is organic. Art is organic. Government is organic. Change is an inevitability. Failing to adapt and to change to one’s surroundings results in death. It’s Darwinian. When things fail to adapt, outside forces act on the stagnation and force change, replacing the old with something new. As an inevitability, it is hard to fight change. But if you do fight change, you will lose.
Election Day is coming up in a few days. This is arguably one of the most important elections in recent history. With our economy in the slumps and a global depression practically guaranteed, a healthcare plan damaged beyond repair, as well as no end in sight to our occupation in Iraq, the result of this election will have worldwide ramifications. It is time to adapt or die. That is why I believe Barack Obama is the best fit for the next President of the United States.
Obama is new to the political game (read: inexperienced). It’s been a major point of contention to his candidacy for President, but certainly does not make him unqualified for the job. His lack of experience in the political spectrum is actually a good thing. He’s a fresh face in the crusty, stubborn old system. He’s not been around long enough to feel the influence or pull of the system. He’s still bright eyed and bushy-tailed, not tainted by the politics of politics. He’s a change of pace, something his campaign is not afraid to admit every chance they get. After eight years of living under the banner of “stay the course,” and seeing the result of such thinking, I think taking a scenic route will be a nice change of pace.
Obama is being labeled a socialist. To which, I say, no he’s not a socialist. He has socialist ideas, but that does not make him a socialist, no more than it makes Martin Luther King Jr. a socialist for believing every man to be equal. I can’t speak personally for Obama, but I do not think he’s trying to create New Russia or be buddy-buddy with China. But he does bring with him a change, a change our country greatly needs.
As for John McCain, personally, I thought the Republican Party did good to make him their Presidential candidate. He was the best man for the job in 2000, but due to defamation of character by the Karl Rove Sports Machine, Bush came away with the nomination. But for the 2008 election, McCain was chosen to represent the Republican Party at the beginning of the year. Now, in late October, we are looking at a different John McCain. To say the road to the White House has been hard on McCain is an understatement. He’s not the same John McCain we saw in January, in more ways than one.
First, look at the decisions he’s made over the past year. Sarah Palin being the most eye catching. In what seemed like an act of desperation, McCain called upon the Alaskan governor to run with him, having only met her on two previous occasions. This, merely a day after Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate. It certainly felt like a move to bring Camp McCain into the spotlight and overshadow Obama’s announcement, rather than a sound thoughtful decision on whom best to serve as second in command. To that effect, the decision worked. Palin is probably the only thing keeping McCain in voter’s minds. But it’s hard to imagine much thought went into this brash decision. He also suspended his campaign to fix the financial crisis our country is facing now (note: McCain is not a member of this Senate committee—he merely took it upon himself to join in the eleventh hour).
These decisions feed into the persona McCain has made for himself for being a maverick. He’s a loner; a sheep strayed from the herd. Like an out of control teen on Maury, he does what he wants. Or so it seems. He’s changed sides on plenty of key issues. Once he opposed waterboarding, citing it as a definite form of torture. Now, he sees it as sound and just. This coming from a man that spent more than two years in a POW camp. At one time he did not oppose gay marriage, and now he condemns it.
I’m not going to badmouth a man for changing his opinion. I didn’t blast John Kerry in 2004 for flip-flopping on issues such as the war in Iraq. It is understandable to vote on something that seems like a good idea at the time only to realize that once it is put into action, it does not work, or additional information comes through that makes one realize the wrong course has been taken. McCain once was for allowing more immigrants to come into our country and look for work. Now in our nation’s current financial state, he has changed his opinion on that. But going back to the previous examples of waterboarding and gay marriage, really, what could have changed his opinion on those?
John McCain is not a maverick. He’s an opportunist. His vote is swung in whatever direction will get him what he wants. George W. Bush was a maverick. He did what he wanted no matter what the opinions were from the opposition, his own party member, or the people of his country. Maybe Obama is an opportunist too, telling the American people one thing, but in practice, he’ll do another. As far as I can tell though, he seems adamant to fix social security and not privatize it and cut healthcare costs to make it more affordable for all. But him not being in the game as long as McCain, we just have to take his word that he will follow through on what he preaches. With McCain, there are enough examples to fall back on that he will not, beyond the scant examples I just gave.
My opinion doesn’t really matter. It’s the opinion of our nation as a whole. This election is important. Really important. Before voting, please research both candidates and their stance on issues that will affect you and your country. Do what’s right for the country. Ignore political affiliations and look at the issues present. Don’t go in blindly, because for once, your vote counts.
