Might have a line on a trumpet player I want to use, but he might be a little light in the loafers (and not in a good way) so I don’t know that sound would be worth the drama. How-some-ever, it looks like I have a contrabassoon on-board, which is a much cooler sound that the Bari-sax.
GREAT NEWS: Everyone that becomes a member of the Untraditionally Handsome Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=288934592050&ref=ts
before March 1, 2010 will be included in the CD liner notes of the Special Edition booklet, and not just a ‘Special Thanks To’ credit either. They will make up a phony baloney job for each of you that’ll sit proudly on your permanent record. Didn’t you always want to be an A&R Coordinator or Balance Mixer?
So do me a favor and invite your cool friends to join too, because I want to make this list as long as humanly possible… But only your cool friends, ok? How do you know if your friend is cool or not? Well, if they ever order the spaghetti at Denny’s, I’m guessing they are not cool. Got it?
BAD NEWS: I’m starting hate one of the song and may have to go with a total rewrite.
EVEN WORST NEWS: My wife wasn’t home, so I had to make my own lunch. I did kind of a bagel sandwich thing that didn’t really cut it and I’m not proud at all.
We’re having company for lunch today and then tomorrow is The Super Bowl, so I might just have to take the weekend off.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
FEBRUARY 5
Day Four, I didn’t get a whole of work done. I was working on one of the songs, and I kept hearing a Bari-sax in the mix. We used to have a Bari-sax player in the band but he got old and had to be put down.
Actually, I couldn’t face taking him to the vet like some Nazi train conductor, so I just drove him deep into the woods, tossed his favorite tennis ball for him to chase down and ran back to the car and beat it before he got back.
I had contemplated leaving him on an ice flow, like a proud and ancient Eskimo, but I wasn’t sure where to find an ice flow in Duxbury bay and really, are the Eskimo that proud to begin with?
None of this solved my sound problem, so I emailed an Contrabassoon I knew about. We’ll have to see what he says. After a fine, fine lunch of beef stew and Saltines, which my wife whipped up in the kitchen while I looked up how to spell ‘Contrabassoon’, I designed a t-shirt for the CD. Hey what’s the use of doing something if you’re not going to promote the hell out of it, right?
I’ll do some real work tomorrow, I swear.
Actually, I couldn’t face taking him to the vet like some Nazi train conductor, so I just drove him deep into the woods, tossed his favorite tennis ball for him to chase down and ran back to the car and beat it before he got back.
I had contemplated leaving him on an ice flow, like a proud and ancient Eskimo, but I wasn’t sure where to find an ice flow in Duxbury bay and really, are the Eskimo that proud to begin with?
None of this solved my sound problem, so I emailed an Contrabassoon I knew about. We’ll have to see what he says. After a fine, fine lunch of beef stew and Saltines, which my wife whipped up in the kitchen while I looked up how to spell ‘Contrabassoon’, I designed a t-shirt for the CD. Hey what’s the use of doing something if you’re not going to promote the hell out of it, right?
I’ll do some real work tomorrow, I swear.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
FEBURARY 4
Most of Day Three’s morning was spent filling out paperwork for BMI on the ten songs for this pig. I’m not sure I understand all the ins-and-outs of it; but as long as I keep my track record of not making a dime off my songs intact, I think I should be ok.
It was interesting to see that someone on XM Radio had been playing one of my Christmas songs, so I should be seeing check worth well over three dollars in about a year. I got that going for me.
After a fine lunch, prepared by my career woman wife, of some sort of vegetable, noodle and what might have been chicken (or at least some winged thing) soup; I put the finishing touches on ROOT HOG OR DIE. Of course, Julie Brummer must be thanked for the song, but not given so much credit that she gets to beat me out of any BMI money….
