Desire

INTRODUCTION

Not sure what film it was that turned me into a cinephile. One of my earliest memories is that of my father bringing home bagels and lox in addition to the New York Times every Sunday morning. Before Abbot and Costello, I’d grab section II of the paper. Section II was the Arts and Leisure section which had the film reviews and articles about the media. I remember looking for the hidden 'Nina’s' in the weekly Hirshfeld cartoon. The famous cartoonist would hide his daughters name in the drawings of popular actors and actress’. The number of ‘Nina's’ was designated by the number next to his signature.

In later years I would come to realize that it was the power of the medium I found so alluring. Just to be able to contribute to a work of art that would be viewed by hundreds of millions of people must have pulled on some string attached to a longing for immortality that lies within each of us.

How was I going to be apart of this world? I didn’t know anyone in the industry, my parents, in my opinion never pushed me to pursue my dream. Get good grades so you can go to college was their advice on everything. I did all right in school, but I felt I had all the advantages to pursue any career I wanted. Although not the most gifted student I was fairly intelligent, not bad looking, Jewish, what else did you need, besides the right connections of course.

Along with the bagels and Abbot and Costello the beautiful sight of falling snow outside my living room window in suburban New York is an image etched deep in my brain. Unfortunately Malthusian theory has started to play out and our lust for expansion and disregard for the environment has moved the rain/snow line north of my roots of White Plains, New York. For me nothing is more depressing than rain in January, so after college I moved out to Colorado for a spell.

Flash forward to Y2K. The turn of the century. A friend of mine from Colorado was living with some actors/comedians in Hollywood. I always knew from those bagel days of yore that I would someday seek my immortality on the west coast or wherever they made these movies.

When I thought that I had my fill of the Colorado snow. I left for California. My folks had retired and for some reason that I'm still not sure of, taxes perhaps, they moved to a ritzy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. Why they would want to live in that crazy heat is beyond me, but how can you argue with people from New York? Because they now lived in the West, I was able to leave most of my belongings with Ma and Pa and headed to la la land. I had some electrical tools, a pair of gloves and a small carload of dead tapes. 6 hours door to door, not so bad.

If you didn’t know, most people start in the film business by working for free, I was not opposed to tying this, as I really had no technical knowledge of the field I was going to go into. Back in NY I was able to work as a set production assistant for some big films in the city. After the initial excitement of being on a film set wore off, which took a little while I have to admit, I realized that standing on the corner asking people to cross on the other side of the street was not really what I wanted to do. There are arguably 3 sides in the actual production process of making a film. There is the creative side, there is the technical side, and a third side which facilitates and controls the union of the other two, this 3rd side is the production department. After a few weeks in production I realized that that was not the end for me.

Because so many people want to work in the film industry if you are not particularly driven you will most likely be replaced by someone else that has more experience or more desire than you do. This holds true for any position, from actor, to stunt person, from wardrobe to grip. Once you are at the top of your game and in demand you can start to relax. But on the road you must be willing to endure all manner of hardships and indignities to get to a point where you can say that you are doing it for a living, and even then it’s no picnic.

When in New York observing the people on the set, I realized that the Director of Photography (DP), the guy in charge of the camera was the guy I wanted to be. This is no easy job; he is most often the most knowledgeable person on the set. As my dad was a residential and commercial electrician, and because the people in the camera department seemed like a bunch of geeks, I opted to take the road to DP through the electric department.

Through the internet I found a free job as an electric on a short film my second or third week of living in LA. One of the guys who I met on that shoot is now my good friend Suji. Suji and I kept in touch through much of that work year and would exchange contacts and get each other work when we were able. About 8 months later Suji was asked down to San Diego to work on a new television show. This show was being filmed for a new network that a large multi-million dollar broadcasting company was putting together. The key crew members were LA guys who didn’t know many, if any people from San Diego, much less any 'juicers' as electrics are often called, that would work for the low rate that was being offered. Thanks to Suji, my name got tossed in as a possible set lighting technician, and I got the call from a guy named Dan, to work on the trailers for "Desire".

BROTHERS KEEPER
I had shot in San Diego once before. While back briefly in Colorado one winter, I received word about a 2 week job in San Diego that was looking for juicers. I gave a call and the next day I was on my way back to LA. The traffic in a 100 mile radius of Los Angeles can be horrendous, and if you are in that sphere at the wrong time it can be quite unpleasant, unless of course you like to sit in your car stop and go, going 30 miles and hour. The traffic was so bad on this day that I pulled off and went to the movies to wait it out for a few hours. It was during the viewing of the Spielberg film “Munich”, that I received a phone call from Ormos, chief lighting technician (gaffer) on “My Brothers Keeper”.

The International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, known as IATSE is the studio mechanics union that is called upon when technicians are needed to make a film over a certain budget. This union has been around for decades, solidifying its hold on the skilled labor involved in film making. There are chapters or ‘locals’ as they are called throughout the US. When a production shoots in a particular city in certain states the local is called to provide manpower for the show. As you might expect the local workers want to protect their livelihood, so when work is tight it is difficult to gain membership in those guilds. Although it is an international association, being a member of one local, does not automatically mean you have card blanche and can work where ever you want in the country. Most films are produced out of LA so most of the key lighting personal are affiliated with IATSE 728, the LA local. It is this local that I have set my sights on, as they are the big boys producing the films that most of the world gets to see.

Many of these union gaffers are pretty jaded fellows. Seen too much or don’t get along with the wife, hard to pin down the reason for their bitchyness. Some are great guys, but I’ve met my share of jerks, and this Ormos fellow fell into the jerk category. Ormos was originally from Hungary. He was nice enough on the phone, told me the skinny on the show. We’d be one day on the lot of Universal Studios, then a travel day when we would travel on our own coin down to San Diego.

Each job is a little different, that’s one aspect that makes film making fun and exciting. The job itself however is basically the same. There is a truck with all the lights. There is a generator that is kept somewhere off set to mask its sound, and electricians run cable from the genie to power the set and trucks.

I showed up on time at Universal Studios. It’s always exciting when you get to shoot on the lots. The production was using a set that looked like an East European Ghetto. “My Brothers Keeper” was a short film financed by a San Diegian construction contractor in order to get financing from a major studio to shoot the story as a feature. I didn’t see much of the script that we shot, but the story was about Hungarian Jews who were taken from their city to a labor camp where they were treated rather unkindly by the Nazis. The 1st day at Universal we shot the round up and deportation of the Jews. This film was especially poignant for me as I consider myself a Hungarian Jew. My fathers parents were from Hungary, they actually met on the boat coming from Europe to New York. While my family was not very religious, I feel my parents felt both proud as well as stigmatized by their Jewish heritage. Our land is of course made up of minorities, and we all came from other places in the world. My mother’s family had been in the country for several generations longer than my dad’s, the most they could pinpoint is that they were Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe, Russia and Germany. I am pretty certain that my relatives that did not emigrate out of Hungry before WWII were killed in concentration camps during the war. I’ve been to Europe, even to Hungry but have not as of yet visited any concentration camps. Still, to be in the middle of a shoot where they are documenting atrocities that my relatives had to endure was quite intense.

I have met a hand full of Hungarian peoples outside of the country. Not too many Jews from Hungry as the Nazi's campaign in Eastern Europe was pretty devastating. My father has insisted that the Hungarians were very complicit in their help of the Nazis, making the machine even that more efficient. While Ormos our gaffer was Hungarian, he was not Jewish.

While Judaism is a religion, it stands unique in the fact that the Jewish people are just that, their own people, with a similar genetic make up and therefore a similar physical appearance. Most of the Hungarians I have met, to me didn’t look Jewish, and the fact that I was Jewish may or may not have sat well with them, I have never heard a disparaging remark, but I was always suspicious. The DP for this short film was a friend of Ormos' also Hungarian, and also not a Jew. He didn’t smile much, and perhaps that rubbed off a bit on Ormos, as neither of them seemed to have much of a sense of humor.

I worked with several characters on that show. For some reason I could tell that one of our fellow juicers, Pete, was an ex-convict. He had gang tattoos, and the arms of a man with time on his hands. He was quiet, but not quiet for lack of something to say, he just seemed reticent to talk, it seemed he had stories, many of them just below the surface. These stories would not be forth coming. I felt kind of protected by him, for some reason I felt that if I was in trouble he would help me out. Dressed in a sleeveless wife beater t-shirt, I wondered what he had been sent to jail for. I wanted to ask him, but knew I could, only if the moment was right. Eventually it did come out. We worked for only one week but not less that 15 hours a day, and he did open up a little. Turns out that Pete had spent the last 10 years in the state penitentiary when asked about his crimes he said that he had fallen in with a bad bunch of guys. We all took it to mean that he had been a gang banger, and lost his temper and killed someone. Although he seemed to have mastered his temper at this point, who's to say. I didn't really want to make him angry, that was for sure. 10 years for murder. Is that what a human life is worth? You could argue that it is worth quite a bit less than that around the world these days.

Another bizarre juicer from that shoot was a twitchy Mexican dude name Crane. Not sure were he got that nickname from. Some people give you an indication, just from their movements what drugs you would expect that they would have been involved in. For sure Crane was not so much of a pot smoker as he was a coke head, or more likely speed. Crane liked to do the scratch off games. Someone once told me that the lottery is for people who can’t to math.

Smugness is an interesting quality, we all must have it. It is offensive, although it can be attractive. Confidence is attractive but conceit is not. All qualities have their limits. It is said that most of the communication that we do as a species is non-verbal. More often than not when an individual is proved correct they will not look down, quite the opposite, they will tilt their head back, in an airy gesture bringing their nose up. When Crane was successful one time in winning a few dollars at one of his scratch off gambling games he exhibited the smug air that I found both puzzling and fascinating.

Our ring leader was my roommate Howard. The production department had rented out several rooms of an Ayres Hotel. By a coincidence Don Ayres, one of the owners of the company was a one time yoga student of mine. Did I mention I used to teach yoga? Nice guy Don. We didn’t see him down in San Diego that trip. The hierarchy of the electrical department starts with the chief lighting technician, often simply know as the gaffer. The gaffer’s right hand man is the assistant chief lighting technician, or the best boy electric. Below the best boy are the other set lighting techs. Ormos’ best boy was this backwards fellow named Howard. Howard preferred flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off. I didn’t see him put any product in his hair but he must have, as he had his straight dark hair slicked back the whole week. Howard liked country music. I was never much of a fan of country, however too his credit he did turn me onto Johnny Cash. I liked Howard. I’m older now, but in my life growing up a lot of people have given me a lot of shit. Why that is I’m not sure. Maybe because I’m smaller in stature, I open myself up for it I guess, but it is usually from the same type of person. Sometimes a foster big brother relationship forms with some guys and those guys like to give me crap. I suppose a little brother is not going to give you the same type of disrespect as a big brother. I kind of like it. I never had a bigger brother, I was kind of an only child, I have a much older brother and an older sister but I didn’t grow up with them. I understand that people mess with me because they like me and they do generally want to impart some of their limited wisdom on me.

We finished out that week on “My Brothers Keeper”. Made just under two grand for the week. I never heard from Howard or the other crew members again, but was summoned back to San Diego to shoot the trailers of “Desire”.

TRAILERS

A month or two prior to our San Diego gig, a big LA network had shot a pilot for these Telenovela's. "Desire" was the pilot they shot. I'm not positive, but I believe they simply substituted English for Spanish for some popular Latino soap operas. Whatever genius thought this up at the big network, I don't know.

Dan, the guy who had hired me was an IATSE 728 best boy that was hired on to work the trailers. I definitely felt Dan to be one of these big brother, shit giver figures, and one that I shall not soon forget. With smoke spilling forth out of his mouth, jaded wouldn't really describe the aloofness conveyed in his every breath. Why so many people in the film industry smoke like chimneys I can't figure out. Why people smoke in general remains a mystery to me. No doubt they think they look more impressive than they do, as I think they look pretty stupid. I'll smoke pot occasionally, and I get into dragging on a joint as it is a great sensation, but the offensive factor of cigarette smoke far outweighs any thought that the smoker maybe a hipster.

It was the strong undercurrent of humor that ran though Dan's speech and actions that attracted me to him. When dealing with an unknown it is normal to be conservative, only when all the variables of a situation are known do people start to let their guard down and become more of themselves. I'm  not sure who brought up the idea of chess, but we started playing to pass time in the truck. The lighting set ups for our show were not very labor intensive, so we had some time to kill. Game after game I kicked his ass. He was my boss, the best boy, I did what he told me to do, but I wasn't about to bow down to him, it's just not in me. Of course I think the fact that I was stronger than he was in chess must have earned me some respect.

Suji had worked one time with another 728 guy named Andrew. Andrew was one of these smoking fellows. He seemed to make love, basically fellate his cigarette. So much so when this guy inhaled with such delight on his 4-inch phallus I had to look away. If the obscene homosexual behavior with his fag  was his only distasteful trait I could have handled him. Unfortunately Andrew turned out to be even more of a pussy. Maybe it was the fact that he was from Utah. Bad to condemn an entire state due to the activities of one seemingly queer member but I think it goes beyond that. We are all products of our environment. I am pretty tough, mostly because I'm from NY, he was a pussy, why? Because he was from Utah? Maybe.

It is intention, not so much the actual communication that I use as a basis when evaluating people. If an individual is a friend of mine, if I have let down my guard to the person then I have made a conscious decision that this person's intentions are good. If I have not yet made a decision then their intentions are suspect. Such was the case with Andrew.

My dad was a professional journeyman electrician in New York City for over 30 years. He has quite a few tools that he has acquired over the years. Being a set lighting tech, while not the same as a journeyman electrician, we are required to carry some pocket tools to do the job. These tools are not too specialized. A knife for cutting gel or rope. A wrench for bolts, a screwdriver, pair of gloves and other incidentals. There is a decision that has to be made as to what tools to carry on your person. You could be like my buddy Darryl and carry every tool imaginable, but for me my back just isn’t that strong, and I like to be as comfortable as possible, call me what you will.

I had a small tool bag at the time and was in the habit of carrying a small, I’ll say tiny wrench and a tiny screwdriver. I made the mistake of showing these miniatures to my new chess buddy Dan. He had a laugh as I knew he would I didn’t bargain on his selling me out to Andrew for another laugh. I didn’t really mind, the tools were for sure pretty funny. Andrew decided to run with it. In his super smug way he asked me.

     “Do you want to do this job?”
I hesitated and he asked again.

      “Yes or no?”

Not in a confrontational tone, I’ll give him that, he was most often quite civil in his insulting speech. Of course I wanted to do the job, although I did have my eye on the camera department at the time, but that is another story. This is where I really wanted to cap him. I was saying to myself, “now normally I would push this guy in the chest with both hands, probably put my foot out and knock him down on his way backwards, a small inside sweep to his right ankle, and he would go down faster than a whore on Christmas. In situations like these, as I am a rational man, I weigh my options. Do I give in to my instincts and deck this mother fucker, let my primitive side, my ego that he is insulting take over? Or do I kiss up to him, just say what he wants to hear and keep my job? Well, being that I was several thousand dollars in debt and really needed to keep the job, I bit the bullet and said,

“Yes, Andrew, I want to be a juicer.”

 “Ok then you should get some better tools.”

In retrospect his response and his chiding seems completely called for. It was his intentions that set me off in the direction to want to do him harm. In my opinion his intention was not from a place of helping me become a better electric by advising that I get more acceptable tools. Instead he was coming from a place of insecurity, belittling me while reassuring his place as top dog. This was the start of my problems with our gaffer for the trailers, and eventually the Telenovela show we worked on.

Dan was a union electric and use to a much higher rate of pay. He only helped out as a favor to Andrew, as there was no best boy to be found at the time. Andrew was coming down to be the gaffer of the shows when they did get picked up for the network, which was expected. Andrew had future plans for himself, planning in fact to direct the show in a year, he always seemed to be scheming to take over the world, his palms rubbing together, eyes all beady and wild.

One day on the trailers Dan announced, that I was going to be the best boy for the day. I had never been the best boy before, wasn’t sure the most efficient way to lay cable but they decided to throw me in to the position, to see perhaps what I could do. We were at a church in downtown San Diego and I had never been to that location. Usually you get a chance to scout a location before the company gets there so you know where a quiet place for the generator will be and you can figure out where to park the trucks, run cable, etc… Needless to say I didn’t do the best job attempting to lay cable and my best boy duties were removed not too long after they were installed. I still wanted to give the job a try as I thought the show in general would be an excellent opportunity to move up and be one step closer to DP.

The trailers were a formality that had to be shot in order for the broadcasting company to give the final go ahead for all the telenovelas. The network had commissioned 6 shows to be shot in San Diego, and they needed a trailer for each, that was our assignment.

EYE ON THE CAMERA

The head honcho creatively for these shows was a cool cat named Sol Burnett.  Sol was the Director of Photography(DP) for the trailers, and his name eventually would appear as DP on the credits for all the units shot down in San Diego. The DP is the head of the camera department, he is responsible for the look of the film, which is accomplished by camera angle, lenses, and of course the type of light used and its intensity, so he also gives orders to the gaffer, in this case Andrew. Sol was always a gentleman, respectful to all members of every department. I felt comfortable with him far more comfortable than I did with Andrew.

Our second day of filming we shot at a small private airport outside of San Diego. One of the cameramen that day was a guy that I had worked with in LA on a Hallmark channel show. Nice guy, English, a little pudgy and a bit of a geek, as are most of guys in the camera department. His name was Craig. We recognized each other and started talking about the gigs going on down in San Diego. He explained how easy it was to be a camera loader on a show shot on high definition (as opposed to film). With film the loader has to actually load magazines. They have to keep track of which reel is which, as well as keep an intensive camera log. With HD, they just change the tapes, the difference is night and day in terms of work load.