Political parties are the same way. Trying to define an elected official or candidate under a specific banner is limiting and does not do justice to him or her. It takes away their individual beliefs and thrusts them into a category they must adhere to or face scorn from their opposition and the people they represent.
Speaking of the people our elected officials are supposed to represent, I think being affiliated to a party prevents said elected officials from effectively representing their people. The United States is a republic after all. They are elected to represent the people and what the people want. However, in order for a representative of the people to represent the people, he must first squash his own beliefs on an issue, a hurdle in and of itself, and then also fan the flame that comes from other representatives with their own agendas and special interest groups. Oftentimes, this requires a Senator or Congressman to make strange bedfellows, signing documents they might not believe in, but in order for them to get the necessary signatures needed on their own documents, they do it anyway. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. As an outsider looking in on how the system works, it’s easy to see that the system doesn’t work.
The world is organic. Business is organic. Art is organic. Government is organic. Change is an inevitability. Failing to adapt and to change to one’s surroundings results in death. It’s Darwinian. When things fail to adapt, outside forces act on the stagnation and force change, replacing the old with something new. As an inevitability, it is hard to fight change. But if you do fight change, you will lose.
Election Day is coming up in a few days. This is arguably one of the most important elections in recent history. With our economy in the slumps and a global depression practically guaranteed, a healthcare plan damaged beyond repair, as well as no end in sight to our occupation in Iraq, the result of this election will have worldwide ramifications. It is time to adapt or die. That is why I believe Barack Obama is the best fit for the next President of the United States.
Obama is new to the political game (read: inexperienced). It’s been a major point of contention to his candidacy for President, but certainly does not make him unqualified for the job. His lack of experience in the political spectrum is actually a good thing. He’s a fresh face in the crusty, stubborn old system. He’s not been around long enough to feel the influence or pull of the system. He’s still bright eyed and bushy-tailed, not tainted by the politics of politics. He’s a change of pace, something his campaign is not afraid to admit every chance they get. After eight years of living under the banner of “stay the course,” and seeing the result of such thinking, I think taking a scenic route will be a nice change of pace.
Obama is being labeled a socialist. To which, I say, no he’s not a socialist. He has socialist ideas, but that does not make him a socialist, no more than it makes Martin Luther King Jr. a socialist for believing every man to be equal. I can’t speak personally for Obama, but I do not think he’s trying to create New Russia or be buddy-buddy with China. But he does bring with him a change, a change our country greatly needs.
As for John McCain, personally, I thought the Republican Party did good to make him their Presidential candidate. He was the best man for the job in 2000, but due to defamation of character by the Karl Rove Sports Machine, Bush came away with the nomination. But for the 2008 election, McCain was chosen to represent the Republican Party at the beginning of the year. Now, in late October, we are looking at a different John McCain. To say the road to the White House has been hard on McCain is an understatement. He’s not the same John McCain we saw in January, in more ways than one.
First, look at the decisions he’s made over the past year. Sarah Palin being the most eye catching. In what seemed like an act of desperation, McCain called upon the Alaskan governor to run with him, having only met her on two previous occasions. This, merely a day after Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate. It certainly felt like a move to bring Camp McCain into the spotlight and overshadow Obama’s announcement, rather than a sound thoughtful decision on whom best to serve as second in command. To that effect, the decision worked. Palin is probably the only thing keeping McCain in voter’s minds. But it’s hard to imagine much thought went into this brash decision. He also suspended his campaign to fix the financial crisis our country is facing now (note: McCain is not a member of this Senate committee—he merely took it upon himself to join in the eleventh hour).
These decisions feed into the persona McCain has made for himself for being a maverick. He’s a loner; a sheep strayed from the herd. Like an out of control teen on Maury, he does what he wants. Or so it seems. He’s changed sides on plenty of key issues. Once he opposed waterboarding, citing it as a definite form of torture. Now, he sees it as sound and just. This coming from a man that spent more than two years in a POW camp. At one time he did not oppose gay marriage, and now he condemns it.
I’m not going to badmouth a man for changing his opinion. I didn’t blast John Kerry in 2004 for flip-flopping on issues such as the war in Iraq. It is understandable to vote on something that seems like a good idea at the time only to realize that once it is put into action, it does not work, or additional information comes through that makes one realize the wrong course has been taken. McCain once was for allowing more immigrants to come into our country and look for work. Now in our nation’s current financial state, he has changed his opinion on that. But going back to the previous examples of waterboarding and gay marriage, really, what could have changed his opinion on those?