ROOT HOG OR DIE
BUT HE NEVER SAW ME COMING
I INTERRUPTED HIS LITTLE MORALITY PLAY
AND MIGHT HAVE WRECKED HIS PLUMBING
THERE WASN’T MUCH LEFT TO FILLET
BUT HELP YOURSELF ANYWAY
ANDIE MACDOWELL SAW HER SHADOW TODAY
SHE HADN’T BEEN OUTSIDE IN WEEKS
I HADN’T SEEN HER SINCE MUPPETS FROM SPACE
BUT I’M A BIG FAN OF ANTIQUES
I THINK OF HER WHENEVER GLENN CLOSE SPEAKS
JUST ANOTHER FLAVOR OF THE WEAK
(SOLO)
MY WIFE MADE ME A SANDWICH TODAY
SOMETHING THAT TASTED LIKE CHICKEN
I TRIED TO EAT IT EVERY WHICH WAY
BUT IT WAS LESS SANDWICH THAN WICCAN
SEZ JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE ANTOINE DE MONET
WE ALL GET EATEN AWAY
The song has that droning feel to it, so I contacted a guy down in R.I. about playing some English Medieval bagpipe in G on it, but he was the kind of a dink that referred to himself as ’a Master of The Dance’ and wanted too much money. Like there’s a huge demand for bagpipers. I’ll probably just end up doing it on keyboards. Friggin ‘musicians’.
I agreed to tape an interview with The Notty Wood Show, on March 1st, which should coincide with the finished CD’s release and I did a quick, new mock-up for the CD front and back covers, but couldn’t remember where I got the photo from, so I’ll probably have to scrap that one.
And I managed to run through most of the songs for the Feb. 11th show with the band at night. Barring any Sr. moments, at least they have a passing familiarity with them when we try to video tape them. I wonder what my wife has planned for lunch today?…
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
FEBRUARY 3
Well, Day Two went swimmingly. Paul said he was in, so we have a studio in which to record, only it won’t be available until next week. This delay actually works out well because that gives me time to tweak the songs, the song which are all written, by the way, and none of which contain a run ponderous run-on sentence like this one.
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY actually came to me late on Day One and is a keeper. Now that I think of it, the theme might have been floating around in my head for almost 25 years, after driving from Washington State to Colorado one Thanksgiving and getting stuck in a blizzard in Evanston, Wyoming.
Yesterday was also Ground Hog’s Day and my friend Julie pointed out that there were no good Ground Hog’s Day songs. That was a theme that fit perfectly with my title, ROOT HOG OR DIE, so I worked up a little ditty that asks the musical question, ‘if Andie MacDowell sees her shadow today, does that mean six more weeks of obscurity?’
Actually, Julie’s idea was for something called GRINDING THE HOG, as she said, ‘I'm envisioning it as a song about seasonal affective disorder.. being sick of winter.. the rodent pops out and sees his shadow, and it makes you hog-i-cidal. "When he pops out of his log.. it'll be time to grind the hog." Work in the phrase, "tastes like chicken" and I think it will be an epic winter anthem. "I dream of hitting him with a trowel. I've never been a fan of Andie MacDowell.." This songwriting stuff is cake.’ Truer word, Julie, truer words…
My wife was kind enough to point out, every day for the past 13 years, that I’ve never written a song about her. I asked her, ‘Do you listen to the kind of songs I write? Do you really want one written about you?’, but she said ‘yes’, so I finally came up with WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED? before lunch (which was a fine tuna salad the aforementioned songless wife made, at my request, with catsup, mayonnaise and pickle relish. Any woman that would do that for you deserves a song, I guess).
ONE EYED KING might be the weakest of the bunch, but I have some time to whip it into shape or walk away from it completely. Which is what I did to FLAVOR OF THE WEAK. I’ll still write that song some day, but while I was futzing around with the chords I came up with the song DRINK UNTIL YOU WANT ME, which help removed the taste of ONE EYED KING from my ears and won a place in my heart.
That’s ten by my count. I’ll play around with them some more today, but I really need to get to work on the 30 songs The Stools are doing on Feb. 11th. The band only knows about 15 of them and I’m not that strong on 5 or 6 myself. The award winning video director Michael Pelosi is supposed to be shooting some tape that night, so it’d be nice to actually know all the words at least.
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY actually came to me late on Day One and is a keeper. Now that I think of it, the theme might have been floating around in my head for almost 25 years, after driving from Washington State to Colorado one Thanksgiving and getting stuck in a blizzard in Evanston, Wyoming.
Yesterday was also Ground Hog’s Day and my friend Julie pointed out that there were no good Ground Hog’s Day songs. That was a theme that fit perfectly with my title, ROOT HOG OR DIE, so I worked up a little ditty that asks the musical question, ‘if Andie MacDowell sees her shadow today, does that mean six more weeks of obscurity?’