Although Sol didn’t use much light for daylight exteriors, we still had to run cables from the generator to each location for power and potential lights. Here I am, hauling hundreds of feet of cable; a college educated Jewish boy, breaking my back in the scorching sun, hefting large lights getting belittled by this gay mother fucker from Utah, when this dude just sits there and changes tapes. The topper to this was that his local, which is a national local, IATSE 600, had cut an extremely better deal with the studio than the weak chapter representing the electric department. Long and short, this geek was making $10 more an hour than myself, for doing practically nothing, while I broke my ass.

Now the position I was striving for was DP. I certainly did not have the knowledge to shoot a show, but learning slowly through the electric department is the path I have taken. While still on the bottom of the totem pole in my field I have always felt that to switch to camera, even though they are kind of anal, wouldn’t be such a bad deal as both departments do lead to DP. This was the beginning of a several month run down in San Diego, so either place on the ground floor, is the ground floor. Be nicer to be on the ground floor of Trump Tower with better pay and lighter work load than to be working at Andrew's meat packing plant, risky life and limb for less.

My friend Craig mentioned that they needed people. In fact there was a camera PA. She was a sloppy Philippine girl who had no knowledge of film at all. She knew somebody I suppose just to get the job, but then again Craig said they needed people.

I wanted to ask Sol, but I couldn’t just go up to him and say:
            “Hey, any openings in the camera department?”
Andrew was my boss and anything I had to say about another position related to camera or lighting really had to go through him. So I asked him.
            “Remember yesterday when you asked me if I wanted to do  this?”
“Oh, don’t tell me.” Right away he was suspect.
He began his tirade. From the very start it was pretty clear he had his own agenda, and wasn’t going to do anything for me.

I was still curious if there were any openings in camera, so I asked him.

     "I'll check with Sol", was his reply.

 A few minutes later when our entire department was together he told them all that I had asked if there were any openings in the camera department, not a very friendly thing to do.
Make me look stupid in front of the other guys.
            “Sol says there are no openings in camera.”
I knew he was like that but I had no choice, my hands were tied, I asked and was scorned, not the first time. I still had a job for the next two weeks so I didn’t really complain.

HARD TO BEAT SD

Hard to beat San Diego really. Weather is amazing, rent is cheap, food is good, traffic is nothing compared to Los Angeles, doesn’t snow, but that is a given. Suji and I stayed in a hotel during the 2 weeks that we shot the trailers. If we were hired on the possible show that would shoot for several months after, we’d get more permanent accommodations, but in this business just have to play it by ear.

We were initially going to share a room at an inexpensive hotel at the famed hotel circle close to downtown San Diego. After reviewing the costs of the room we decided that for $15 more a night it was worth not having to fight over the remote, to say nothing about walking around naked. I had asked for a fridge in my room, nice to have some beer after a long days work and I dig a bowl of cereal as a late night snack now and again.

On arriving back at the hotel on one of the first days of shooting, I spied a bikini-clad blonde of around 20 lounging in the hot tub of the hotel. I went up to my room to ice up some beer. To my surprise they hadn't delivered my fridge yet. Where we were staying was not the most popular place, especially during the weekdays. After running to the front desk to complain about my missing fridge I thought a dip in the tub might be in order. I popped my head in to innocently ask permission to join her. She was more than agreeable to the idea. Although not quite 40 at the time I have always looked a good 10, to I dare say 15 years younger than I am. Been doing judo since I was little, so I'm in decent shape, also never had much of an affinity for smoking which can be bad for the skin. I will freely admit that I could smile more, but needless to say this bored young girl was interested in this strange dark haired guest.

Darning a pair of swim trunks I returned towel in had. My initial guess as to her age was right on, 20 and ready. Turns out she was visiting from Pennsylvania for her cousins wedding. A bride’s maid! I could do worse. She was with her parents, but staying in a room with her cousin. And her cousin, as fate would have it was out driving on a few last minute errands. The wedding, was going to be the next day.

Although there was a clear sign about no glass containers, rebel that I am I postulated the question as to whether she wanted a beer or not.
            “Yes, that would be great!”
I shot upstairs to my bag of ice and beer as my fridge still had yet to arrive. Jenny was her name. That would make triples for me on scoring with a Jenny if success was on my side. She seemed a tad nervous. Being close to 18 years her senior I have had a bit more experience in these situations. I am no Casanova, not much of a player really, admittedly my game is kind of lame, but I didn’t think we’d be hurting anybody by being familiar.

Jenny had lived a bit, she had suffered the loss of a sibling at a young age and struggled with school. These were sad topics, but we moved on to what her future held and my reason for being in town. I explained to her about the technical side of the film business and briefly went into what it was to be a juicer.

I’ve had my share of relationships. Over the last couple of years however, I've had what has seemed to be pretty bad luck with women. This past winter I had made plans to meet a girl I had met in Colorado. I drove out from California for a couple of week’s vacation. A freak snowstorm shut the airport down and she was unable to get another flight. I didn’t think Jenny and I were soul mates, but she was definitely attractive with a nice body, at 20 you can’t go wrong really. Wouldn’t you know it, her phone rings. It’s her cousin the one she is staying with. She has been stopped by the police and they get permission to search her car and they find some pot. Normally I think they would just issue a misdemeanor citation for possession and let her go on her way, but apparently not the police down in San Diego, they arrested this poor Philadelphia native. My catch of the evening had to go and bail her relative out of jail. She said she would come by maybe when they got back, I gave her my room number but she didn’t show and that was that.

FOOD ON SET

I’m a decent cook. Cooking is mostly timing and instinct. I’ve developed a macrobiotic Japanese style that suits my tastes and most of the people I entertain. I’ve been able to apply what I’ve learned living with roommates and housemates over the years. You take what you can, adapt it to your style and move on. I've learned allot from living with a half dozen or so bachelors over the years.

A film set has catered meals. There are 2 types of food provided when working in the industry. One is craft service; this refers to the minimum of donuts, coffee, and perhaps bagels in the morning, artichoke dip in the afternoon, and water through out the day. Most craft service trucks have potato chips, tea, PB&J; the gauntlet is run from the above essentials to bagels and lox, with capers, to quiche, and red bull, depending on the budget.

The other food on the set are the catered meals. There is a breakfast, ready ½ hour prior to call time, as well as a lunch, which is scheduled 6 hours after call. Depending on the show and the budget, catering can be an awesome affair or suck balls. I’ve dinned on shows where they had a sushi chef making whatever you could think of. This was not that show. The caterer on these shows somehow signed a contract with one of the producers and passed all sorts of bizarre substances to be eaten as meals. Tasteless manufactured fare that would make the most hardened sleep away camp child turns his head. Tom Hanks from “Castaway” was doing better eating liquefied crab entrails. Once in a while their colored Salmon would pass muster, but more often than not lunch just sucked! Breakfast whenever they were able to get it together was not all that bad, but you really have to work hard to ruin breakfast. They did have a plate of fruit everyday, although if was a chore getting to it, why they couldn’t put the fruit out on a table with a tray of oatmeal and some scrambled eggs always baffled me. Nowadays many more people are concerned about what they are eating, as well they should be. The industrializing of food is perhaps the worst scam that has been perpetrated on the American population. So when you go up to a catering truck and tell the pockmarked meth-addict behind the counter what you’d like off of their 5 item chalkboard, you can never know exactly what you are getting. Not everyone knows the difference between white bread, which is actually not bread at all, and 100% stone ground whole wheat, which is what bread is supposed to be. When you get used to the real thing, and are forced to eat fake break, it’s a bummer. Store bought tater tots are not hash browns, frying with margarine and vegetable oil contributes to cancer. Regardless of how bad the food is on a show, the time for lunch is still an anticipated occasion, but when you realize again each day that you have to eat this same shitty catering it becomes like a recurring, never ending bad dream.

CRAZY SEXY CREW
Our crew compliment was 1-1-4. That is to say one chief lighting tech, a best boy, and four set lighting techs. When we had big days usually loading in or loading out of a location, or when we were sparking several big lights we had to have extra men in addition to the four SLTs. Each person comes with their own personality. People you work with are exciting or dull, rude or polite, classy or uncouth. And in some cases, at least in San Diego sane or insane. One, was a crazy mother fucker, this dude Earl. I’ll admit that it’s up to the individual to get along with whom they have to deal with, and if they are having a problem excepting someone, or if someone is messing up your vibe, it’s your problem not theirs. That being said, I guess I have a bit of a problem with a lot of people, my problem, I’ll admit it, and I’m working on it. Maybe because I’m from NY, what can you say? When someone is crazier than me, then I’m kind of freaked out by the person. This dude Earl really freaked me out something pretty good. It wasn’t just his size. He was an imposing heavyset shaved head nutty looking dude. Earl had some bad skin, many a white head on the back of his scalp, he’d also make these strange noises all the time barking into the walkie talkie. I think he was psychotic. I was hoping if we did get a chance to work for several months that I’d never have to see this guy again. On a film set I like to be relaxed, very relaxed. I don’t mind working hard, I work my butt off sometimes, coiling cable for hours, loading, unloading trucks. But even then I want to do it with people I enjoy being with, otherwise I would like to do it alone.

Along with scary co-workers there were a couple of cute girls on this 2 week shoot. You always get a decent looking wardrobe or make up girl, once in a while a camera assistant is hot or an AD has a nice body. Of course the hottest girls are the principal actors or the stand-in can be a looker. Because it is a labor intensive process to set the lighting for each shot, there is a ‘stand-in’ for the main actor(s). These people literally stand where the actor will stand, miming any movement and dialog if necessary so the gaffer and the other technicians can get the light ready for the actors. I thought 2 of the AD’s had something going on pretty good. Kathleen was a cute little brunette, nice behind, not bad to look at from the front either. Kathleen had a really spunky personality, that goes a long way. She was the 2nd AD. To be an AD you pretty much have to have a strong personality. The AD runs the set and must shout out ‘rolling’ and ‘cut’ so everyone knows when they can talk and work, and when they have to be quite.

For the longest time a large women was, dare I say it, too much women for me, and I gravitated toward a petite girl, as I am not the largest guy(in stature). For a good ten years I only dated Asian women. Not so much that I found them more attractive or sexier than Caucasians, but Asian girls usually fell into the petite category. Several years ago now I started to like, as I like to put it women. Not girls but women. Big boned, ok, big hips maybe not, as long as they have a thin waist it’s all pretty good. I am no longer intimidated by women who are physically bigger than me, I still find more than 3 inches taller more of a challenge, but isn’t that what life is all about?

Besides Kathleen, I found myself strangely attracted to another AD at the time, Betsy. Betsy was a bigger girl, but she had this confidence that I really liked. Sometimes just the fact that the girl is real comfortable in their own skin can be a real turn on to me. When a girl can be herself and appear to be completely unmoved by any of my advances is real exciting for me. I read one time that you should put your effort into girls that are interested in you, it makes a lot of sense, but at the same time there is something inside me that can not resist a challenge. Betsy must have had some bad skin growing up I guess, but she did look awfully good in jeans.

Those 2 weeks went by fairly quickly, played some chess with Dan, got to see some of San Diego. When you shoot on location you are usually there very early in the morning to set up and make use of all the daylight the sun can give you. If it is a night scene, just the opposite is true and we usually shoot all night until the sun comes up. It’s exciting to go to different places in and around a city or country side.

After the 2 weeks we had to return the equipment to Los Angeles. Dan and Andrew stood by smoking cigarettes, while Suji and I broke down the entire truck, we said good bye temporarily to San Diego and the telenovelas.

 

GET THE CALL
The day after we unloaded the truck I drove out to Phoenix to visit my parents. My folks had retired and moved to the valley of the sun for some un-godly reason, but it was only 6 hours from LA and I could just jump on the road at anytime and go see them. I love my parents but after 3 days it’s time to be in my own space again. So after a few days with Mr. and Mrs. I was returning to LA to look for more film work.

Driving back west, through the desert my phone rang, it was Dan calling to see if I would work on the Orange unit of one of the telenovelas they had slated, “Fashion House”. This gig he explained was for a minimum of 2 solid months most likely 4 or 5. The large broadcasting company that shot the pilot and the trailers had bought 8 shows. Each show had 2 units shooting simultaneously, all to be produced by an outfit in San Diego, Stan Klein productions. My real goal in coming to California was to get into IATSE 728. I was planning to work as a SLT in LA, eventually to become a gaffer or DP on big shows all over the world. But the 1st step was really to learn the job. A solid slate of work would go along way towards paying off thousands of dollars of credit card debt. A torn ACL from judo, a large Bikram yoga training bill, a surfboard, various trips abroad and a move to California can add up. But I still had 2 hands and 2 legs, plus a passion to work in the industry. I’d make it up, here was an opportunity, I took the job.

ROYCE PL
Suji said he was in as well, so we had to find a place in SD. Craigslist.org is some great website. You can put an ad up and within the hour get your business taken care of. I responded to an ad for a house, got a call from the owner, and was on my way down from LA to check it out. That same day I fielded several inquires into subletting my room at my apartment in Venice.

Deep in the middle income heart of the San Diego suburbs I met Wayne. Having lived in Japan and traveled throughout South East Asia on several occasions I thought my powers of observation as to guessing what nation a particular Asian person was from had become pretty good. I couldn’t pin down Wayne, but after he said he was from Guam, I saw that I should have guessed that. 4100 Royce Place was a one floor ranch home in a tiny cul-de-sac shared with 3 other family homes. I never got to meet the neighbors although I certainly was not opposed to a nice wave now and again. For reasons that became more clear later Wayne took a shine to me on our 1st interview and had enough faith in me from that meeting to except not only me into his home but also my unseen Japanese American juicer friend. So just like that Suji and I had a place 15 minutes from the film studio for only $500 a month, including utilities. The same day I arrived back in LA and accepted Alex, an intern at a film production company from France to sublet my room in the 3 bedroom apartment that I had been living in LA. Alex seemed like a nice enough kid, he was only 19, but my other roommate was from Belgium and I thought it would be nice if they spoke the French together.

I think it may have been that 1^st week living on Royce Place that Ryan moved into the house across the way. One early evening I saw a young guy in his early twenties struggling to get a giant screen TV out of his truck. I did my neighborly duty and went outside to help him out. Ryan was straight out of Ocean Beach, a beach community north and west of San Diego. A sleeveless wife beater t-shirt, dirty blonde hair, hot white trash girlfriend, they both owned Rottweilers and Pit-bulls. These dogs would come to plague my days and nights with their incessant barking.

I, like my father have a twisted sense of what is right and what is wrong. In the past 5 to 10 years I have reigned in my radical views of this moral path and have tried to follow the straight and narrow line of our own twisted society’s cultural norms. Still, I feel that my rights as a tax paying citizen entitle me to live free of noise pollution. Noise pollution is, in our society more often than not inescapable. I blame lawyers for the horrible incessantly piercing “beep, beep, beep” that is heard when a truck is backing up. How many lives have been saved by that annoying sound? Maybe none. How many cars thieves have been foiled by the useless car alarm, most likely an equal number, but the sounds persist in our society.

Every time anyone walked past Ryan’s house his over protective Rottweiler would engage in a tirade of no less than 20 deep bellow barks that would snap me out of any potential peaceful sleep that I was enjoying. I don’t blame the dog, he was, after all a dog. He didn’t know any better, it was doing what dogs do. This doesn’t change the fact that I am entitled to peace and quite along with a restful nights sleep. I approached Ryan about it, maybe 2 months into my time living in SD.

“He is doing his job,” Ryan said rather flatly.

“One week after I moved into this house my truck was broken into. Max is a watch dog, and he scares away people who would steal in this neighborhood.”

I did agree with him, but it still was unfair that I had to be woken up most every night, usually around 4am by this animal, who more often than not was just barking at the wind.

When I lived in Colorado Springs I did a bad thing. There was this German Sheppard, a puppy actual, but full grown. Poor dog would bark and bark all day and night. I was living in an apartment complex with my girlfriend at the time. The dog’s owners had a trailer situated in the alley between two major streets behind my complex. I went over several times and knocked on these peoples door. Never an answer came. I called the police even. The skinny was that 3 separate complaints had to be filled from 3 separate residences about the same animal before the police would intervene.

OMITTED:
 

 In a couple of days time a Rotwieler showed up, fully grown in the place of the sweet, but loud German Sheppard. Fortunately the Rotwieler was not the incessant barking type, and I was able to get some sleep.

FASHION HOUSE

The start of a new show is always exciting, mostly because you get to meet all the different crew members from the other departments, as well as your own. Exciting, because you will be working on something that hopefully many people will be able to see. The Duration of these TV shows added another dimension to the work. Of course there are shoots of various lengths of time from ½ day to several months. Unless you are fairly well established in the industry it is rather difficult to get a multiple month assignment. Even after 3 years trying to break in, pretty much calling people every day I was lucky if I got on a 3 week movie, another reason I took this San Diego show.

Although Dan had hired us, and worked with us as the best boy on the trailers he did not come down to work the show of “Fashion House”. He was there only at the “Fashion House” load in. The ‘load in’ is the day the truck is loaded with the equipment for the show, be it a 2 day or a 2 month gig, all the equipment must be checked and accounted for before it leaves the rental lot. With Dan not working the show, and Andrew not having anyone he felt comfortable in the best boy position, Andrew was in a bit of a bind for the start of the show. Fortunately for him this guy Kay stepped in to be the best boy for the 2 weeks down in San Diego. Kay seemed pretty serious, but was a laid back 728 guy. The first week went pretty smooth, day exteriors on location in San Diego, we didn’t spark many lights. Then we moved over to the large studio that was to serve as most of the interior sets.