John McCain is not a maverick. He’s an opportunist. His vote is swung in whatever direction will get him what he wants. George W. Bush was a maverick. He did what he wanted no matter what the opinions were from the opposition, his own party member, or the people of his country. Maybe Obama is an opportunist too, telling the American people one thing, but in practice, he’ll do another. As far as I can tell though, he seems adamant to fix social security and not privatize it and cut healthcare costs to make it more affordable for all. But him not being in the game as long as McCain, we just have to take his word that he will follow through on what he preaches. With McCain, there are enough examples to fall back on that he will not, beyond the scant examples I just gave.
My opinion doesn’t really matter. It’s the opinion of our nation as a whole. This election is important. Really important. Before voting, please research both candidates and their stance on issues that will affect you and your country. Do what’s right for the country. Ignore political affiliations and look at the issues present. Don’t go in blindly, because for once, your vote counts.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
It's Pas'Ta Anytime
It was discovered that my roommate, Gweat’s, has a video of some of his standup on YouTube. Here you go:
Hey, I recognize that interior. It’s the tool shed at the hostel.
Also, here’s his music video for the single, “Kandy Store.”
Fun Fact: “Kandy Store” is Gweat’s’s ringtone on his cell phone.
Hey, I recognize that interior. It’s the tool shed at the hostel.
Also, here’s his music video for the single, “Kandy Store.”
Fun Fact: “Kandy Store” is Gweat’s’s ringtone on his cell phone.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Life's a Beeyotch
On this particular morning I’m writing about (due to the Janet Jackson incident at the Super Bowl, this blog is delivered with a slight delay), I woke up early, and for a change, it wasn’t Gweat’s related. Instead, Ruby and Rose, who as you know are two awesome gals from Ohio, and I were going to Venice Beach.
Before we arrive, I should imbibe some knowledge of Venice Beach on you. First, it’s the number one tourist attraction in California. Two, Arnold Schwarzenegger* used to pump iron there. Three, some of White Men Can’t Jump takes place there. And that’s all I knew about Venice Beach before I got there. Really, that’s all I know about anything. I made it through four years of college writing those three statements down as answers to every test question.
We got to Venice Beach early because it doesn’t take long for parking spaces to fill up, and those that have remained committed to this blog already know finding a parking space in California is about as easy as finding a sober Gweat’s. And those that have remained committed to this blog already know finding a sober Gweat’s is about as easy as finding a new post over at www.bullschmitz.blogspot.com.
So what is there to do on Venice Beach? Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger used to pump iron there. Also, it’s the number one tourist attraction in California. Finally, some of White Men Can’t Jump takes place there.
Upon entering Venice Beach, the first thing you see is a pharmacy that has a giant ballerina with the head of a vaudevillian tramp above the entryway. This would be the most normal thing I’d see the rest of the day. Rose, Ruby, and I walked around the boardwalk for a while, perusing the shops and vendors for arts and knickknacks. You can buy all sorts of stuff at Venice Beach. The shops are mostly souvenir shacks, with tee shirts and shot glasses that say Venice Beach on them. But they also have those delightful shirts that say things like, “I hear voices, and they don’t like me”—a fashion statement that makes a statement. Commonly found at monster truck rallies and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Other trappings include surf shops, wig shops, and worthless crap made out of wood shops. I shouldn’t say that. In one worthless crap made out of wood shop, I found a wall devoted to some large phallic carvings made out of wood (Ha!). I told Ruby and a 40-some year old man within earshot’s eyes lit up like he’d just heard his lottery numbers called. The second Ruby and I stepped away from the display, the man was right there, gawking the wares. Really, how worthless the worthless crap made out of wood shop is, is all relative to your level of homoeroticism (Dallas, I made note of where this shop is, so we can go back if you like. Man, two zingers on Dallas already. Can we make it three?)
In one store I bought a pair of sunglasses, a necessity in sunny California I have gone two weeks without, and then Rose and Ruby bought two pairs of the same kind of glasses I did because not so secretly they wish they were me.
Walking down the boardwalk with our identical glasses, more vendors were coming out to pimp their miracle crystal necklaces and hemp bracelets and Barack Obamas.** Rose and Ruby both picked up some neat paintings for their love interests back home. Since I have so many love interests, and since I’m on a limited budget, and since I don’t pick favorites, and since I don’t need material possessions anymore, due mostly to my limited budget and lack of storage space in the hostel, I did not purchase anything. I’m kind of like Gandhi in that manner. My, how far the mighty have fallen. I’ve got to get a job.