Actually, Julie’s idea was for something called GRINDING THE HOG, as she said, ‘I'm envisioning it as a song about seasonal affective disorder.. being sick of winter.. the rodent pops out and sees his shadow, and it makes you hog-i-cidal. "When he pops out of his log.. it'll be time to grind the hog." Work in the phrase, "tastes like chicken" and I think it will be an epic winter anthem. "I dream of hitting him with a trowel. I've never been a fan of Andie MacDowell.." This songwriting stuff is cake.’ Truer word, Julie, truer words…
My wife was kind enough to point out, every day for the past 13 years, that I’ve never written a song about her. I asked her, ‘Do you listen to the kind of songs I write? Do you really want one written about you?’, but she said ‘yes’, so I finally came up with WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED? before lunch (which was a fine tuna salad the aforementioned songless wife made, at my request, with catsup, mayonnaise and pickle relish. Any woman that would do that for you deserves a song, I guess).
ONE EYED KING might be the weakest of the bunch, but I have some time to whip it into shape or walk away from it completely. Which is what I did to FLAVOR OF THE WEAK. I’ll still write that song some day, but while I was futzing around with the chords I came up with the song DRINK UNTIL YOU WANT ME, which help removed the taste of ONE EYED KING from my ears and won a place in my heart.
That’s ten by my count. I’ll play around with them some more today, but I really need to get to work on the 30 songs The Stools are doing on Feb. 11th. The band only knows about 15 of them and I’m not that strong on 5 or 6 myself. The award winning video director Michael Pelosi is supposed to be shooting some tape that night, so it’d be nice to actually know all the words at least.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
FEBRUARY 2
Well, Day One got off to a good start. I knocked out five of the ten songs I wanted to write and designed a mock-up for the CD front and back covers, but I still haven’t heard from Paul about the studio.
I did the GOOD ENUF song in the morning and then jacked around with album cover for a little while. During lunch HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS came to me (a lovely lunch, by the way, prepared by my wife, of a baloney sandwich and pretzels with a diet coke; just for the records), and as I was working out those chords I also got THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN and LAZY MAN’S LOAD too.
I played a little poker on Facebook, tried to commit a few crimes on Mob Wars and then finally tackled that talking blues, now called THE TOO RICH TO BITCH BLUES, in honor of that blue’s great, Ernie Boch, Jr.
I sent off some emails apologizing for a mix up over a drum set from our gig over the weekend with The Fools, watched the Celtic’s game and called it day. Who says I’m a good for nothing, lay-about? Oh that’s right, everyone.
Well, if I can get into a studio and get these pigs on their feet, we’ll just see if I’ve been wasting my time or not. Five more songs to go. Maybe I can get a few of them today… or at least one…I still my have to redo the CD cover. My wife says it looks like an Ah-ha video…
I did the GOOD ENUF song in the morning and then jacked around with album cover for a little while. During lunch HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS came to me (a lovely lunch, by the way, prepared by my wife, of a baloney sandwich and pretzels with a diet coke; just for the records), and as I was working out those chords I also got THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN and LAZY MAN’S LOAD too.
I played a little poker on Facebook, tried to commit a few crimes on Mob Wars and then finally tackled that talking blues, now called THE TOO RICH TO BITCH BLUES, in honor of that blue’s great, Ernie Boch, Jr.
I sent off some emails apologizing for a mix up over a drum set from our gig over the weekend with The Fools, watched the Celtic’s game and called it day. Who says I’m a good for nothing, lay-about? Oh that’s right, everyone.
Well, if I can get into a studio and get these pigs on their feet, we’ll just see if I’ve been wasting my time or not. Five more songs to go. Maybe I can get a few of them today… or at least one…I still my have to redo the CD cover. My wife says it looks like an Ah-ha video…
Monday, February 1, 2010
FEBRUARY 1
So, I’ve signed up for something called the RPM Challenge, which basically, I have 28 over the course of February to write and record a CD. Band across the world are doing it (this is the fourth year of the Challenge) but there is no prize; it’s done just for the music.
Their web-site is here: http://www.rpmchallenge.com/ if you want to check it our, or even sign-up.
I want to use The Stools for this project, but we are trying to learn a ton of new songs for our live set and I don’t want to confuse them with even more songs that I haven’t even written yet. I guess we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it, as they say. First things first: I gotta send an email out to my old friend Paul who’s got a funky little studio that would be perfect for this kind of project and see if he’d be interested.