The company was to be on stage 1 of the Stan Klein studios in San Diego. Stan Klein whom I’d see once in a great while owned a massive 14 acre lot that at one time must have been an airplane construction operation. There were 11 sound stages that were converted airplane hangers. It was a huge no frills lot, one hanger was devoted to the construction materials, one hanger housed the set of a successful TV series called “Adrian Carr”, popular with the teen set. There was a huge wardrobe warehouse, as well as an array of props and set dressing that was scattered on locked up rooms in many of the stages. This was to be my on again off again home for the next 6 months. This is were I would eat, sleep(lets say nap), watch movies, smoke pot, on occasion have sex, and oh yes, of course work.

The construction crew was always putting up different sets on the stages. The set construction guys were a bunch of Polynesian fellows, pretty big guys with deep resounding voices. They were a mish mash of Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. They would come with set walls and screw guns erecting a set in a few hours. Their leader was a wide faced Samoan named Mack. The art director would issue the blue prints that would serve as the scheme for the sets. Once the walls were up they were painted, and dressed with set dressing such as props, practical lights and artwork. Set dressing was responsible for anything specific to the set, be it a home, office, restaurant or any other place that we were substituting stage for the actual location.

Usually you have to know someone when finding an unskilled job that pays fifteen dollars an hour. Most of the guys on Mack's crew seemed to be related, huge guys of Polynesian decent. They seemed pretty serious most of the time, I think that is just the look of a tradesmen.

Our first few weeks of shooting were of the interior of an Asian bar/restaurant set on stage 1. We would be there for the next 2 weeks, for a minimum of 13 hours each day, which included an hour for lunch. Actors and Actress’ would be in and out all day, we would shoot pretty much the same thing day in day out, 2 actors talking, then they would change clothes and we’d shoot the same thing with different dialog as it was supposed to be a different time, a different episode. Most TV shows take a week or more to shoot one episode, and that is all they concentrate on. For efficiency and budgetary concerns, this network took every script, (67 of them) and shot as much as they could from as many episodes as possible. This made for a lower standard of product.

The job of the set lighting tech was to do whatever Andrew, the gaffer wanted, this was; running power, setting the lights, bringing them up and pointing them at the actors. The basic lighting set up of key, back and fill were ever present with a little soft edge showing up in most of the shots for good measure. Sol Burnett as I mentioned before was the official DP of all the shows being shot down in SD. In full swing there were 3 shows running independently, and each of these shows had 2 units plus an insert unit. For “Fashion house” there was Orange and Green. Sol, the cool cat that he was, still was unable to be at several places at once. Normally the DP is the commanding technical voice on a show, he sets the shot, the lenses the light levels and gives the direction on how to shape the lights to the key grip. What occurred when he wasn’t there was that the most respected, or often just the loudest head of a department would make the decisions for the shots and how we were to set the lights. On the Orange unit it was Andrew.

Because our set represented a restaurant there were many extras playing the parts of background restaurant customers, as well as the odd bartender, waiter or hostess. The waiter or waitress would occasionally get bumped up to a speaking line here or there, but most of the background were to mime their action. A reflection on how poorly the union representative down in San Diego had fought for the set technicians could be seen in the generous compensation that the background performers received relative to our rate of pay. In my job you could die. People do in fact die every year in the trade, mostly by electrocution, but things can fall on you rather easy. Down in the San Diego any Joe Shmo could go to background San Diego.com and make $250 a day often more if multiple episodes that they appeared in were aired. Not to put them down, they were mostly pleasant people, aspiring actors just trying to make their way. The stand-in received even a higher rate. I think apart form the director or the camera operator the stand-in was the highest paid member of the crew.

 

PAY YOUR SURGEON VERY WELL
I remember distinctly the moment I saw Bo Derek. I am generally not star struck, but she was a striking beauty. The crew was shooting the interior of a hotel, it was day for day. I was inside a small circular ballroom with many doors leading to the outside patio. Someone opened the door to the outside grounds. From about 100 feet away I saw a very well dressed women, with a great figure walking languorously towards me. I said to myself, “Who is that?” As she came closer I realized it was Bo. She was very thin and the clothes literally draped over her.

The show “Fashion House” sounded like a reality TV show but it was as soap opera, the big names were Bo Derek, and Morgan Fairchild. Bo played a fashion designer diva who owns her own clothing line.

When Bo entered the ballroom area I was able to get a better look at her. She really was extremely thin, waify in fact. For several weeks we would hazard guesses as to her age. That she was in her early 50’s seemed to be the consensus. It didn’t look like she had had any work done on her face. She still had the fake tits I remember from a playboy magazine that my father had brought home of her back in the 70’s. He didn’t make it a habit of bringing home those kinds of magazines, but I think the family had just seen the movie “10” and he thought it wasn’t that inappropriate, my mom didn’t seem to object. Bo was a very beautiful woman, perhaps known as the most beautiful woman alive when “10” came out. For those who didn’t know she was the star of the popular Blake Edwards comedy with Dudley Moore, “10” as mentioned above. It’s about a successful song writer entering a mid-life crisis. He sees the most beautiful girl he has ever seen and becomes obsessed with her, following her down to Mexico on her honeymoon.

Bo was still a beautiful women, she kept all the features of one of the most beautiful women that has ever graced a magazine cover, but the years had left their mark in the form of spider lines and creases all over her pretty punum. She carried herself with grace, the grace of a person that didn’t really belong on a low–budget TV show. A show shot by a bunch of technicians just breaking into the business, but we got the job done.

I guess Bo had a bit of a rough career. She didn’t appear in that many pictures after “10”. Mike Nicholas the famous director said.

“Success is the inevitable outcome of talent, and if  you are unlucky you achieve it early.”

Perhaps this was true in Bo’s case.

After seeing Bo on the set over the course of several months she became familiar with us and would say “Hello” when we passed her on our way to or from the set, but she didn’t hang out.

The young model/actor Taylor Kenny played Bo’s son Luke in the show. Taylor hung out on the truck sometimes, he was a pretty quiet guy, I didn’t get to know him too well.

Tyler was a very good looking 6’1” male model with short dark hair and striking blue eyes, all the models in the show were in great shape, I don’t think they had any non-beautiful people in the cast at all. For me, a straight guy, I think one of 3 things when I see another guy. Usually I don’t think anything at all, but sometimes, like in Tyler’s case, I say to myself, “Wow that guy is pretty good looking.” And sometimes, if the person is very unusual looking I think, “Gee, that guy looks pretty strange”, which means they fell off the ugly tree breaking every branch on the way down. I know it is not the most spiritual way to view people, but I am human and that’s just how it goes.

The other principal star of the show was Natalie Martinez. Natalie was a fun person to have on the set. Many of these young actress’ have very out going personalities. Natalie was an extremely sexy girl of Cuban decent. She hailed from Florida, and although you wouldn’t think to look at her, as it didn’t show on her beautiful face, she had done her share of partying. I think she was only 20 or 21 at the time of “Fashion House”. Natalie was selected in a contest put on by the personality/pop singer Jay Lo. Natalie was chosen to represent Jay Lo’s new clothing line. From there she did some more modeling and past an audition to co-star with Bo Derek down in trendy San Diego. Although pretty flat chested she did have this amazing behind, being Cuban you would think so, and you would be right. She had the most lustrous shiny dark hair down to her mid back. She had a pretty deep voice and would spend some time drinking with us on the truck after wrap on occasion. Natalie played Taylor’s love interest in the show, and they were even living together in Ocean Beach during the filming.

Bo’s Nemesis in the show was the veteran actor/model Morgan Fairchild. Morgan had done loads of beauty commercial and guest started in tons of television shows. You couldn’t tell because she still looked so good, but Morgan must have had some sort of cosmetic surgery done. Maybe just some collagen injections in her face because she still had the face of a porcelain doll. You’d be hard pressed to find a line in Morgan’s face, although she was about the same age as Bo. Morgan was pretty approachable, and would hang out on set quite a bit. I never saw her partying on our truck, but I wouldn’t put it past her.

 
Perhaps the biggest celebrity to grace our set was an actress who had been in two Alfred Hitchcock films. I read her name on the call sheet and it struck a bell, Tippy Hedrin. I ran the name through the library annals of my mind and the film “Marni”, with Sean Connery appeared. The Tipster, as I liked to call her was only in a few episodes of “Fashion House”. She was on the set for a solid week though, so we got a chance to talk to her. She was in a director’s chair and I went up to her.

“Were you in Marni?”

“Yes, yes that was me.”
She was a tad impressed that I recognized her from that movie, but asked me if I knew what she was more famously know for? After having me try to guess a few pictures, she relented and let me know that she was the female lead in “The Birds.” “North by Northwest” is my favorite Hitchcock film, but “The Birds” is a classic, and we had the now immortalized Tippy on our set. She looked to be in her late 60’s but her bio says she was born in 1928, hard to believe she was mid to late 70’s as she really looked great! Tippy was extremely friendly and out going, a sweet person to be around.

Tippy played the role of Donna’s mom. Donna Feinstein like Natalie was a model who had appeared on the cover of ‘Maxim’ magazine. Donna played a seductress who gets involved with Natalie’s ex-husband. I was only able to stomach reading a few of the scripts and picked up most of the story from what we shot. The show did not enjoy any critical acclaim, and as per this writing has not been picked up for another season. You can never underestimate the tastes of this red state country, so who knows if it will come back.

Donna was a big girl, 5’11” would be safe. But she had thin legs and her ass fit into the framing of two hands touching via extended thumbs. Donna had beautiful dark hair with a sassy little curl. Her overly dramatic pouty lips were a source of much amusement for the crew members. The most memorable attribute that Donna possessed, I am sure most would agree was her amble bosom. Whether they were real or not poised some debate amongst the crew I was firmly in the camp of, if they have a wiggle like that they must be real. One lunch, Francisco, a day player electric that became part of the crew had to get some roses for his wife. We decided to both by a single red rose for Donna. On presenting our roses we both got huge separate hugs. Francisco and I were of about the same height, which is 5’6”, a perfect height to be nestled against Donna’s bosom. I can’t say for sure but I’m keeping my money with my 1st instinct that they were real and they were spectacular.

GIRLS ON SET
One reason I wanted to work in the film business was that I like to be around girls. My father was a real electrician, as opposed to being a film electric. I’ve worked for his union on summer brakes from college for several weeks in New York City. Although we did smoke a lot of pot and yucked around quite a bit, there were never girls around the construction site. This is not the same on a film set. The grip and electric departments due to the physical nature of the job are almost entirely occupied by men, often in many cases boys, I have worked with the rare female grip or electric, but you don’t often see them. What we do have are hair, makeup, and wardrobe. By the nature of these occupations, these departments are made up almost entirely of women, or gay men. I didn’t get into the business for gay men, but what can you do?

There are at least one or two super hot girls on every film set. Usually more than one or two hotties, including principals and extras which more often than not are at least on the fiery side of smoking. Our 1st day on Orange we met 2 Tinas. The first Tina was the stand-in. She had such incredible sex appeal, it was palpable. The stand-in’s job is to stand in the spot of the actor so we can adjust the light while the actors are in hair and make up, or at a wardrobe change. Tina seemed the quintessential surfer girl. Short straight dirty blond hair that seemed bleached from the sun. A smile with dimples, accenting cheeks irresistible to a grand mothers squeeze. Her brown eyes sparkled as bright as her smile. Tina was always wearing short shorts showing off her bronze tanned legs, accentuating her amble behind that fit into the directors framing of thumb and forefinger. Tina flirted with everyone but was genuinely friendly. Wearing her heart on her sleeve as I was informed most Pisces will. Day after day with these females will more often than not make a man accustomed to the lookers, and perhaps lean toward the ones that were not such lookers from the start. We were constantly asking, "Who is Tina fucking?" the unproven answer seemed to come up as "everyone". I can attest that this was not true, but she was a big flirt which did seem to make her a tad less attractive. My interest with her did in fact peak after our first couple of days, but she was a real sweet girls who’s brightness was a lift on the set.

The overall feeling of a production set, or any environment for that matter is set by the collective energy of the individuals at the scene. A bunch of dark depressed people will undoubtedly foster a heavy presence, while a positive happy crew will produce exactly that environment. Next was the make up girl Tina. She rated high on the Horn factor. This was a term I had heard many years back. Supposedly there was a doctor Horn, who developed the horn factor, which refers to that certain special something that some girls, usually not very attractive girls seem to possess that makes a man attractive to them. You cannot put it into words, something makes you attracted to them above looks and figure. Although she claimed to be of Mexican decent, she had the eyes of a Persian seductress. Maybe it was her sparse use of make up. Guys are suckers for a natural beauty. But the thing was, Tina was far from beautiful. She had a big nose, sexy lips but kind of bucked teeth. The main thing about her was that she knew how to handle herself. She was very natural and confident in her own body, and a rockin body it was. She was only 21, if that, so it is hard to go wrong at that age. She was not afraid to show her cleavage, keeping her phone tucked neatly in her bosom. The nose ring, the tongue piercing, these are not big turn-ons for me, but they do add to the exotic nature of any female.

It is interesting how different generations will view modern trends in physical appearance. My father who was born in 1933 and although not a square, is definitely a child of the 50’s who didn’t think much about the carefree days of the 60’s as he was too busy supporting a family and child, namely me. I asked him what he thought about the various face piercings that people have today. “Crazy”, was the response to most any area of the face that may be subjected to facial ornamentation. What about rings in one ear lobe, that seemed ok, but to pierce the upper cartilage was to pass reason in his book. While I don’t plan on piercing any part of my body anytime soon, I think there is nothing wrong with a subtle nose ring on a girl, for guys I don’t think its necessary, but I’m not one to judge. When the girls, and guys for that matter constantly find it necessary to grasp their tongue ring between their lips and teeth so all can see that they have the ability to add another dimension to fellatio seems a bit immature but that may just be me, maybe I’m a bit on the conservative side.

 

REST OF THE CREW
In addition to Suji, we started working with Billy and his older brother Ellis. Billy had pretty much zero experience and Ellis had worked mostly as a set PA on a few television shows that have been shot down in San Diego. Ellis also worked just a couple of days with us as an electric on the trailers. I had even mentioned to Dan, that if you were going to have another juicer please pick Ellis as opposed to the psychopath Earl. I was hoping never to see Earl again, and would have rather gone into a coma than work with him.

Ellis and Billy were both in their earlier twenties, Ellis while well under 6 feet tall, was a big boy with a bright boyish face. Ellis had an agreeable disposition, soft spoken, but not afraid to give his opinion on a matter. During the course of six months I saw both Billy and Ellis mature considerably. At the start they were eager to get the job done. Ellis on more than one occasion was so focused on the task at hand ordered by Andrew through the radio that he would unknowingly knock me to the side as he hurriedly grabbed a piece of equipment. This started to bother me, as I often was on my way to grab a ladder or a light when I was hip checked to the side by a guy 15 years younger than me, and 60 pounds my senior. But Ellis was a good kid and I knew he meant well, just a tad gung-ho in the beginning for my speed.

Billy was not quite as swift as his brother. About the same height, he was not chubby although a craft service belly did soon appear on the lad before long. As bright eyed as Ellis, Billy didn’t know the equipment just yet, but when he did get accustomed to the job he became lackadaisical and took the normal time when he went to get what was ordered. Billy was also a songwriter and played in a band that had started up in the San Francisco area. He would take off from work on long weekends to play a concert in and around San Francisco and Santa Cruz. He had a reggae rap style and his band the “Unknown Titans” apparently had a following back in the Bay area.

The equipment needed to make a motion picture, T.V. show or commercial is generally carried in semi’s of various sizes, referred to by their tonnage capacity. A 10 or 12 ton is a 16 wheeler with additional loading space and compartments underneath known as jockey boxes. The inside of a 10 ton truck is accessed from the swinging back doors equipped with a hydraulic lift gate to lift equipment loads and carts from the street to the safety of the truck and vice-versa. Most trucks of the 10 or 12 ton variety have an additional side door with a fold out staircase to allow easier pedestrian access to the body of the truck and office. The office is in the back of the truck sectioned off with plywood, maybe a door, or even a beaded curtain if your best boy is a hippy with some flair. The office is where the best boy does the paperwork and where general bull shitting, occasional pot smoking and drinking after wrap are accomplished. I personally don’t smoke cigarettes and detest when the truck gets filled with smoke, but it’s really up to the best boy to set the rules as he spends most of the time in the truck looking over inventory, equipment, manpower and paperwork. Best boys embellish the office with posters of girls, a calendar, some speakers, and perhaps even a television depending on the length of the show and the leniency of the gaffer.

Although our work was physical; lifting, hauling lights, coiling cable. We had carts full of light stands and power distribution equipment. The shows were actually pretty easy. We were often at the same location for several days in a row, with little to do except adjust a light a few feet, or make sure some cable was out of the shot. We often could just walk away at the end of the day and just leave the equipment for the next morning.

There were some days when we were constantly moving large bulky lighting equipment and we would be dripping in sweat on and off all day. For this reason we all generally came to work in shorts and a t-shirt, clothes you could work in. You needed a pair of gloves and other pocket tools such as a wrench, knife, flashlight and a screwdriver, a power tester came in handy, something to hold your walkie talkie. Around your waist you had your tool belt.

Our Crew hummed along that 1st week. The schedule for these adult soap operas was ambitious. The producers scheduled 18-20 pages of dialog per day. On a normal film set to shoot 2-4 pages a day is difficult. There was no pretense that we were creating anything artistic at all. We did a wide shot, a medium shot, and a tight shot, with a single on one actor, then a single on the other actor and then shot the reverse. I had experience on various shoots but this was to be the longest project that I had ever worked on up to that point. We had a seventy day shooting schedule, with most days on the various shooting stages of Stan Klein studios. The other locations were in and around various areas of San Diego that the locations department had secured.

Kay, the best boy Andrew had brought down had made it clear that he was not going to work more than 2 weeks on the show, so at the end of the 2nd week of shooting we were not sure where the next best boy was going to come from. I had never been the best boy on a show, I had done some of the duties but never ran a crew from the beginning and wasn’t positive of what to do. That being said, I still felt that I was the logical choice given who we had on our crew and if no one was going to come from the outside, then surely Andrew should pick me. Billy and Ellis had virtually no experience, Suji had worked a fair amount in Japan, but was pretty quiet back then, and had not demonstrated the qualities or abilities that would be necessary to do the job, and he was planning on going to Japan in about a month anyway.

