Totally Unauthorized

Stop. Go back to Wordpress

2011-12-02T15:01:00.001-08:00

The URL for the blog is http://filmhacks.wordpress.com

Sleep deprivation is fun!

2011-11-22T20:20:00.001-08:00

Last week, I worked on a non-union flat rate (read: bend over, buddy, you're in for it) job which, of course, despite the promise to keep the hours reasonable, went long. Into the night.

Hands up who didn't see that one coming?

So I've been on a bit of a night schedule since then. Which is fine, except that I got a call from a very good friend to work on the rigging crew of some TV show shooting on a lot 100 yards from where I used to live (of course).

With a 6 am call and a crosstown drive, this meant the alarm went off at the crack of dark (4:30 am).

Which would have also been fine, had I not been awake and staring at the ceiling until about midnight.

Damn.

So I was sleepy all day, and for some reason, dizzy. Which was also fine, since people on ladders need ground support (to fetch, hand things up, and help move the ladder).

We spent the afternoon putting color corrected tubes in fluorescent fixtures and then hanging said fixtures into the dropped ceiling of the set. Since some of the cable dropping down from the perms was a bit hard to reach, we had to adjust - usually by screaming at the top of our lungs (to overpower the sound of drills and three radios tuned to different stations) to the guys up on the perms.

Tonight, my intention was to get off to bed about half an hour ago, except that I came home and found that for some reason, Wordpress.com has accused me of being a spammer/scammer/slog/content scraper and frozen the blog over there with no warning or anything.

Awesome. Because I needed that. Really, I did.

Here's the notice that's on the page that's normally the 'dashboard' of my blog:

This blog has been deactivated because we believe it does not comply with the WordPress.com Terms of Service or advertising policy.
If your blog is designed to promote affiliate links, get rich quick programs, banner ads, consists solely or mostly of duplicate or automatically generated material, or is part of a search engine marketing campaign, WordPress.com is not the place for you. Please use the Export feature to move your content to a more appropriate hosting service.

Content's not accessible, nor are links, comments, or anything else.

Right now, I just want them to release the content so I can move it.

I've always said that the blog shouldn't cost me money, but at this point, I think it's best to suck it up and pay for a domain name and self hosting.

For the time being, we'll be back here at Blogger.

Why, hello Blogger! It's been a while.

2011-11-22T18:58:00.001-08:00

I'm having some issues with Wordpress, so here I am again.

If said issues don't get resolved, then we may be back here for good.

We'll see.

It's been a year! Update your bookmarks!

2007-10-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

The blog is now located at http://filmhacks.wordpress.com.

Come on over and join the fun!

What are you still doing here?

2007-01-02T18:48:00.000-08:00

The blog's now on Wordpress!

http://filmhacks.wordpress.com

One more reason for me not to see this movie.

2006-12-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

Last night, I accompanied The Anonymous Source to a screening of The Pursuit of Happyness (highly recommended if you're looking for a warm fuzzy movie with a feel-good ending), and before the movie started The Anonymous Source told me that last week, there had been a Cinematographer's Guild sponsored screening of Apocolypto, after which the movie's Director of Photography gave a talk.

During this talk, he'd told the audience that during the shoot in Mexico, Mel Gibson had kept the actors - even the children - on set for up to 19 hours each day.

Several days later, The Anonymous Source is still steaming about it, and I completely understand why.

Have we learned nothing from that John Landis thing?

Child labor laws may make shooting more difficult, but they exist for a reason, and I suspect that if Gibson had one of his own children in the movie, he wouldn't have kept them on set that long.

Of course, I'm not sure that there are any child labor laws relating to film production in Mexico (a 'private jungle' in Veracruz, to be exact), but keeping kids on set that long is just fucking wrong.

Although I wasn't going to see it anyways (there's enough horrible violence outside my window. I don't need to pay to see more), this just seals the deal that I'll never, ever give Gibson any more money.

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I've got the RSS Blues

2006-12-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

Until I can figure out this RSS thing (and there’s a myriad of new stuff on Wordpress that’s throwing me for a loop), you’re just going to have to subscribe to the new feed manually.

Here’s the feed link: http://filmhacks.wordpress.com/feed/

Enter that into your RSS reader and you can subscribe from there.

Many, many thanks to the wonderful commenters who were kind enough to share this information!

Friday Photo

2006-12-08T20:04:00.000-08:00

Taken inside a facade on Warner's New York Street.

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Of all the things I've left at home, I miss my glasses the most.

2006-12-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

Although I didn't expect to work at all in December, I'll end up getting three days this week.

Tuesday night, I got a call to work on second unit shoots for a TV show*. My call was 11 am at Warner Brothers in Burbank.

I don't work on the Warner Brothers lot very often, and in some way that's a good thing. Warner's contains the single biggest threat to my pocketbook in the entire city - The Mill Store.

All studio lots have stores where they sell discounted DVDs and various merchandise, but at Warner's, they have really deeply discounted stuff at the Mill Store. Super cheap DVDs, CDs, shirts, hats and various assorted work-related tchotckes are too much for me to resist, and every time I'm on the lot, I spend at least a third of my check in there.

Wednesday, I had a fairly typical day - 14 hours (11 am to 2 am), two stage moves, and the nicest bunch of guys I've met in a long time. I really hope I can get back on this crew because they're all terrific** and I had a great day.

It never rains but it pours - as I was standing on set, I got called to do a day on another TV show, right after the best boy had asked me back for tomorrow to help out on the fixture rigging crew (fixtures, or practicals, are the lights that you can see on the screen) .

The fixture crew ended up being an old friend of mine who I've not seen in two years, and another person who I work with every so often who I like a lot, so I had a great time Thursday as well.

The only problem Thursday was the short turnaround. They'd set my call for Thursday before lunch on Wednesday, and when we went late and it became obvious that I'd not make the call because I wouldn't get my minimum turnaround (9 hours for studio lots), they pushed my call so I ended up coming in at 11 am (the original call was 7 am).

I can't go right to sleep when I get home - I have to take a shower and wind down before I get into bed, so I ended up getting about 5 hours sleep and being a total zombie in the morning.

When I'm a total zombie I forget things - on Thursday, I forgot my glasses.

I have great long-distance vision. I can read the tail numbers of jumbo jets flying in the stratosphere, but up close, details are a blurry mess.

We were wiring sconces that had been hung on the outside of the facades of New York street, but had to be powered from the inside (remember that if you see a power cable on camera the world will end. Okay, maybe not, but I'll get fired), so I ended up spending the day with my face right up against the walls trying to see where I was sending the fish tape. So not a good thing. The last thing I wanted to do was get my face up close to the walls on the inside of the facades.

The reason I didn't want to put my face too close to the inside of those walls is spiders. Those facades have been there for 50 years, and the arachnid life inside have dug in and gotten fat and sassy - the last thing I need to do is stick my eyeball up to a hole in the wall and have a spider jump on me. I probably wouldn't be able to see it coming, either. I'd just scream like hell and scare my co-workers and the spider.

I'm back on the fixtures crew for tomorrow.

*I will only tell you what show it is if you promise not to charge up to me on set shouting "Hey, you're that blogger. Although I do like to hear that people are enjoying the blog, being confronted at work makes me very uncomfortable, and then I think the heat's on, freak out and start posting things about my shoe collection that nobody wants to read.
Trust me, I'm a lot more interesting when I think no one's watching.

** Easier said than done at Warner Bros. The set lighting department there are intensely loyal to their regular folks, and won't hesitate to lay off people they don't know well in order to make sure their own people keep working. In this day and age of corporations not giving a shit about dedicated workers, I think it's wonderful to see a company display this kind of loyalty to workers - even when it works against me.

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Okay, so some of you care.

2006-12-06T06:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all the supportive comments! Following some excellent suggestions, I may make a change - I'll keep writing, but it's looking like I'm going to move over to Wordpress - I'm having issues with Blogger, and the evil corporate overlords at Google don't seem to be interested in customer service these days.

The new link is filmhacks.wordpress.com.

Right now the template's butt ugly and I'm still playing with it.

Two Years

2006-12-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

Things I've learned in two years of writing a blog:

No matter how clear I think I've been that most of what I write is intended to be tongue-in-cheek, someone somewhere will take it seriously, and send me an email advising me of the best way to pull my own head out of my ass. Screw that. Having my head up my ass is what keeps my spine flexible.

There is always someone cleverer than me.

There is always someone eager to let me know that there is always someone cleverer than me.

Speaking of people cleverer than me, Josh Friedman needs to update his damn blog more often.

Although I was afraid of offending my co-workers, they have generally responded positively (except for the one who keeps sending me - anonymously, of course - threatening emails) and have respected my desire to remain anonymous. Through this blog I've really learned to appreciate the terrific group of people with whom I'm honored to work.

In a pinch, Google's search function makes a dandy spell-check.

Speaking of terrific groups of people, the commenters here have rountinely made my day by being funny, insightful and generally well worth the effort it takes me to clean up the coffee I've sprayed on my computer screen while laughing (with you, of course. Not at you).

In a truly Pavlovian turn of fate, I am no longer able to concentrate on what I'm writing unless I see a Blogger interface. Damn you, internets.

Many more people than I like to imagine simply do not give a shit about what I think.

In my struggle to frame my recollections of my days in such a way as to make them interesting to other people, I've had to learn to look at my world differently. If I get nothing else from blogging, this one thing has made the whole experiment worth it.

Things a blog won't get me:

Free drinks
Lavish gifts
Famous
Rich
Laid

Okay, that's not entirely true. I have, in fact, gotten free drinks because of the blog.

In two years, I've met some wonderful people and have had a great time balancing precariously on my little soapbox.

I've also noticed that two years is about when most blogs start to repeat themselves.

So, what do you think? Should I keep on doing the same old shit or pack in it while a few people out there still think I'm cool?

Friday Photo

2006-12-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Every year the city of Los Angeles begs people not to drive into Hollywood to see the annual Christmas Parade.

Here's why. This light changed three times and these cars didn't move (but they did all honk their horns incessantly).

On the work front, today I went by the lot to pick up my final check from the Christmas job. There's quite a lot of stuff shooting, but none of the people I usually work with are doing anything.

The perils of freelance, I guess.

Monday I've got to get on the phone and try to scare up some work for December.

No work, but plenty of excitement.

2006-11-29T15:03:00.000-08:00

Sometime in the past few days, I hurt my thumb. The joint's swollen and I can't bend it. I have absolutely no idea how it happened (although I'm tempted to blame Cam-Lok connectors) but since I do tend to use my thumbs quite a bit, I figured I'd get it checked out.

When I showed it to the doctor, he said, "You fucked something up. Take some Motrin and soak it in warm water. Maybe that'll clear it up."

All that medical school for a diagnosis of "fucked up"? That, I'd already figured out.

"Tell me something I don't know," I said.

He thought for a moment. "Buy low, sell high?"

I like my doctor, but sometimes I really want to kick him. Plus, I already knew that.

So, I've got a bottle of Motrin and official medical advice not to use my thumb for the next three days. Wish me luck with that one.

In more exciting news, yesterday, LA county mental health services hauled my landlady off to the nuthatch.

She's always been, um, eccentric.. but it's gotten worse in the past few weeks. It all started when her kids tried to get a power of attorney (which is a reasonable request when one's parent is 80, I think), and she freaked out. She interpreted it as an attempt at a pre-death asset grab and stopped eating or sleeping - she just cried all day and all night.

The lack of sleep turned into paranoia, and since my landlady lives next door, her pounding on my door at 1 am to tell me that the streetlight was watching her and that I should take my stove apart to make sure there weren't any electronic bugs in it. "Check your oven, too! They might be listening to everything you say!"

Honestly, I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. I'd heard pounding noises at night, but hadn't really worried about them. She's always been handy, so I figured she was boarding up the windows or installing shelves or something (sometimes I'll do stuff like that when I can't sleep). I'd offered to take her to the grocery store if she needed it, but she said she was fine.

Turns out, she's ripped out all the electrical wiring in her house (because it was listening to her, I guess) and there's a gas leak because in her zeal to find the 'bugs' - she knocked big holes in the walls and hit the gas line with a hammer.

The social workers who took her away yesterday were very nice, and implied that she'll be okay soon, once she's gotten some medical treatment.

I hope so. I haven't heard anything about how she's doing, but it's been less than 24 hours, so there may be no news yet.

'Tis the Season - it's official.

2006-11-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

Beverly Hills has sprouted chandeliers in boxes.

On Rodeo (remember, it's pronounced Row-DAY-oh) Drive, of course.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-22T13:43:00.000-08:00

To those of you outside the US, the Thanksgiving holiday is billed as a commemoration of... well, depending on who you ask, it's either the commemoration of the onset of a genocide or a happy fuzzy friendship party thrown by some people who were probably really glad to see land.

In reality, it's an excuse to pig out all day, fight with one's family around the table, and gossip on the way home about how fucked up everyone is since Grandma (who was, after all, the one keeping everyone in line) passed away.

Since I'm going to a friend's house, I'll miss the fights and the gossip, but the pig-out factor is certainly still there. We're doing potluck, and I'm attempting to bake the pumpkin muffins that I found on the faboo cupcake blog (although I'm not sure how well they're going to turn out. I probably should have told my hosts I was bringing a bottle of cheap whiskey or something and then surprised them - although whiskey's probably healthier than those cupcakes. I don't even want to see the calorie count on those fuckers).

So, in the spirit of things, here's a list of what I'm thankful for this year:

I'm thankful that I have a job which, although I bitch about it sometimes, I truly do enjoy.

I'm thankful that I have my health, and more importantly, that I continue to qualify for my health insurance (I have to work 300 hours per semester to keep it, and I'm unbelievably grateful that I've never lost it).

I'm thankful for all the wonderful folks who keep hiring me, and with whom I'd hang out even if they didn't just because I like them.

I'm thankful for my rent-controlled place to live.

I'm thankful that my pet loves me (hey, with cats that's not a given, you know).

I'm thankful for my family and friends, who put up with my shit and still seem to like me.

I'm thankful that I haven't had food poisoning in a while.

I'm thankful for this court decision. I've had to 86 some hilarious comments due to fear of legal action, and now everyone can snark away without fear. Huzzah!

I'm sure there's more, but right now I'm off to the gym. Hopefully I'll be able to pre-emptively burn off those cupcakes.

I hope all of you have a very happy holiday, too!

I certainly made up for those weekends I worked.

2006-11-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

Friday night I dragged a friend to a nightclub and we saw.. get ready for it.. 2 Live Crew (remember them?) for some sort of comeback tour or something. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but here's some video:

Yeah, I know. I thought it was going to be a lot funnier, too (actually funny, not two drink minimum funny). Plus, it was damn near pitch black in there so I'm surprised I was even able to get the shitty pixel-fest you see here.

I'll spare you the clip of the dancer shaking her thang for the camera. There are six (or so) clips on Jumpcut, so feel free to re-edit them and see if you can make something interesting out of it.

Saturday night, I decided that I had not, in fact, been ready for that jelly and decided to stay home.

Sunday, I went to see the new James Bond. Without veering into spoiler country, it's long. Too long. By about half an hour. There is absolutely no excuse for a movie with a plot that thin to be over two hours, although Daniel Craig (for whom I've had a girl boner since Layer Cake) was great.

I'm not expecting to get any work this week, since Thursday's a holiday.

Thanks a lot, now get out.

2006-11-16T09:34:00.000-08:00

"Well", my boss said as he came in our room right after our coffee break, "I've got some bad news for you."

Sometimes things get cut, jobs get shortened and then sometimes people get cut from the crew. Not fired, just.. no longer needed for this particular job.

Guess what happened to me yesterday?

Yup. Since my partner and I were doing all the hedges, and the park that had it's decorations get cancelled was apparently all hedges (and would have taken a week for us to complete), we got laid off.

Although the extra week's pay would have been nice, this isn't that big of a deal, really. One of the first lessons one has to learn in this industry is that layoffs don't mean a thing - somehow the crew size can no longer be justified to management and someone has to go. Happens all the time.

If I wanted stability, I'd have gotten a real job, now wouldn't I?

The funny thing is that throughout this whole job, we've been jokingly telling one another to stop moving so fast or we'd work ourselves out of a job.

I'm still taking today off, since that six days in a row thing hurts me bad (and I have no more clean work clothes), but I'll start to make calls tomorrow. Hopefully I'll turn up something for next week, and if not, I'll have some time to work on other things - like the cupcakes I got talked into baking for Thanksgiving next week.

Oh, shit - Thanksgiving is next week.

Bet I won't get any work, then. Hello, unemployment check.

People, please!

2006-11-14T12:25:00.000-08:00

This morning, as I was drinking my coffee and catching up on my reading I came across an article which made reference to "all the gaffers" on a set.

This (and I've seen the same mistake before) makes me nuts.

There is one gaffer per shooting unit. He (or she) works directly with the Director of Photography (DP for short) to light the scene and is the head of the set lighting department. If you see more than one gaffer lighting a set at the same time, something's gone terribly wrong.

All those people moving lights around are called lamp operators or "juicers". As a side note, you are safe referring to "all the grips" on set, although grips do not handle lights. They have enough to do without having to do my job (which would be moving lights around and, it seems, confusing certain magazine contributors).