Actually, first things first, maybe a should write some songs. It can’t be any of the old stuff. We’re on the honor system here and they’ve all gotta be fresh caught songs. Hmmmm….
I keep a list of titles for songs that I might want to write some day, so I’ll just go through it and pick the first 10 that appeal to me. Actually, I’m only going to pick 9 because I was talking with Dan Margarita on Facebook the other day about the history of the talking blues, and that got me in the mood to write a talking blues, so one tenth of my list is done.
TALKING BLUES
Ok, now for the other nine, in no particular order:
GOOD ENUF
HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS
LAZY MAN’S LOAD
ONE EYED KING
ROOT HOG OR DIE
FLAVOR OF THE WEAK
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED?
THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN
Now there’s an album worth of titles. I’m always confused when musicians take so long between albums. You just sit down and do it. Get it out of the way. Money where your mouth is time. Let’s knock the first song on the list, GOOD ENUF, off right now. Of course, the lyrics might get tweaked a little as it is recorded, but I just want to come up with a frame to start hanging the music on.
The Grammys were last night and I can’t imagine any of Lady Ga Ga’s songs took more than a half hour to write. So let’s jump in. Free associate. Lady “If I Lead with My Vagina Maybe They Won’t Notice I Have No Talent” Ga Ga.... Grammys… Award shows… Phonies… Here we go….
IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE A NOMINEE
THAT’S GOOD ENUF FOR ME
GIVE THE AWARD LITTLE GEORGE CLOONEY
IT’S JUST A PLEASURE TO BE IN HIS COMPANY
I DIDN’T EVEN PREPARE A SPEECH
WINNING SEEMED SO OUT OF REACH
WHEN YOU’RE UP AGAINST A BALDWIN AND THE KID WHO PLAYED SCREECH
HELL, THAT’S NO DAY AT THE BEACH
WHY DO I COME HERE, THE FOOD AIN’T THAT GREAT
MY SENSE OF IMPORTANCE IS STARTING TO DEFLATE
COULD THIS BE A METAPHOR
FOR YOU ACTING LIKE A WHORE
GIVING A PRIZE TO EVERY COMPETITOR
ABOUT AS SINCERE AS DREW BARRYMORE
Good enough for Government work. Like I said, just wanted something to hang the music on. I can tweak it later. I got the melody in my head, now I just have to figure out some chords…And then do it nine more times.
No problem.
Their web-site is here: http://www.rpmchallenge.com/ if you want to check it our, or even sign-up.
I want to use The Stools for this project, but we are trying to learn a ton of new songs for our live set and I don’t want to confuse them with even more songs that I haven’t even written yet. I guess we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it, as they say. First things first: I gotta send an email out to my old friend Paul who’s got a funky little studio that would be perfect for this kind of project and see if he’d be interested.
Actually, first things first, maybe a should write some songs. It can’t be any of the old stuff. We’re on the honor system here and they’ve all gotta be fresh caught songs. Hmmmm….
I keep a list of titles for songs that I might want to write some day, so I’ll just go through it and pick the first 10 that appeal to me. Actually, I’m only going to pick 9 because I was talking with Dan Margarita on Facebook the other day about the history of the talking blues, and that got me in the mood to write a talking blues, so one tenth of my list is done.
TALKING BLUES
Ok, now for the other nine, in no particular order:
GOOD ENUF
HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS
LAZY MAN’S LOAD
ONE EYED KING
ROOT HOG OR DIE
FLAVOR OF THE WEAK
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED?
THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN
Now there’s an album worth of titles. I’m always confused when musicians take so long between albums. You just sit down and do it. Get it out of the way. Money where your mouth is time. Let’s knock the first song on the list, GOOD ENUF, off right now. Of course, the lyrics might get tweaked a little as it is recorded, but I just want to come up with a frame to start hanging the music on.
The Grammys were last night and I can’t imagine any of Lady Ga Ga’s songs took more than a half hour to write. So let’s jump in. Free associate. Lady “If I Lead with My Vagina Maybe They Won’t Notice I Have No Talent” Ga Ga.... Grammys… Award shows… Phonies… Here we go….