On the 2nd Monday of the show, the 1st week without Kay, Suji and I show up at the truck at call time. Ellis greets us with surprising news.
     “Andrew is going to be a little late, I guess I’m going   to be the best boy."
I was pretty shocked. I wasn’t expecting to be put in the position really, but under the circumstances I thought the job may be offered to me.
     “Did he call you and tell you that?”
     “Yeah, I spoke to him.”
So it was official, Andrew had passed me over.

When something unexpected happens to you in your career, you automatically try to make some sense of the situation.
“What did I do wrong, what have I said? Is there something inherently wrong with me? Is it because I’m Jewish? Because I’m known to smoke pot on occasion?”

These are questions that run through your mind. You start to question everything about yourself, and then of course you try to rationalize. Maybe Dan told Andrew I didn’t think he was very cool, or I asked about moving to camera and he held that against me. Maybe because I do the New York Times crossword in between takes had given a bad impression. I think that Andrew had the right to hire and fire whomever he wanted, and if I was in his position I would do the same thing. In terms of making a decision, I would weigh my options, and see who I wanted to work for me. Maybe he thought we would butt heads, and that I wouldn’t do exactly what he said to do every time. On this assumption he would actually have been correct.

I’m from NY and when you are dealing with a New Yorker you are most likely going to get a second opinion. Now we don’t mean to put you down, or to say you are wrong, we are merely stating our view on the same situation, just putting it out there so to speak, that is our way. We respect anyone with an opinion, and a voice, we usually can infer from your tone whether some decisions are open for debate or not, or even how much of a debate is going to be tolerated. But see, I am kind of a fish out of water here in La La land.
The entire Californian vernacular to me is laced with deceit and insincerity. ‘Take it easy Boo’, and even ‘Hey how’s it going Bro’, put into the Cali drawl, don’t sound right. For me not only do the people seem phony, but they don’t seem to understand straight forward thinking. If I give my opinion I am not challenging your authority, I’m just giving a different opinion, a view point, that may in fact be the more efficient method of getting a task done. I have enough confidence in myself to not only see where a potential mistake is about to happen, but to try and remedy the mistake. I’m also smart enough to know when not to talk in certain situations, but when I can help out, I try.

Andrew was very political, and he would go on to say Ellis knew a lot of people from the season he worked as a set PA on "Adrian Carr", the show shot at Stan Klein studios, and that would go a long way in dealing with the transportation department as well as getting some things that we needed from the other departments. Although Ellis turned out to be a decent best boy, he did make many rookie mistakes because he really didn’t know the equipment that well, and I would not have had as much loss and damage at the end of the show. This nonsense about knowing people from other departments was bullshit. I could tell the day he blew off my request about the camera department that Andrew did not have any of my interests in mind. One of the reasons I took the show was the fact that we all had a good chance to move up. After the 2nd week a chance came, but I was shot down buy that back stabbing weasel.

I wanted to like Andrew, I really did. He had some funny things to say, he was a pretty witty guy. We talked a bit about movies and popular culture. There was just something in his tone that was so phony, it disturbed be. He had the melodious sound of a snake. The hypnotic voice saying what you want to hear, but to me his tone betrayed the fact that he didn’t really mean what he was saying. Hollow as a tin drum are the words of the scorpion, as they distract you, their tail ever poised to strike the moment you look away. Andrew personified this image with every drag of his cigarette. The smoke of lechery filled his lungs and spewed out as spoken words, the sounds of a 4 time senator running for re-election. It was under heavy situations, where the pressure of time became a variable that his true colors would come to the surface. Difficult situations do not build character so much as they reveal it.

One instance when we were under the gun and metering the current from the generator did our leader peel back his mask of mirth to show the deep down ugliness that lurked just below the surface. He had it disguised brilliantly perhaps to the dim witted, but sloppily hidden to those who have had just the barest experience at reading people. Apparently we were not getting the proper reading coming out of the distribution box and Andrew had to read it for himself. I was squatting by the box next to Billy and we heard “Move!”.
That really is not a good way to talk to people that you want to respect you. If I was in his position, perhaps I would have been stressed but even when stressed I’m going to be pretty respectable to my comrades.

Apparently Andrew’s father and one of the producers, Jacob, knew each other from way back in the military. That was how he got the gig as gaffer. Andrew stayed at Jacob's home for several weeks, maybe a month, heading back to LA on the weekends. It was difficult to get a good bead on Jacob. He was always smiling and pretty red faced, seemingly perpetually drunk. If he was the producer you would think that he must have had something on the ball. Jacob’s son-in-law, Francisco started coming in afternoons for a few hours to learn the business. Francisco turned out to be a pretty funny guy. 5’5” tall stocky and of Mexican decent, Francisco had very long straight black hair that he kept in a bun at the back of his head. Francisco was pretty quiet for the 1st week of the show, just feeling everyone out I guess, trying to find his place. When Ellis moved up to the best boy position Francisco became part of the crew.

It’s so much fun to have someone with a sense of humor on the set. Life in general I think is taken much too seriously. So much drama injected into so many circumstance where people would be a lot better off if they just let it go. I understand time is money and I’m not advocating dragging your ass or not hustling when the time to work comes. Communication is the key to success. There is a great amount of unspoken communication conveyed between people, if you can understand your co workers with out the necessity of speaking you can get the job done that much more efficiently. Francisco and I were able to look at each other and communicate without really talking. Ellis, Billy and Suji were pretty hip as well, Billy perhaps not the swiftest, but at least he wasn’t an ass, like Andrew.

ADULT SHOOT

I had asked Dan, from the beginning. If we were called to LA for union days, or a high paying commercial, would there be any problem leaving for a day or two. He assured us that we could go work commercials, and they would have extra men and day players that could cover us.

Many years back, after college I went to Japan for about a year. I had been practicing judo since I was a child, and my last year of college, I met an rapturous Japanese exchange student. I wasn't sure what I was going to do after college. I heard you could teach English in the Osaka area, which was where she was living at the time. After my senior year, I packed up and went to the Kansai area of Japan, presumably to teach English and to learn about Japanese culture. I met a lot of great people there through my girlfriend and through judo. One Japanese friend of mine who I had kept in touch with approached me several years later with an idea for an adult internet site catering to the Japanese, but housed in the USA. You see, the Japanese have these funky censor laws, where they block out the 'naughty' bits of an adult movie or magazine with a black square, or a mosaic distortion. He thought that if we put up an uncensored website in the US, but wrote it in Japanese and advertised in Japan that we would not only make a lot of money, but we would not be breaking any laws either. Although never completely sure about the legality of the thing, I like money and I like girls, so I helped him put it together. This was the summer of 1996, when the internet was just getting started. SexJapan.com was pretty successful for about 4 years, then we just started making less and less money, until I sold the URL back in 2003. While my libido was perhaps not as large as Ron Jeremey's, even before I was an adult webmaster     I was no stranger to adult film.

As our rate in San Diego was disgraceful, I kept my contacts and ears open for any potential LA work. One day I got a call to work a couple of days on an adult shoot. Being a distributor of photos and being on a XXX film set are not the same thing. The money they were offering was more than twice the day rate of San Diego, so I went up to check it out. I was going to work with a contact I had made on a low budget film the year before. Bill was another electric, although he confided that he really did prefer gripping because he hated to coil cable. I liked Bill's pace, slow and steady, wasn't prepared to go running for anyone or anything, but he knew the business and had been in it over 5 years, just hadn't been able to get his union days. We were working on a Vivid shoot. Vivid is a pretty big name in the industry and I remembered their products from days of SexJapan.com. The first day had naked girls running around, delivering lines but no sex. I was actually fairly impressed by the believability of one of the actors, thinking "Wow, she has great tits, and she can even act".

The crew was pretty small, Bill and myself, plus the gaffer. The gaffer on this adult show was a gravel voiced barrel-chested gutter talking, chain smoking ex-hippie named Bernie. Bernie looked to be about 65 but was probably in his 50's, dyed grey hair that strange old man blonde. A Beatles haircut gone terribly wrong. The actress' were pretty friendly, not very suspicious, but bright eyed and smiling, at least on the few days I worked. The camera-man was a awfully skinny guy, mid 30's with bad skin and oily hair. He reminded me of R.Crumb, - the famous cartoonist from the 60's - but with darker hair and slightly better teeth.

The first day of any show you are not completely sure who is who, someone who appears to be a make up girl could actually be and actress and vice-versa. One taller older guy who seemed to be either a producer or director was strangely familiar to me but I could not place him. He turned out to be a well know director of adult films, but was a porno actor in the past, and was in a movie I used to have when I was a teenager. I owned 3 or 4 VHS tapes that had long ago lost much of their quality due to excessive rewinding and playback of certain sections. This director was Arnie Stevons. Although having been in the business for over 20 years, and obviously knowledgeable of his craft, he seemed at least to me to be missing a plethora of brain cells, no doubt burnt away through years of prodigality.

Latter that day I got the nerve to ask him if he was indeed one of those faded figures from a favorite scene I'd watched again and again.
     "Were you in this movie '8 to 4'?" Arnie cocked his head slightly, a vacant stare possessed him. After a moment or two.
     "Yes, I was in that, we made that movie in 1982."
That seemed to be the right time I would have read the ad from  Hustler magazine, and somehow acquired the movie from the video store to copy for my collection. I may still have that movie in VHS somewhere in my parents attic in Phoenix.

Later that day I worked on my 1st sex scene. I was chosen by Bernie to hold the ‘C’ light. This is a small light, a 200 to 250 watt light called an Inky that we put on a c-stand arm so we can hand hold the light and use it to light the actors 'action' when they are in various positions. The 1st scene they asked me to do was a girl on girl encounter. I assumed I’d have no problem with being up close and center for this event. Ever since I was about 11 years old I’ve been peaking at Playboy, Penthouse, and any other magazine that contained pictures that every red-blooded American boy made it his mission to see first hand. Seeing it in a magazine or watching it on TV, and being right there when they shoot, is, as you might think pretty different, and the experience is especially surreal.

In retrospect this was in many ways the most unique experience of my life. I have participated in a fair amount of exclusive events. Hiking in the Himalayas, I’ve seen the opening ceremonies at a Summer Olympics. I was in the park in Atlanta when the bomb exploded in 96’, I actually heard the explosion. I've been to Machu Picchu in Peru. Although these events are shared by a very small percentage of the world’s population, how many people can say they’ve held the light when people are having sex in a porno?

That 1st day while the girls where going at it howling away, I had a funny notion. I had my tool belt on, and was carrying my phone, on vibrate of course. The phone I had at the time was not a flip top, so it was pretty easy to make a call and leave the phone in it’s holder. These girls were screaming in ecstasy as they were between each others legs, I thought what if I called my buddy in NY, he’d answer the phone to 2 girls having sex. I gave him a call and left it going on my tool belt, I think he listened for a few minutes. I could go for a porno phone call once in a while, wouldn’t be too bad.

The next day we shot 2 more sex scenes. As I was setting the lights for one shot they asked me to ‘stand in’ for the blocking of the scene.

 
     “Just sit on the couch and we’ll block the girl.”

 
I sat there while a sexy blonde actress from the Czech Republic came up behind me. She put her hands on my chest and walked around to the front of the couch. This girl had a very fit sexy body and was not bad looking at all. She looked like one of those fitness models that you see on TV doing 1 hand pushups and back flips. I like muscular chicks like that; as well as soft ones, it’s all pretty good actually. She did a little strip tease for the camera and myself. I started thinking,

     “You know, I just might be able to do this. One or two    guys watching but keeping their distance, this girl is    pretty hot, I don’t think it would be too hard to screw   her in front of a couple people.”

Every guy most fantasize once in a while about being a porn star, but I never thought I would ever act on it, but being there with that girl, I really didn’t want her to stop.

When they did say that they were finished blocking the scene she reached down for a little contact with the big fellah, and I was really thinking,

“Wow, maybe I could.”  As I got up with a smile on my face I saw Arnie nodding his head in approval, as he knew that it was a pretty interesting experience for me.

One sex scene I worked on I’ll never forget. This girl and this guy went at it so hard and long it must have been some kind of a record. Before a scene starts they take some still photos of the girl. The guy is off in the corner full of anticipation and Viagra no doubt as you can see his dick through his jeans, passing the limits of his underwear. Woody extending to his thigh, like the front of some Rolling Stones album. I held the C-light for this scene, even called my buddy again as he hadn’t receive a guy-girl call. We shot for about 20 minutes, then as if on cue the camera man and I, as well as the couple people on the periphery took a break, leaving the actors to go at it for another 15 to 20 minutes. We could here her screaming her head off form the other room. After a little while we went back to finish off the scene. I haven’t worked in that end of the business since then, but sometimes I think about it. I didn’t come to Hollywood to make blue movies, and I’ve turned down such work since.
     “You don’t need those images floating around in your          head.”

Was the comment of one union guy when I told him about the experience, but I have no regrets about that day.

 

GRIP DEPT

My department was the electric department. The sister, or perhaps more appropriate the brother department to electric is grip. We would call them “grip brothers”, and they would in turn call us their “electrical brothers”. Basically the electrics set the light, while the grips shape the light. They shape and cut the light by using flags, and different types of diffusion frames. In addition to shaping the light, the grips are responsible for securing the camera to a dolly or any other object like a car or a crane. The grips and the electrics for that matter do not really get as much respect from the other departments, not as much as they should. Maybe because our jobs are decidedly blue collar, and many in the department may not have that high of an education. But our jobs are difficult and take years of experience to master. The gaffer’s counterpart in the grip department is the key grip, and under the key is the best boy grip, then the other grips, just like the other electrics are under the best boy electric.

The grips are always more laid back than the electrics. It does of course come down form the key. If Andrew was cool, then our job would have been more relaxed, I've worked on sets where the key grip was a hard ass, but they are generally pretty cool. Herman Fuentes was the key grip for the Orange unit. Because grip equipment doesn't take as much wear and tear as electrical, a smart key grip eventually buys a truck and equipment and starts to rent out not only his services but his equipment and truck. Herman was a very good natured family man. Never a disparaging word was heard from him. Always positive, always calm and patient when getting his point across. You find many of these people in the film business. Unfortunately though, because we are not all as pleasant as Herman, there is something called the ‘asshole factor’. This refers to the dudes that often find their way onto a crew to fuck up the harmony for everyone. These are usually very nervous, self centered, often insecure individuals that are, suffice to say, not fun to be around.

For me, grips have a slightly different vibe than the guys of the electric department. Hard to describe a vibe. While I like to think of the electrical department as more sophisticated, perhaps more philosophical, grips can be described as more physical. Although I could see where they would have something else to say about it. Members of both departments smoke cigarettes. Both are know to use foul language. In small budgeted productions, grip and electric become one department known affectionately as ‘G & E’. Maybe electrics have more of an elitist attitude. For some reason we think that we are a little better educated or self important when we are really the same. It seems like many grips are content to stay as grips while more electrics aspire to move up to gaffer and eventually, director of photography.

When I first saw Herman and the other grips play footbag (Hacky Sack) in between the set ups on the trailers, I didn’t immediately start playing. They were another department, which really shouldn’t matter, but Andrew, penis that he was, was our leader and boss, and I didn’t want to seem out of line. Eventually though I gravitated toward the hack and got into it with the grips. They were great guys to hang out with, and I like that the grip brothers are our brothers.

EXTRA MEN

One particularly friendly and good natured grip named Alukai took a liking to me. Alukai was of Polynesian decent, and as you might expect was big boned and a big boy overall. Alukai had that sing song Hawaiian accent. Most Hawaiian’s I’ve met are very friendly people. Every Hawaiian seems to be everyone else’s cousin, so it’s hard to say if one electric that we picked up was really Alukai’s cousin or not. Never the less we got an additional guy on our crew about halfway through the shoot, this was Pauly, he went by the nickname Tamali for some reason. Tamali was a singer in a reggae band, he was supposed to be pretty good. As a ‘SLT’ however Tamali’s performance left something to be desired. In retrospect he wasn’t that bad, the job was really pretty easy, but I just remember that Tamali was always the last guy to do anything on the set, and the 1^st guy to be eating. Didn’t much care for Tamali, hard for me to trust him for some reason.

Although the film industry was rather young and small in San Diego, the rock and roll industry had been long established. Some guys crossed over into film rigging, and on set lighting. Many of the lights we use are the same, and the power distribution set up is pretty similar, so it’s not such a big jump. We picked up a rock and roll guy on our crew along with Tamali about mid-way through the show. Hamby was about my age, late 30’s, maybe a bit older. Many of these rock and roll guys really have that air that they have seen it all. I guess if you’ve been a roadie for 10 or 15 years, you most likely would have seen your share of sex drugs as well as rock and roll. Hamby had a pleasant but weathered face, caring, patient eyes, his long blonde dreadlocks confirmed the fact that he didn’t get too worked up about anything. Perhaps some people didn’t like that he was calm and methodical about every move. I dug the way he conducted himself. To be calm and relaxed on the set is my goal. As a veteran R & R guy, he had sworn off the pipe many trips ago. We had a similar taste in music, and that’s about all it really takes for me to bond with someone. He was a bit into power distribution, that doesn’t really interest me that much. Cables and electricity are kind of neat I guess, but I can take it or leave it. I definitely do not like to talk hours on end about how a machine runs or what is the best way to convert one energy source to another. It is an essential part of our business and when I’m the best boy all these numbers must work smoothly, but it’s just not my favorite aspect of the film business.