Really, Venice Beach is quite interesting. There are burnouts and Vietnam vets in wheelchairs everywhere. Oftentimes, the two are interchangeable with the other there. After seeing this, I can’t endorse the legalization of marijuana or any other drug. All you stoner college kids whose dad owns a dealership out there go on and have your fun with it, but seeing the long term effects of drugs on people that don’t have a trust fund to fall back on makes me just want to steer clear of all substances altogether. I imagine Kurt Russell had the same experience when he decided to abstain from drug use, knowing it would hinder his ability to escape from New York in 1997 back in 1981 and coach the 1980 U.S. Hockey team to a gold medal in 2004.
Other attractions included a wino wearing a dirty San Diego Chargers jersey and a signboard that told us he wanted spare change to get drunk, which freed his mouth to sing, “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Get me drunk,” over and over again. Near the beach, there were guys with oversized hula-hoops spinning around and around inside them. How anyone determined they could do this sort of acrobatic thing in the first place baffles me. Probably French.
In the middle of it all the pandemonium, there was a man outside promoting the Venice Beach freak show. He had a two-headed turtle sitting in a plastic container with water. He told us that inside we could see all sorts of animals with two heads. It was only three dollars. But why would I spend three dollars on something I could get for free just by walking down the boardwalk? There’s a guy not three feet away with a foot growing out of his cheek selling authentic dodo meat necklaces. I’ll save my three U.S. dollars for next week’s issue of Amazing Spider-Man, thank you.
Around noontime, Rose, Ruby, and I went to a café for lunch called the Sidewalk Café. Things on the menu were named after famous authors or titles. I settled on the Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., since I didn’t see the R.L. Stine on the menu, and wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep down the Ernest Hemingway. Its prose just doesn’t sit well with me. While eating my sandwich, Ruby spotted a man wearing a giant black sock over his entire body. He would stand perfectly still until a passerby got too close, then he’d touch the back of their head. Turning around to inquire who just did that, the victim would only find a man-size sock, look baffled, and continue on. Eventually, the street performer got rid of the Tanooki suit (Super Mario Bros. 3 reference) and ran around tickling people with feathers or imitating their walk mannerisms. At one point, he spotted a man and woman, most likely brother and sister, walking down the boardwalk holding hands. He dislodged the woman’s hand from her brothers, and walked hand in hand with the guy a good fifty feet. Eventually, the man realized it, let out an angry, “What the fuck?” and broke the bond which had united the two. After realizing everyone was staring at him, the man pretended not to be bothered by sharing hands with another man and feigned a smile. The crowd clapped for the street performer. No one has done a bit better since Buster Keaton. Come to think of it, no one has done any of this stuff since Buster Keaton. Eventually, the performer moved on, as a crowd had formed to watch his act. His act, requiring people to be unaware of his presence, was shut down.
Having finished our meals and no longer having anything entertaining to watch, we moved on to the beach, where we would sun and I would run into the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, I spotted Seventeen Days Into the Future Dallas.
That’s three!
Shortly thereafter, we all left Venice Beach. But we took with us memories, sunglasses, artwork, and some sun. With nothing else to report, I’ll let you all go. Enjoy the footnotes.
*Spell Check recognizes “Schwarzenegger” as a word. No red squiggly lines here.
**Spell Check does not recognize “Barack Obamas” as a word. Good luck trying to win an election outside of Venice Beach, you schmuck.
Before we arrive, I should imbibe some knowledge of Venice Beach on you. First, it’s the number one tourist attraction in California. Two, Arnold Schwarzenegger* used to pump iron there. Three, some of White Men Can’t Jump takes place there. And that’s all I knew about Venice Beach before I got there. Really, that’s all I know about anything. I made it through four years of college writing those three statements down as answers to every test question.
We got to Venice Beach early because it doesn’t take long for parking spaces to fill up, and those that have remained committed to this blog already know finding a parking space in California is about as easy as finding a sober Gweat’s. And those that have remained committed to this blog already know finding a sober Gweat’s is about as easy as finding a new post over at www.bullschmitz.blogspot.com.
So what is there to do on Venice Beach? Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger used to pump iron there. Also, it’s the number one tourist attraction in California. Finally, some of White Men Can’t Jump takes place there.