GOOD ENUF
(Norris)
IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE A NOMINEE
THAT’S GOOD ENUF FOR ME
GIVE THE AWARD LITTLE GEORGE CLOONEY
IT’S JUST A PLEASURE TO BE IN HIS COMPANY
I DIDN’T EVEN PREPARE A SPEECH
WINNING SEEMED SO OUT OF REACH
WHEN YOU’RE UP AGAINST A BALDWIN AND THE KID WHO PLAYED SCREECH
HELL, THAT’S NO DAY AT THE BEACH
WHY DO I COME HERE, THE FOOD AIN’T THAT GREAT
MY SENSE OF IMPORTANCE IS STARTING TO DEFLATE
COULD THIS BE A METAPHOR
FOR YOU ACTING LIKE A WHORE
GIVING A PRIZE TO EVERY COMPETITOR
ABOUT AS SINCERE AS DREW BARRYMORE
2010 DUTCHCO MUSIC/BMI
Good enough for Government work. Like I said, just wanted something to hang the music on. I can tweak it later. I got the melody in my head, now I just have to figure out some chords…And then do it nine more times.
No problem.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tom Cruise Hates Cripples!
Actually, that’s not fair. It makes a nice headline but technically, Cruise isn’t the producer on this film. More accurately, Joe Roth hates cripples. Or maybe it’s producer/director James Mangold that hates the cripples; but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ve been on movies sets far and wide. Low budget Indies in the fields of Illinois, no budget pornos in farmhouse in Norwell, moderate budget comedies in run-down Lowell, mega-budget Clint Eastwood films on the banks of the Mystic River. I only point this out to show that I’m pretty jaded, but there still is something akin to awe when you step on set of a Tom Cruise film.
It’s massive. Tents, trucks, recreational vehicles, a sea of cars, honey wagons that are actually cleaned daily, canteen trucks and huge bar-b-q stoking up for the day, filling the air with wood smoke and anticipation. So many teamsters standing around doing nothing, you think you’ve wondered into a refuge camp.
I was book for one day this week on Mangold’s WICHITA, an action comedy staring Cruise and, for some reason, Cameron Diaz. I guess no one had seen THE BOX before they hired her. They had taken over a huge parking lot behind the World Trade Center on Boston Harbor for their base camp.
I was just background. An extra. Just a drab guy waiting for the bus as these two mega-watt stars throw off some sparks. Towards that end, I was asked to show up at 6:00am in bland clothes, and bring some bland options incase the wardrobe shrew, Robert Q. Mathews, didn’t like my first choice.
I’m working on a theory that the real reason LUCKY NUMBERS, 50 FIRST DATES, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, CONSTANTINE and UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL all sucked is because Robert Q. Mathews worked on them, but he also did the wardrobe on THE PRESTIGE, which I liked, so I’ll give him a pass.
How-some-ever, Mathews didn’t give me a pass on my ensemble for WICHITA, all drawn from my closet. Khaki pants and a tan button down shirt over grey t-shirt. Granted, it was about 6:30 in the morning when I first went to wardrobe, but he gave me the quick once over and said, ‘Great, you’re wearing all white. Tell me you brought something else’.
You know what, I take it back. LUCKY NUMBERS and all those other movies sucked because they had a color blind Costume Supervisor, plain and simple; but I’m just an extra, so who am I to point out his horrible disability on the set? He pick a dark brown polo shirt and a pair of jeans out of my bag and told me to go put those on.
I asked Robert Q., the man in charge of the department, where I could change. He told me, “Oh, I don’t know. Ask a PA”. That’s movie talk for, ‘Don’t bother me. Go spend the rest of the day looking for some unpaid intern to answer your question, which he more than likely won’t be able to do, but at least it is no longer my problem’.
Surprisingly, I found a PA that actually knew where the dressing rooms were fairly quickly. He pointed to a row of trucks and said, ‘There are dressing rooms back there.’ I found them. Two tents erected at the end of the wardrobe trucks in the middle of this parking lot. The tent on the right said ‘Woman’, leaving one to guess that the tent on the left was for men.
I entered slowly, in case my guess had been wrong, and the tent was empty. Not empty in the sense that there was no one in it, man or woman. Empty in the sense that it was totally devoid of content. No people, no chairs, no tables, no mirrors, no hangers. Nothing. As barren as Tom Cruise’s little shark-eyes when you talk to him on the street.