After being on a few different stages at the Stan Klein studios, and a few different locations around downtown San Diego, we found out that we would be in a large office complex north of downtown for possibly four weeks. One of my favorite things about the job of a ‘SLT’ was the peripatetic nature of the job. I’ve been on a tug boat around the statue of liberty, been on an air craft carrier, a nautical navy cemetery, spent the night in a natural history museum, nothing came alive though. It’s all these different locations that make the job so exciting. When you are in one location for along time it can get pretty boring. The plus about the same location is that at the end of the night you can just turn off the lights and walk-away. That is a big plus I admit, but after one week I get antsy and am happy to coil cable and pack the truck just to see another place.

After just a couple of days at our new office location the boredom really started to set in. Fortunately, Ellis who by now was several weeks into his best boy duties had taken Andrew’s advice and purchased a small television for the office in the back of the truck. Francisco had brought in his Sony Play Station, and all of us had started making trips out to the truck to play “FIFA Soccer” and “Grand Theft Auto”.

I was never was much for playing video games on a computer. I did have an Atari in elementary school, and spent hours playing ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Adventure’. Those were the days. An occasional stoner session and a trip to the arcade with my buddies, was as far as my video game experiences had gone after Atari. For 5 years I was a webmaster, so I never had extra time on the computer as there were always improvements on the site, or advertising that could be done. As an adult webmaster there is no time for anything but 'business'.

Here I am several years later hanging out in this electric truck, there is fuck-all to do on the set. We set the lights one way, maybe you need one guy to tweek them a tad for a mini change in camera angle, but we often had hours between set ups. The show had its shots put together as if on an assembly line. I got into FIFA Soccer with Francisco. We would sneak out to the truck, sometimes smoke, mostly not, but we played our share of FIFA. One day ‘GTA Vice City’ was brought in. It took me a little while to get the hang of the controls, but this game soon became my passion. All I wanted to do was run around in this city and blow people’s heads off. I don’t consider myself a particularly violent person. I never liked gory films or horror movies. I like Bruce Lee of course, and Kung Fu movies, but that out of body experience you get from running amok in a virtual city is pretty intense.

One day I came in to work and I was informed that Hamby found some place in the game where you can get a rocket launcher, it was pretty cool. Generally the sound effects in the game I found to be distracting and preferred to listen to my I-pod, but when I got that rocket launcher I would turn the sound up. Hours we would spend running from the police trying to get the FBI and eventually the army after us. Sometimes after work we would stay in the truck just playing the game, so hypnotic it was.  The game was so addicting, that one day over the weekend I broke down and got one myself, I couldn’t believe it, but that’s just the way things go I guess.

It was right about this time in the show that Suji had to go back to Japan to handle some personal business. He would be coming back, but he had to take off for 3 weeks. Hamby became part of the regular crew at that point. A few days after Suji left Ellis announced that he had to be out of town one day as well. I thought perhaps Andrew would finally give me a chance to be the best boy. After all, I had been on the crew the longest and was the most experienced. I was sure that I had garnered enough respect from Andrew at that point and that he would promote from within, at least for the day. Besides the extra 2 dollars an hour, I was looking forward to a chance at a new position.

I came in on the day after tentatively hearing that a guy named Adam would be filling in for Ellis. I wasn’t sure which Adam would be coming in. Perhaps it was this guy we called Brother-A, whose real name was Adam, he was a 728 guy who had helped out on the trailers. If Brother-A was coming in that would not be much of an insult to me as he had experience of running a crew already. When I got to the truck that day I was introduced to Adam Bear. Adam Bear was a good guy, they called him ‘A’ Dub for some reason, many of us had these queer little nicknames. A-Dub had been a best boy before, but on another unit, one that was on hiatus at the moment. They were set to go into production again in just a few weeks or so, and Adam was going to move up to gaffer. His gaffer was set to move up to Digital Imaging Tech, a position that was more associated with camera, and carried a higher rate for essentially the same job. After working one day with us and getting along well with me, Adam mentioned that still another unit was going to be starting up pretty soon, and that their gaffer Spence, this hip guy from Louisiana, was looking for a competent best boy. Spence, like most of the gaffers that they brought in from points unknown, was not familiar with any of the San Diego locals and the local pool of qualified lighting techs was running low.

Adam said that Spence had a few crew members but in his opinion none of them was up to the task of being the best boy. Adam also shared my confusion as to why Andrew didn’t make me the best boy for the day. Even though I don’t dig the guy, I would still have done my best to carry out his orders. I’m still at a loss as to the real reason Andrew didn’t have any faith in me. I told Adam that I was interested in leaving the Orange unit, and to be best boy on another unit would be a welcome change.

That evening I got a call to come up to LA and work on a weekend project. This was not an adult film, but was a short horror movie about vampires. I really love working on films as opposed to TV, and as I still needed money to pay off my debts. I drove up to LA that Saturday and found our location somewhere in the Hollywood Hills at a macabre mansion. The shoot was the last 2 days of a vampire movie filled with B-actor cameos. One of my favorite characters of any movie was a guest star in this show. The actor who played the lunatic ‘Wes’ from “The Road Warrior” was playing a bartender on this shoot. I was going to ask him if he was Wes, and tell him how much I admired his character, but someone else shouted, 

     “Weren’t you in “The Road Warrior?”

So I lost my nerve. There were some other interesting characters on that shoot. The lead from “Flash Gordon” played a vampire on the show. It turns out that that actor had played Bo’s fiancée in “10”. I introduced myself to him, letting him know I was working with Bo down in San Diego.  He was pretty friendly and curious about her, gave me his card to give to her which I did when I returned to San Diego. Another pseudo famous actor who showed up on the horror film shoot was Kato Kaelin, from the OJ Simpson trial. He was a friendly enough fellow. A few of the stunt women were pretty sexy, but It’s hard to get a date when your on the show for a short time, although it does happen.

On that shoot I was able to call in another guy to help me. One Grip/Electric guy I worked with a few times and got me some work was this cool guy Dwayne. I was able to bring Dwayne on for the two days. Dwayne and I talked about the shoot in San Diego and he said he thought Bernie, the gaffer from the porn shoot was going to go down to San Diego and run a crew. This made a bit of sense to me as I knew a bit of Bernie’s history. Apparently he had lived in San Diego in the past. This was before he had a drinking problem, married a porn star and messed up his career. I was seriously considering options to get away from Andrew’s crew, so I got Bernie’s number and left a message letting him know that I would be interested working with him down in San Diego if he did indeed make it down there.

The Horror movie shoot was kind of fun, but I had to get back to San Diego for my gig. The next day I was back on the set and got a call from Adam. He wanted me to confirm that I would leave the Orange crew to be the best boy for Spence on the Red unit starting up. Strange how this always happens, but about a half hour after I spoke with Adam I got a call from Bernie. In Bernie’s rough voice he asks if I’ll be his best boy on the Purple unit that was also gearing up for another show. I had never met Spence, but I knew Bernie, I liked Bernie so I told him I’d do it. Later on that day, I was thinking what it would be like to work with a chain smoking hot head for 3 months, not to mention what crazy carnie type porno lighting characters he might bring down to work on his crew, so I flip flopped and decided to go with Spence. I had found out that Spence had given up smoking and I had a better chance of picking up my own crew. I called Bernie back, got his machine again, but I apologized saying that I had committed to Adam and Spence and that it wouldn’t be right to bail on them.

Now I had only to put together a crew to take to the Red unit. I tried first to recruit some of my disgruntled comrades from Andrew’s crew, but before long Andrew got wind of my cue. I intended to tell Andrew that I was going to split for another crew, but he heard a bit earlier and was a little pissed off I guess. Insecure guy that he was, he wanted to fire me right away. I managed to keep my job a few more days, but then made the change to the Red unit of the new show starting up. I would be the best boy for “Watch Over Me".

THE RED UNIT
“Someone to Watch Over Me”, later changed to “Watch Over Me”, was the next show I worked on. I had read some of the scripts from “Fashion House”, maybe 5 or 6 episodes in all out of the 67 that were shot. They were pretty lame I must say. The scripts for “Watch over me” by contrast were pretty exciting to read. The story centered on a love triangle between a multi-millionaire arms dealer, his girlfriend, and their body guard. A former Miss Universe from Argentina played the female lead. Dionora was a very friendly, very pleasant actress/model, who was famous in Latin America. I don’t think I would have chosen her for Miss Universe, but I didn’t see the competition, and they have all those other categories, so, really shouldn’t judge. One of the actors had been the star of “Starship Troopers”, a modest Sci-Fi hit. The other actors were relative unknowns.

We had some killer eye candy on this shoot as well. The actress playing a rival arms dealer was a shapely vixen of Columbian descent. Gazelle had an exotic face, with beautiful almond shaped eyes. Many good-looking girls are from Columbia, Rachael Welch was Columbian. I talked to Gazelle quite a bit. I had lunch with her a couple of times, but she had a boyfriend in LA and was usually going back up there for the weekend. I was never able to spend much time with her away from set. Another of the principals that would show up on set from time to time was a very sexy, very dark and nubile figure name Lana. I believe Lana was around twenty years old, what was so alluring about Lana was not just her beauty but her smile. Sometimes when she was on set it wasn’t necessary to start up the lights as her smile was so broad and bright. Lana was Panamanian.

On A-Dubs recommendation to Spence I would be the best boy for the Red unit of “Watch Over Me.” Each of these shows had a sister unit, it was Red and Blue for “Watch over Me”, while Orange and Green shot “Fashion House”.  Spence was from New Orleans, and had been a Hurricane Katrina evacuee. Spence was Creole, and a cool cat who definitely moved to the beat of his own drum. To me, a Jewish boy from New York who went to an integrated public school, Spence just looked like a white guy with maybe some black features, I was ignorant to any socio-economic pressures that his upbringing may or may not have provided. He sounded educated when he spoke, so to me, he didn’t seem at all underprivileged.  Spence definitely had a huge chip on his shoulder, one that this Northerner could never figure out. He often pacified this chip with drink and smoke, both of which he would use on the job. Over the course of several weeks I would come to know Spence a bit better and really came to enjoy his company.

Our first meeting occurred at an impromptu load in. Most load-ins, where you load the truck with equipment, are accomplished at the rental house. The show however was in San Diego, and the rental house was in Santa Clarita, a harrowing 3 hour drive through LA traffic. Somehow Spence and A-Dub had made the trip to Santa Clarita studios but because they were undermanned and pressed for time, they just kind of threw the equipment in the truck haphazardly, leaving it to another day to rearrange. That first day A-Dub and Spence went off to scout the location that we would be shooting for the first couple of months on the show. I was left to organize the truck with our 2 other set lighting tech's.

The two committed crew members were Greg and Marsh. Marsh was straight out of Pacific Beach. My 1st impressions of Marsh were that he was a high school drop out and a tweeker; someone who was into speed, or crystal meth. A decent looking guy, short, around 5 feet 6 inches tall, thin and wiry. He had the innocent wide eyed look of a child, mixed with the mischievous expression of the cat who just ate the canary. You could tell that Marsh was a hard worker, but you could also see that if he could get away with something he most likely would. Although constantly on the scam, I felt I could, for the most part, trust Marsh. The legality of a situation and the law in general in his mind were dealt with on a moment by moment, case by case basis. Although far from being in step with the law, I got the impression that he would never do anything intentionally malicious.

Halfway through the day Marsh informed me that he was living in a group home, and that he had to be downtown at 5PM for a meeting. If someone has to go somewhere during the job, I am for the most part quite accommodating. What I didn’t know, was that he had to be in downtown San Diego each and every day of the week at 5PM. This is an unheard of situation for our line of work. Being that we usually work for 12 hours or more each day, it just wasn’t fare to the rest of the crew. He was a hard worker, and I came to enjoy his company. Most of all the final decision rests with the gaffer as to who can take liberties, and who will ultimately be on the crew. It seems that Marsh had had a drinking problem once upon a time. Not too long ago he lost control at a bar, swiped a bunch of money off the bar tender, then went walking around the bar handing out the cash to the other patrons. The police were called, and Marsh landed in hot water. All the details are not known to me, but he was living in a halfway house when he came to work on our crew. Marsh had to check back in at his residence every day at 5 PM, as well as return each night by the eleven o’clock for curfew. If this wasn’t enough of a problem, Marsh had recently had a little baby girl no doubt with one of the good looking, responsible, but maybe easy members of his temporary institution. Spence no doubt felt for Marsh and wanted to help him out. We kept him on the crew.

Being the best boy, Marsh's absence was a bit harder on me. I had to make up for a missing crew member on most days. Spence as the gaffer was removed in a way from the manpower situation. As long as the job got done within the required time he didn’t really care how the work was distributed. Marsh's not being there did hurt us on occasion, but overall the job was so easy that it didn’t really matter, and no one on production ever noticed he was gone. It wasn’t fare to the other juicers, but they say you have to pick your battles, and letting Marsh go was not one that I really wanted to get behind.

Along with Marsh, to load up the truck we had Greg. Greg was an all American blonde, big boned surfer/snow boarder who seemed awfully familiar to me. It turns out that I recognized him from living in Colorado, as both he and I
had spent several ski seasons and subsequent summers in the mountains there. We knew some of the same people, and I was glad to have a Mountain State native on the crew. Greg was as hard a worker as Marsh, but completely guileless. Blonde hair cut in bangs, he was constantly sporting his broad smile, overflowing with good intentions from day one. Although an experienced surfer and snowboarder, his bulk seemed often to get in his way, he was like a growing puppy that had not as yet become comfortable with his size.

 

FORGET THE PRICE
The 1st month and a half of the Red unit shoot was to take place at a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, a ritzy neighborhood in the northern suburbs of San Diego. This was the same mansion that we had shot at for a couple of days during the trailers. Rumor had it that the owner had invented some router that made the internet faster, and this home was just one of the many that his fortune provided. The gated house had a large 2 lane driveway flanked on either side by tall spruce trees. The house itself was not extremely large. It was a one story home with an Asian motif. A spacious patio area and a 40’ infinity pool with hot tub and sauna rounded out the copious back yard which was fenced in by towering Douglas-Firs providing ample shade and privacy. It was an awesome place and I was excited to spend the month there. We were given 2 days to rig the location with power before we began shooting.

In addition to Marsh and Greg we had to find 2 more SLT’s to become permanent members of the crew. Suji was still in Japan, and all my friends from the Orange unit, Fransisco, Ellis, and Hamby were sill committed to Andrew and the rest
of his show. When I found out I was going to be the best boy for another unit I was worried about who I could get for my crew. At that point Ellis and Fransisco were as over Andrew as I was. Hamby entertained the idea of jumping ship and coming onto my crew. Orange was due to end in a few weeks, and the extension of his monthly paycheck would not have been a bad thing. They didn’t know how long the brake between shows would be. But by staying with Orange they would be in line to work on the next show. At that point the promise of the network shooting another shallow, meaningless soap opera, starring wannabe 20 something party models, and bitter has-been actresses was very real. And as grotesque and incomprehensible as the thought may be, there seemed to be a supply of empty headed mindless Americans willing to spend a zombie like hour every night following one of these programs.

So in the end I was alone, my friends from Orange stayed with Andrew until the end of his show. A-Dub, who recommended me to Spence, was going to stay on my crew and best on Red for a week or so, depending on when his new position on the Gold unit would start. I was glad A-Dub was hanging out with our unit for a few days as I really did need someone to show me the ropes as I had never bested before. It wasn't all that complicated really, some paperwork, some phone calls some planning ahead but anything the 1st time is going to require some questions from the new guy.

In addition to Marsh and Greg we picked up one new guy through A-Dub, this sleazy guy named Crutcher. Crutcher, although he had a cool name, was not the coolest guy in
my book. He came from the rock and roll arena, but unlike Hamby. Crutch, as we called him had not yet reached his capacity for drugging. I only saw Crutch smoke pot, which is a fairly common occurrence on the set. Depending on how much responsibility you have, as long as you get the job done, I personally don’t have anything against smoking dope. I smoke sometimes. I enjoy, can even say love it, from time to time. Anything in excess however can turn into an evil. One good thing about smoking pot is that it is not physically addicting. I smoked heroin in a joint one time in Thailand, and what I remembered about the head is that I wanted to go deeper. The high pulled me in and I wanted more. I knew right away that its addicting properties were evil. Pot in my mind is not an evil.

One look at Crutch and you knew he was not a guy that would go the distance for you. Maybe because I’m from New York I see things too cut and dried. Either you are my friend or your not. When I listen to someone, I want to believe that they are telling me the truth, or at least they mean what they say. If all your words are encased in a tone of ambiguity, then it’s hard for me to put any reliability into your words. Every geographic area and sub-culture has a relatively unique pattern of speech. People from the Boston/New York area may talk quickly and sound a bit edgy. I am generalizing, but many people from Southern California, from the beach culture impart a particular drawl in their voice that may be associated with smoking pot, or just a general sense of relaxation, that calming way of speech may spell ‘laid back’ to some, but to me reeks of insincerity.

There were things I respected about Crutch. I respected the fact that he didn’t kiss my ass. It’s hard to respect someone that kisses your ass. And even though I didn’t feel that he really meant anything he said, I respected the fact that he was not a phony in that sense. That really was the way he was. He was a real scum bag, through and through. Lazy as the day is long. He didn’t like the fact that I watched him doing his job. That was my job, to make sure the job was getting done properly, especially because he didn’t have much experience doing this particular form of lighting.

Crutch had a habit of spitting every couple of minutes, this was particularly distasteful. Crutch and I didn’t get along too well, I like to work with care free people, but he was not an easy going guy, he was just a dirt bag. Not that there is anything wrong with being a dirt bag, I just felt like I couldn’t trust him, and didn’t want to be around him. Unfortunately for me, Spence, the gaffer, and my boss liked Crutch. Why I cannot fathom, perhaps it was because he was able to get pot from Crutch, but he saw something in Crutch that I was unable to see. We needed guys, so Crutch, against my wishes became one of our day players and we used him a few times a week.