Upon entering Venice Beach, the first thing you see is a pharmacy that has a giant ballerina with the head of a vaudevillian tramp above the entryway. This would be the most normal thing I’d see the rest of the day. Rose, Ruby, and I walked around the boardwalk for a while, perusing the shops and vendors for arts and knickknacks. You can buy all sorts of stuff at Venice Beach. The shops are mostly souvenir shacks, with tee shirts and shot glasses that say Venice Beach on them. But they also have those delightful shirts that say things like, “I hear voices, and they don’t like me”—a fashion statement that makes a statement. Commonly found at monster truck rallies and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Other trappings include surf shops, wig shops, and worthless crap made out of wood shops. I shouldn’t say that. In one worthless crap made out of wood shop, I found a wall devoted to some large phallic carvings made out of wood (Ha!). I told Ruby and a 40-some year old man within earshot’s eyes lit up like he’d just heard his lottery numbers called. The second Ruby and I stepped away from the display, the man was right there, gawking the wares. Really, how worthless the worthless crap made out of wood shop is, is all relative to your level of homoeroticism (Dallas, I made note of where this shop is, so we can go back if you like. Man, two zingers on Dallas already. Can we make it three?)
In one store I bought a pair of sunglasses, a necessity in sunny California I have gone two weeks without, and then Rose and Ruby bought two pairs of the same kind of glasses I did because not so secretly they wish they were me.
Walking down the boardwalk with our identical glasses, more vendors were coming out to pimp their miracle crystal necklaces and hemp bracelets and Barack Obamas.** Rose and Ruby both picked up some neat paintings for their love interests back home. Since I have so many love interests, and since I’m on a limited budget, and since I don’t pick favorites, and since I don’t need material possessions anymore, due mostly to my limited budget and lack of storage space in the hostel, I did not purchase anything. I’m kind of like Gandhi in that manner. My, how far the mighty have fallen. I’ve got to get a job.
Really, Venice Beach is quite interesting. There are burnouts and Vietnam vets in wheelchairs everywhere. Oftentimes, the two are interchangeable with the other there. After seeing this, I can’t endorse the legalization of marijuana or any other drug. All you stoner college kids whose dad owns a dealership out there go on and have your fun with it, but seeing the long term effects of drugs on people that don’t have a trust fund to fall back on makes me just want to steer clear of all substances altogether. I imagine Kurt Russell had the same experience when he decided to abstain from drug use, knowing it would hinder his ability to escape from New York in 1997 back in 1981 and coach the 1980 U.S. Hockey team to a gold medal in 2004.
Other attractions included a wino wearing a dirty San Diego Chargers jersey and a signboard that told us he wanted spare change to get drunk, which freed his mouth to sing, “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Get me drunk,” over and over again. Near the beach, there were guys with oversized hula-hoops spinning around and around inside them. How anyone determined they could do this sort of acrobatic thing in the first place baffles me. Probably French.
In the middle of it all the pandemonium, there was a man outside promoting the Venice Beach freak show. He had a two-headed turtle sitting in a plastic container with water. He told us that inside we could see all sorts of animals with two heads. It was only three dollars. But why would I spend three dollars on something I could get for free just by walking down the boardwalk? There’s a guy not three feet away with a foot growing out of his cheek selling authentic dodo meat necklaces. I’ll save my three U.S. dollars for next week’s issue of Amazing Spider-Man, thank you.
Around noontime, Rose, Ruby, and I went to a café for lunch called the Sidewalk Café. Things on the menu were named after famous authors or titles. I settled on the Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., since I didn’t see the R.L. Stine on the menu, and wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep down the Ernest Hemingway. Its prose just doesn’t sit well with me. While eating my sandwich, Ruby spotted a man wearing a giant black sock over his entire body. He would stand perfectly still until a passerby got too close, then he’d touch the back of their head. Turning around to inquire who just did that, the victim would only find a man-size sock, look baffled, and continue on. Eventually, the street performer got rid of the Tanooki suit (Super Mario Bros. 3 reference) and ran around tickling people with feathers or imitating their walk mannerisms. At one point, he spotted a man and woman, most likely brother and sister, walking down the boardwalk holding hands. He dislodged the woman’s hand from her brothers, and walked hand in hand with the guy a good fifty feet. Eventually, the man realized it, let out an angry, “What the fuck?” and broke the bond which had united the two. After realizing everyone was staring at him, the man pretended not to be bothered by sharing hands with another man and feigned a smile. The crowd clapped for the street performer. No one has done a bit better since Buster Keaton. Come to think of it, no one has done any of this stuff since Buster Keaton. Eventually, the performer moved on, as a crowd had formed to watch his act. His act, requiring people to be unaware of his presence, was shut down.
Having finished our meals and no longer having anything entertaining to watch, we moved on to the beach, where we would sun and I would run into the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, I spotted Seventeen Days Into the Future Dallas.
That’s three!