So, if you're thinking about dropping the "all the gaffers" bomb, please refer to this handy dandy guide to lighting-related crew folks:

Director of Photography: The guy (or gal) who makes the creative decisions about how the scene will be lit and shot. The DP is the head of the camera department, but he (or she) also decides the general look of the lighting and what "mood" the scene should have.

Gaffer: The gaffer (remember, there's only one), after discussing the scene with the DP, is the person who gets on the walkie talkie and tells us exactly what kind of lights to use and where to place them. The gaffer, since he (or she) stays on set, is also a good source of information about what's going to happen later in the day ("Remember when we wrapped that set because they were done shooting in it? Start getting it ready again. It's up next").

Best Boy Electric: The gaffer's assistant, so to speak. The best boy is responsible for hiring additional crew and laying them off when they're no longer needed, supervising the lighting crew ("You're late again, asshole. You owe everyone a Starbucks drink after lunch"), which can be like herding cats some days, ordering equipment from the rental house and making sure it doesn't get lost or damaged, and keeping track of everyone's hours so we get paid the correct amount. Unless we start to get peeled really badly, the best boy is never on set.

Lamp Operators: On set, our job is to carry out the gaffer's instructions about which lamps he (or she) wants and where. If we don't have a rigging crew, we show up early (a "pre-call") in order to run cable from the generator to the set and try to grab the best equipment staging area before the grips get it.

Key Grip: The key grip works with the DP and the gaffer. Grips don't touch lights unless they're being nice and helping us out. The rule of thumb is that anything which casts a shadow is grip - one can't just aim a light at a set and leave it, because of a phenomenon known as "spill". Lighting is a precise thing, and one only wants the light to shine on a certain area of the set (or the left half of the actor's face) - so the key grip instructs his crew where to place "flags" to keep the light only on one area.

Best Boy Grip: same as the BBE (best boy electric), different truck.

Dolly Grip: The grip who's in charge of the camera dolly. No, not the dress-wearing kind of dolly, but a very heavy wheeled hunk of steel which can roll (on metal track), and has an arm which can raise and lower the camera in order to create those fancy moving shots that take forever to set up and audiences don't even notice. Dolly track, when laid down, must be perfectly level or the camera shakes as the dolly's moved down the track.

Grips: Grips, in addition to precision shadow-casting, are responsible for general safety on set. They build ramps, reinforce stairs and handrails, move set walls, hang pipe grids and greenbeds (walkways which are suspended over a set), build tents outside building windows so we can shoot night scenes during the day, and assemble and operate those gigantic, complex camera cranes.
Don't believe those ads on the back pages of certain film-related publications ("Learn to be a grip movie technician in 10 days!"). Grip is not an entry-level position.

On a show with more than one shooting unit, these positions will be duplicated for the second unit, and shows with rigging units will have a rigging gaffer and rigging key grip with associated personnel. On shows without a rigging crew, the best boys are responsible for pre-rigging sets.

I could go on (and on and on and on), but I'll stop here.

If you're writing something and aren't sure about what any particular crew person does, please don't guess - just email me and ask. Although I sometimes take a few days to answer emails, I'll be more than happy to help.

Unless you want me to go insane - in that case, just keep it up with "all the gaffers". I'll eventually snap, I promise.

A very food-centric post today.

2006-11-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon as we were getting into work, there was a Red Hot Chili Peppers (honestly, I didn't think those guys were still around) video shooting on the lot - as soon as we found out, we all sauntered over to the set which was on the lot's New York Street.

Not so much to see the band (I can't speak for my co-workers, but I really don't care that much), but to see if there was anything good at the crafty table and to say "hi" if any of us knew any of the crew, since this job will be over in a couple of weeks and we're all on the make for future employment.

I'd not met the crew before, but they all seemed nice (even though they were having a typically long day), and the food was typical music video fare*.

Once we'd said our hellos, determined that nothing there was of much interest to any of us, and had gotten our crew set up in their respective work areas, our boss told us that there were two other parties on the lot last night.

One was a screening of a movie followed by a wine and cheese reception in the parking lot next to the water tank and the other was a dressy party and silent auction for some charity. The charity party let the lot workers pick over the buffet left-overs, and I was bad and overindulged on corned beef. I love corned beef, even if it is about 90% fat and really bad for me.

So, I'm off to the gym right now to try and work off the million calories of yummy I ate last night.

*Craft Service/Catering hiearchy is as follows:

Commercials: Expensive caterers, craft service people who shop at high-end markets and stock everything but the kitchen sink and will, if asked nicely, accommodate special requests (soymilk, sugar-free snacks, strange tropical fruits, etc..). Commercial craft service doesn't come cheap, but you get what you pay for, after all.

Large budget movies: Although the between-meals spread's not quite as elaborate as commercial fare (but still good) there's still a wide variety of stuff to eat (both healthy and not) and the catered food's worthy of an expensive restaurant.

TV shows: Hit or miss, depending on how much the producer's budgeted, but since TV shows shooting on studio lots don't have caterers (they can give the crew a half-hour lunch if food is provided or an hour-long "walkaway" if it's not. Why pay for a caterer if there's a commissary 200 yards away?) those shows tend to have better crafty, plus they'll have bread and cold cuts for sandwiches.

Music Videos: Normally stocked with the type of food that musicians and their hangers-on like to eat - junk food and lots of it, unless the artist is on a diet and then there will be a veggie platter with a tin of low fat ranch dressing.

Low budget movies: Cheap coffee (with powdered creamer which I hate) and a box of stale cookies, plus some of those sodium-laced ramen noodle packets if they were on sale at Costco. Hey, what would you put out if you had to feed 40 people on $100 per day?

Having said that, I've been on a couple of low budget movies that have had decent food. Once again, it depends on what the producer's willing and able to spend. Having one of the lead actors get sick from eating cheese that's been sitting at room temperature for six hours and then hysterically accuse the producer of trying to poison them will increase the food budget pretty quickly.

Quick, Look Busy!

2006-11-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

At some point between wrap on Tuesday and call time on Wednesday, our boss got spoken to by lot management about us not looking busy enough.

It's important to make it clear that the problem was not our not working fast enough or doing good work (what we've done so far looks great, and we got a compliment from the CEO himself on how nice everything looked), but that we weren't giving the appearance of being productive worker bees as the important people sped past us in their cars on the way through the security gate.

We've actually been working pretty quickly, but every so often we have to stop for a few moments to a) stand up straight b) think for a moment c) untangle lights or d) have a sip of water.

Apparently all these things are completely unacceptable, and we must be moving at all times or memos are sent and threatening phone calls are made.

I should probably note that moving around more than absolutely necessary is something that all of us, after years of having to conserve one's energy throughout long days, have learned not to do. Repeatedly picking things up and putting them down in order to justify the crew size to the bean counters just means I'm going to run out to gas right when it's time to load the truck at the end of the night.

All these memos and calls (this is just the latest volley in the 'crack the whip on the dirty laborers' round of memos*) have been hard on my boss, who is a terrific guy and doesn't deserve to have this kind of shit heaped on his head when he is, in fact, doing a pretty bang-up job.

After I protested that for once in my life I was actually working and not just running out the clock, my boss sighed and said "Look, just make them think they're getting their money's worth - make sure they see some kind of activity as they pass by. If they see you just standing there they think you're goofing off."

"Don't they see the lights? Isn't it obvious that we're making progress?"

My boss, who is very diplomatic, just said "Well, you know how these people are".

Good point.

Unfortunately, I do know how these people are. It's just that usually, they have no idea what exactly it is that I do (they just have some vague idea that my carrying weird looking equipment into and out of the set prevents them from standing in the doorways), so they can't normally tell if I'm really working or just filling my down time by fucking off while I get off my feet ("I'm very, very busy here. If I don't get these widgets organized by size and color, we won't be ready to light the next set").

This time, it's different. Everyone knows how to do holiday lights, right? We'll never get away with blatantly staged busyness when people actually know what we're doing, will we?

Apparently, we will.

Whenever an overpriced luxury sedan would pull out of the executive parking lot, one of us would yell "Incoming!" and we'd all start trying to look busy - fiddling with lights, moving things from one pile to another, crouching down and standing up again. At one point, my partner just started waving his arms around as the cars drove by.

"C'mon, man.. No one's going to fall for that. You look like a crazy person."

"Oh, please. They can't tell what I'm doing. They just see movement. You know how these people are."

I guess it worked, since my boss didn't get any angry phone calls last night.

*What the fuck is it with the memos? I'm not used to this - I'm used to insane people screaming and throwing things, which is easier to cope with than a seemingly endless round of passive-aggressive memos. In times like this, I remember exactly why I decided to bypass corporate America.

It's an ill wind that blows nobody good

2006-11-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

Or something like that.

For those of you not in Southern California, we're currently being fried by Santa Ana winds.

A Santa Ana wind feels like... well, you know when the oven's on "high" and you crack the door open and get that blast of hot air right in the face? That's what a Santa Ana feels like. The humidity plummets (I think it's at 16% right now), the temperature skyrockets (it's over 90 degrees), people get cranky and drive worse than usual - I've been riding my bike to work and I've been honked at, flipped off and had more near-misses than normal.

Right now, I'm very grateful to be working in the evenings - it cools off about 6 pm when we get back from dinner, and the rest of the night is really nice.

Although the Santa Ana winds are traditionally believed to be evil, they do have one big advantage:

As long as they're blowing, there's no way it's going to rain.

Ain't life a bitch?

2006-11-05T00:34:00.000-08:00

So after years of lifting 100 lb coils of cable and not having back problems (knee and foot problems, yes, but the back's generally fine), what finally gives me a pain in the back?

Putting in fucking holiday lights, that's what.

It's the constant bending down and straightening up that's done it (stretch up to reach the top of the hedge, bend down to anchor the lights to the base, repeat for 10 hours). My lower back's killing me, but it's not bad enough to warrant my staying home so I'm just torturing my co-workers by bitching about it.

I've got an ice pack on it right now. Hopefully it'll feel better by morning for my next shift of bending and stretching.

"TUESDAY" AM UPDATE: It feels much better this morning - I figure if I put the ice pack on it during lunch, I should be fine.

It's Friday!

2006-11-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

I think.

Well, today's the last day I work before having two days off, so I'm calling it Friday.

Yup, definitely Friday.

Illegitimi non carborundum

2006-10-31T12:34:00.000-08:00

Last night was frustrating - we can't just loosely drape the lights over the hedges - they have to be passerby and gardener (oops, I meant "landscape technician") proof and they'll have to stay put for weeks - some of our shoddier work has already been knocked down and we're going to have to do them over, which is sending our boss into panic mode as he's afraid we're not going to be done on time.

We have to wind the lights around any sturdy twigs we find in the foliage (since we're only hanging the lights on the side facing the offices - no one cares about holiday lights in the parking lots), and some of the shrubbery is more difficult to wrap than others. Last night's hedges had plenty of sturdy twigs, but my partner and I were both having problems getting the strands to stay where we put them (damn slippery leaves), so it took us our entire shift to finish about 60 feet of hedge.

At the beginning of the job, our boss warned us that some of the office workers might be belligerent when they saw us working on holiday lights so early, but everyone's been pretty nice so far.

Last night, we were working right in between the studio president's one miiilllllion dollar (C'mon, say it like Dr. Evil - you know you want to) office and the VIP parking lot. The execs had to walk by us as they were leaving for the day, and most of them passed by without even acknowledging our presence (we are, after all, just the help). The folks who did make comments were pleasant and surprised at how much work the lights were.

Then again, we were listening to Sinatra on the little portable CD player, and it's hard to be a jerk when Frank's belting out Witchcraft.

All was well until about 10 pm when a lady walked by us and snarled "Can't you people at least wait until after Halloween?"

As I was opening my mouth to politely explain, she shook her head, muttered "Unbelievable!" and stomped off.

Lucky for me years of working on sets have rendered me utterly incapable of caring about someone's attitude problems when they're related to something that's beyond my control.

As she stomped towards her BMW, still muttering to herself, I cheerily called after her "Think of it as a reminder to start shopping soon!"

She didn't turn around.

I bet our boss gets a memo about the gardeners (oops, I meant "landscape technicians") talking back to the important people.

Oh, and Happy Halloween. With my current hours, I won't have to worry about getting ambushed like I did last year .

It's Saturday for you but it's Monday for me.

2006-10-29T01:02:00.000-08:00

My days off are Thursday and Friday, and while it's nice to have a weekday free for certain things that aren't open on the weekends, this schedule makes it difficult to remember what day it is.

Saturday is my Monday, so last night I kept forgetting it that not only was it Saturday night, it was the Saturday night before Halloween, so as we were working outside, I kept wondering why there was so much traffic through the city at midnight on a weeknight ("Don't these people have jobs?"), only to suddenly remember (or be reminded by my co-workers) that it's not a weeknight for the rest of the local population - just for us.

At the end of the night, as we were prepping for the next days' work by running cable (what do you mean, why are we running cable? We have millions of lights - that does add up to a lot of amperage, you know), one of the "See Hollywood and Stars!" tour busses rolled by in full party mode - loud music and drunken revelers dancing on the top deck of the old London city bus that now rattles around my neighborhood - only these days it's full of tourists who take millions of pictures of anyone they think might be famous* - and once again I wondered what the hell was going on on a Monday night to warrant a party.

Wait - it's not a weeknight, is it?

What day is it again?

*I know that tourism contributes a eye-popping amount towards the local economy, and I'm glad that people from around the world choose to spend their vacation time in Los Angeles, but goddammit, those busses are annoying as hell.

Snowball fight!

2006-10-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

We spend the first couple of hours each day prepping the strands of lights that we have to use - we have to cut the tags off (because the white tags are visible in the greenery of the bushes and trees) and it's better to do it all at once. That way there aren't little amputated tags all over the lot (which pisses off the groundskeepers).

The room where we do this is right next to where a commercial has been shooting and blanketed part of the lot in snow - some of it fake, but some of it real. They don't normally use real snow, and I have no idea why they did this time, but there it was, right there on the street collecting dirt (like real snow does) and making a terrible mess in the heat.

Although they wrapped several days ago, it's taking them some time to scrape the snow up and throw it into dumpsters (where it's been melting into a funny-smelling lake through which we've been driving our golf cart at full tilt to see how big of a splash we can make) and there's still quite a bit left, so we went out to play in it on our coffee break.

They've cordoned off the area that was covered with snow in order to facilitate clean-up, but people have been driving carts through it anyway - it's the best shortcut on the lot. As we were standing there, trying to see how well the snow would pack (not so much - it's mostly ice), the best boy of another show (he's a great guy and I like him a lot) drove by in a golf cart and guessed what I was thinking - he floored the golf cart, but let's face it, those things aren't that fast. I managed to throw accurately, and nailed him right in the back. I had to run through three inches of slush to get him so I had to work the rest of the night in wet shoes, but it was so totally worth it.

So it's come to this...

2006-10-24T01:51:00.000-07:00

For the next five (or six, I'm not sure anymore) weeks, I'm going to be putting up holiday lights at a studio*.

I'm working with a bunch of guys whom I've never met before, but who all are really cool and it's a fun group, but basically I'm a glorified gardener right now.

A gardener who's making union scale plus a night premium, so I certainly can't complain (okay, I can complain about being attacked by a bougainvillea that wasn't in the holiday spirit - I never realized that those things had half-inch long thorns, and apparently they don't enjoy being draped in lights).

The hours aren't so bad - 2:30 pm to 1 am. We're working a nights because our presence is upsetting to the important folks - after all, everyone wants to read the great American novel, but no one wants to watch the room full of chain-smoking monkeys typing away.

*I'm not going to name it, as I'm currently an employee of the studio and not a production, and I'm not certain what the policy on blogs is, so let's all just keep our guesses to ourselves, shall we?

Friday Photo

2006-10-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

Taken at the Los Angeles Sports Arena (slated for destruction soon, which is probably why they didn't really care that we were rolling cable carts across the basketball court), October 2006

To sleep, perchance to stay that way for a few hours longer.

2006-10-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I'm starting a job that will have me in splits (half day, half night - about 4 pm to about 3 am) for five weeks.

When I'm given a chance to fall into a consistent sleep pattern, I tend to be a fairly early riser - I'm almost always up before 8 am. This must stop if I'm going to make it through the first week of this job without being a raging bitch and tormenting my co-workers.

I've been trying to stay up late and sleep late, but no matter how late I'm awake, I'm still out of bed by 8 am.

Dammit. I'm working a split today (on a commercial), so hopefully I'll be able to stay asleep later tomorrow.

At least I know I'm not crazy.

2006-10-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's work was preparing a set for a TV show - we were getting it ready for first unit to shoot and I don't think it's been used in a while, because a lot of the power had been re-routed to other sets and some of the lights had been taken down.

My job was to check and make sure all the practicals (a lamp you can see on screen), wall sconces*, and duplexes (wall outlets) worked in this huge set - there were about 50 practicals and duplexes.

I got all of them working, except two sconces and a duplex (all on the same wall) - I had the dimmer board operator bring them up on the dimmer system, and nothing came up. I checked again, and tried the neighboring numbers. I crawled all over the set to see if they'd been repatched into 'hot' power (sometimes the dimmers get wacky and we have to do this). Nothing. My boss went up into the perms to check the power up there. Nothing. We couldn't find where they were powered from.