That shouldn’t be a problem, right. Just changing my shirt and pants. Kick off the shoes, zip, zip, zip? Unfortunately, several years ago I shattered my knee and various parts of my leg doing a stunt on a horrible John Savage film, and now I get the best parking at Wal-mart. Of course, I’m also a pathetic cripple, but you can’t beat the parking.
This also means that it is physically impossible for me to take off my shoes and change my pants without laying down, or in a painful pinch, sitting in chair. Laying in the dirt, in a vacant tent, in the middle of a parking lot, with little or no chance of getting myself back on feet when the job was done, wasn’t a prospect I relished. Especially not for the $138 SAG Extra Rate I was going to be paid for the day. So, I searched out my friendly PA again.
I found him on his third bowl of oatmeal at the craft services tent and explained the problem in my clear and even-tempered way, and he said, “Well, you’ll just have to make do,” and went back to what I hoped was a macrobiotic diet to help fight the ravages of extremely painful stomach cancer. Of course, he’s just a PA and isn’t expected to know anything about human decency or the American’s With Disabilities Act. So I went to find a 3rd or even 4th AD. Maybe that far up the food chain they would know how to help.
Like I said, the set of a Tom Cruise movie is an impressive beast. Rows or trucks and cars and tents and teamsters, but not a lot of helpful people. After about a half hour of stumbling around asking everyone with a walkie talkie were I could find even the lowliest of Assistant Directors and getting blank looks that made the dressing room tent look absolutely prolix, I figured I wasn’t getting paid enough for this shit and went home.
I did email the casting agent, just so she’d know why I wasn’t on the set. She emailed back, later in the day, “Thanks for letting me know about the situation, I was not aware. I will pass this along to the appropriate people and I apologize for your disappointing experience on set.”
I figured I’d let the Screen Actors Guild know too, since I pay them an ungodly amount twice a year to be a member. They have yet to respond, but then again, SAG in Boston is a bigger joke than anything you’re likely to find in the script for WICHITA. Of course, I say that without having read the script, but originally it was going to be a Chris Tucker vehicle, so I think I can safely guess how unfunny it really is.
So what does this all mean? Nothing really. James Mangold in working on a feature version of the documentary MURDERBALL, you know, that bastard child of Donkey Basketball they play in wheelchair and erroneously call ‘Rugby’? Maybe he’ll learn some respect for cripples on the set there, but it’s unlikely.
The producers did just change the name of the movie from WICHITA to KNIGHT AND DAY on Wednesday. I wonder if they were worried I might file an ADA lawsuit and the title change would confuse me? All I know is because I had to leave the set, at least I didn’t have face the moral dilemma I had been fearing all day: what if Katie Holmes had slipped me a note begging, ‘Help me escape’? Would saving her and little Sushi be worth losing my $138 for the day?
Na.
I’ve been on movies sets far and wide. Low budget Indies in the fields of Illinois, no budget pornos in farmhouse in Norwell, moderate budget comedies in run-down Lowell, mega-budget Clint Eastwood films on the banks of the Mystic River. I only point this out to show that I’m pretty jaded, but there still is something akin to awe when you step on set of a Tom Cruise film.
It’s massive. Tents, trucks, recreational vehicles, a sea of cars, honey wagons that are actually cleaned daily, canteen trucks and huge bar-b-q stoking up for the day, filling the air with wood smoke and anticipation. So many teamsters standing around doing nothing, you think you’ve wondered into a refuge camp.
I was book for one day this week on Mangold’s WICHITA, an action comedy staring Cruise and, for some reason, Cameron Diaz. I guess no one had seen THE BOX before they hired her. They had taken over a huge parking lot behind the World Trade Center on Boston Harbor for their base camp.
I was just background. An extra. Just a drab guy waiting for the bus as these two mega-watt stars throw off some sparks. Towards that end, I was asked to show up at 6:00am in bland clothes, and bring some bland options incase the wardrobe shrew, Robert Q. Mathews, didn’t like my first choice.
I’m working on a theory that the real reason LUCKY NUMBERS, 50 FIRST DATES, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, CONSTANTINE and UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL all sucked is because Robert Q. Mathews worked on them, but he also did the wardrobe on THE PRESTIGE, which I liked, so I’ll give him a pass.