Shortly thereafter, we all left Venice Beach. But we took with us memories, sunglasses, artwork, and some sun. With nothing else to report, I’ll let you all go. Enjoy the footnotes.
*Spell Check recognizes “Schwarzenegger” as a word. No red squiggly lines here.
**Spell Check does not recognize “Barack Obamas” as a word. Good luck trying to win an election outside of Venice Beach, you schmuck.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
A Bender and a Bender
After a harrowing day making a Weezer music video, I claimed today as a day of rest. Not so much because I wanted to or can afford to, but because I’m really sore. My whole body aches. It’s probably from showing a bunch of scrawny, sickly Weezer fans how we play no mercy dodgeball back in some parts of the country.
But that didn’t stop today from having a few highlights here and there. During the day, Marko, Sait, Hiro, others, and myself were messing around with someone’s pellet gun on the back porch. Whose pellet gun? Good question. Each person would eyeball it once over then pass it on, with the exception of Sait. Sait, being Muslim, can’t help but point the pellet gun at a police helicopter flying overhead. We all rushed in to stop Sait from doing this since we didn’t want the helicopter’s sniper to get the wrong impression and end Sait’s life then and there. What a waste that would be—I don’t even think he’d qualify for the 40 virgins he’s entitled to in Heaven if he goes out like that.
Tonight, while some of us at the hostel were huddled around out laptops typing blogs, and others were rolling joints, we heard a car peel out along Pico Blvd. (major street close to the hostel) and smash into another vehicle. Everyone looked at each other, and without orally suggesting it, as a group, we collectively decided to check out the wreck.
Dressed in our nightgowns and formal eveningwear, we all walked down the street to see the fender bender. Apparently everyone else along Pico had the same idea. People from apartment buildings and the healthcare center along Pico came out in droves. The hostel group crossed the street to observe the situation. Gweat’s told us jaywalking in California, if caught, was a $100 fine. They’ll get you for anything here.
The accident itself was nothing major. The wreck consisted of a parked car and a stolen one. I know it was stolen because there was no driver to account for the accident. Gweat’s told us the steering wheel on cars that have been hijacked have a tendency to lock up. This is probably what caused the driver to lose control.
As minor as the accident was, the damage was pretty significant to both cars. The parked ones entire driver’s side was taken out, as was the stolen vehicles, whose wheel well now stretched from the front bumper to the middle of the driver’s side door. It had also spun about 540 degrees Fahrenheit after the impact.
With nothing more to see, we all headed back to our hostel to continue writing/getting baked. Along the way, an old woman started cussing at us, yelling, “I’m tired of all you fuckers! I’ve had it! We don’t fucking need you here!” I’m not sure whom she was slings and arrows towards, because she kept saying it long after we’d walked past her.
Once we got back, Gweat’s started talking at us for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Ruby was kind enough to record this conversation, which I will share with you now in its abridged form. Nice work, Ruby. If ever you need to, there is a career waiting for you as a courtroom stenographer.
This is what Gweat’s sat down and talked about for 15 or 20 minutes... just rambling. Literally what I'm writing is what he was saying—in order. So if it doesn't make any sense to you, it obviously made no sense to me.
Gweat's is talking about a dream house he wants to build:
-There will be a 40 fence with pit bulls and alligators and poodles and cockatoos for security guards
-Drive out of the bedroom with a go-kart
-Have two space towers in the front each 5 stories tall
-Glass wall opens up in bedroom and drive go-kart to the go-kart track
-A big marble dinner table worth 100,000 grand
-An intimate mate to cook with. He wouldn’t marry his brother or sister he said.
Which segued into what kind of car he would drive:
-Would own a Rolls Royce: a Phantom to be exact. If I was going to wear pants every day to school, I wouldn’t wear my $200 Cartier pants? (Referring to driving a Jaguar and how it's only to drive once in a while).
-Mercedes inside dashboards look like soccer balls.
-He said he couldn't wear a leopard shirt. "Casually, he's not a tiger or leopard," but he can wear pastel colors.
Referring to the movie, “Apocalypto”:
-"Run for your life, the Mayans are here! Read the good book!" (Referring to the Bible)
Another natural transition:
- When he was 2 and a half, he bit an extension cord and got rushed to the hospital because he got electrocuted.
Um…
- Rich men built space ships just to cruise around in, and would go for trips on the weekends. They would throw their 6 packs out the window of the spaceship because they drank a lot.
- "No one should give a homeless person a day pass to ride the bus. They haven't wiped their ass since Jesus was born."
- "RUN FORREST RUN!"