I damn near went bananas trying to find the tails (because if I can find the cable that's powering the sconces - the tails - I can trace them out and find where they've been plugged in), and at some point during the process I'm fairly certain my boss formed the opinion that I was an idiot (Boss: "They have to be plugged in somewhere." Me: "I got nothin'").

On the back side of the big set, and directly behind the wall with our dead sconces, they were painting a walk in closet set - as I stood there, staring at the top of the wall, hoping I could make the connecters for the lamps appear by sheer force of will, I noticed that the floor had sawdust on it.

"Say, when did you guys build the set on this side of the wall?"

The painter looked up "Yesterday, why?"

"Would you happen to know if they disconnected some of our cables?"

Just then, one of the construction guys walked by.

"Oh, yeah. You had three connectors back there - I figured you didn't want connections sealed in the wall so I cut them off for you. I figured you could drill down with a [piece of equipment only the construction department has], then pull a new cable up so your connectors will be on top of the wall."

In the construction guy's defense, he's right. One does not want cable connectors buried between walls where no one can get them. In any power run, the connections are always the weak point. Cable almost never catches fire (it can, but you really have to work at it). Connectors melt and/or burst into flame all the time.

But I'm not a construction guy with an arsenal of strange drill bits and power tools which one needs a license to operate. I'm set lighting - you want to know what I've got on my toolbelt? I've got a Leatherman, a pair of moldy gloves, and a chalk bag full of clothespins, that's what I've got. Drill down, indeed.

When I told my boss what had happened and why I wasn't able to get the sconces on, he wanted to know if we could just cut thorough the wall directly behind the sconces and duplex - he figured they'd have clothes hanging in front of it (since the set's a closet), so no one would see the holes or our power.

"I don't think so," the painter said. "I don't know how they're going to dress this and if it's in the wrong place, it could get ugly."

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, brother, but it's ugly now - I have to have those lights on because of course, if we can't get them on, guess what they're going to point the camera at first thing?

When I told the rigging gaffer that his solution wasn't going to work, he just shrugged and said "Well, go get the [piece of equipment only the construction department has] and start drilling. We've got to get those hot."

So, we got the [piece of equipment only the construction department has], figured out how to use it and then cut straight down through the set wall to the sconces - then we tied the cable to the string we'd sent down and pulled it up. It took us over an hour to do the two sconces, and we couldn't get to the duplex at all because it was on the bottom of the wall and the [piece of equipment only the construction department has] wasn't long enough to cut through 10 feet of serious miscommunication.

Due to the shape of the big set (and how the second set was built behind it), we couldn't even drill to the duplex from the side. I ended up putting the plate back on and labeling it "N.F.G." where the dimmer number would be.

*What is it with set designers and wall sconces? I can count on the fingers of one hand how many homes I've been in that have wall sconces, and in movie-world, every single private home has them on every single wall.

Friday Video

2006-10-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

I got a late start today, due to my having had way too much fun at Carly's book party last night, so here's something to keep you amused while I'm recovering:

I'm not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of the fact that I've burned the nerve endings off of my fingertips through years of handling 12K Par scrims.

There's a longer version on YouTube, in which I attempt to prove, with a shaky boom up (my knees aren't what they once were), that the stove's burner is indeed lit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzbtkiSXe9s

How to tell when the film industry is way busy:

2006-10-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

When rental houses start sending out really old equipment that normally sits on the shelves and gathers dust.

This is a lug connector:

Since lug ends can't be connected directly together, they're clamped onto a bus bar (a big metal plate made of copper, because that's one of the better electrical conductors) which is inside a distro (or spider - they're similar, only the distro box has outlets so you can plug things into it and the spider box doesn't) box:

Since the copper's 'hot', there's a leeetle platic shield over it (with holes on top so you can reach and tighten the set screw that's on the top part of the connector and holes on the side to stick the cable into - it's worth noting that the hole which one shoves the cable through isn't much bigger than the cable end. Normally not a big deal, but just try it when you've been awake for 18 hours), which, although it looks pretty flimsy, is surprisingly strong.

This requires a special tool - the T-Handle:

The method for connecting lug end cable is to slip the open end of the lug over the bus bar (it just fits), positioning it under the hole in the plastic. Then, stick the end of the metal shaft of the T-handle into the little hole in the set screw on the lug and turn until the whole mess is tight enough not to move around.

Do you see the flaw in this system? Once the cable is energized (and the type of cable, 4/0, carries 400 amps per hot leg, and we usually run three hot legs - that's more "juice" than I have in my entire house) things can still get to the copper through the holes in the plastic. Rainwater, spilled coffee, pee (there's a rumor that the original dog who played Spuds MacKenzie died when it peed on an energized distro box - the power traveled up the urine stream and cooked the poor doggie. According to Wikipedia it's not true after all, but the story's been going around since I've been in the biz).

Lug connectors were industry standard for many years, but nowadays most shows use a type of connector called Cam Lok(TM), which is much safer (there's no exposed metal parts - the connectors twist together and when connected are water resistant), and doesn't require any additional tools to connect together (just wrists of steel).

The point of all this is that rental houses will generally only send out lug cable if they have no Cam-Lok left (or if someone specifically requests it for some strange reason), since most people don't want the lug cable - plus, those lugs are metal, and when one of those ends breaks loose from the coil of cable that you're carrying over your shoulder and smacks you in the shin, it's beyond painful (I think "lug-to-the-shin" torture is banned by the Geneva convention).

Yesterday was a commercial which basically was different people standing and talking against a white background. Once we got set up (and after we tried and failed to send the lug cable back and get some Cam-Lok cable), there was nothing to do - and I always forget that most stages have wireless internet these days and I leave my computer at home, so once I read the paper I was fucked until they called wrap and it was time to tear everything out.

I had to borrow a T-handle since if I still own one (and I'm not sure that I do) it's somewhere in the purgatory for forgotten gear (i.e. in a bin somewhere in my hall closet).

Warning: Girly content ahead. Proceed at your own risk:

Over the holiday weekend, I hit the Fred Segal sale. For those of you not in Los Angeles, Fred Segal is a horribly overpriced clothing store that's frequented by, well, people who can afford horribly overpriced clothing, but once a year they have a 75% off sale which gets the prices knocked down to levels manageable for the hoi polloi.

Although I almost never buy anything, I always go. Free entertainment, you know.

This year, I found the best pair of shoes ever:

All the shoes were 50% off, so these were marked down to... wait for it.... $450.

Yup, that's right. The normal price of these shoes is NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS.

WAY too rich for my blood, but they sure were purty.

I didn't set the white balance on the camera correctly - they're silver, not gold.

Here's a side view:

Sigh.

Even if I could afford it, I'm not sure I would pay it.

According to the salesperson, about 15 women had tried them on, looked at the price, sighed heavily and then put them back on the rack.

Oh hell. Who am I kidding - I so would pay it if I had that kind of cash. Never mind that they were horribly uncomfortable and completely impractical for anything other than sitting in a chair and looking alluring. When you have shoes like that, you don't even have to get up. People will do things for you.

Mid-week music video

2006-10-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Late-night call times somehow seem just wrong - first off, there's the drinking coffee at 10 pm. Then, there's going home and going to bed at 6 am.
Then, there's the aforementioned sleeping all day (okay, not all day, from about 10 am to 3 pm, but it's that time of year when the weather's not too hot and it's beautiful to be outside, so I HATE being in during the day).
Then, there's the recovery time.

I got to work Wednesday at midnight, and we were done by 6 am (the joys of being 'off production'. We were just coming in to wrap out and load the truck. We ended up spending most of the night standing around waiting for them to call it. I think we only worked for about two hours, and in case you're wondering I have no idea who the video was for. Some forgettable rap group) , although it was this morning before I felt human again. The older I get, the more those all-nighters (or semi-all nighters) hurt me.

As promised, here's the pig race video (I'm a YouTube newbie, so let me know if I've done something wrong and fucked it up):

Sleeping the sunny afternoon away

2006-10-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

Monday, we wrapped everything - we got to Sony at 5 am and got everything wrapped before lunch, then spent the rest of the day at the rental house, unloading the truck and counting out equipment.

We did pretty well - 10 sets in 2 days (Disney Ranch and the Sony lot), and we only lost three stingers.

Normally, when you do that many rigs, the L&D (lost and damaged) is a lot higher, so the rigging gaffer was pretty happy with us, so hopefully I'll get called back when this crew goes to another job.

Tuesday was laundry day (and I went through an entire bottle of "Shout" - wrapping cable makes my clothes really dirty - I looked like a transient at the end of each day), and after I got all my clothes clean I went and saw School for Scoundrels (which I worked on, and wasn't intending on seeing, but a friend really wanted to see it so we went).

I'm still on a super-early schedule, so I was up at 6 am Tuesday morning and 7 am today (hey, I managed to sleep in!), and I have a midnight call tonight at Long Beach Airport (although I'll probably head down early and swim beforehand), so I'll have to take a nap this afternoon, although sleeping during the day makes me feel weird (but I have to - I can't work at night without a nap).

Right now, I just got done at the gym, had lunch at Baja Fresh (two chicken soft tacos, no cheese - Carly's book party's coming up and I'm determined to fit into some of my super-hot smaller sized clothing) and now I'm sitting in a coffeehouse (Groundwork - they have free wireless and it's a cool place, although I wish the food were better) with my ghetto little IBM laptop (everyone else here seems to have those super-expensive Mac powerbooks), typing and trying not to listen to the guy sitting at the next table, who's loudly complaining about his boyfriend to another guy who's commiserating by loudly complaining about his boyfriend.

I love LA.

Oh, and you know you're getting older when the homeless punks on Sunset Blvd. start calling you "Ma'am" and saying "thank you very much" when you give them your Baja Fresh chips.

I've got a truck full of cable and an ache in my spine.

2006-10-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Friday's work was on the Sony lot - rigging 8 or so sets (pickup shot days move fast because it's just a few snippets, hence the large number of locations) in different areas of the lot in one day.

It was the same drill as yesterday - rig a set before first unit got there, wrap it after they shot, use that gear to rig the next set. We ordered more equipment, which enabled us to leave three or four sets down at the same time, which was a good thing since the shooting order got changed (and a shot dropped at the last minute) and we would have been up shit creek without the extra stuff.

Our day started out with our 10-ton truck breaking down (I don't know what was wrong, but I overheard one of the drivers say to another "It's not going to get any better" as they were looking at the engine), so we had to offload all of our equipment onto a much smaller truck (not a big deal, since we were going to lay all of it out) for the day's work.

Since there were so many sets, we never stopped working for the entire 12 hours (there's usually some down time involved, even on rigs), and I was too worn out Friday night and Saturday to do much of anything.

It's Sunday night and I'm still worn out. I guess I've been set boy too long, and these two heavy rig days have hurt me bad - I know I've been mostly rigging lately, but I've not been throwing around as much heavy cable as I have been for the past few days - this rig was all 4/0 ( it's the heaviest cable we have - 100 foot coils of it weigh 100 lbs. It's pronounced "four ought", as in "I ought not to be lifting this shit by myself").

I have to be at work at 5 am tomorrow, which means I have to leave my house at 4 am in order to get there, park, make it through the security checkpoint and walk across the lot to where we're meeting.

We're wrapping the rest of the cable and taking it back to the rental house, as there were only two shoot days on this.

Today was the last day of the LA County fair, so a friend and I went, ate some deep-fried food (the deep-fried avocado was a disappointment), drank some beer, watched a pig race (video coming soon), and then came back home.

I'm off to bed.

Tiny Bee Feet

2006-09-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

I got a last minute call yesterday to come work on the rigging crew for a movie ("Holiday") that's shooting some pick-up shots (they've finished principal photography and are just getting some small things that they missed the first time around) - we loaded the truck yesterday, and today we were at Disney Ranch which is about three miles past bumfuck (but very scenic).

The plan was for us to show up early and rig the first set of the day - then, once first unit had gotten up and running, we were to proceed to set #2, rig that, then rig set #3 and then wait for first unit to get into set #3 before wrapping sets one and two and then going home.

Production cancelled set 2 (after we'd rigged it of course), which was fine - it meant that we didn't have to wait as long for first unit to get into the third set, although we had a bit of a scramble near the end as we tried to get all our cable wrapped before it got dark (little things like small lamps and extension cords tend to get lost in the dark).

Disney ranch is a big one - it's got a lot of acreage and numerous structures - a western town, barns, east-coast looking houses, a lake and today, two different companies shooting (us and a commercial). It also has a lot of bees - they were everywhere, and most of them seemed to be crawling all over the food at craft service and catering.

I can't remember who described lunch as tasting like "tiny bee feet", but it cracked me up - I can't even type it now without smiling.

I'm really tired, and I have to be back at work (not at the ranch, though - on the lot) in 9 hours.

Displaced weekend

2006-09-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

So my place got painted over the weekend, and I thought I could manage to stay there while they worked - until I walked in and saw everything I own wrapped in plastic, with 6 inches of old paint chips on the floors and a haze of dust floating in the air - so I decided to go to a hotel.

Although I wanted desperately wanted to stay at one of the really swanky hotels that allow pets (W, Peninsula, Grafton, Beverly Wilshire), since there was the possibility of my having to stay more than one night, I figured I'd better go for something more affordable - that, and my cat is not a good traveler (she hates the carrier and screams bloody murder the whole time she's in there), so I decided to stay at the Best Western Hollywood Hills, which is close to the house and fairly reasonably priced.

It's also party central for the "star maps and rental car" set - for some reason, management has decided that it's a good idea to blast frat-party rock and roll into the pool area until about 11 pm (I had a poolside room, of course), and the hotel is mid-remodel so there's construction during the day. Not surprisingly, kitty stayed under the bed most of the time due to the noise. She came out very briefly the first night, stared horrified at the door for a few minutes (I'm guessing she doesn't like Motley Crue), shot me a dirty look and then crawled right back under the bed, where she remained between brief forays to the food bowl.

I had a hell of a time getting her out from under there when it was time to go.

While not as fab as the W, it wasn't that bad. There was basic cable, spotty wireless (it faded in and out, so no quality internet time for me), and the room was Spartan, but clean. The cafe, however, was disappointing (huevos rancheros is pretty much a tasty breakfast order anywhere in Los Angeles - when a place makes bad version, run far, far away), but it did the trick.

Checkout time was 1 pm, so I had to stay the second night since the painters didn't finish until almost 5 pm Sunday - and then I had to move all the furniture back, scrub the overspray off all the surfaces (how does paint dust get under the plastic?), and air the place out.

We came back home yesterday afternoon, and I spent today cleaning (and I still haven't gotten all the dust - it's everywhere), so I've not been looking for work - I'll call and put myself "on the books" tomorrow and make some phone calls.

Enjoy a photo:

"Best Western: The Final Frontier"

There's something in the air, apparently.

2006-09-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last two days doing typical end-of-wrap stuff with a group of guys that I really love to work with - so even though we were doing mundane things like sorting equipment and loading returns, I had a great time.

For some reason, I've had a huge problem sitting down and focusing this week - on anything, and it's made writing anything more than a terse email very difficult.

Hopefully, it's some strange cosmic hiccup and it'll sort itself out.

In the meantime, have a look at the couches.

If I'm not at work, I may as well have fun

2006-09-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to our seasonal mid-September crushing heat and thought "Fuck this, I'm going to the beach".

Okay, that's not entirely true - I didn't decide to go to the beach until after I'd been trapped in a boiling hot laundromat for an hour and a half.

Fortified by fine Trader Joe's snack foods, I drove up the coast, past Malibu to where the water's really cold - not Santa Monica Bay chilly where you get used to it quickly, but really truly cold - you don't acclimate so much as numb out.

I waded in and floated until I couldn't feel my toes, then sat on the sand shivering and thought "This is the life - tomorrow, I'm coming back up here".

On the drive home, I thought about signing up for unemployment (usually, that gets a job within 48 hours of sending in the paperwork). This time, as soon as the thought went through my head, the phone rang.

"Hey, you wanna work for the next two days?"

Hell, yes I do.

The ocean will still be there.

Poor, poor roaches. No one asked them!

2006-09-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

So I went to the Banksy show yesterday afternoon and dragged Carly with me - it turns out, the show is in a warehouse that for a while was host to a ton of music video shoots (I don't remember which ones, though - music videos all sort of blur together after a while. Set up, bad coffee, no crafty, lunch, turn around, bad coffee, no crafty, "Hey, what's that pile of stuff on the cable..eewwww", wrap, load the truck, freak out about the hours we just worked, go home). I don't know if that's what it's still used for, though. Thankfully, it's been a while since I've worked on a lot of music videos.

Although we missed the official opening party on Thursday night, that wasn't a bad thing - I really wanted to see the art and on Friday afternoon the place was just about empty so we got a chance to linger and really enjoy the show. Props to Banksy for being able to make a living by being a smartass (a very clever and creative one, but a smartass nonetheless).

There's a contingent of folks who are up in arms about the use of a real elephant in the show, and I'm here to report that she seems just fine. She's an 'animal actor', so she's used to being indoors on sets and around people, and she's been painted before. The paint used is non-toxic, and she gets to go outside for breaks from standing in the exhibit eating her fill of the carrots that her handlers toss on the floor for her to find.

I notice that there's no outcry over the poor little cockroaches that are trapped in a case, being forced against their will to crawl all over Paris Hilton's CD.

Now that's animal abuse.

My photos from Banksy's show are on Flickr.

Here's the link

See you there!