How-some-ever, Mathews didn’t give me a pass on my ensemble for WICHITA, all drawn from my closet. Khaki pants and a tan button down shirt over grey t-shirt. Granted, it was about 6:30 in the morning when I first went to wardrobe, but he gave me the quick once over and said, ‘Great, you’re wearing all white. Tell me you brought something else’.
You know what, I take it back. LUCKY NUMBERS and all those other movies sucked because they had a color blind Costume Supervisor, plain and simple; but I’m just an extra, so who am I to point out his horrible disability on the set? He pick a dark brown polo shirt and a pair of jeans out of my bag and told me to go put those on.
I asked Robert Q., the man in charge of the department, where I could change. He told me, “Oh, I don’t know. Ask a PA”. That’s movie talk for, ‘Don’t bother me. Go spend the rest of the day looking for some unpaid intern to answer your question, which he more than likely won’t be able to do, but at least it is no longer my problem’.
Surprisingly, I found a PA that actually knew where the dressing rooms were fairly quickly. He pointed to a row of trucks and said, ‘There are dressing rooms back there.’ I found them. Two tents erected at the end of the wardrobe trucks in the middle of this parking lot. The tent on the right said ‘Woman’, leaving one to guess that the tent on the left was for men.
I entered slowly, in case my guess had been wrong, and the tent was empty. Not empty in the sense that there was no one in it, man or woman. Empty in the sense that it was totally devoid of content. No people, no chairs, no tables, no mirrors, no hangers. Nothing. As barren as Tom Cruise’s little shark-eyes when you talk to him on the street.
That shouldn’t be a problem, right. Just changing my shirt and pants. Kick off the shoes, zip, zip, zip? Unfortunately, several years ago I shattered my knee and various parts of my leg doing a stunt on a horrible John Savage film, and now I get the best parking at Wal-mart. Of course, I’m also a pathetic cripple, but you can’t beat the parking.
This also means that it is physically impossible for me to take off my shoes and change my pants without laying down, or in a painful pinch, sitting in chair. Laying in the dirt, in a vacant tent, in the middle of a parking lot, with little or no chance of getting myself back on feet when the job was done, wasn’t a prospect I relished. Especially not for the $138 SAG Extra Rate I was going to be paid for the day. So, I searched out my friendly PA again.
I found him on his third bowl of oatmeal at the craft services tent and explained the problem in my clear and even-tempered way, and he said, “Well, you’ll just have to make do,” and went back to what I hoped was a macrobiotic diet to help fight the ravages of extremely painful stomach cancer. Of course, he’s just a PA and isn’t expected to know anything about human decency or the American’s With Disabilities Act. So I went to find a 3rd or even 4th AD. Maybe that far up the food chain they would know how to help.
Like I said, the set of a Tom Cruise movie is an impressive beast. Rows or trucks and cars and tents and teamsters, but not a lot of helpful people. After about a half hour of stumbling around asking everyone with a walkie talkie were I could find even the lowliest of Assistant Directors and getting blank looks that made the dressing room tent look absolutely prolix, I figured I wasn’t getting paid enough for this shit and went home.
I did email the casting agent, just so she’d know why I wasn’t on the set. She emailed back, later in the day, “Thanks for letting me know about the situation, I was not aware. I will pass this along to the appropriate people and I apologize for your disappointing experience on set.”
I figured I’d let the Screen Actors Guild know too, since I pay them an ungodly amount twice a year to be a member. They have yet to respond, but then again, SAG in Boston is a bigger joke than anything you’re likely to find in the script for WICHITA. Of course, I say that without having read the script, but originally it was going to be a Chris Tucker vehicle, so I think I can safely guess how unfunny it really is.
So what does this all mean? Nothing really. James Mangold in working on a feature version of the documentary MURDERBALL, you know, that bastard child of Donkey Basketball they play in wheelchair and erroneously call ‘Rugby’? Maybe he’ll learn some respect for cripples on the set there, but it’s unlikely.
The producers did just change the name of the movie from WICHITA to KNIGHT AND DAY on Wednesday. I wonder if they were worried I might file an ADA lawsuit and the title change would confuse me? All I know is because I had to leave the set, at least I didn’t have face the moral dilemma I had been fearing all day: what if Katie Holmes had slipped me a note begging, ‘Help me escape’? Would saving her and little Sushi be worth losing my $138 for the day?
Na.
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