After laying cable around the mansion we setup some large lights on the perimeter to represent daylight shinning in through the windows. This work took two days and then we were ready for the 1st day of principle photography of “Someone to Watch Over Me”.

 

RED GRIPS

The grip department on “Watch Over Me” was Ham’s truck. Ham was a pretty laid back guy, wore flip flops on the set, a kind of Irish looking Californian. Ham definitely had that old school cockiness of ‘been there done that, no need to hurry, what can they do’ attitude. His men were Kyle’s
men. Kyle was Ham’s best boy. Kyle was a burly fellow with a deep gravelly voice. Deep creases in Kyle’s face went with his barrel chest, giving the impression of a lumber jack, walking with a large open gait teetering from side
to side. While I often came to set to check on things, Kyle was never on set. Strange relationship Kyle and Ham had. It seemed that there were some days that Kyle didn’t even show up to the job. But Kyle really grew on me. I have a fondness for loud talking guys who you can tell right off, are really just big teddy bears, you know their bark is far worse than their bite. If pushed too far in the wrong direction they would no doubt snap back and bite a bit off, but I know when it is ok to push these guys and when I should leave them alone.

It took me a little while before I got to know all the grips. Maybe it’s just my New York nature not take notice of someone, or give any instant respect to their position. I got to meet the grips on the show, each with their own personalities. Chuck was a sailor in the navy for a number of years. He could fix all manner of machines. Chuck was another gravel talking smoker like Kyle but hailed from Long Island, and had the accompanying thick accent. Theo was a very calm normal looking fellow who, as it turns out loved to smoke pot. Andre was a Mexican who seemed sped up on coke or some other stimulant all the time. He wore the sleeves of his white t-shirt rolled up and had a red bandana around his forehead. He'd walk briskly around the set all the time, looking for I’m not sure what.

 

PRODUCTION DEPT

One seasoned 728 juicer gave me the analogy that persists between production and the other departments.

     “They take our blood and we take their money. Neither          wants to give much to the other.”

All the departments in a sense work for the production department. It is their job to distribute the pages of the script over the allotted shooting days and locations. They must arrange the shooting schedule and get the show shot on time and under budget. Without our help they cannot accomplish this, so they pay us, but they would like to pay us as little as possible for as much work as possible, basically it’s a war. The unit production manager or UPM is held responsible by the producers to get the job done as efficiently as possible. The UPM has office staff, and on set production staff to make all this happen. The person most responsible on set for moving the ball along is the 1st Assistant Director or 1st AD. It is the AD’s job to help the director carry out his or her vision. Helping the 1st are the 2nd AD's and various production assistants who wrangle talent and extras, as well as anything else imaginable from in and out times to making sure it is quiet during takes.

Production writes the call sheet and is responsible for 'sides'. At the end of each day a call sheet is distributed to the personnel that will be on set the next day. The call sheet has; a list of the days shots, the actors needed, the personal needed for that day, and what time they are required to show up the next day. It also has the location address and a map if need be. Each morning of the shooting day production also makes available a mini call sheet with the days dialog extracted from the script. This small little booklet of papers with the days dialog and shots is called the 'sides'. As the best boy or an electric it is not really necessary to read the sides, but it is nice to know what is going on, sometimes.

The 1st AD is usually pretty laid back, perhaps because they are the most experienced or just because they are giving the orders. The UPM has a pretty interesting job. If you are organized and don’t mind sitting in an office, or working on the phone it can be exciting. But this all depends on the person. I’ve met some cool UPMs, but the creature who had that position on “Watch Over Me”, was a total bitch.

As the best boy I had to deal with Molina our UPM on an almost daily basis. I knew immediately whenever she came within a 20 foot radius of me because the hairs on my neck would bristle, and my skin would crawl. To look at this rotund women was like gazing on Medusa herself. How someone so cold and reptilian could rise to a position where you have to deal with other human beings is beyond my comprehension. Having to deal with this creature was no picnic. There was equipment that had to be ordered or replaced. I also had to have men come in early for a big scene change, as well as make sure that our hours on the time cards and weekly production reports were accurate. All this had to be run by the UPM for approval.

There is something about production that really turns my stomach. So many of them are so on edge it goes against my very nature. Sometimes I want to disrupt their process just because they are so serious. It is like wanting to trip the 1st kid running just because he wants to be first. If I was a teacher I don't think I'd call on the child that always raises their hand first. I'd want to give someone else a chance of course, but also because some people come off as such boy scouts, you just want to tell them to get a life.

When I started on films I got a job as a set production assistant, as that is pretty much the 1st step you take in learning about any end of the film business. Staying a PA on a film set leads to being an AD, and it didn’t take too long for me to realize that I didn’t want to be an AD.

 

PAUL AND THE COMING OF THE WALRUS

The show at the mansion went along pretty smoothly. A-Dub left for the Purple unit and I was officially the best boy. I would hang out on the truck tending to the equipment and other best boy duties. Spence and the crew would handle lighting changes, I’d come to set for the big set ups.

We were always auditioning new crew members. Besides Greg and Marsh there were 2 more permanent spots on the crew to fill, and we often had extra man days on location. One day we got a new guy, not sure who recommended him but he showed up one morning. This was Steve, and he was, I’d say the most intellectual of our group. He came from theater and stage lighting but had a good knowledge of generators and power distribution, so he was welcomed by the crew and myself. I felt comfortable with Steve, and we offered him a slot as a regular guy, along with Greg and Marsh. Steve looked decidedly English. He had a soft chin, the beginnings of jowls. He had dark hair but very fair skin, a bit pudgy.

I feel that people from different lands have different facial expressions. The French have a very stoic facet, and don’t show emotion very easily. You can see it in a person’s look where they are from. I can often recognize people from Japan, simply by their facial mien. The Aussies seem to have a crunched up face, while Venezuelans seem often deep in thought, Canadians have a happy go lucky countenance. Steve had an English bearing, like he was to the Manor Borne.

Even after Steve, we were always working with new people, trying them out, hoping to solidifying the crew. A day later we picked up a fairly experienced guy, Paul. He seemed to know what he was doing. A bit serious from the start, but I liked Paul from the beginning because he wasn’t an idiot. We had Marsh and Greg, as well as some day players that didn’t seem very well educated. Paul was from Chicago, had gone to film school there, I’m pretty sure he was Jewish. Paul, I thought understood what was going on and I could count on him to get the job done. Turns out Paul although perhaps a nice guy outside of work, was a total stress case. Although just in his mid 30’s or even younger, he had gone completely gray. He had deep lines in his face and was intently serious all the time. His body language suggested his constant frustration with the way we were running the set. Admittedly I was not the greatest best boy, it wasn't a hard job. I did the job, but had a hard time taking the show seriously. They took Spanish soap operas and just substituted the lines in English. The show was bubble gum, and not even a genuine brand of bubble guy. Flowerless popcorn for your brain, the rate was shit no reason to kill yourself ever, but on this show, I think not.

I was serious in many aspects of the production. When dealing with electrical power that is hazardous, power that can kill, I am cautious. In dealing with lighting equipment and lamps that are worth thousands of dollars I do the job with care. Also, I had a fair amount of experience in LA with a good number of 728 guys, I’m not saying I knew everything, but I had our department under control. Paul was the type of guy that always wanted to do it differently. He always had a better idea. If there is time, or if I’m not 100% positive, I’m all about suggestions. I have nothing to prove, if there is a better way, a faster way, a safer way, I want to hear about it. But after the suggestion is made it is still my decision as the best boy on how to proceed. After listing to a continuous amount of Paul’s suggestions I just started becoming numb to the things he said. After the 3rd day I just started ignoring him and let him clean up or reorganize however he saw fit.

One day, during that 1st week Paul asked me if he could take off the next day. He said there was some show from LA coming down to San Diego, an HBO shoot I think it may have been. When anyone asks me for a day off or to be let off work a bit early, or even for $20, I usually do not hesitate to oblige them. If I don’t get my money back, or if you start asking for time off every day then I’ll be a little less forthcoming with my allowances.

We let Paul go to his job for 2 days, during these 2 days we were also given the OK for additional manpower as we were doing scene changes that called for day into night and vice versa. Being that the Stan Klein productions were in full swing at this time, I was scrambling to find crew members. I arranged for a couple of guys to come in on the day. The next day when I was comparing our daily crew compliment with Steve on the call sheet issued by production I saw that I made a mistake. I brought in a couple of guys, but production hadn’t taken Paul's name off the paper. In essence production thought he was there. I went to Spence and explained that we had a guy on the call sheet that was not at work. Spence said to keep him on so we could keep that number of people on the rooster. He wanted to keep as many men as possible working, which is logical, but it was dishonest. Also Spence suggested that this might be way to get monetarily compensated for some of the out of pocket expenses that I had put in for, such as a rug and trash can for the truck, as well as a cooler and some other articles like Spence’s special pen and file folder, air freshener and other incidentals that may or may not be taken care of by productions petty cash. Spence was my boss so I couldn’t really argue with him, but I realized if anyone found out both he, and I, as well as Paul could easily be fired. I felt that we had to contact Paul, if he decided not to play ball he could screw us by saying that he didn’t authorize us to pay him for the day. When I did speak to him , he said he was ok with getting paid for not coming in. He wasn't all bad. Although we never did get any of our money back from him.

When Paul came back from his 2 days absence he most have gotten a jolt of neatness from some of the union guys that he worked with on the HBO show, as he was even more twitchy than when he left. He announced that we should have one guy dedicated to just watching the generator. This procedure makes sense, but Steve and I were on top of it and I didn’t want to take any of the guys away from the set as they were new and learning all the basics of set lighting. It’s boring enough just sitting waiting for a light change not to mention just to sit and watch the generator all day.

The day after Paul came back to our crew, I gave Steve the day off, he said his mother was in town, and we had just given Paul 2 days off with pay so it seemed fair. That day a big lighting change came mid-afternoon. I heard Paul
sarcastically remark on the radio.

     "Are you or Steve going to check the balance of the       generator?"

When running a heavy electrical load off the gennie it is necessary to balance the lines so the generator doesn't blow up. I replied.

     “I think Steve is going to do it.”

We all knew Steve was not on set, and for my money one dose of heavy sarcasm deserves another.

On the way to the mansion from the truck I stopped and checked the gennie. The reading was normal; in fact we were hardly drawing any power. When I arrived on set, Paul was moving equipment around like a mad man, excitedly asking me,

     “What lines should we put these cables into?”

I wanted him to stop for just a minute while I did the math and distributed power correctly. He just wouldn’t stop. I asked him,

     “Paul, could you just be quiet for one minute?"

He would not shut up. He was shouting orders at people like the sky way falling, and the world was going to end any second. It is in these situations where the chain of command really becomes important. Sometimes there is a war against time and the best way, the only way to get the job accomplished is if we all work as a team.

In order to control Paul I had to systematically relieve him of power. I was pretty pissed because he wouldn’t listen to me. I had to go on the radio and have each crew member of my department copy me after I said,
     “Don’t listen to what Paul says, do what I say,
     do you copy?”

I went so far as to say to Paul,

     “My dick is much bigger than yours, I have nothing to          prove, just be quiet and I’ll get the job done.”

After I said this, our gaffer, Spence was forced to come over and see just what the hell was going on between us. I explained it rationally to him. I told him,

     "We can have one person doing the job, do you want me         or him to do it, as we both cannot."

It was pretty ridiculous.

I asked the other guys if I was crazy, as I am sometimes forced to do when there is a radical breach in communication. It was impossible to talk to Paul, maybe I guess he thought I was not qualified for the job. The fact is I was certainty no expert and not the most experienced at the time, I never claimed to be, but the job was pretty easy and I thought I had a good handle on it, and we seemed to be getting along ok, the guys were happy, what was the big deal?

I want everyone to be relaxed and happy on my set, if something had to get done we did it, but no sense stressing about every cable in place, it’s a movie set, stuff will eventually get misplaced and messy, we clean it up
when we are able, at a pace that is acceptable to everyone involved, I guess my pace was a tad slow for meticulous Paul.

After this incident I found it increasingly difficult to work with Paul, and wanted Spence to let him go. Unfortunately Spence, in my opinion was not the best judge of character. He had a soft spot for Crutcher, and saw something in Paul. The guy was a hard worker and for the most part seemed to know his stuff. But I’m pretty sure he was just out of film school. Anyway we needed guys so we hung on to Paul for a couple more days.

 

MOVIN' ON UP

One weekend I ran into Spence at a Ben Harper concert. He said that he had come to the show with his girlfriend, who he had brought out from New Orleans. They were there with another girl, someone from the make-up department from another unit. They all had eaten psychedelic mushrooms, but his girls left him. Spence was pretty disturbed. I didn't want to leave him as I know what it’s like to be tripping and to be left alone, and I liked Spence, even though he was kind of surely most of the time he had a good heart and interesting things to say. It was also coming up on the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I knew Spence and his girlfriend Tanya had been in the middle of the disaster. I walked Spence back to his car and made sure he was ok.
I knew he liked his music, his women, and his booze, he seemed fine when I left.

That night Spence told me that The Funky Meters were coming to town. Anybody who is really into music, like Spence or myself, won’t let many things stand in their way when a concert that they want to see comes to town. Spence and I had talked about what excuse to come up with so he could take the day off and see The Meters. We came up with the doctor’s appointment ploy. I was kind of psyched because I was going to be the official gaffer the day he was gone. I was a little worried about what to do about Paul. If I made Steve the best boy, which is what I wanted to do, and Paul decided not to listen to Steve it would look pretty bad. I decided to just give the position to Paul to avoid possible conflict.

The night before Spence was to go to see The Funky Meters was a late night. We were doing night exteriors and guys on the walkie got out of hand. There is always some chatter on the walkie. Each department has their own channel. Production usually takes channel one, which is monitored by hair and make-up as well as the location department, sound, craft services, and the wardrobe department. Grips are on a higher channel, usually 8, as the LA local is IATSE 80. Electric at least in LA and when we spilled over into San Diego took channel 7, for IATSE 728. We talk about girls and food, maybe some jokes, some whack-o’s like that crazy guy Earl from the trailers make strange noises on the channel. What possess the immature to dole out meaningless bizarre sounds for others to hear is something I don’t understand. That evening, in the heat of setting lights there was a gaggle of unintelligible sounds coming from some of the juicers. We needed to clear the air as we were actually working. I asked for a clear channel, and a moment later I heard a bizarre noise, I looked right at Spence and said.

     “You see, no one listens to me.”

Then he witnessed Paul making strange noises into the walkie. Spence immediately turned to me and said.

     “Get rid of Paul. Tell him he can finish the week if          he wants. I'll do it if you can't.”

I was a little shocked actually, even though I wanted to get rid of the guy, I am pretty sympathetic and don't really want to fire anyone. Spence said that he saw Paul talk gibberish into the walkie, just as I had asked everyone to clear the channel. Turns out Spence didn’t like all that useless chatter either, and that was the straw that broke his back with Paul so to speak.

With Spence gone the next evening I really wanted Steve to be the best boy. Paul even though he had just been fired by Spence, was going to be on the crew until the end of the week. I decided that it would be safer to make him the best boy. Steve wouldn’t have to argue with him, and thoughtful man that Steve was, he took it very well and it was supposedly just for one day anyway.

I GAFF

We had 2 different directors for the shows. A different one for each week, and they would rotate. One would come on one week while the other director prepped for the following week. I’m not sure how these directors were chosen; presumably they were friends with Tony the executive producer. The directors that we had were Harry and Troy, both were in their late 30’s or early to mid 40’s. They were both tall and thin and sure of themselves. Both had pretty similar senses of humor, very dry and very sarcastic. I dug working with both of them.

Sol Burnett the DP for the shows didn’t really light much for the day, choosing to just use a bounce card or a shiny board to reflect the sun or diffuse it with either a silk or a net. We were however, always ready with the cables and power to turn on large lights representing daylight. We use 'HMI' to represent the relative higher temperature blue of daylight as opposed to the lower temperature orange that is thrown off by incandescent house hold bulbs for interiors. 

The day that Spence chose to go to his concert was a split day, and our 1st night shoot. We would shoot either day; in which most often it would be actual daytime and that is day for day. Rarely did we shoot just night. Often we would have splits when the 1st half of the day would be day for day, then we would have night for night.

The night shoot was our 1st of the show, Sol Burnett had come out to the set earlier in the week to go over with me what he had expected us to use for the night shoot. Usually on night exteriors there is a crane with a basket on a lift. In the basket an electrician goes up with 1 or 2 large lights 12K – 18K’s. Sometimes several lights of various sizes are rigged up to the basket of the crane, often with the assistance of the grip department. The crane with a bucket is referred to as a Condor. We had Crutcher in the Condor he did a decent enough job, until the last shot that is, when he fell asleep, but it turned out ok. We only had a few shots to light that evening, one shot of the actors by the pool, another of the principal actor running across the back yard, and one shot away from the grounds by a fenced area with some stunt work. Barry the camera man and I were able to get the lights set fairly easily. I had faith in the guys working under me as we had been working together for several weeks. I didn't have to deal with Paul, he was cleaning up cables all day.

My first day of gaffing was a breeze. Maybe it was because I wore a collared shirt and not a t-shirt. I was impressed with how calm I was, and how smoothly the set ran.  I had a good relationship with Ham, the Key grip, and Spence had told me that Barry the camera man liked me. It’s nice to work with people you get along with. It was a blast.

SPENCE TRIPS OUT

Earlier in the day Spence had called to check up on things. He said he was having a descent time, the concert hadn’t started yet. I told him we were getting ready for the night setup but had plenty of time, no problems to report. I was glad to hear from him. I told him that I’d call him at the end of the evening to let him know the call time for the next day, as he was expected to come back and be the gaffer again.