2006-09-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

If you were thinking about going to see Banksy's show, here's how to get there:

Directions to Barely Legal:
2476 Hunter St.
Los Angeles, CA 90021

From the 10 fwy East: Exit Santa Fe Ave. SOUTH. When you come to a stop at the end of the exit, Hunter St. will be directly in front of you. Cross Santa Fe Ave. and proceed down Hunter St. to the end. 2476 is at the end of the street on your right.

From the 5 FWY North or South: Make transition to the 10 FWY West, (Santa Monica Freeway). Exit the first exit with is Santa Fe Ave/Mateo St. (Exit 1A). Follow sign to Santa Fe Ave. After you stop at the end of the exit, turn right and proceed to stoplight. Turn right again, go under the freeway and Hunter St. is the first left past the freeway. Proceed down Hunter St. to the end. 2476 is at the end of the street on your right.

Remember: Hunter St. is right next to and runs parallel to the 10 FWY. If you go more than 100 feet from the 10 FWY, you've gone too far!

Please do not park on the street. Complimentary valet parking will be available.

Pick it up, put it down. Pick it up, put it down.

2006-09-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

I have some bad memories of working at Sony:

Losing my composure and screaming like a girl the time my foot went through a rotten board on the catwalk of stage 6 and I tripped and ended up with most of my upper body dangling over thin air 70+ feet above the deck. "It's fine! I'm totally fine. There's nothing wrong" I lied, after I was pulled back onto the walk by my co-workers. I'd just gotten into the union and I didn't want the crew I was working with to think I was weak - especially since a guy had fallen out of the perms on stage 6 and died just a few years before. But honestly? I think I might have actually pissed myself. I can't remember - before or since - ever being that afraid. I spent that day's lunch break in the girls' room, crying and shaking.

Stage 6, by the way, is no longer a stage. It's being turned into an office building, and those rotten, fucked up perms are now in a landfill somewhere and will no longer terrorize crew members. Fine by me.

I also remember getting dumped by a man I thought loved me - once again, trying not to cry, I said "you're absolutely right. It is all for the best", because I didn't want him to think that I might care.

My last memory of him is seeing him sitting on the couch in his trailer, with his head in his hands as I stepped out into the heat, late back to work from my lunch hour and wondering how I was going to get all the way across the lot in 30 seconds.

That time, I managed to wait until I was in my car before I started crying.

In contrast, I have only good memories of working on Sony's lamp dock. The staff there are a great bunch of guys, and every time I've gone in to work the dock, I've had a terrific (and stress-free) day.

Lamp dock work is warehouse work - it's filling orders, testing and stocking returned equipment, etc... I don't mind it once in a while (although more than a few days in a row on any lamp dock will make me nuts) - it's kind of zen as there's no real hurry, and I get to connect with a few old friends (one co-worker from the first season of Deadwood), even if I did spend just about all of my meager paycheck on DVDs in the studio store (the TV series Action is out on video, and it's still some of the funniest stuff ever put on the air - well worth the 20 bucks).

So after an entire day of moving cable from one pile to another, I celebrated our first cool day ( I can't use my oven in the summer - it makes my entire place about as hot as a sauna) by stopping off at the grocery store on the way home (my fridge is empty) and cooking Ruth Reichl's roasted chicken recipe (of all the roasted chickens I've tried, this one is the best - and it's fairly cheap to make, but you do have to shell out for a really good chicken. The instructions are at the end of the linked article).

Tomorrow night is the first night of Banksy's LA show, and I can't wait!

No, really, I can't. I'm going to explode or something.

Something's moving!

2006-09-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

So I've been wanting to try out Wordpress (blogger's been pissing me off lately), and now here's my chance!

Sitting at home, waiting for painters to show up, I decided to spin the "Couch of the Day" feature into it's own blog, and you can find it here. The blogroll's still incomplete, due to my not being able to figure out how to batch import.

Email me at randomblogmail at yahoo dot com if you'd like to be a contributor (I think you might have to have a wordpress account, but it's free)!

Pow! Right in the kisser!

2006-09-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

There are no gas stations in Beverly Hills.

Okay, there are two (according to the NFT Guide) - one at Olympic and Beverly Drive, and one at Little Santa Monica and Crescent. There's also one that's not listed in the guide on Wilshire right next to the Beverly Hilton.

All of these gas stations, might I add, are of the "76" variety (actually I think they're a BP company now) and are at least 10 cents per gallon over market price, and there's an impressive stretch of high-end retail that's sans filling stations of any brand. If you pick the wrong part of Beverly Hills to stall out in, you're in for a long hot (or cold, or wet, depending on the time of year) walk followed by and extremely expensive gallon of gas, my friend.

Guess what happened to me today?

I had some errands to run in Santa Monica, so after a quick stroll on the beach I headed back across town in an attempt to beat the rush hour traffic. My gas gauge has been broken for some time now, but it's normally not a problem - I just fill up when I've driven a certain number of miles or it's been a few days, but since I've been working at Paramount and haven't been driving, I forgot about the system and stalled out right in front of Crustacean (the food's fantastic, in case you were wondering).

In the midst of my digging for my phone to call AAA (okay, I screamed "shit" for about a minute first), the driver of the car behind me started to lean on the horn - despite the fact that my emergency flashers were on and I'd had my arm out the window, waving motorists around. For good measure, I'd gotten out and put the hood up - the universal symbol for "Don't honk at me, jackass, my car's stalled."

For those of you not familiar with Beverly Hills, there's a certain type of woman there - bleached blonde hair, botoxed yet somehow pinched faces, overly yoga'd bodies, nose jobs, cheek, chin and breast implants, liposuction, bleached teeth, Hermes bag, blank stare. They all look exactly alike - they've gone to the same surgeon, I guess, but the first time you see it it kind of freaks you out. Once you're used to them it just seems kind of sad.

The one behind me had decided that somehow leaning on the horn of her luxury coupe was going to make AAA get to me faster. If only it were true.

Finally, I walked back to her car to see if I could get her to understand that all she had to do was pull around and she'd be back on her way to, well, wherever.

"You're blocking traffic and some of us are in a hurry!" she yelled as I drew even with the driver's window.

"Well, as you can see my vehicle is currently disabled, so why don't you just pull around?"

"I shouldn't have to! Why don't you get a decent car? One that isn't... polluting the planet!"

As soon as she said it, I looked down at her car and saw the shiny little metal plaque - V12.

No, no, no. You may not sweat me for driving an SUV (a V6, btw) when you're tooling around town in a car with a 12 cylinder engine.

What I desperately (oh, so desperately) wanted to say was "Well, if you could just manage to suck a few extra cocks this month, you could buy me a Prius and save the world!", but I bit my tongue. After all, you never know who's somebody (or married to a somebody) in this town.

What I actually said was "You do know that my truck gets better gas mileage than your car, right?"

At that very moment, the AAA guy pulled up with a gallon of gas and friendly directions to the nearest overpriced 76 station.

I started up my offensive, planet-destroying truck and continued on my way, and Botox Barbie zoomed off to, well, wherever.

Couch of the Day:

I was only kidding, mostly.

2006-09-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy couple of days, and what I've really learned is that when I ask for things, I need to be more specific.

On Thursday, the shit hit the fan (so to speak) and we actually did get fired - because of something that happened in another department (ye gods, how I love the film industry).

Here's how it went down:

We did as much of the rig as we could on Wednesday, because of the party. First unit's call time in the morning was 10 am, with the balloon tech* and set lighting on a one hour pre-call.

Rigging's call was 6 am, so we got there, found our driver, moved the carts over from the stage to the theater and then started to complete the rig (normally, you'd flip that - complete the rig first, and then move the carts, but we were going to lose the drivers because they had to move the trailers which is something they should have been able to do the night before, but there was that party) - until the guys who'd come in with the projection screens (they had a big banquet scene with giant screens all around the set) discovered that whomever had set up their stuff the night before had put the screens in the wrong place and they couldn't get a sharp focus, so the screens had to move because the projectors couldn't. Which meant the stage had to move, which meant the tables (all of which had a lamp on them which had to be powered) had to move - again.

Unexpected obstacles are the nature of the business, but we had so much to do that we would just barely have had enough time to get everything done even if nothing had gone wrong (we'd asked to come in at 4:30 or 5 am, but the production office said no). So, when the stage and tables moved (the first time - they ended up moving twice. Each time, set dressing had to strip off the place settings and then reset them, and we had to move all our lights from around the stage and re-wire the tables) we knew we weren't going to be ready.

Rigging crews have nightmares about still being on set working when first unit walks on. A great deal of the appeal of working on a rigging crew is that one avoids the chaos, panic and gratuitous random blaming ("we were fine until those bozos got in our way") that shooting crews sometimes fall into - when one is rigging, the goal is not only to never be seen, but never have the higher ups even notice your work**.

Then, the balloon tech came in half an hour late - the victim of a traffic jam caused by a horrible accident on the freeway - also stuck in the same traffic snarl were the director and our main actor.

So there was no way in hell they were going to start on time, but the Director of Photography, standing on set surveying the chaos at 10 am, chose to blame the rigging crew for the delay.

The first unit best boy pulled our boss aside around 11 am and said "Hey, DP thinks you guys caused the delay, and I'm hearing he wants you all fired. I'm going to sit him down at lunch and try to explain to him what happened."

Yeah, good luck with that. There are some "shooters" out there who have a really solid understanding of what it takes to get all that stuff set up and the potential for delay, but trust me, this guy's not one of them.

At our lunch break (which was the first time all day we'd been able to sit down), our boss said it best: "It doesn't matter what anyone says. If the DP wants us gone, then nothing can save us."

We all sat for a moment and looked at each other before simultaneously pulling out our phones and dialing - just as our boss got the official word. Note to production: never, ever fire a crew at lunch. We all could have just as easily walked away and told you to go rig your own fucking set - but we didn't, because that would have been a) unprofessional, and b) would have made the gaffer look bad.

After I'd made a few calls, I ran into our Paramount lot best boy***, and told him the story. "Can you help a sister out?" I asked.

"Lemme see who's picking up for tomorrow."

In 10 minutes he had me on the phone with the best boy of another show. "Sure, I've got a second unit slot for tomorrow. You want it?" he asked.

Does a bear shit in the woods? Of course I wanted it. My thanks to all of you from the bottom of my black little heart for another day's employment.

A few minutes after that I got another call (Paramount's a small lot - word travels fast) "Hey, heard you guys got fired. Sorry to hear it, but I've got some days next week for you. Call me Monday."

Sweeeet.

The fact of the matter is that with below the line crew, firings are completely meaningless. We had all gotten work (and on better-paying shows, I might add) by the end of the day, and to be brutally honest I'm more than a little bit glad to be walking away from that cluster fuck. The only thing I'm going to miss are the crew, who are all terrific folks and with whom I've had a lot of fun.

Oh, well. Color me itinerant. I'll see 'em all on another show and we'll have a good laugh.

I'd wanted some overtime, and boy did I get it.

Call time Friday was 6:30 am, wrap time was 10:30 pm. As my feet started to hurt and my reaction times got longer and longer with fatigue, I just kept chanting "double time baby, double time".

Mama needs a new car soon.

Which brings us to Friday (hey, it was taken on Friday, but after a 16 hour day I'm not coming home and sitting in front of the computer) Photo:

Can you spot the paparazzo?

More importantly, since I've never seen the show, is there anyone on Nip/Tuck who warrants being followed to the bowels of North Hollywood by a stalker photographer?

Just for the record, the guy seemed okay. He stayed hidden, and when a co-worker and I finally spotted him (I have no idea how long he was there) and waved, he waved back. When one of the ADs politely asked him to pack up and move on, he did so graciously.

*Note - the link to Airstar is intended for illustrative purposes only.

**Yeah, yeah. I know that just seems wrong, but it's true. If a producer or an executive notices me, then I've somehow fucked up.

***When you work on a studio lot, your show has two best boys. One best boy for the show, who handles manpower, scheduling and the like, and the lot best boy, who deals with equipment.

Couch of the Day:

From Frances Danger, who also just got fired, but who will also soon have a much better job (I'm sure of it):

If he can fire Tom Cruise, he can fire us too.

2006-09-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, we're shooting in the Paramount theater, and we rigged it today, but we could only do part of the work because tonight, Sumner Redstone himself will be at a cocktail party and screening in said theater, so we had to make doubly sure everything that we could put in got taped down really well - since Sumner taking a header because we didn't secure our equipment is a hilarious mental picture ("So then I said to Cruise that he should take a long walk off a ... woah!"), but would immediately result in all of us on the bread line.

Of course, this is a warm fuzzy fantasy for our little rigging crew - if we get fired, we can go and work another job without burning a bridge, so the running joke of the day was that we were going to "accidentally" clothesline Mr. Redstone and inhale the sweet air of freedom.

Last night was also the second night in a row that I've not been able to sleep at all - I get tired, but as soon as I go to bed I'm wide awake and stare at the ceiling all night. By today, the sleep deprivation made everything sort of furry. I've been laughing at jokes I know suck, and the whole 'trip up Sumner' running joke made me giggle so hard my purloined iced tea (when the craft service guy's back was turned) came out my nose.

After we spent 2 hours taping down all the cables under the tables (since we had to power the table lamps), the set designer waltzed in and announced that all of the tables would be moved back 10 feet first thing in the morning.

We're coming in at 6, and the shooting crew are coming in at nine. In the space of three hours we have to: move ALL the table power, finish the rig (because we have to tear some more stuff out of the set they were using today), and move all of first units carts from the stage to the theater.

Fun stuff. I'm going to give in and take a sleeping pill, otherwise I'll probably hallucinate tomorrow.

Couch of the Day:

Meet the new camera

2006-09-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

My poor little Fuji Finepix. It took a hell of a beating for just over a year, but this morning when I whipped it out to take a couch photo, the zoom motor made a horrible noise and then died.

So I bought a Nikon Coolpix L3, on the recommendation of the very nice salesman who told me the Nikons are a bit more durable than Fuji cameras.

As of right now, I'm not completely in love with the interface, but since it's a Best Buy purchase I have 14 days to return it. I was veerrry tempted by the top-of-the line credit card sized Olympus that can be dropped from 5 feet and dunked in water without any damage (and has a correspondingly eye-popping price tag). Hey, Olympus? If you send me one for free I'll promo the hell out of it for you.

I can't always get what I want. Oh, well.

So, I tested Mr. Nikon out at Broad Beach (in super-scenic Mel-ibu), which is where I spent my Labor Day:

And here's one more of Malibu (this was taken a bit further south):

Aaaand one of the cat, who's very angry with me about my interrupting her cricket hunt (they're hiding in the recycling basket), and is giving me the stink-eye:

I may not like the interface that much, but for a sub-two hundred dollar camera, this thing's got a kickass lens.

Color me crabby

2006-09-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't noticed, I've not been in the best mood lately.

The stench of absolutely mind-numbing stupidity is hanging over this show, and just like the vomit, we can't seem to pinpoint the exact cause. It's not us, it's not any of the other below the line departments, and the few producers I've met seem pretty sharp, so it can't be them. It's coming from somewhere up high though - and since shit does like to roll downhill we're catching the tail end of it.

Today, we had to rig a new stage but were forbidden by the production office from renting any new equipment. That meant we had to go into a standing set*, tear out the things we needed, make copious notes about what we'd taken and from where (because we have to put it all back next week), haul the stuff to the other stage and rig it. Then my boss got called upstairs (into the production office) for a talking-to about us not working fast enough ("Do you understand how valuable this company's time is worth? Do you?").

Jeebus.

Stupidity and frustration are bedfellows - when people start having to work twice as hard because of a series of bad decisions by the folks wearing $800 suits, it starts to wear on the nerves.

Everyone on the show is cranky as hell - people are snapping at each other, constantly threatening to quit and today the first unit best boy yelled at my boss over, well, nothing (the first unit best boy's normally a really great guy - he's just closer to the stupid than we are, and it's turning him into Mr. Cranky Pants).

But it's not just production. There's something else going on, and I can't put my finger on it (of course, I'm on the bottom rung of the ladder so there's a lot that I don't hear about).

Maybe our stage is haunted. Maybe the layout of the furniture in the sets forms some satanic mandala that's making our footsteps churn out a constant cloud of acrimony.

You know what? I'm going with that theory. I blame set dressing - I bet they think it's funny. I can just picture them, driving away at night, snickering: "Hee hee... this one's going to give them all cold sores! Haw haw haw!!" (Please note that I really like our set dressers, even though I can totally picture them doing something like this).

They laid off the rigging crew on Tuesday (we're off on Monday anyway due to the holiday), so I took a call on another show for that day.

It'll be a nice break. I might even crack a smile.

* A standing set is one which is used very often, so it's never stripped out when we leave. It just, well, stands there when we're not using it.

Couch of the Day:

With friends like this...

2006-08-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

Well, okay, not friends.

Our higher-ups have been gracious enough to do us a favor by giving us a 5 am call time tomorrow so we'll do our ten hours and be done by 4 pm - you know, in case we wanted to have a Friday night.

Of course, today we worked until 8 pm.

I should be disgruntled about a nine hour turnaround (on a rigging crew), but it doesn't really matter - I haven't been sleeping for shit lately.

I'm off to bed.

Dude, what's that smell?