And that's pretty much all I have for you right now. Gweat’s is off staring at his bottle of 7-Up.
Thanks, Ruby.
But that didn’t stop today from having a few highlights here and there. During the day, Marko, Sait, Hiro, others, and myself were messing around with someone’s pellet gun on the back porch. Whose pellet gun? Good question. Each person would eyeball it once over then pass it on, with the exception of Sait. Sait, being Muslim, can’t help but point the pellet gun at a police helicopter flying overhead. We all rushed in to stop Sait from doing this since we didn’t want the helicopter’s sniper to get the wrong impression and end Sait’s life then and there. What a waste that would be—I don’t even think he’d qualify for the 40 virgins he’s entitled to in Heaven if he goes out like that.
Tonight, while some of us at the hostel were huddled around out laptops typing blogs, and others were rolling joints, we heard a car peel out along Pico Blvd. (major street close to the hostel) and smash into another vehicle. Everyone looked at each other, and without orally suggesting it, as a group, we collectively decided to check out the wreck.
Dressed in our nightgowns and formal eveningwear, we all walked down the street to see the fender bender. Apparently everyone else along Pico had the same idea. People from apartment buildings and the healthcare center along Pico came out in droves. The hostel group crossed the street to observe the situation. Gweat’s told us jaywalking in California, if caught, was a $100 fine. They’ll get you for anything here.
The accident itself was nothing major. The wreck consisted of a parked car and a stolen one. I know it was stolen because there was no driver to account for the accident. Gweat’s told us the steering wheel on cars that have been hijacked have a tendency to lock up. This is probably what caused the driver to lose control.
As minor as the accident was, the damage was pretty significant to both cars. The parked ones entire driver’s side was taken out, as was the stolen vehicles, whose wheel well now stretched from the front bumper to the middle of the driver’s side door. It had also spun about 540 degrees Fahrenheit after the impact.
With nothing more to see, we all headed back to our hostel to continue writing/getting baked. Along the way, an old woman started cussing at us, yelling, “I’m tired of all you fuckers! I’ve had it! We don’t fucking need you here!” I’m not sure whom she was slings and arrows towards, because she kept saying it long after we’d walked past her.
Once we got back, Gweat’s started talking at us for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Ruby was kind enough to record this conversation, which I will share with you now in its abridged form. Nice work, Ruby. If ever you need to, there is a career waiting for you as a courtroom stenographer.
This is what Gweat’s sat down and talked about for 15 or 20 minutes... just rambling. Literally what I'm writing is what he was saying—in order. So if it doesn't make any sense to you, it obviously made no sense to me.
Gweat's is talking about a dream house he wants to build:
-There will be a 40 fence with pit bulls and alligators and poodles and cockatoos for security guards
-Drive out of the bedroom with a go-kart
-Have two space towers in the front each 5 stories tall
-Glass wall opens up in bedroom and drive go-kart to the go-kart track
-A big marble dinner table worth 100,000 grand
-An intimate mate to cook with. He wouldn’t marry his brother or sister he said.
Which segued into what kind of car he would drive:
-Would own a Rolls Royce: a Phantom to be exact. If I was going to wear pants every day to school, I wouldn’t wear my $200 Cartier pants? (Referring to driving a Jaguar and how it's only to drive once in a while).
-Mercedes inside dashboards look like soccer balls.
-He said he couldn't wear a leopard shirt. "Casually, he's not a tiger or leopard," but he can wear pastel colors.
Referring to the movie, “Apocalypto”:
-"Run for your life, the Mayans are here! Read the good book!" (Referring to the Bible)
Another natural transition:
- When he was 2 and a half, he bit an extension cord and got rushed to the hospital because he got electrocuted.
Um…
- Rich men built space ships just to cruise around in, and would go for trips on the weekends. They would throw their 6 packs out the window of the spaceship because they drank a lot.
- "No one should give a homeless person a day pass to ride the bus. They haven't wiped their ass since Jesus was born."
- "RUN FORREST RUN!"
And that's pretty much all I have for you right now. Gweat’s is off staring at his bottle of 7-Up.
Thanks, Ruby.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
=w=2
Let’s leave this blog’s timeline for a moment and jump forward to the present. Yesterday I posted a blog about the day on the set of Weezer’s “Troublemaker” video shoot. The video itself was shot at the end of August, I wrote the blog the first of September, and posted it in the middle of October. It worked out in my favor, because the video was released earlier this week. If you have not had a chance to view it, here is a link:
http://www.weezer.com/player/default.aspx/mid/4549
It is interesting to see how much got left on the cutting room floor for this video. At the shoot, it looked like they had a story they were going to tell, about how a bunch of world records were going to fall in this music video. There was a faux news reporter interviewing the Guinness World Records representative, the Guitar Hero players, and others throughout the day, along with pickup shots of the news reporter involved with events throughout the day, such as the game of dodgeball. That was left behind. As were most of the signboards explaining which record was being broken (this signboard can be seen in the crane shot where everyone is standing around the Flying W made of nachos).