After the night shoot, around 11 or 12, I got the next days call time from production. I phoned Spence to tell him when he was expected the next day. Spence answered, but was clearly not in a mood to talk. By the way he answered, and his impatient manner on the phone, I got the impression that he was having sex. I just spit out that the call time was 9:30, but he didn’t seem to be listening, instead he said in a huff,

“I’ll talk to you later.”

Then he hung up. This took me a bit by surprise, as I just wanted to tell him what time to come in. We wrapped for the night and covered up whatever lights we were leaving outside like we always do, and I was on my way home.

The mansion location was around 35 to 40 minutes drive from my house. About 25 minutes later, I’m almost home when Spence calls back. His speech was slightly slurred, he had clearly been drinking. He didn’t say much, but he did tender his resignation to me.

“I’m sick of the show, I’m sick of Molina(the UPM),         I’m sick of my old lady, tell Molina I quit!”

I tried to tell him that he should maybe just sleep on any decision like that, that it was late, and that I should pick him up in the morning and we would go eat breakfast and talk rationally about the situation. He didn’t want to hear it and just said he wasn’t coming back. I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of this. On one hand I thought it would be pretty cool if I could gaff the show, but I did like Spence and still wanted to have him as my boss.

The next morning the phone rang early. It was my nemesis Molina, the UPM. She had heard from Spence. I told her that it sounded like he wasn’t coming back, but as a consolation we did pretty good the day before while he was gone. She said that she was going to speak to Sol, and they were going to find another gaffer, but I was going to gaff at least the rest of the morning of this second day. So consequently, I brought a t-shirt but put on a collared shirt, I wanted to give it another go.

I got to the crew parking lot for the short shuttle to the mansion. We all parked at a vacant field just 2 minutes down the road form the mansion location. The horrendous caterers who were still cooking for the show were on hand. I ordered a breakfast burrito and right before I was about to bite into my morning snack, I head Peter, the 1st AD say,

“So Paul is gaffing today?”
Upon hearing these words my stomach sank, my appetite disappeared completely. It was really amazing to go from hunger to emptiness.

I had to find out what this was all about. What could Peter be talking about? Not Paul who Spence had just fired, there is no way he meant, that Paul. I immediately called Molina who was in a meeting but got right back to me. She said that Sol had spoken to Paul, and given him notes on what to do, I told her I wasn’t too comfortable with that and I was immediately on the phone to Sol. He didn't pick up. I was able to get Barry’s number. Barry who was the camera operator would no doubt stick up for me and tell Sol that he and I did a pretty good job together the previous evening. When I did speak with Barry he put my fears to rest. He said he had spoken to Sol, who would be calling me shortly.

I was going to gaff for the rest of the day. That is precisely what happened. Sol returned my call, saying that someone had recommended Paul, Sol had seen his resume and that it was not a refection on me, but they were going to have Paul gaff. After speaking with Barry however, he changed his mind and wanted me to finish out the week gaffing. He said he would be bringing a friend of his down from LA, a good guy that we would all like; he was to start on Monday. When Paul came in I should have him call Sol, he would explain it to him. This was a pretty big relief for me, there was no way I wanted to be Paul’s best boy.

I was excited, I was relaxed, I did a good job the day before and it was great to be in charge for once. I got the sides, talked to Bruce and the director as well as Ham the key grip to see what the 1st shot would be. Nothing too eventfully was on hand. Paul showed up and I told him to call Sol, which he did. After his conversations with Sol, he told me that this would be his last day and that he was going to be used somewhere where his talents could be appreciated. I was happy to hear he was taking off. Steve functioned well as the best boy. The best boy and the SLT’s have to stay until the truck is wrapped up each night. The best is responsible for the equipment. The gaffer can just split at wrap and that’s what I did. I’ve wrapped enough cable for one lifetime. I really don’t mind wrapping cable and know I’ll be doing it still in the future, but if I never wrapped another stick again, that would be fine with me.

DRIPPING FROM A DEAD DOGS EYE
Monday came and I met Norman. Most all the gaffers that Sol chose to work on the San Diego shows had worked with Sol in the past. Not sure where they dug up this Norman Malkin from, but he was a trip. We called him the Walrus because, well, he resembled a Walrus, straight out of Tennessee Tuxedo, but a bit more slovenly than Tennessee’s chum, Chumley. He was a large man, 6’4” if he stood up straight. That was difficult because he was constantly bent over, often shuffling around with one hand holding up his jeans. Although as far from a home boy as you can get, Norms pants had a tendency to slide down his oversized blubbery frame. Dark hair and balding badly he most often had dry spittle surviving in a pasty residue at the corners of his mouth. Unfortunately he would very often spit when he talked. This was perhaps because he was constantly out of breath. Norm did have pleasant blue eyes, and I believe at heart he was a sweet guy.

As the chief lighting tech it is possible to be overweight and lumbering as most of the physical labor is accomplished by the regular set lighting tech's, and oh yes the best boy. Depending on the show, the most demanding physical act that a gaffer is likely to perform is the holding of a light meter to a pretty actress’ face. They presumably have been through every position and should be able to do every job if they are needed to, but when the position of gaffer is reached it is mostly brains that are exercised. Fortunately for Norm he had reached this point. Even though he was only in his early 50’s it was pretty much impossible for him to exert himself physically.

He made it a point from the 1st moment he got there to gather us around and tell us that none of our jobs were in danger. He said that he was just down here as a favor to Sol, and that what he was really getting out of coming down to work in San Diego, was the loading up on his medical benefits. I was fine with being the best boy again. I wasn't really qualified to gaff a show that had no DP. I wouldn’t have minded the trial by fire, but this was a fairly ambitious TV show, and everyone expected someone with more experience. When Spence was the gaffer he really wasn’t calling all the shots, it was more a joint effort of Ham, Barry and the director, with Spence’s input for good measure. All this changed when Norm arrived.

To say Norm had a flare for the dramatic would be an understatement. He really had a difficult time controlling his temper. One time a few weeks into his tenure on the Red unit, he stormed onto the truck, completely out of breath, yelling at me for God knows what. I was concerned that he might have a heart attack and drop dead right there on the spot.

Admittedly there was a lot to learn from the Walrus. He knew his TV lighting. TV for the most part is not what I am interested in, but learning all aspects of the lighting business is a plus. The shows down in San Diego were pretty crappy, but I took the job because it was work, and that’s what we do, take work, sometimes it’s a good gig, sometimes not. The job all in all was quite easy, and it was a good spot for me at that point in my career.

Norm was a smoker, and I had a non tobacco smoking policy on the truck, which everyone respected. I had also decorated the office area at the back of the truck with a variety of swimsuit models from Sports Illustrated. Although not gay, Norm did not approve of my office decorations, he was a bit of a boy scout in many respects. Maybe it was just his years of experience shinning through. Years of experience that I have not had, may have told him that it is better to error on the side of caution. For my tastes he was a bit too much by the book. In my opinion it’s important to play by the rules, but some rules it seems are not so hard and fast, and can afford to be bent now and again. I’m a risk taker, what can I say?

Norm chose one SLT, in this case Greg, to be his right hand man on the set. Norm didn’t use his walkie at all but verbally told Greg, my boy from Colorado what he wanted to light, and Greg would have to tell the other crew members. This was a bit frustrating for me as I was, in a sense constantly kept out of the loop as to what setups we were doing. But that was his method and he was our new boss, and I was the best boy anyway, my job was mostly done away from set.

 

When Norm came on the show we had about 2 weeks left at the mansion and they went fairly quickly. In the beginning I liked Norm, I really did; he had some interesting things to say. It’s not that he was so serious, because he let a lot of things go. It was more that it was his way, that’s it. Never a compromise, he saw things from just one view, and would never, ever, change his mind.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
Before Norm came on the show we did have some easy days. Some days I even taught yoga to the crew. Years ago while living in Colorado I hurt my back snowboarding. I was ready to try anything. I thought that visiting a chiropractor might be beneficial, but it was fairly expensive and I had heard that you had to keep going back. There was a type of yoga in town called Bikram Yoga. Bikram yoga is a series of 26 postures done in a heated room to lengthen and strengthen the spine. Because the room is heated, you sweat which is also therapeutic, you also can go deeper into the stretch without injury. Bikram will tell you,
     "You are like metal in a fire, and I am                   the blacksmith."

A few of my friends said this class was a great workout and would be good for my back. I have done judo since I was a little child and thought I knew how to stretch. Also I was pretty ignorant about this whole yoga phenomenon, but my back was killing me. I heard also that there were pretty girls in the class, so why not, I gave it a try.

Although I was diffident during that first session, the class blew me away. The structure of the class was a lot like a judo class, and the main thing was that it made my back feel better. I started going a few times a week and got hooked on Bikram yoga. Bikram, as we call it, is pretty much my main form of exercise now, has been for several years. When I’m working on a film set, 12 hours a day it is kind of difficult to squeeze classes in, as the class itself is an hour and a half long. Because there were several hours of down time everyday, I thought I’d teach a class to whomever was interested. Perhaps because I was their boss, or maybe just because they were bored sick, a few of the electrics decided to give it a go. I also asked one of the extras, Dee Dee, a French actor who was playing the maid, and she joined in as well. We found a flat spot outside, in the middle of the mansions tennis court. We were able to get in about half the class before I was called away to tend to best boy duties, it was pretty nice to get a stretch, and my students enjoyed it.

NO PICNIC WITH CHUMLY
We hardly used any lights when we shot daytime. And once a scene had been lit, camera would shoot out as many episodes facing that direction as the actors availability permitted. One of the 1st evenings of Norm’s days on the shoot there was a party lighting gag. The action called for the lights to be turned on all at once. This was to represent a surprise party. Light gags are one of my favorite setups, they are kind of exciting to me for some reason. Maybe I like to be where the action is. I had the gag all wired to one switch, but where the monitors were, and consequentially where Norm was sitting was out of sight of the gag switch. Because Norm didn’t use a walkie he made me stand next to him and relay the cue to the electric sitting by the switch. This would normally not be an extremely stressful situation, but any situation where Norm didn’t have complete and utter control was for him a stressful event. For my part, I was calm, relaying over the walkie when to turn the switch. Calm was not an adjective I’d use for the Walrus.

A week or two earlier Peter, who was the video tech from the Orange unit, came to work on our show. I had had a pretty good time working with Peter when I was on Orange. We would do the New York Times crossword together. Making copies of the puzzle and sharing notes. As Norm was freaking out about me getting the timing of the light gag down, Peter turned to be and said,

“Isn’t this crazy, having this wacko drama queen working with us?”

I let him know that this was just the start of the show, we still had another two months with this guy. But it really was par for the course. Who else but an overweight has-been 50 yr old gaffer would come down to San Diego to work for eighteen dollars per hour.

It was at that point that I realized it wasn’t going to be all peaches and cream working with Norm. Norm of the family Odobenidae, the largest of the fin footed mammals, which eats mainly clams.

 

LET THE TWEEKER GO
Our second day with Norm I had to let Marsh go.  Although he was a hard worker, and knew all the codes for Grand Theft Auto, it just wasn’t fair to the rest of the crew. Spence was no longer there forcing us to keep him, and to have one crew member that left everyday at 4:30, often not to return for the evenings work was not going to fly with the Walrus. Someone in that position really should have a 9-5 job, not a plus 12 hour a day job starting at random times. Norm lit heavier than Spence and I just couldn’t be a man down.

Not sure how Marsh found out that I was thinking about dismissing him, but mid-day Marsh came up to me in a huff asking if I was planning to fire him. I’m a pretty honest guy, you could say at times brutally honest. I told him the truth straight out. He was understandably upset, no one wants to lose their job, especially if they have a little baby, I felt bad but we had carried him for a couple of months. Marsh may have thought that I wanted to get rid of him to make way for Suji, who was coming back from Japan. This was partially true, but with Mr. Drama queen now running the show it couldn't be helped. Marsh went right up to Norm pleading his case. I was called over, Norm said he didn’t have a problem with Marsh leaving for a few hours each day, but Marsh neglected to tell him that he again had to leave that evening at eleven.

“You didn’t tell me that. I'm sorry but this will have to be your last day with us.”

Marsh took the news better that I did. I actually got teary eyed because I liked Marsh, and am hurt when a man who means well is let go.

STAGE 3

Our next and supposedly only other location was stage 3, a sound stage back at Stan Klein studios. A few days before we had the 'load out' of the mansion I met Norm on the sound stage where we were gong to shoot. Three construction guys were putting up the sets. Stan Klein studios housed full departments. They had a huge wardrobe warehouse, as well as props scattered in locked up rooms in many of the stages. They also had an entire airplane hanger devoted to set construction. As mentioned earlier the set construction guys were a bunch of Polynesian with your odd ball white trash dude thrown in for good measure. The set guys were hard at work putting up a set that would double as some of the interior rooms of the mansion.

 
Throughout the stage, hanging down form the ceiling were power lines know as Soco packs. These bundles of cables all traced back to a central spot and could be controlled by a dimmer board, if one were in place. I mentioned this to Norm, who in his usual dramatic fashion was up in arms as to who would be able to handle such complicated dimmer board operations. I told him I’d make some calls and see if any of our rock and roll guys had experience with dimmer boards. Norm was the constant pessimist, unable to except any possibility of us accomplishing, what seemed like fairly simple tasks. I talked to Steve, who informed me that he was a dimmer board expert. Why an otherwise reasonably intelligent person like Norm had to make everything a huge production I will never know, it seemed to be his modius operendi on every occasion.

The last day of shooting at the mansion had some pyrotechnics explosions. We literally blew up an adjacent structure. Norm was often fond of asking the impossible. It was up to me with the aid of my crew to get the equipment out of the mansion within 2 hours of wrap. Considering that the driveway was blocked by emergency vehicles that had to be in place because of the stunt, the task I was assigned was going to be next to impossible within the allotted time. We were given the use of a flatbed truck designated to move our equipment. I did the best I could, shuttling equipment back and forth to our truck which was at crew parking. At the end of the day with the help of my faithful crew, we nearly finished in time. Ellis from the Orange unit had come for the day to help out and he was a positive force to be sure. We also picked up a guy Lance who turned out to be a good guy, as well as Rambling Phil Shamblin. A good natured guy who seemed to have diarrhea of the mouth.

I ended up leaving a few extra pieces of equipment at the mansion as we had a small wrap crew scheduled to come in the next day. Days like that that make you wonder why your working for $16.50/hr. Steady work and benefits is pretty much the answer, but we take the good with the bad. We take work when we can get it. In retrospect the mansion was a pretty good location. Got to do some Bikram yoga, slept on the truck a bit, mostly just sat around. The highlight for me, of course were the days when I got to gaff. I was able to turn off my walkie when the chatter on the radio got to me. Who could yell at me? It was good to be the boss, and I think my crew liked me. I hung out by the monitors, not too bad.

So we wrapped at the mansion, said goodbye to the long commute and hello to stage 3 of Stan Klein Studios. Stage 3 was a cavernous sound stage that hadn’t really been sufficiently protected for the external noise outside. It was an extremely dusty place that seemed never to have been cleaned, dust piled on top of dust.

Norm cut me out of the loop as far as what was happening on set. He had Steve and Greg run cable for a dimmer board. When the dimmer board was set he posted Steve there. Steve would sit there for hours, turn a light on or off by the use of a switch, and it quickly became very boring for him. I would come in to the stage and sit with him. He showed me some of the basics for programming lights through the dimmer board that we had. We had a CD 80 pack that controlled the lights. It was kind of interesting, he had the experience through working in rock and roll. With the elimination of Paul, I had some extra guys come in to round out the crew. Ellis from Orange became our 4th guy for a week before he went on vacation. Fortunately Suji came back from Japan, and I was able to get him on full time to replace Ellis when he left.

COULD I BRAKE THE WALRUS'S BACK?

While moving from set to set there were occasions when we had to pre-light or rig a day in advance. For one of these moves Norm thought we should bring in a few guys on a Saturday in order to accomplish the job together with the grips. Norm asked a few of the guys to see who was interested in some extra work. He could get only Greg and Steve to commit. Andre was to be Norms grip counterpart to our rigging crew. I asked Andre how many guys he had coming in to work. 3 guys plus himself. I am always looking out for my men. It seemed to get me into trouble sometimes, but it really was my job as the best boy, and also my duty as a decent human being to see that none of my men got taken advantage of. I was just going on what I had been taught by other best boys. After I found out what the grip complement was going to be, I asked Norm,

“You know, Andre is bringing 3 guys, should we get    another guy to come in with Greg and Steve? Andre has 3 plus himself, we will only have you plus 2 and your not even going to work.”

Being that he was a fat useless bastard, this was true. If someone had said that to me I would have smiled and asked them rather sarcastically,

     “Do you know what we are planning to do? Do you know          the exact manpower we need and what a pain it will be         to ask the UPM to approve a pre-rig on Saturday? No.         Right? So please don’t question my judgment.”

Or if it was actually a valid point I might have said,

"You know your right we could use another guy."

My mistake for being me, and not knowing that Norm would not react like that. He immediately became red in the face and ordered me off the set. A few hours later when he cooled down we had a chat. He made it pretty plain that the job was stressful enough without a DP. He had the 1st AD and one of the directors trying to get him fired. The last thing he needed was to have his best boy blowing his mind every other day. I did have to agree with him, it really wasn’t my place to question his judgment. I told him that I do tend to blow peoples minds now and again and that I’d do whatever I could to control myself.

One morning Suji was late for call and Norm had the few of us on the set running around getting things ready. The Walrus was yelling at me to turn on lights. Because these stage 3 days had been walk always, we killed most of the lights at the breakers so it was a simple matter of just flipping breakers back on in the morning to get the set ready. I tried the couple of lights we needed but had to put them on at the breaker. Absent mindedly I reached around the D-box and started turning on breakers. Well the Walrus almost had a heart attack when a big light came on momentarily. I turned off the light right away but the damage was done, he had lost his temper. Suji was still nowhere to be seen. I called him on his cell.