2006-08-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

One of the things that's really affected us is the industry ban on zip line. Zip line (lamp cord to you, buddy) is what we used to use when we had a bunch of practical lamps in the center of a room - zip line's damn near flat and it's easy to tape down so the actors won't trip on it. Because it's flat and easy to tape down it's very easy to hide from the camera even when it's running across the middle of the floor.

Now, we have to use standard heavy-duty extension cords ("stingers"), which are safer, but harder to hide from the camera and much more of a trip hazard (even when taped down). Some studios will let you run zip line for a few feet, and some won't allow it's use at all, but we can't run hundreds of feet of it anymore no matter where we are.

Most of our work today was wiring the small table lamps in the center of the club, aiming the lamps that we hung yesterday, making sure that the stingers were well-hidden and taped down, and making sure that we got power to all the last-minute lamp additions.

Yesterday, one of our guys had to leave early because of the paint fumes. He came down from the perms, told us that he felt like shit and went to see the nurse.

What he didn't tell us is that he threw up somewhere in the upper levels of the facade where he was running cable.

Now, I certainly can't blame the poor guy - there are some bodily functions that just won't wait, and sometimes you feel like crap and just forget to tell people things (had I been vomiting I don't know that I would have remembered to inform my supervisor about it - "Hey, I just hurled upstairs somewhere! Have a great day!"). No biggie, except for the smell.

It smells like, well, puke. It wasn't so bad first thing in the morning, but as soon as we turned the lights on and it got hot up there - icky, icky poo (or icky, icky puke as the case may be).

We're not exactly sure where he puked, although we can make an educated guess from where the smell's strongest (none of us were really all that eager to find a puddle of vomit, anyway).

So of course, that's where we put our dimmer board operator's table*. We even made sure it was safely secured to the deck by bolting it down.

Wasn't that nice of us?

* We all love our dimmer board operator - he's a great guy, and we've all known him for years and had some great times with him on various shows. Don't feel bad for him. It's really easy to re-locate a dimmer board, so he won't be in the smell for long, but that five minutes or so are just going to be priceless. My only regret is that we won't be there to see it.

Couch of the Day:

Trash can insides and a contact high.

2006-08-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

Today, we were rigging on New York Street - there's a little nightclub set that's being dressed to look like a cross between CBGB and The Limelight.

Whatever the painters were using to make the fake stained glass windows made me see purple puppies and rainbows - I ended up having to run home at our coffee break and get my respirator (that I got on the last show where they were spraying something toxic). I took it home with me tonight as I'm afraid that if I leave it in our gold room (where we store small things like lightbulbs, color-correction gels, etc.), by morning one of our pranksters will have removed the filters and soaked them in something disgusting before replacing them.

Right after they did the stained glass effect, they started spray painting the graffiti on the walls, so it was a paint fume smorgasbord - it was so bad even the painters were commenting on it.

After lunch, when I finished my coffee, and went to throw the cup away - only to stop when the trashcan I was about to use seemed suspiciously clean.

Turns out, it was a prop trash can (which, of course must be returned to the rental house free of garbage) - another show was shooting a few yards away and had put out trash cans in order to make New York Street look, well, urban.

So I wandered along the 'street', peering into the trash cans, looking for the one that was actually full of garbage - one of the other show's PAs came up to me and wanted to know what the hell I was doing.

"I'm looking for a real trash can", I answered, wagging my empty cup at her for emphasis.

"Just throw it in the one that's actually got trash in it".

If only it were that easy- they look alike from the outside, and if I throw trash into a prop trash can and let it sit in the 90 degree heat all day, I'm going to have the other show's set dressers coming after me with thumb screws.

We're back in the club rigging again tomorrow - hopefully all the painting will have been done so I don't have to spend another day with that creepy rubber fetish thing on my face.

Couch of the Day:

Toy store, here I come!

2006-08-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I failed in my mission, but the Pink Princess has learned a hard lesson about negotiation.

Some background:

Back when we all had Shawn Cassidy posters on our walls, one of my Roosevelt-era (or so) great aunts decided that toys cost too goddamn much nowadays and she wasn't going to take the bait.

In a fit of pique about those bastards charging $5 for something that was just going to get fucked up anyways, she broke out her ancient Singer and made me two dolls - an Eeyore and a standard early 20th century-looking girl doll (sans creepiness, of course. Her face is hand-embroidered so no evil little eyes). Both were made solely from materials in her rag-bag.

Eeyore was made from brown tweed (which is probably closer to the color of an actual donkey after all), and had white corduroy tummy. The best part was that his tail actually came on and off with the button. The worst part was that I immediately lost the tail, and spent the next 20 years telling people that Eeyore was sad because his tail was probably rotting somewhere in a landfill in Sunland.

The girl doll (whom I never bothered to name - despite my father's attempt to beat some girliness into me, I was never much for dolls, frills or pink things) lost her pantaloons immediately (I pulled them off to see if she was anatomically correct. Hey, cut me some slack - I was 7), although for some reason she still has all her petticoats under her gingham dress.

I lost Eeyore in my late 20's. My ex, The Devil (no, really, he is the devil), took Eeyore when we split up - not because he wanted Eeyore, but because he knew that was the one thing he could take that would really hurt me (I got him back, though. I burned his baseball cards in his driveway while he watched, horrified, from his deck. I even roasted a marshmallow over the little bonfire while I laughed. Don't even start with me about it. Looking back, I'm deeply ashamed of the way I behaved, but hell hath no fury, I guess).

So the only memento I have from an aunt that I adored (who died early in the Reagan administration, and who was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise completely miserable childhood) is that doll.

The Pink Princess wants the doll bad, and that was what she demanded in exchange for the basket.

I counter-offered with my entire collection of Bugs Bunny DVDs but she wouldn't budge.

"Sorry", I said. "You can't have her. She and I have history."

"But I want her!"

"Well, I want world peace and perky tits without having to have surgery, but that's not going to happen either."

"Then you can't have my basket."

"Fine. I'll go buy one."

I could tell from the look on her face that The Pink Princess hadn't thought of that one.

"Well, that's what you get for being inflexible" is what her mom said as I said my goodbyes after dinner and kicked at the tumbleweeds on the side of the road as I marched towards my car, empty-handed, wondering about the location of the nearest "Toys R Us".

Hey, sparkle glue and handlebar baskets are still cheap and plentiful, aren't they? 'Cause I haven't got a sewing machine.

Couch of the Day:

The free time's great, but the payout not so much.

2006-08-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

When my boss called me to work on this show, he told me we were going to be working 10 hour days, but then production decided to save some money (they're over budget on the lighting package) by only allowing the rigging crew to work 8 hour days.

An occasional 8 hour day is a treat - it's like a mini vacation, or that time when you found a whole candy bar on the floor of the car and managed to eat it before your mom made you give half of it to your sibling.

An occasional 8 hour day inspires the same sort of giddiness as a really good rollercoaster, but a whole string of 8 hour days loses the charm fast and hits me right in the bank account.

I think I cried a little when I got my paycheck today. Don't get me wrong - 16 hour days hurt me as well, but in a much different manner.

The other problem with short days is that the best boy can't keep a crew - people won't stay around for the reduced hours when they can jump to a crew who are working 10's or 12's. Best boys don't like a constantly changing crew either - imagine having hire three or four new people and explain the inter-office politics to them every single day.

When the crew stays the same, then the riggers know how the gaffer likes things marked, where the carts get set up on stage, which actors we're not supposed to look at, who the UPM is (so we can look busy whenever he or she's around) and how to sneak up on the craft service guy so we can get a sandwich off his truck (rigging crews aren't normally allowed to eat at craft service). We get to know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and this helps us to work better as a team.

Then there's set dressing. Somehow they managed to get on a 12 hour day, and since this DP comes from theater, he wants a 'down light' over every practical (a practical is a lamp that you can see in frame) in the set, so we're hanging a lot of lamps and there's some freaky movie thing that if there's a practical lamp in a scene then the cord to plug it in must be hidden from camera (even if the lamp's in the center of the room with no outlet anywhere near it), which means that each practical lamp takes us some time to fix up - we have to hang a lamp over the top of it, and then power it up while making sure the cable is concealed from camera.

This is all fine, and it's part of the job, but since the set dressers are there four hours longer than us each day, they put in lamps after we leave, so when first unit walks on the set, there are a ton of lamps that aren't ready (since they were put there after we had to quit working), and it's making us look like idiots. The set dressers know our predicament and are trying to work with us, but sometimes they have last-minute changes, too.

No amount of begging or pleading on the part of my boss will make the production office extend our hours.

My job for this weekend is to convince (okay, bribe) the Pink Princess to part with her handlebar basket.

Couch of the Day:

Big Boring Day Off

2006-08-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

I had today off, and I spent it cleaning my house, despite wanting to go to the beach.

6:30 am call time tomorrow, which means I might just get off early enough to have some fun, but not likely.

When I have a call time that early, I'm usually tired before 10 pm.

Couch of the Day:

I spent the afternoon on a bus.

2006-08-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

Not riding it around the city seeing cool things and meeting interesting people (and one does meet interesting people on city buses in Los Angeles), but changing the fluorescent tubes in the bus to a movie-friendly type of tube.

This is more complicated than it might seem - to prevent passenger breakage, the tubes are sealed in screwed-down plastic covers that get brittle over time, so they have to be removed very carefully since I can't imagine that's an easy item to replace. Once the tubes are changed, the covers have to be very carefully re-installed with one person holding the cover in place while another one screws it down, which is fun in a bus with limited floor space. Damn good thing we're all thin.

Of course, the type of tube in the bus was a type (single pin connecter) that we don't use, so it had to be ordered through a vendor, and the bus had three different sizes of tube - 4', 5', and 6'. No one could find a 5' tube, so we had to do some re-wiring to make a 4' work (yes, the bus company knew about it).

Also of course, the bus was parked in the sun on a hot day and most of the windows wouldn't open, but the upside is that I think I sweated off a couple of pounds.

At some point today (I think it was on stage while we were all breathing paint fumes), we decided that our boss' slick new chopper-like lot bike (it's one of those that look like a motorcycle and is very, very manly) needs a pink Hello Kitty (tm) handle bar basket to really spiff it up.

Now, as it happens I know where there's a very pink Hello Kitty (tm) handle bar basket (with aftermarket sparkle glue hearts). The trick is just going to be persuading it's current owner to part with it, but her mom tells me she's just about out of her "pink princess" phase, so if I replace it with one that suits her current tastes I'm golden.

So, while we were waiting for our tube order to arrive, we sat around trying to figure out how we could attach the basket to his bike so that it would be difficult to remove, but not damage the paint or chrome on the handlebars.

We think we've got something worked out, but my boss knows all the tricks so once he sees the basket, it'll have about a five minute life span - so it's all about parking the bike where the most people will see it as they come into the stage.

Couch of the Day:

Friday Photo

2006-08-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

Today, we were wrapping out the house that first unit have been shooting in for two days, and the very nice homeowner let me pick some of the figs from the tree in her backyard.

I love figs, and I'm not the only one:

These fellows do, too.

Anyone know what the green beetles are? I've never seen one before, and know nothing about them other than they were chowing down on the biggest, yummiest looking fig on the whole tree.

It's all about the inventory

2006-08-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

Returning a stage package isn't psychically difficult, inventory (which was today's big job) just requires more concentration than I like to muster up when I'm at work and the coffeepot's all the way on the other side of the lot.

Each stage has it's own equipment, which may seem excessive, but this is way easier than hauling the shit around from stage to stage. In addition, each lamp has stuff that goes with it (for tungsten lamps, that's scrims. Other types of lamps have more accessories), which also must be counted.

We're returning this stage's equipment because production think they're going to save money by getting equipment drop loaded (brought to the stage each time it's needed) each time we use the stage instead of having it sit there all the time. I don't know what kind of deal they're getting from the lamp dock (normally, you don't pay a five day week on an equipment order - they usually give you a three day week, but if you really have the rental house over a barrel, they'll give you a one and a half day week. This means you pay one and a half day's rental for a week) or how often they plan to use this stage - it may not be cheaper to have the stuff dropped off, due to labor costs to unload a truck and do an inventory before we can start work, and then do another inventory after we tear the rig out.

Each lamp is barcoded and assigned to an equipment package. If the barcode on the lamp doesn't match the paperwork, we have to climb into the rig to find it so the lot best boy can put it on the correct paperwork. This may seem overly anal, but trust me - it's better this way. Waiting until the end of the show will result in a big, evil nightmare.

We did have some entertainment today - right across from where we were working was "America's Got Talent". All the "talent" were strolling up and down the street in front of our stage, rehearsing or giving interviews. Right before we went on our morning break, there was a guy in an orange mechanic's suit with bicycle horns strapped all over his body playing the "Star Spangled Banner". We thought it was funny, but the AD's are going to throw a fit if that shit starts tomorrow while they're rolling sound.

Couch of the Day:

Guard Gate Hassle Wednesday!

2006-08-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

Of course, not only did my old Paramount ID not work but my name hasn't been in the computer at all - each morning, I've pushed my bicycle up to the gate, given the guard my name and had him tell me I've not been issued a pass. My boss has been calling his crew list into the production office every night, they just don't seem to think that riggers are important enough to call our names into the security office.

Each day, I've sat there at the gate, called my boss on his cell phone and had him exchange angry words with said security office (our call times have been way earlier than the production office staff come in, so we've not been able to call them).

Needless to say, this has made me late every single day. No matter how much extra time I allow, it all seems to get eaten up at the guard shack, where an increasingly frustrated guard has tried to do everything he can to help me. I need to bake him some cookies or something.

Today, my boss finally snapped and got me paperwork for a new pass (he wasn't going to get me one, as he's only allowed to issue badges to so many crew members and the rigging crew's not going to be on this show full-time, but this whole debacle has really been annoying him), so when we went for our morning coffee break I stopped in at the operations office and got my new badge.

I don't know why, but everyone looks bad on their Paramount IDs. I usually take a decent photo, and even I look like a fucking convict.

I think it's the lighting.

At least I won't have the hassle at the gate tomorrow.

Today, the company was on location (a half mile or so from the studio), so we ended up cleaning up after first unit (they get busy lighting and don't make everything neat, which is fine - it's keeping me working) and getting the stages ready for when they come back on the lot.

Tomorrow, we're working on stage 12, which, it turns out, used to be called stage 13 - the old DC cans are still labeled 13 although the stage is now numbered 12. The other day, when one of the fluorescent fixtures we were powering up caught fire (flames and everything - exciting!), it was jokingly blamed on the stage's being unlucky.

I wanted to go into the perms to check for good graffiti, but there's no backboard on the ladder* and it freaked me out.

*Most stages with permanents have had stairways installed, but on the smaller stages where there's no room they left the old ladders, but installed backboards (it's like a big tube around the ladder) so if you fall backwards, you'll just lean into the backboard and not fall 40 feet down to the deck.
For some reason, quite a few of the older stages at Paramount have not had backboards installed - including Stage 7: the tall stage (four stories or so up to the perms, and no backboard on the ladder - yikes!)

Couch of the Day:

Happy Monday!

2006-08-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Our crew spent today loading first unit's truck (they're on set, someone has to do it) - although this show's shot mostly on a stage, they do go out on occasion and when they do they have to have a truck.

Our boss managed to browbeat production into giving us a 40 foot trailer - he told us that they'd wanted to give us a 10 ton, but our lighting and cable package would not have fit into such a small truck (a 10 ton is about the size of a large moving van, and a 40 foot trailer is the back portion of those 18 wheelers you see on the highway. While such a big truck might seem excessive, we really do have to be able to keep the equipment readily accessible so we can work - this means the stuff can't be jammed in too tightly, because then we'd never find anything quickly, and no one -absolutely no one- wants to be scrabbling through the truck trying to find a piece of equipment that's been buried while the gaffer's screaming "Hurry up, you fucker!" into the walkie).

It took us all day to load the truck, as we were waiting on first unit to wrap their first scene (they were scheduled to finish it at lunch, which would have been 1 pm, but they actually finished at 4 pm), so we could go and pick up the HMIs off that set - they had to go into the truck. The time was well-spent, though, as we all got to watch my boss take a sledgehammer to the old grip racks* in the front of the trailer.

Heh, heh.. Destruction is cool, man.

* Our truck used to be a grip truck, and now it's been reborn as a lighting department item. Grip equipment and set lighting equipment are different (natch, as we do different jobs), but grip have a lot more small items that need grip department-specific storage areas than we do - so when we get a truck with lots of cute little cubbyholes that are perfect for those grip items, we see it as space that could be put to better use for stacks of cable. Enter my boss and his sledgehammer.

I'm sure it made some of the grips cry (they were really nice racks), but that's the way it goes, and I have to admit that it is a hell of a lot of fun to watch a grown man smash something to bits at 8 am.

Ain't life grand?

Couch of the Day:

Friday Photos

2006-08-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

That's right - plural.

I got some really good ones this week.

First - the best perm graffiti EVER:

Ever wonder what your crew thinks of that brilliant dialogue you slaved over for weeks?

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up.

Aaaaannnd:

Paramount has all this super old camera gear stashed in the "basement" of one of the facades on New York Street (where we were working today). The layer of dust just makes the stuff look even cooler:

Well, I know what the next couple of weeks will be like.