Other things I mentioned in the previous blog were completely omitted or barely touched on, such as Pat Wilson playing the World’s Smallest Drum Kit or everyone crowding around the World’s Largest Skateboard. Or even the fact that a representative from Guinness was there to make sure everything was legitimate. If you did not have any previous context to what was going on in the video, would any of these shots make any sense? No, you would think it was just a weird video from the 80s when the music video genre was learning its way or a lost Batman comic book from the 1950s.
The fact the video was shot at the Forum in Inglewood is lost as well. This downplays Rivers getup for the video as well. Come to think of it, it’s almost funnier seeing Rivers dressed like that without any context to back it up with.
Don’t take this as a complaint or dissatisfaction. I had nothing but a great time on the shoot that day. Maybe the filmmakers had every intention of telling a story too, and due to the lack of time a music video allows, had to pare it down, lay down the key elements, and leave viewers of the video to fill in the blanks. Rather, I’m just doing this as a retrospective of how I thought the video would turn out in comparison to how it did turn out. It was great to see myself in a Weezer music video. As I was watching it, I saw some other people I met that day, and found myself thinking, “Hey, I know that kid.”
Also, here are some videos of what we did between takes. The kid that filmed this just walked around our tent with his MacBook in hand and captured everything with his computer’s camera. You might even recognize some of these people from the video.
This video is a slideshow of the various events throughout the day. Rivers son makes a cameo appearance (he’s the one carrying the dodgeball about the same size as him).
There are more of such videos on YouTube. Just search, “Weezer Troublemaker Music Video” and a whole slew of them will come up.
Hope you enjoyed reading about the Weezer “Troublemaker” music video shoot. Feel free to shoot me any questions you might have about the video, and I’ll do my best to try and answer them.
http://www.weezer.com/player/default.aspx/mid/4549
It is interesting to see how much got left on the cutting room floor for this video. At the shoot, it looked like they had a story they were going to tell, about how a bunch of world records were going to fall in this music video. There was a faux news reporter interviewing the Guinness World Records representative, the Guitar Hero players, and others throughout the day, along with pickup shots of the news reporter involved with events throughout the day, such as the game of dodgeball. That was left behind. As were most of the signboards explaining which record was being broken (this signboard can be seen in the crane shot where everyone is standing around the Flying W made of nachos).
Other things I mentioned in the previous blog were completely omitted or barely touched on, such as Pat Wilson playing the World’s Smallest Drum Kit or everyone crowding around the World’s Largest Skateboard. Or even the fact that a representative from Guinness was there to make sure everything was legitimate. If you did not have any previous context to what was going on in the video, would any of these shots make any sense? No, you would think it was just a weird video from the 80s when the music video genre was learning its way or a lost Batman comic book from the 1950s.
The fact the video was shot at the Forum in Inglewood is lost as well. This downplays Rivers getup for the video as well. Come to think of it, it’s almost funnier seeing Rivers dressed like that without any context to back it up with.
Don’t take this as a complaint or dissatisfaction. I had nothing but a great time on the shoot that day. Maybe the filmmakers had every intention of telling a story too, and due to the lack of time a music video allows, had to pare it down, lay down the key elements, and leave viewers of the video to fill in the blanks. Rather, I’m just doing this as a retrospective of how I thought the video would turn out in comparison to how it did turn out. It was great to see myself in a Weezer music video. As I was watching it, I saw some other people I met that day, and found myself thinking, “Hey, I know that kid.”
Also, here are some videos of what we did between takes. The kid that filmed this just walked around our tent with his MacBook in hand and captured everything with his computer’s camera. You might even recognize some of these people from the video.
This video is a slideshow of the various events throughout the day. Rivers son makes a cameo appearance (he’s the one carrying the dodgeball about the same size as him).
There are more of such videos on YouTube. Just search, “Weezer Troublemaker Music Video” and a whole slew of them will come up.
Hope you enjoyed reading about the Weezer “Troublemaker” music video shoot. Feel free to shoot me any questions you might have about the video, and I’ll do my best to try and answer them.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
=w=
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.
=w=
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.
=w=
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