2006-08-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

So I got added on to the rigging crew for this show - which is kind of weird in TV as it's not a full time crew (most movies carry rigging crews full time. Sometimes the crew is smaller than other times, but they're always there - good riggers are hard to find, and when you release your riggers for a week they go get other jobs and sometimes you can't get them back), so I'm looking at a few days each week, guaranteed, which is a good thing - this is a group of guys that I really like and have a good time with.

They only do 10 hour days, which is both good and bad. Good because I can have a life, bad because I won't make the big overtime bank.

It's also good because I'll get my Paramount ID renewed, so I won't have the daily guard gate hassle. I could also buy cheap DVDs in the lot store, if they had anything good, which they don't (okay the South Park box sets for 12 bucks each are cool, but that's about it).

Couch of the Day:

Bubble wrap

2006-08-10T06:39:00.000-07:00

Bubble wrap
Originally uploaded by Peggy Archer.

For when the owner of the location we're shooting at absolutely, positively refuses to move the car.

Oooo.. I must be psychic

2006-08-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

"Same old shit" indeed...'shit' being the key word here.

Today's rig was at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Our crew got there about four hours before the shooting crew, so we could run cable to the day's first set in the hotel's nightclub, change lights that needed to be swapped out and get first unit's carts off their truck - first unit had about 8 pages to shoot today, so our taking the time to get them set up meant that they could just walk on the set and start the day's work.

The direct line from our trucks to the set was through the hotel's lobby, but management didn't want us walking through the lobby with equipment (I can certainly understand that), so we had to use the service corridors - narrow, hot, winding, filled with dirty linens piled in huge carts (in some spaces, we barely had room to squeeze our lighting carts through. One steers these carts by pushing and peering to the side to make sure one's still on course and tight quarters where there's no room to actually see where the cart's headed is the ultimate test of cart-pushing skills) and harried hotel employees who were remarkably nice to us, given that I'm sure we were ruining their day.

The hotel is really nice and clean, but once you get outside the walls, it's the old-style Hollywood; dirty, poor and run-down - and in this particular neighborhood, there's dog shit everywhere - residents of the apartment buildings just behind the hotel don't clean up after their dogs, so whenever we had to walk on the grass (and if we had to get something out of our truck's jockey boxes we had to walk on the grass) we were on constant "land mine" alert - this meant screaming "POOOOO!!!"(let's face it, yelling "shit" doesn't really get any kind of reaction on a movie set) whenever one saw a co-worker about to step in something, and the co-worker would freeze, one foot in the air, neck craning frantically, trying not to step in the shit or drop the equipment he or she was carrying (hey, no one wants to be the person who tracked dog shit all over the hotel's expensive floors or be the one having to clean shit off of lighting equipment so it can be used inside. Wait, you didn't think we'd be allowed to bring filth-covered equipment inside a hotel that's just had a multi-million dollar remodel, did you?).

We got lucky and no one stepped in anything, but the whole street was thick with flies because of the piles of shit everywhere - although the smell wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

When first unit got settled in, we went to rig the day's second set, which was around the hotel's pool. Since the Roosevelt's remodeling team were inconsistent in their placement of handicapped ramps, I just about finished my knees off by carrying coils of banded* up stairs.

We left right after that, and I'm sure first unit will be there well past midnight. I tried not to gloat as I walked to my car.

I'm off to bed - I have a 6 am call tomorrow (and they've added me for Thursday as well, so I'm now getting five days this week).

*It's called "banded" because, as you can see from the photo in the link, it's several cables banded together. Some types of banded are heavier that other types, depending on how heavily the cable is insulated. One 50 foot piece of five wire (meaning there's five cables banded together) banded weighs anywhere from 65 to 75 lbs. Of course, we had the extra-heavy type.

Couch of the Day:

Finally, I'm back to the same old shit.

2006-08-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the work season starts off slowly, and I start to panic. I fret over how much money I've spent, how I've left the fans on when I'm not home and run up the electric bill (a big deal in California, but I worry about the cat when it's hot), how I've gone out for sushi once too often, how I'm going to have to buy another car in the next year or so.

This is the standard paranoia of the self-employed, and I'll certainly take it as a trade-off for a job that I really, truly do love. Somehow, everything always works out in the end, and although I may yet end up shuffling down Hollywood Boulevard with all my possessions loaded into a shopping cart, I'm reasonably certain it won't happen this year.

As I was standing on set today (grateful for that last-minute call which got me a day's work since I'd been kind of panicked about my not working enough last week), waiting for the gaffer to release the rigging crew (we'd stayed on past our allowed 8 hours to help first unit move from one set to the other), the rigging best boy booked me for tomorrow's rig on this show (some forgettable mid-season replacement comedy).

Not five minutes after that, a friend who's pushing* a crew on a Paramount show called me and asked me if I could work Wednesday and Friday for him.

Four days this week, which covers my rent. Plus, Paramout is super-close to my house so I have a five minute commute time. Okay, ten since I bet my ID card's expired and that means a delay at the gate when I'm trying to get on the lot.

Back to the same old shit, and I'm very glad to be posting it.

* "Pushing" a crew means being the supervisor of that particular crew. Generally, when a show has more than one rig going in at the same time and the best boy can't supervise them all, he or she will appoint a "pusher" for each rig.

Couch of the Day:

Semi all-purpose chain letter

2006-08-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

So I'm lazy and don't want to write a new response for each angry email I get (you are of course always welcome to write and tell me how great I am - those emails, I love), so I came up with this handy dandy form letter which covers the most common categories of irate messages.

So, if the email you wanted to send falls into one of these categories, don't bother. Just print this out, circle the appropriate responses, and that'll be that. Really, I do this because I care.

Really I do. I swear.

Dear (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE),

I'm really very sorry that you:

a) think my blog sucks now and I've just been phoning it in lately.

b) hate all unions and feel compelled to tell me why.

c) are this month's victim of the "who's Mr. Movie Star" rumor mill.

I think the best way to deal with this is for you and I to ignore this and get on with our respective lives because:

a) I blame it on bad Feng Shui, and I'm too broke to buy all new furniture and a bunch of those eensy mirrors.

b) Really, you just don't understand what it's like to have your will to live nearly extinguished by a producer - one or two low-budget movies and you'll be screaming for that union card, buddy. Trust me on this one.

c) I think the only way to stop people from gossiping is to kill them - which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but feel free to test that out and get back to me.

The only thing I can possibly think to suggest is to:

a) Have you pay for a decorator - please send me your credit card number ASAP, so I can fix this problem and get back to being interesting.

b) Give your phone number to all those micro-budget producers and tell them you'd just love to work for them - be sure to keep me informed 'cause I want to be there the minute your soul rips in half, even if it happens at 4 am when you're knee-deep in shit on a feedlot in Acton. Especially if it happens at 4 am when you're knee-deep in shit on a feedlot in Acton.

c) You could call the stalker photographers and do something overtly sexual with a member of the same gender while they take your picture. Of course, then you'd have a whole new set of problems, but at least the hint of crew-cooties wouldn't be one of them.

But really, I don't think that's going to solve anything.

Do you?

a)Sincerely,

b) Up yours,

c) Do you have any cute friends? I'm single,

Peggy

Couch of the Day:

It was fun - sort of - while it lasted.

2006-08-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

The past week has been very similar to a hurricane - mainly due to The Blonde having gone completely off the deep end and, as a result, my not having gotten more than four hours of sleep on any given night.

There's a thing that happens at networks and film studios: if an exec leaves under less than totally friendly circumstances, then all the projects associated with that person get buried - they get put in a weird limbo, where they're not going to get made, but can't be shopped anywhere else due to contractual bullshit ("Sure, you can shop the project elsewhere - if you pay us back ALL the money we've spent." "But if I get it made somewhere else, I can pay you back - wouldn't you rather take that chance?" "No, not so much.").

Three guesses what's happened to our show.

I'd seen the writing on the wall; normally every line of dialogue, every idea, every shot, every rough cut is second guessed by some level of network or studio jackassery - Standards and Practices (to make sure you don't do anything that will get the network fined), executives, executive's kids, the cleaning guy, various hangers-on, etc...

When all that stopped and we got no notes from anyone at all (even before we knew our exec was leaving) I knew we were doomed. Legally the only thing we can do is to wait until we can shop the show elsewhere - another year, I think.

I've turned my phone off tonight (and I'm holed up at a friend's house. The Blonde knows where I live and I'll bet that she'll be pounding on my front door at some ungodly hour), and I'm going to run the risk of missing a work call because I have got to get some sleep. I'm already hearing people who aren't actually there talking to me. I think - they might really be there and I'm just not moving fast enough.

Honestly? This whole process has put me under so much stress that I'm almost glad it's over.

I have to check with the lawyer to see how much of what happened I can write about. That may have to wait a year, too.

Couch of the Day:

Confidentiality Agreement for a Stupid, Stupid Product.

2006-07-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

This isn't the entire document (a bit more legalese than I'm in the mood to type), but one particularly choice excerpt:

Feedback: Notwithstanding any other provision in this agreement, if Recipient provides any ideas, suggestions or recommendations to Company regarding confidential information, Company is free to use and incorporate such feedback in Company's products without payment of royalties or other consideration to Recipient, so long as Company does not infringe Recipient's patents, copyrights or trademark rights in the feedback.

Well, that's just... Wait a minute ... What?

So if I make a suggestion to improve the Stupid, Stupid Product ("you know.. you should make these with an extra long headset cord so that people can cram the entire unit up their asses. That way, they wouldn't risk mislaying them!"), and then I see my suggestion ("new and improved with ass-crammability!") in next year's product revisions, I'm just out of luck? I don't even get bragging rights?

That's just wrong, man.

All kidding aside, most of us know damn good and well that any suggestions we make will not be credited or compensated (or paid attention to, especially when it's a suggestion that could save production time and money). That's why most of us don't make them - that, and it just slows things down (ad agency flak: "Ooooo... that's a great idea! Can we cram one of these up someone's ass? Call casting right now!" First AD: "Godammit, will you please shut the fuck up so I can see my kids sometime this week?").

While I can't reveal what the Stupid, Stupid Product is - I can tell you this:

Ten thousand years from now, when archaeologists are pawing through the flotsam of our civilization, they're going to wonder what the hell was wrong with us that we had to make so many of these worthless (and non-biodegradable) things.

Couch of the Day:

Although I disabled it when I started moderating comments, I'm going to have to turn that awful 'word-verification' thing back on. For the past week, I've been getting about 15 comment spam attempts a day, and it's wearing on my nerves.

I see a lot of coffee in my immediate future.

2006-07-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

One of the things that's so difficult about night shoots is trying to sleep during the day. I got home from work at 7 am, slept for three hours and am now wide awake with no hope of getting any more shuteye.

Ugh. I have to be back at work at 8pm.

I'm hoping that if I lay down and pretend to be asleep, I'll actually fall asleep, but I think the sticky sweat-soaked sheets might keep me awake.

At least we're on the West side tonight. Last night in the San Fernando Valley felt like a furnace*.

*For my non-LA based readers, the West side of the city is normally cooler than everywhere else, since it's close to the ocean, and the Valley is at least 10 degrees hotter than downtown.

Couch of the Day:

Weekend fun for when it's too hot to go outside:

2006-07-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

From Unfogged:

Think you're clever? Well, fuck you, clown.

The comment thread is so funny it's frightening.

Couch of the Day (see, I told you I'd be back to the same old shit):

It's really totally fixed now - I think.

2006-07-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not really digging the piss-yellow template, though.

So what happened was my template got corrupted somehow - hence that display of gibberish you saw.

After getting ZERO help from blogger's usually wonderful tech support, I actually had a Live Journal user suggest changing the template.

So, hopefully it's fixed.

Just so you know, this blog is (and has been for quite some time) mirrored on Live Journal (I hate their compose interface, so no moving over there), although I've been lazy about archiving over there, so it's not quite up-to-date yet (please don't link there, either - it's just a backup and I don't update it very often).

Don't even start suggesting services that cost money - early on I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't get all type-A and empty my bank account on pimping out a weblog (or paying for traffic spikes, you hotlinking motherfuckers).

Blogroll will be back as soon as I can muster up the courage to start editing the template again.

I have no idea what's going on.

2006-07-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get Blogger's tech support to look at it.

UPDATE: It's fixed, but at the cost of my entire sidebar (not such a big deal - I was thinking about taking out all the blog-rating buttons anyway - all they do is piss me off, and the blogroll's easily rebuilt).

Thanks a lot, Blogger.

Actually, no thanks at all to Blogger - they were absolutely no help despite my frantic emails, and that's unusual, since I've found their tech support to be pretty good given that I don't pay anything.

I guess they were busy today.

Anyways, I'm off to bed (it's now almost 11 pm).

I'll be back to the same old crap before you can say "What the fuck happened?".

I'm too hot for my tool belt.

2006-07-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

From an article in the LA Times:

"The cool ocean breezes and clouds that meteorologists call Southern California's natural air conditioner broke down this year, creating record heat that is expected to continue through October."

Oh, I don't want to hear that - it's way hotter than normal for this time of year, and two people I know have gotten heat stroke in the past ten days.

The Local 80 Goddess was working at one of those 'movie ranches' (you know the ones - with the photogenic 19th century Western-style facades, artfully rutted dirt roads and nary a power line or highway overpass in sight - yeah, those are all located in the city's hottest suburbs) and collapsed in the 110 degree heat, which resulted in her being a guest in the ICU. Last I talked to her, she'd progressed to being allowed to walk around the block - only if it wasn't too hot out.

The other person didn't collapse, but started to feel really crappy in the lunch line and was able to recognize the signs of heat-related problems in time to get to the hospital before things got really bad, but still admitted to not feeling so great a few days later.

I'm sitting on the couch with a fan aimed directly at me, moving only in order to go sit someplace with air conditioning (I've used up all my movie passes and I've seen all the summer movies twice, but cool air's cool air), but I'll be working soon enough and Murphy's Law being what it is, I'll probably get sent to some far-flung inferno where I'll be expected to remain alive for 14 hours despite the heat.

Production doesn't stop just because it's insanely hot - just like it doesn't stop when it's freezing cold, windy, or raining toads (they'd just have the set dressers clear them off with a shovel).

I think you have to fuck up an actor before a show temporarily shuts down - but not always even then. Mr. Movie Star had a story about getting hit in the head so hard that he saw double and being expected to complete the scene anyways because they were running behind that day.

Or maybe Mr. Movie Star was just being overly dramatic.

Couch of the Day:

Holy delayed reaction Batman!

2006-07-13T23:56:00.000-07:00

During my foolish youth, I decided I didn't need to wear flip-flops in the gym showers ('cause I was a rebel like that) and as a result have Plantar warts on one of my feet. They're not very large - mostly due to my doctor being pretty vigilant about removing them before they get to the point where they might cause pain - since I do, after all, spend a large portion of my working life standing.

For some reason, I picked up a really tenacious strain and the little bastards are completely resistant to any treatment besides cutting them out, so I have to have it done every so often. It's not a big deal - they numb the foot, cut the wart out and then for a week I can't wear any shoes but those horrible Crocs things.

When the doctor gave me the news today, I burst into tears at the idea of another procedure - completely out of character for me. I'm not normally weepy, and this really isn't all that big of a deal (the worst part of the whole thing is the injection into the nerve to numb the foot). I just sat there in the chair with tears running down my face as I said "Yes, Friday's fine. No, really... it's fine" while the doctor gave me that concerned look.

Ten bucks says that as I'm on my way out of his office tomorrow, he hands me a prescription for Prozac.

The only explanation I have is that it's a delayed freak-out from the dog bite. For the few days right after it happened, I had nightmares where I'd wake up thinking the dog was biting me again - I could actually feel the teeth closing on my leg - but they went away, and I thought it was fine. When I told a friend (whom I called for a ride home from the hospital) about my little meltdown today she said "I'm not surprised - you were way too calm just after it happened."

Post-meltdown, I had to do a freebie for a gaffer I work with a lot who's trying to jump up to DP, and needed a few of the normal crew to help light a blue screen shot for a micro-budget feature (Freebies suck, but when someone gives me a lot of work I'm kind of karmically obligated to do them).

Keeping an even exposure isn't as important in this day and age of digital (back in the day when effects were shot on film and composited on optical printers, an evenly lit bluescreen was critical), but it has to be pretty close and the light on the actor can't spill onto the screen, nor can the actors throw shadows onto the screen due to unfortunate light placement.

A bit much for a Craig's List 'copy and credit only' crew, so we showed up, set up the lights, shot the shit with the nice folks and then took off once we were no longer needed.

I was the butt of the jokes all day, as anytime I lost my train of thought during a conversation, mislaid my gloves or couldn't make a decision, it would instantly be blamed on the case of rabies* I've now got. This escalated into jokes about my howling at the moon while turning into a werewolf and... and... well, there was one more, but I forgot.

It's not a full moon, so it must be the rabies.

*I do NOT have rabies - but next time I work with this group, I'm going to stick an Alka-Seltzer (tm) tablet in my mouth at breakfast so I'll walk onto the truck foaming at the mouth, while acting really nonchalant about it ("What are you staring at? Do I have something stuck to my teeth? What?").

Couch of the Day:

I love the internets, yes I do.

2006-07-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

I have done nothing today except keep my leg propped up (it's almost stopped bleeding but I stood on it for awhile tonight and that didn't help) and laugh like hell at some poor clueless guy - which, since I think he's the number one site on the web today I'm sure you've all seen, but here's the story in case you missed it:

It all started with an article in The Onion.

Guy gets his panties in a wad, thinks The Onion is a legitimate news source and posts a rant to his scary blog (I don't care which side of this particular issue you're on, this guy is unbelievably frightening, and since the media attention started he's added EXTREMELY graphic images to this post, so consider yourself warned).

People slaughter him in his comments (HIGHLY entertaining).

Guy realizes he's made a mistake and tries to spin. However, Guy still seems to think that The Onion is real - even after about 400 (update: almost 800 now) people tell him otherwise.

People slaughter him in his comments (HIGHLY entertaining).

What will Guy do next? Who knows?

(Update: He deleted all his comments and posted a finger-wagging rant about how 'a few people spoil everyone's fun'. Spoilsport - although he was getting the biggest internet bitch-slapping, well, ever so I guess I understand why he's felt the need to put a stop to it, but if you want to read the mostly hilarious comments, they're available in the google archive here,(the original post) here (the even funnier follow-up post), here, and here).

Sweet lime-flavored Jesus, those comments just keep getting funnier. I haven't laughed this hard in years.

Pillowcase full of hammers? Meet Guy. Seriously, go easy on him. You're a lot smarter than he is.

This is way, way better than TV.

Oh, and note to self: Next time I have a date with a Eurotrash (and I mean that in the best way) male model, don't take him to Amoeba to see Cut Chemist do an in-store show.

That... that did not go well.

Couch of the Day:

It makes me happy to know that you care.

2006-07-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone!

Now that the bruising and swelling (of which there was quite a bit) has gone down, the bites themselves don't look all that bad - they're fairly superficial and should heal up within a week or so. Also, there's no tendon damage (that would have put me into another line of work - permanently).

Except that one of the teeth marks (the one that did go super-deep) is still bleeding. It's just one, and it's not bleeding much, but there's still blood when I have to change the dressing (twice a day) and my doc's refusing to sew it up. I don't feel like I should argue with him about it, as he went to med school and I didn't, but it's a damned nuisance. Hopefully it'll close up in the next day or so.

According to the Ambulance Chasing Lawyer, if doggie's owners rent their house, I'm shit out of luck as it would be impossible to collect a judgment, and quite frankly I'm not all that injured - the chance of my getting a settlement worth more than a few hundred dollars is slim, and ACL might not want to bother if there's not going to be a decent payout for him.

We'll see.

Honestly, I'm less interested in financial gain and more interested in pounding doggie's owners into a bloody pulp with the golf club I was saving for the tomato plant thief.

Something I've learned while laying on the couch with my leg elevated while wondering if it's ever going to stop fucking bleeding:

The remake of The Producers isn't nearly as funny as the original.

Maybe it's just me.

Couch of the day:

Bad dog! No biscuit!

2006-07-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

I normally walk to the gym. It's close to my house, I'm not burning fossil fuels and I have to spend less time on those horrible cardio machines (a whole room full of people simultaneously running to nowhere while completely ignoring one other gives me nightmares about chain-smoking, philosophy-reading French hamsters).

Yesterday, as I was marching along while looking for any couches that might have been dumped overnight, a black furry missile appeared from nowhere, launched itself at my legs and began to bite indiscriminately.

If he barked, I didn't hear him. He (and I'm just assuming it was a male dog - I didn't get a good look at his undercarriage) closed in so fast I didn't even have time to react - I just kept screaming "help me, help me!" at a passerby who very kindly ran in the opposite direction as the 50 lb-ish dog tore up the legs of my (thankfully wide-legged) pants and landed bites on two different parts of my calf (a few inches above the Achilles tendon and top of the calf about four inches below the knee).

I was afraid to run in case the dog tripped me and I fell (which would have given him a really good shot at my face and neck), and backing away slowly only gave him a fresh angle. The only reason I got away was because the dog charged at yet another approaching pedestrian who was apparently a better target (I guess he had fatter legs).

So much for my action heroine fantasy ("Hasta la vista, doggie! Today, I teach you de lesson you voooon't fooorgeeeet..").

Luckily, a guy across the street happened to see the whole thing as he was leaving for work and called 911 on his cell phone, which meant I provided the afternoon's entertainment for the neighbors as the fire engine (why? Nothing was burning) and ambulance blocked traffic while the paramedics sat me on the curb to field-dress my leg before hauling me to the ER.

The firemen managed to chase the dog back into his yard (his owner had left the front gate open so the dog was wandering around on the public sidewalk where I was walking when he bit me), so the neighborhood's safe until they leave the gate open again.

After a three hour wait to be seen by sleep-deprived interns, they cleaned up the wound, determined that my tetanus immunization was up-to-date and I wouldn't need stitches (thank you, loose clothing - out of a total of 10 or 15 bites, the dog only got skin contact three or four times. Of course, he made the most of those opportunities. My leg looks like hamburger), then released me - without warning me that the wounds would bleed like hell all night.

That's okay. I didn't really like those sheets anyway.

This being Los Angeles, animal control never showed up, and when I called them today to ask them if they'd picked up the dog and rabies-tested him they pretty much told me to go fuck myself. They're busy.

Damned dog. I loved those pants.

Couch of the day:

Happy Holiday, everyone!

2006-07-04T08:21:00.000-07:00

It's boiling hot here in Los Angeles, so I'm going to be spending the day at the beach (where it's marginally cooler), followed by a friend's barbecue this evening.

Have a safe and fun 4th!

Couch of the day:

Back to work, for a moment

2006-06-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

As I was leaving the dentist's office Thursday, after getting a lecture on using too much force while brusing my teeth and damaging my gums (statistically speaking, I'm a bit less than halfway through my lifespan so my teeth have got to last another 40 years at the very least. Who knew one could actually cause damage with what's turned out to be overzealous dental hygene), I finally got a call to go to work - for one day only.

Very few shows are shooting Monday as Tuesday's a holiday, and a lot of folks don't like one day calls as it messes up one's unemployment, but I don't mind. It's pension hours, heath insurance qualification hours and gets me out of the house. Plus, one day here and there helps me ease back into the swing of things before I go back to 70 hour weeks.

My offered choices were wrapping cable in the almost 100 degree heat or working on the lamp dock.

I didn't hesitate for a second. "Lamp dock, please." My momma didn't raise a fool.

Lamp dock work is mostly warehouse-style stuff. Putting things away, fetching things, checking orders, flashing* returned lamps to make sure they work.

I had a fun day working with a great group of people, even if I did spend too much in the studio store (discounted DVDs qualify as an occupational hazard).

I had a six am call, which was good. It means I got to go through the security checkpoint before it became a complete cluster fuck (about 7 am), and working an eight hour day meant that I got released to go home at 2:30 pm. I put my extra time to good use by going to the gym and then checked my garden to discover that someone had stolen two of my tomato plants - dug them right out of the ground. Asshole. Sometimes I really wish it were legal to beat people with a golf club.

Couch of the day:

*Get your mind out of the gutter. "Flashing" is turning a tungsten lamp on and off very quickly to make sure it's working without having it heat up.

RIP Little Antonio

2006-06-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

The LA Times has been keeping a webcam trained on two goldfish living in a tank full of water drawn from the LA River - it's been sort of an unofficial experiment about the water quality of a really nasty looking cement-lined urban river.

One of the fish (named "Little Antonio" after our not so beloved by everyone anymore mayor) has died, although I'm pretty certain his (or her) death wasn't due to the water quality, since he (or she) lived for over 100 days.

In case you were wondering about relevancy - I'm deeply interested (no pun intended) in LA River water quality, as over the years I've had to wade in it numerous times (damn music videos) for work.

I really, truly, with all my heart want to believe that there's nothing toxic in that water.

What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger, right?

Right?

What's the lifespan of a goldfish, anyway?

Couch of the day:

The big geeky trade show weekend is the new black

2006-06-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend was Cinegear - the annual grip, electric and camera cluster fuck. This year's show was at the Veteran's Administration in Westwood, so at least it wasn't boiling hot like it would have been had we been in the Valley.

There weren't as many vendors, and the ones that were there didn't have last year's lavish displays, but I got to see a lot of friends, catch up, and find out when everyone's going to start working again.

My Coolest Booth Award went to one of the music libraries who had an Elvis performing:

He gave me a scarf and a kiss on the cheek.

That made my week - I love me some Elvis, even if it's really a guy named Steve in a wig. Actually, as Elvii go, Steve was a really good one, so I'll recommend him should you find yourself in the situation of needing an Elvis for, you know, whatever. He doesn't have a website, but email me and I'll give you his manager's phone number.

Before I hit the show, I went to see Who Needs Sleep - Haskell Wexler's excellent documentary on the effects of long hours on film industry workers and what folks are trying to do about it. In the movie, Wexler interviews the surviving family of two crew members who (several years apart) worked 20+ hour days, fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from work and died (one was a camera assistant named Brent Hershman whose death spearheaded a lamentably short-lived attempt to reduce working hours in the film and television industries).

If it comes to a theater near you, I highly recommend it. Those of you who have read this blog for any length of time know some of the hours I can work and have been able to see for yourselves what happens to my brain ("Can't... Post... Passing... Out...").

What you probably don't know (unless you've known me personally for a very long time) is that some years ago, on my way home from our location in Palmdale (a bedroom community of Los Angeles that's about an hour's drive one way if there's no traffic) I fell asleep at the wheel after a 19 hour day. I got all comfy in my seat and bored by whatever was on "Morning Edition", dozed off gently and woke up not understanding why my car was facing into oncoming traffic on Interstate 5.

The LA-based crew had not been offered hotel rooms.

Thank the deity of your choice that the only thing I fucked up were the trousers I happened to be wearing at the time. Oh, and don't bother asking me how I managed to make the car do a 180-degree turn without flipping it over. I was, after all, sound asleep at the time.

Check out The 12 on 12 off Foundation

Couch of the day:

Punk'd (tm) by LA.com!

2006-06-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

Lurking somewhere in the forgotten depths of LA.com is a list of hotels which allow non-guests to use the pool areas. When I read this, I was stoked - there's a pool where I work out, but it's a typical gym pool (and not too clean in the summer when it's heavily used), so no languishing poolside with a cocktail and relaxing, jumping in every so often to enjoy a dip - which is, of course the point of hanging out poolside at any hotel.

Two of the hotels on the list were the Bel Age and the W, both within striking distance of my house, so I thought I'd swing by after today's podiatrist appointment to enjoy a pool not filled with testosterone-jacked lap swimmers (the other two hotels listed were the Standard Downtown which I hate and the Lowes Santa Monica which requires a $25 day pass).

Did I mention that I have no air conditioning? I suppose that's the price I have to pay for a charming 1920's-era pad with loads of 'character' and French windows throughout (so no window-mounted units for me). My place doesn't have heat, either, but that's much less of a problem.

My first try was the W Hotel in Westwood. I marched into the lobby and cheerfully informed the concierge that I was there to use the pool - after all, LA.com said it was okay, right?

Wrong.

"I don't know who told you that", she said. "Our pool is for guests only. During the winter, non-guests may use the pool if they lease a cabana (for $300 per day), but during the summer, I'm afraid it's off-limits unless you have a room here".

For the record, she was very nice, but damn. The W has a terrific pool - I should know. I once worked on a movie that shot there, so I got a good look at it while I was wrapping cable and wishing I could jump in without having my toolbelt drag me to a watery grave in the deep end (or being drowned by my boss had he discovered me swimming while I should have been working).

Next stop, the Bel Age:

"Absolutely not" sniffed the guy at the front desk. "Besides the liability issue, we'd prefer our pool area remain exclusive. Which website was it that listed us? Our management would like to correct that error."

Double damn.

I'm sure at some point in the past, these places did allow non-guests in, otherwise a fine, upstanding website such as LA.com wouldn't have listed them.

Which means I missed the boat and am condemned to swelter this summer.

Triple damn.

Couch of the day:

Soccer Fever!

2006-06-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

LA is a famously multi-cultural city (although it is possible to ignore if one keeps to certain parts of the Westside), but the "melting pot-ness" becomes even more noticeable during the World Cup.

It seems everyone is soccer-crazed in the City of Angels.

The Korean lady at the laundromat roots for whichever team has the best legs - unless, of course, they play against Korea, and then they become 'dirty bums'.

The Persian guys in the coffeehouse have brought a portable TV from home so they don't miss any action (I have to squeeze in my coffee order during breaks), and in my favorite Indian restaurant service stops whenever someone makes a good play, and a bar on Hollywood Blvd proudly sports a banner announcing "Watch all World Cup games here!!"

The games are almost impossible to ignore - they blare from every apartment window, bar or eatery that's got a television, passing cars are tuned into the radio broadcast; pedestrians who don't have portable radios lean into the car windows to find out the score - in my neighborhood, it's possible to walk down the street and follow a game just by the sound from the open windows.

Yesterday, at the Farmer's Market, I saw three England supporters sitting outside in team jerseys and scarves (it was almost 90 degrees yesterday) while animatedly discussing that afternoon's game. I really wanted to root for England, but I felt I should follow my Korean mentor's lead. The Swedish team did have better legs.

These days the international language around here is the announcer's hysterical scream of "GOOOOOAAAAL!" (surprisingly, it's the same in every language).

I know the majority of Americans don't seem to care about soccer, but it sure doesn't seem that way around here.

Couch of the day (okay, so this one's a chair):

A more exciting weekend than usual

2006-06-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

Saturday night's Subject Line Here was great - an incredibly talented group of folks reading some awesome material, and I finally got to meet the people whose lives I've been reading about for ages. As I left, I had the feeling that I'd spent the evening with some old friends, which in a way I had.

Sunday, Anthony Bourdain was signing books at the Hollywood Farmer's Market - I'm a HUGE fan, and am deeply ashamed to admit that I completely geeked out and probably made an ass of myself. Hey, at least I picked a fellow fan of Hunter S. Thompson and someone who's written some terrific books, right?

After the Farmer's Market, I walked around the corner to The Hungry Cat, where I met a friend for lunch and ordered a delicious crab frittata which unfortunately made me sick for the rest of Sunday and most of today. I'll still go back though. That place rocks, although I think I'll avoid dishes containing egg in the future.

Couch of the day:

A complete waste of time

2006-06-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today, I had a mandatory interview with the unemployment people. I had to demonstrate that I was looking for work, since they're trying to weed out... well, I don't know who exactly they're trying to weed out, but I had to go to a work center in Hollywood to have an interview about my 'ongoing job search'.

I got lucky, as the counselor wasn't completely ignorant about film production (some of them are - I've had some excruciating telephone interviews before) and just ticked off that I'd attended the interview, checked my ID and told me that I have to put a resume in the online database.

Me: "Please don't take offense, but you do understand that this is completely pointless, right?"

Him: "Yeah, but everyone has to do it anyway. If you're an actor, just put in 'actor' and how long you've been working and it's fine. They just want to see a resume, or you'll be denied benefits."

Really now - what sort of resume am I going to have? "Work History: Cable monkey, occasional craft service pirate". I'm not even sure I had a resume back when they were still relevant. Nowadays if a producer wants to verify your work history, they look at your IMDB listing.

I did, however, enjoy sitting in the air-conditioning while I wrote and uploaded my joke resume ("Work History: Set Lighting Technician, 1994 to present"). It was hot as hell today.

Tonight, it's Subject Line Here, a performance where a group of fantastic bloggers are reading works, and the best part is that all proceeds go to the Leukemia/Lymphoma society.

Couch of the day:

A magical evening

2006-06-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

Last night, I managed to swing an invite to the Magic Castle. It was very last minute and I went with a group that I only know through email, but who turned out to be a great bunch of folks.

The Magic Castle is a private club just for magicians, and you have to know a member to get a guest pass. The last time I went was in the mid 90's after working on a movie called Lord of Illusions which had a magic consultant who handed out passes to anyone who asked and it was tons of fun, so I jumped at the chance to go again.

Although the Magic Castle has amazing shows, what's more fun for me is hanging out in the lounge with the magicians - they do things like try to one-up each other with card tricks while they're sitting at the bar, and it's just a riot.

The castle has a huge collection of magic-related artifacts and is an extremely cool place, which I hope I'll be able to visit again before another decade goes by.

Couch of the Day:

The answer to a burning question

2006-06-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

As far as my job's concerned, actors are just meat. My work's pretty much the same no matter who's in front of the camera, hence my very rarely mentioning them on the blog, but I've been asked the 'which actors are cool' question more than almost any other. So, here you go:

Most of them fall into the 'meh' category. They don't really have much to say to the crew beyond bland pleasantries between takes, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The only thing I really ask of actors is that they show up on time, know their lines and get the hell out of my way when I'm trying to work. In return, I stay the hell out of their way when they're trying to work and do my best to minimize on-set hazards (heavy items falling out of the rigging, tripping on cable, salami farts).

There are, however, some actors who are super nice and/or more fun than a barrel of monkeys, and I'm always glad to see their names on the cast list.

Some big love (in no particular order) to:

Sarah Polley and Stephen Rea (the only two actors I've ever worked with who have refused to cross an IATSE picket line, and I love them both for it)
Patrick Warburton
Liz Vassey
Nestor Carbonell
David Burke
George Clooney (even more fun than a barrel of drunk monkeys wearing clown suits)
Billy Bob Thornton
Guy Pearce
Joe Pantoliano
Johnny Depp
Mark Harmon
Annie Potts
Jean Smart
Keanu Reeves (who has always been very gracious about my inability to completely hide the schoolgirlish crush I develop whenever I work with him)

Keep in mind that this is just my list, and I'm sure I've forgotten someone. Every crew person's list is different, as it's possible for an actor to be a dream on one show and a complete pill on the next.

Couch of the day:

Another strange obsession to stop me from getting anything done

2006-06-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

Part of living in a large city is seeing trash everywhere, and generally I don't notice it at all, but for some reason there was a very noticeable collective couch throwing-out in Hollywood over the weekend.

In the space of two hours, I saw all these couches:

This is only five of them. In an area of about a square mile, I found 12 abandoned couches.

Freaky.

Of course, I'm going out today with my camera to see if any other neighborhoods have had the same thing happen.

That's more like it

2006-06-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

The standard June weather is back - cool and overcast, which is a welcome break from the frying I know I'm going to do at the end of the month, but for some reason makes me sleepy all day.

My time's running out. I'm starting to see evidence of production starting back up again - trucks carrying set pieces on the streets. It means the builds have started, which means we'll be rigging before long, which means I have to get my ass in gear if I want to get my 'to-do' list finished.

I know some stuff is already shooting (the city's starting to sprout those yellow 'crew parking' signs), but the folks that I work with are still idle, and it's not busy enough for the union to start making work calls yet.

I'm guessing I've got until the last week of June or the first week of July.

Heat, sooner than expected

2006-06-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

In Los Angeles, the month of June is usually cool and overcast - consistently enough that the local weather bots have nicknamed the phenomenon "June Gloom".

Normally, it doesn't get hot until the end of this month, which is also when production gets busy again, so every year I have to spend that first work week or two staying out all day in heat which my body's not ready to deal with.

This year, May was cool and overcast and the little bit of June has so far been pretty scorching.
Hopefully by the end of the month, I'll be used to the heat so I won't suffer quite so much that first week or two back at work.

Hiatus movie rental that I thought was the biggest waste of time: Munich.
How Señor Spielbergo managed to make a terrific book (Vengeance) into such an uninteresting movie is beyond me.

Since life is still pretty boring, here's an old photo that's one of my favorites:

It's from the movie The Island, and it was taken in the basement of the power plant - which was hot, humid and loud as hell once the plant went online (while we were working).

Such a little thing, but it made me so happy.

2006-05-31T17:45:00.000-07:00

I was in Whole foods today, buying the white Bordeaux* they currently stock, and when I went through the check-out, I got carded.

I haven't gotten carded in years. A career of working outside much of the time (even with sunblock and a hat) has left me looking, well, a bit weathered when I'm not wearing makeup (I'm not too wrinkled, I just have some really serious sun damage, but it's easily concealed when I decide to care about how my face looks) .

The clerk was very polite about it, but still actually looked at my drivers license to check the age.

I'm still in a great mood.

Isn't it funny that at 21 getting asked for ID made me angry, but now - in my 30's - getting asked for ID makes my entire day.

* I normally hate white Bordeaux, but this particular one is pretty decent - Chateau La Graviere Entre-Deux-Mers. It's under ten bucks a bottle, and it's surprisingly good. I bought it as a throwaway to take to a barbecue, tasted it, and now I'm hooked.

Friday fluff and photo

2006-05-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

The last few posts have been kind of angry, so here's something a bit more positive.

I've been renting a lot of movies over the hiatus, and these are some of the ones that I've really enjoyed:

Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill - Cutest birdies ever!

Chappelle's Show - Season two was way better than season one, but they were both funny as hell.

The Towering Inferno - Best disaster movie ever, and especially amazing when you consider that there were no digital effects back then.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - It's not often that a movie pisses me off so much that I throw things at the television. I remember those blackouts. It was boiling hot and we were working on a TV show that was shooting at the Culver lot. We had to rent a generator and run cable because lot management couldn't tell us if we were going to lose power, or how much warning we'd have if it did go out. Did I mention that it was boiling hot and when the stage power went out, so did the air conditioners?

Airport 77 - Second best disaster movie ever, but it scared me more than Towering Inferno - my dislike of flying is well-documented and watching this didn't help one bit.

And a photo:

In front of the Kodak Theater - this is the red carpet madness of American Idol. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the country who doesn't care about this TV show.

Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

2006-05-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

Some years ago, right after I got in the union, I was assigned (by a former call steward* who didn't approve of women in our local) to work with a rigging crew who were notorious for practical jokes and brutal insults ('all in good fun', of course).

I was raised in a household where everyone was very proper and one simply did not dignify boorish behavior with any kind of a response, so working on this crew was really an education for me.

A few things I learned from them:

1) Don't take abuse lying down. Letting the other person know that they hurt your feelings just means you're weak and ripe for more comments about your mother.

2) Right off the bat, go for the jugular. Everyone wants an easy target, so don't be one.

3) The 'fast' way to tie a bowline knot.

4) The title of this post.

So, last night The Blonde sent me on a blind date with a producer whom I'll just call Hairplugs.

It didn't go well. When I walked in and introduced myself, the first thing he said was "I thought you'd be hotter."

This took me by surprise, as I was expecting him to at least say hello.

"Yeah, and your body's okay, but you really need to get your teeth done."

While I was contemplating if I should preserve my dignity by giving him a withering look and stomping out, my mouth opened and out popped a rigger insult:

"Do your customers at the strip club call you jiggles? When you're not at work you should put a bra on those bitch tits so they don't flop around."

I think I might have even made a hand gesture indicating two pendulous breasts knocking together in time to the restaurant's soft jazz.

It's true you never think of the really good ones at the right time. On a certain rigging crew, that would have brought down the house.

Of course, as soon as I said "bitch tits" everything around us got real quiet, and Hairplugs sputtered some lame insult (I think he called me a cunt, which is about as upsetting to me as being asked the time of day) and walked out.

I guess he's not very popular in that particular restaurant, because enough of the staff bought me drinks that I had to catch a cab home.

Hey, guys?

I don't think I ever thanked you for teaching me how to fight back.

* If you need a guy for work, and everyone you know is busy, you call the union hall to fill the job and the call steward is the person you deal with.

A not so damp Sunday afternoon.

2006-05-21T23:01:00.000-07:00

So it didn't rain on the picket, after all.

In addition to the nice folks in Local 33 (I've not met too many of them, and this picket was a great chance to help out and make some new friends), there were quite a few folks from other unions there, including some wonderful people from the Hollywood Park race track.

There were enough folks there to cover all entrances to the Forum (no small feat), and to look good for the news cameras.

A standard management tactic for pickets is to have goons trying to look threatening while taking pictures of the picketers. These guys were videotaping us, although this one refused to smile when I took his photo (very unsporting of him, if you ask me).

Did I mention that picket lines are fun?

So, what Local 33 would like all of you Madonna concert goers to do is to not buy concessions inside the venue - Most of the money you spend on shirts, posters, hot dogs and beer goes directly to the management who've locked out workers.

If you feel you just can't live without that Madonna poster, shirt, cap, or bottle of wine (no, I'm not kidding), please go to www.FanFire.com and buy your merchandise there. It's the same stuff they're selling in the venue, but you'll get a better price, you won't have to schlepp it all night and you'll be helping out some good folks.

If you're driving into the parking lot, please roll down your window and take a flyer and one of the really cool bead necklaces they're giving out!

If you wanted to picket but just couldn't make it Sunday, there will be pickets for the remainder of Madonna's shows at the Forum.

Somehow I never see it coming.

2006-05-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

Every so often, I post something that really pisses people off and it always takes me by surprise.

This Madonna/Forum thing really opened the floodgates and got that peanut gallery typing but good.

Please enjoy some examples of the email I've gotten - I have not corrected any spelling or grammar errors:

Ur stoopid 4 thnking U can pikett Madonna shes superstar and I hope u all die

Union members are paid too much!! GREED IS A SIN!!!

What about the innocent people who just want to be intertained? Your saying I should not go when I've paid and I'm saying you all should go back to Russia.

Shame on you all for using an innocent person for publicity. Why should she care about you or your silly little problems? If any of you had any brains, you'd go get a real job.

Well, that last one sort of has a point - I think I mentioned that I don't expect uber-rich celebs to give a shit about the working man, and the fact is that most (with a few exceptions) of them don't. Those of us who work in the entertainment industry understand this and although we wish things were different, that's the way it goes.

Once again:

I NEVER EXPECTED MADONNA TO GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT LABOR.

I was, however, hoping that a group of folks who call themselves Christians would care about their employees receiving a fair wage in a city with astronomical housing and general living costs.

It deeply saddens me to think I might be wrong.

As for using Madonna to generate publicity - you bet your ass. She'd do the same thing if our situations were reversed.

And if you think union members are paid too much, please feel free to go work on a non-union low budget movie. Know that you're showing us greedy union fucks a thing or two while you work 80+ hour weeks for a flat rate that works out to be less than minimum wage and be told by the producer that you should crawl into a building full of toxic waste to place a light because "it's the right thing to do because we all care soooo much about the project" and then get fired when you refuse because you decide to make your health a priority over a movie that no one's ever going to see anyway.

If that doesn't sound good (and why wouldn't it?), please do work on some non-union music videos that shoot for 25 hours straight, don't feed you because they blew the catering budget on coke for the artist and his/her friends, and then have armed thugs threaten you when you show up at the office to try to collect another paycheck because the first one (that they issued, under threat of legal action, 6 weeks after the shoot) bounced.

Oh, and have fun not making enough money - no matter how hard you work - to insure your health and your car at the same time.

Go on, do it. I'll wait.

For the haters out there, it should please you to no end to learn that we'll probably be getting rained on while we picket.

Be there or be square!

2006-05-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

Reposted (with permission of the original poster) from our union's mailing list:

Stagehands Locked Out at LA Forum
Faithful Central Bible Church, the Forum's Owner, Won't Meet with Local 33

After more than two years of negotiations, Faithful
Central Bible Church's bargaining agent forced steep cuts on
Forum workers. Wages were cut more than 30 percent. Workable
hours were also slashed.

Not content, management then locked veteran stagehands
out of their jobs. These men and women, IA Local 33 members
eager to return to work, stand on the sidewalk as replacement
workers are brought in on church buses. In spite of its direct
involvement, the Church has tried to wash its hands of the dispute
and all of its unions, including Teamsters 42 and SEIU 1877.
Bishop Ulmer has yet to meet with these workers or their unions.

This afternoon I went down to the great western forum
and walked the picket line with our IATSE 33 brothers and sisters.
Although I missed it, Madonna crossed the line for rehersals
(Peggy's emphasis) for her upcoming concert.
This coming sunday, 21 May, the evening of the concert, Local 33 is organizing a huge rally and picket line from 5:30 PM-8:00PM. For more information on parking and details please go to their website:www.IA33.org.

Although I'm not stupid enough to assume that insanely wealthy celebs give a shit about me, unions or the working man's welfare in general, I'm really surprised that Bishop Ulmer - a so-called Christian - would do something like this.

Before I start getting hate mail (which I know I will), I have a completely biased outlook towards locking out workers and I'm not afraid to admit it.

I'll be there Sunday, and although I wish we lived in a world where this kind of stuff didn't happen, I gotta tell you that picket lines are fun. I get to be disruptive, yell insults at the people crossing the line (and yes, I'm looking forward to yelling at Madonna's limo) and shake my sign menacingly.

Although I know we'd all rather be home watching that wonderful Sunday night television, if you're in the Los Angeles area please do show up.

After all, how often do you get to yell at Madonna?

My life's not so exciting now.

2006-05-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

The dreaded call from the concerned girlfriend came yesterday:

Her: "So you're not working now, why don't you put up a personal ad? You need to get out more."

Me: "No time. Very busy."

Her: "You're not busy. You're sitting at home, reading War and Peace to your plants so they'll grow faster".

Lying bitch. While the cat might appreciate Tolstoy, the plants really seem to prefer InStyle.

My life these days consists of trying to cook without using butter or oil, going to the gym (damn crafty goes right to my ass), The Simpsons reruns, begging The Blonde to stop dating D-List train wrecks and trying to organize my closets. Should I throw out something that's now two sizes too small and out of fashion, but for which I paid a small fortune?

On second thought, girlfriend has a point. I do need to get out more.

So, I put up an ad, and then deleted it a day later.

The responses I got fell into the following categories:

a) HeY CutIE!!!!! ur HOTT!!!!!Plz snd phne number sos we CaN taLk nd I can be sure uR really not a dude, Peace.

b) 16 paragraphs of self-absorbed drivel that I couldn't even finish reading.

c) Outright lies

d) Photographs of someone's penis

e) Inquiries as to whether I was 'down with (insert stomach-turning perverted activity here).'

Single's not looking so bad right now.

Besides, the plants really do need to know if green is the new black.

Friday Photo

2006-05-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

Cycloramas must be repainted to white if the color is changed for a shoot.

Note: The link above leads to the Wikepedia definition of a theatrical soft cyc - ususally made of cloth.

Permanently installed plaster wall cycs on film stages (such as the one in the photo) are called hard cycs - a term not included in the Wikepedia definition.

No good will come of this, I fear.

2006-05-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

I love me some Fug Girls. I think they're smart, funny and I enjoy the hell out of their site, but sometimes I worry about them.

I was at a trunk show (where a designer shows the new clothes for the upcoming seasons in a retail store while onlookers eat mini-quiches and drink bad chardonnay) last night with The Supermodel, and saw something that I fear will lead to one of my beloved Fug Girls climbing into a bell tower with a rifle.

Which I must admit could be fun, but innocent people might get nasty blood stains on their white formal shorts.

That's right. Formal shorts. They're not going away anytime soon.

I'm sorry girls. I hate them too - but I'm sad to say it gets worse.

This particular designer upped the ante by accessorizing the formal shorts/hippie shirt/dominatrix boot ensembles (dammit, why did I forget my camera) with drapery ties, worn around the necks as pendants.

I'm not kidding.

Oh, Heather. Oh, Jessica.

Please don't do anything rash.

Oscar. Winning. Rap. Group.

2006-05-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

Think about that for just a moment.

Oscar.
Winning.
Rap.
Group.

Kinda rattles the brain, doesn't it?

The dreaded video finally materialized, but it ended up being just wrapping it out (my occasional working life these days - just enough money to fuck up my unemployment).

The job was uneventful - they were just shooting the rappers against the cyc so there weren't a whole lot of lights; just a few skypans hung on the pipe grid, and a few lights on stands.

The Oscar Winning Rap Group were polite and fairly well-behaved, as rap groups go - but we got there late in the day, so I have no idea what happened earlier.

Sometimes production decide to 'help' us by giving us a sleep-deprived production assistant. Normally they just kind of wander around in a daze, and we tell them to go pick up C-47s just to get them out of the way.

This particular sleep-deprived PA decided he really had to help us and proceeded to start throwing all the equipment in a big, messy pile in one corner while insisting that the stage guys had told him to 'keep everything tight'.

When one stages equipment, it must be done in an orderly fashion so the guys who come to count it can do the count as quickly as possible. 'Keep it tight' means keep it as close together as possible while still keeping enough order that the guys can work.

That means like goes with like, everything is lined up in an orderly fashion, and cable is laid out so that it can be quickly counted and loaded. Dumping everything into a sloppy pile doesn't help anyone, and it makes the rental house guys who come to count the equipment crazy.

Despite our pleas for him to stop helping, he insisted. My boss eventually had to go to production and get him sent home before he started making extra work for us. We probably did him a favor - I think the poor guy'd been awake for over 24 hours.

We got everything laid out to count, and then went home around 3 am, as the rental house guys wouldn't be coming in until 7 am.

Oh, what the hell. One more time:

Oscar. Winning. Rap. Group.

Fuck him? I don't even know him!

2006-05-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

When I got home this afternoon, I opened the mail and saw the strangest thing.

An invite to Joe Francis' birthday party at Magic Mountain ("come party with us.. drinks, food and all rides will be open").

Who is Joe Francis? I had no fucking idea, but a free night at an amusement park is fine by me.
When I called the RSVP line, I got the following message: "The RSVP line is now closed. Don't bother leaving a message, it will not be checked."

So, either I got my invitation really late, or the RSVP line was never open and they just sent out invitations to generate publicity or waste money or something.

When I told The Blonde about it, she said, "Well, fuck him and the horse he... oh, wait. I'm going to that party. Never mind."

Then, after I'd turned on the computer, I saw the same invite on Defamer and learned why Joe Francis can afford to throw a party at Magic Mountain.

Yeek. The guy made his money from porn.

It's probably just as well (I have issues with porn - but, since I know you're all wondering - I have worked on a porn. Once. I'll never do that again unless I get really, really broke), but I love roller coasters and was looking forward to having a fun time on them.

For this morning's non-work related errand, I went back to the podiatrist (his office is in Santa Monica, and it took me over an hour to get there from Hollywood. Fucking traffic) to get yet another tweak on my orthotics (apparently my feet are being difficult), and he was telling me that no one's working now - not even the people who do commercials (they're almost always busy).

What kills me is that some folks seem to always be blindsided by the work drying up, even though it happens roughly at the same time a few times a year.

In the waiting room, a production co-ordinator was complaining to someone on the other end of her cell phone that she couldn't find a job and didn't know what the hell happened. The lady sitting next to her waited until she'd hung up, turned to her and said "It's summer, honey. Happens every year."