“Where the F*** are you?”

He said he was a little late but a PA asked him to check on the air conditioner. I told him that he had to get to set and that he worked for me and Norm not any PA. Norm heard me yelling at Suji on set.

“Get off the set with that.”

About a half hour later Norm comes on huffing and puffing onto the truck.

“You are the worst best boy I have ever seen! I’ve never fired someone from my set but I was very close this morning, turning on a 10k for the morning scenes how could you do that!?”

I think that when you ask a crew member to do something via  walkie they should be given at least a 10 second period to get the job done. To expect that every order given is going to be fulfilled with 2 seconds of issue is a bit ridiculous. How important is it that you can’t wait 5 seconds? It’s not life or death. People are being killed and tortured all over the world and you can’t wait 5 or 10 seconds to have some guy turn on a light for this piece of crap TV show that no one watches? When he came on the truck that morning I was sincerely worried that the big guy was going to have a heart attack or a stroke. Blow a gasket or something right there on my truck. I was really worried about him. When we wrapped that night I told him,

“I think I may have failed in this, but I hope I didn’t make you feel as bad as you made me feel today.”

He made me feel pretty bad that day.

 

With the crew on the set running things smoothly I retreated to the truck. It didn’t take me long to fill out my weekly paperwork. I started watching some movies and playing Grand Theft. Whenever Norm came out of the stuffy stage to have a cigarette I was embarrassed to be playing video games. Fact is, I was still a bit addicted to blowing things up at that point. There really wasn’t much else to do. I could have been reading I guess. I was only following the leads of the best boys before me.

One afternoon Norm came out to the truck with orders to move the air conditioning unit to the other side of the building.  It was causing sound issues. The Transportation department does the physical moving of the unit. We were responsible for running power. Norm showed me the route that I was supposed to run the wires to the unit’s new spot. It was essentially a 2 man job, but he wanted me to do it, thought that perhaps I wasn’t pulling my weight, hanging out on the truck watching movies, smoking pot and playing Play Station. I was all set to start pulling the cable when Greg shows up, it was his lunch break but he was apparently high as a kite and looking for a way to expend some energy. I told him Norm wanted me to do this alone.

“No I can help you brother. I want to help.”

We finishing in less than half the time it would have taken me alone. When the Walrus found out that I had had some help moving the cable he wasn’t too happy, add another straw to the Odobenidae’s back.

After a couple of weeks sitting by the dimmer board Steve became understandably bored. He had been working in a theater as their lighting director and came onto the TV shows only because it was an opportunity to learn a new way of lighting, a new genre of performance art. At the mansion there were larger lighting changes, admitted downtime but at least there was something to do; yoga, something. When Steve had to go ‘10-100’ we would have another electric sit in for him, but Norm wanted Steve on the board full time. Mid 2nd week Steve asked me how I would feel if he quit. I answered him how I answer most every question, with blunt honesty. I told him I enjoyed his company, but I’d find someone else, and if he wasn’t happy he should move on. How Norm would take the news was unknown. I was not looking forward to the upcoming scenario, given the Walrus’ past reactions to unforeseen events. But it was Steve’s life and he had to do what he wanted to do.

I had to break the news to the big man. Steve would be leaving our merry gang. He was tired of the show and couldn’t take the Walrus anymore. He was in good company. As expected Norm did not take this too well. He no doubt blamed me for not trying to keep Steve. Steve was my friend and I wanted him to do whatever was best for him. I was pretty sure that we could get another guy to slide a lever up and down.

With the flare of a professional drama queen we all heard the Walrus bellow.

“Who are you going to get to replace Steve?!”

I mentioned Fransisco from Orange who wasn’t working again just yet. Then half joking, and half series as we did say we would use him again if we could, I told him that Marsh was available.

“Marsh, that guy who had to go to jail?”
“Yeah Marsh, he was a hard worker.”
“That guy was an idiot!”

Gathering some composure for half a second he launched into another tirade.

     “I go from respecting you, to thinking that there is no   way you can do this job for me!”
He stormed off in a huff.

That evening I was pretty down. I kept asking myself why he had to be such a jerk. Why couldn’t he just talk to me like a rational human being? I realized Hamby, who was a hard worker, and knew rock and roll as well as dimmer boards maybe available from the Orange unit. I gave him a call and he ended up as Steve’s replacement. That next day I had this feeling that Norm was at his limit with me. It was certainly oppressive working for him, and I could just feel it in the air. I cleaned up around the set with the help of a couple of guys, straightened some cable. As I was outside of the stage I passed by Norm and Suji talking. I didn’t want to butt into their conversation of course, Norm seemed to be lecturing Suji on something or other. It didn’t really look like Suji was too keen on the conversation. Finally Norm calls me over.

 
     “I’m sorry but this is going to be your last week         working for me, I can’t be losing sleep over things         that we talk about the previous day. So today is your        last day, if you want to finish out the week you can.”

When this big slob of a man makes a decision it is pretty final, although I did plead my case, telling him he wouldn’t even have to see me. But there is no way of having him change his narrow mind. For me at the time it was a loss. I was clearing over $1000 a week, and was just a month and a half away from being completely out of monetary debt. I certainly didn’t blame Suji. Suji didn’t even want the job as he was planning to go over to the Orange show in just a few weeks. I finished out the week, showing Suji, my system of paperwork and making sure he had all the equipment lists, getting him ready for a smooth transition. After the initial shock of having lost my job, I had to think about what I would do next.

LOOKING AHEAD

Norm had replaced Spence who had left the show due to personal reasons that were never fully understood. Spence had left some specialized lights as well as some audio CD’s in the truck. I wasn’t sure if he had stayed in town or not but I somehow had to get his things back to him. Finally, when I was fired I was able to track him down. I met Spence at his apartment. He was living in an extended stay apartment. I found him as he was walking back to his place, he had obviously been drinking. Spence became a bit belligerent when he was drunk but he really didn't scare me.

It turned out that Spence wanted his job back. I told him about Norm and that he had been replaced. I told him that I would welcome him back as the gaffer, that he was missed on the job but the fact was that Sol had replaced him with Norm, and there was nothing we could do about it. During our meeting, New York came up and I decided it might be a good time to visit the city for a week or so; see some friends. He gave me the numbers of a couple of New York electrics that he thought might be able to get me some work, as I was interesting in seeing what it might be like to juice in the big city.

Although I was traveling to NY for a couple of weeks, I knew that I would be coming back to San Diego. My place in LA was still in sublet. So I had to try and get on another San Diego show when I returned. The money was not the best, but the work was steady and I wanted to work at least until the winter so if I wanted to go to Colorado I could.

While still on the Stan Klein lot I popped into the office of the next show that my original unit, Orange, was to be on. I met with Karin, the new production manager for the Orange and Green units. When I walked into Karin’s office to introduce myself, I was immediately attracted to her. I thought that she was cute in an Adrianne Balboa of “Rocky” sort of a way. She had glasses, didn't wear any make up. Her hair was shoulder length and auburn. She dressed casual in jeans which suited her well. I thought that she might have had some mutual attraction for me, hard to say, she was at least very nice. She said that the Green unit was all crewed up. I had actually never met any of the Green unit. They were always working somewhere else when we were shooting. I did bump into them on the load-in, but all I remembered were three rather homely looking guys. One bald guy who looked like a rat was scurrying around, and two other Mexican looking fellows. These guys didn’t look like they were into the same music as I was, so I was glad I was not working with them.

Although Green was set, Karen was scrambling to find a gaffer and best boy for the Orange unit. Andrew, the gaffer that wanted to take over the world had somehow finagled himself into the camera department, so there were still some vacancies on the electric side. She asked me if I wanted to gaff. I said I’d do it but I didn’t think Andrew would be too excited to have me as the gaffer. I also said I would be the best boy, but whoever Andrew recommended for gaffer would probably bring a best boy, and Ellis who would be back from Thailand any day would most likely want the job again. My number was on the crew list and she said that they would find out soon.

 

THE BIG CITY.COM
When Norm let me go I was a bit shocked at first. After meeting with Spence however, I saw an opportunity to get out of California for a week or two. Living out West, I long for the beat and rhythm of New York. Granted the weather in the East, for the most part is not too pleasant. Way too hot and humid in the summertime and bone chilling cold in the winter. If it snowed more in the winter perhaps I would have stayed there, but I didn’t want to be anywhere where it rained in January, that is the most depressing thing in the world. I do feel completely at home in New York; safe walking on the streets. I also have an intimate knowledge of the city. Buildings and streets are like old friends. Landmarks are way points, oasis’s that I know (barring cataclysmic change), will always be there. The face of New York City has certainty changed. The hellish down and out areas of the 1970’s have been transformed into a preppie paradise. I understand why many grieve for a city that has indiscriminately sold most of its land, and perhaps a large part of its soul to whoever could afford it.

I was most often a day tripper in New York City anyway. I lived only briefly on the Lower East Side one summer and in Chelsea for just a couple of weeks another time. I would spend the night once in a great while with my brother who owned a brownstone in Park Slope. He lived in a hip area of Brooklyn which has now been gentrified. I grew up north of the city in Westchester County. A 40 minute train ride would bring me into the heart of the greatest metropolis of modern civilization. A friend of mine once observed that when I got to NY I develop a pained expression on my face, I suppose there is a bit of a chameleon in most of us, it pays to adapt yourself to your surroundings. If you are constantly wide eyed and guileless there is the hazard of being taken advantage of. Maybe I get it from my father. I often notice how boys will have the exact same gait as their father. I speculate if it’s nature or nurture, hard to say. Considering that spoken accents are acquired through subconscious auditory observations, walking features might be acquired through much the same way. My father no doubt put on a look of pain while doing his daily walks from Grand Central Station to whatever job location he was on. He was sent out of his office in mid-town to do electrical work most every day during his 25 plus years as a journeyman electrician. If he had had the same passion for films that I had, I probably would have been closer to being in my union of choice by now, but who can say how things may have been.

 

NEVER SLEEPS
I got a decent price on a flight, made a few phone calls alerting the handful of friends I still had in the tri- state area that I'd be paying a visit. Their peripatetic friend would be in town. I have some buddies that I spend most of my time with while I'm in NY. I mostly stayed with my childhood friend from High School, Lawrence. He was going to be very busy with work so I couldn’t spend too much time with him in Westchester.

I flew into La Guardia, which is 1 of the 3 major airports in NY. A few years back, my good friend Stan had opened a yoga studio on the North Shore of Long Island. In my experience most yoga studios seem to be just making rent. The business keeps the studio owners in their Birkenstocks and mortgages, with not much to spare. After a few lean years, if their hearts were in it, all the studios turned the curve. The difficult task of keeping customers, turned into a struggle no longer for them to open up their purse strings, but for them to open up their minds, which can be just as stressful on a studio director.

I had forgotten that Clare, a former student of mine from Orange County, CA, who was now an instructor, had been staying with Stan and teaching for him at his studio on the North Shore of Long Island. Clare was excited to see me. We would hopefully spend some time together in the city, Stan's place was over a hour train ride away, so she didn’t get into New York much.

It turns out Clare was a big stoner. She and Stan had spent most evenings after teaching in a smoke filled haze, not that there is anything wrong with that. For myself I have been weaning off the green stuff slowly. Last few years I'd go through streaks of being on and off the smoking wagon. When I’m on the wagon I enjoy the clarity.

Bikram, our Hatha yoga guru tells my favorite story about smoking pot. He was at Yul Brenner’s girlfriend’s party. He was still fresh in the country at this point. Bikram is from India, and he has grown up exercising. He started yoga at age 3, living within a caste system he believed that only those of a lower social status engaging in recreational drug use. He was surprised when cultured people such as the ones at this party were smoking the Cannabis. He inquired.

"I didn’t know you educated people smoked."

“You’ve never tried it?” Was her response.

"You don't know what you’re missing."

Without hesitating, Bikram's let her know.

“No, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

Reality what a concept. Although I enjoyed puffing in college, now it just seemed to make me tired. During the San Diego shows, but people just kept coming onto the truck to smoke themselves, and often myself out. I declined most of the day, but there were so many opportunities that I eventfully gave in a few times a week.
 
After a couple of buses and train rides I made it to the

Little Neck train station. Stan was there with Clare to pick me up. I was on the rural North Shore of Long Island. My limited experience with Long Island came during my junior high school days. I attended a few Bar Mitzvahs and visited friends I had made from summer camp. Many of my summers were spent away from home at a sports camp in the Berkshires. I shared these summers with other adolescent Jewish boys whose parents sent them away for the summer.

A Christian friend from college, who is now married with children told me,

“We love our kids, only Jewish families send them away for the summer.”

There was not much I could say to that. I thought it was a privilege to go to a sports camp. Learn how to swim, get proficient at playing soccer and touching myself.

A lot of my friends from camp were from the South Shore. There is an economic divide between the North Shore; which was extremely wealthy and the South Shore; which was bit more working class. I had naturally assumed that there were pockets of nicer neighborhoods on the South shore, but was unaware of the luxurious estates and multimillion dollar homes that populated the upper half of the peninsula.

Stan was happy to see me, and I was happy to help him out teaching some classes. I often received a mixed response from my students in California. Some liked my New York edge, but some were put off by it. Years in Colorado may have mellowed me a little, but you really can't take the city out of the boy. I still like to teach sometimes, but I’ve mostly burnt out on the whole experience. Now I mostly just enjoy the class as a mind body exercise, certainly not a career.

 

As it happened Clare never came to the city with me, and left New York just a few short days after I arrived. Now that I’m a tourist in New York, my days are spent walking around the city; going to the parks and museums that I miss from years past. I had read up on some exhibits via the New York Times. The Times was now my one vital link to the city that never sleeps. There was a Sikh exhibit at the Reuben museum, a museum on the west side that featured Himalayan art. It was there that I got my first call to be a juicer in the big city.

JUICE IN NY
I love setting lights, I love light, and I love film. To be a part of something that literally millions of people can enjoy, blows my mind. That is why I’m trying to make a career in the film business. Other perks like setting your own schedule in terms of time off, working around beautiful women, having extravagant meals on the set, and potentially great pay makes the whole package particularly desirable. Some like my father have labeled my career a pipe dream. The fact is; I know people who are just as smart and able bodied as I am that are doing it full time. I felt that if I kept trying I would be able to carve out a niche for myself, no matter how long it took. This was what I was going to do.

I heard one jaded opinion about working in the film industry.

“The film business isn’t worth the wait.".

You could certainly make an argument for that. Granted, at times some shows blow. I don’t’ mind doing hard work, but back breaking work for hours can become more than a little tedious. You take the good with the bad. I have a wealth of things to do when I’m not working so I haven't given up yet. 

I had brought my tools with me because I thought while in New York it would be pretty cool if I got to work as an electric for a union show there. I had the number of a New York electric, a nice guy named Mark who I had met once through one of the grips on the Orange unit. He had been visiting LA and came down to San Diego while we were shooting. It turns out Mark was a pretty hooked up best boy in New York. When I spoke to him he said he was besting a show and that he might be able to use me. Spence had also given me the number of an electric who worked with him down in the Big Easy, so I made a couple of calls and hoped for the best.

When I was museum hopping in the city, I had my sneakers and pocket tools with me just in case. While attending the Sikh exhibit my phone rang. It was Mark. He said there was a de-rig that he could use me for. It would only be a few
hours and I’d get the whole day rate of $450. I took a cab to Brooklyn, not a problem.

CROWN HEIGHTS YOU BURN IT UP
Mark's directions were concise I arrived at the studio in Brooklyn 45 minutes later by the way of a middle eastern driver that seemed to know his way around the borough quite well.

 

‘Pace’: A rate of activity, progress, growth, or performance. An individual’s particular pace, which is an element of time, can define their reality. The dimension of time has a particular vibration. Vibration and frequency can be specific to individuals. The vibration of many set lighting tech's in my opinion is of a relaxed pace.

Marks's de-rig job required me to spend a few hours going up and down a ladder. I had to take down some pipe clamps and lights. I laid the equipment on the floor and in hampers for the wrap up the next day. 45 minutes into the work another non-union electric arrived. Jim was his name, originally from Florida, he had only been in NY for a year or so, and had been running into a lot of work.

"Can't complain."

He kept reciting when the topic of employment kept resurfacing as it often does with those low on the work totem pole. We never know for sure if this day will be our last in the industry. Jim didn’t seem the slightest bit aroused by LA. It was more of a theory to him, a subject that may hold some interest for him sometime in the future.

Even though the same line of work existed in the West it was an affair unknown to him. Jim was just starting to absorb NY as a place to live. He hadn't given a second thought to the obstacles or opportunities that lay in store for the precocious individual who acts on the phrase popularized by Horace Greeley; “Go west young man”.

Jim didn't ask me to expand on any stories from LA. We mostly listed to the eclectic mix provided by Jack FM.

I on the other hand was curious what it would be like to work in NY as an electric. I had worked years ago as a set PA, but this was a different department, and I wanted to see what kind of vibe I got from these guys. I did manage to see a few of the New York juicers, a couple of older guys with beards mostly. They seemed pretty laid back, even jaded. I heard one guy mention that he was heading out to Florida on vacation for a couple weeks. I realized you really have to work at least a full week to get a proper impression. The impression I did get was that these New York workers were pretty much stuck in NY. It was rumored to be difficult to move up to gaffer in LA, it seemed that it would be even more difficult to make that leap in New York, I'd really have to put some time in to know for sure. At that point it was only the Spring and the Fall that I was willing to live in New York, and this time I was just there on vacation, maybe next year I'd give it a proper go.

After we finished de-rigging I thanked Mark for the opportunity to make a couple of bucks. Said goodbye to Jim and was on my way, via subway this time, back to Manhattan. A couple of days later while walking around the east side of Greenwich Village I saw some production vehicles. I stopped an electric to inquire about their best boy, curious if they had any call for some extra men, even though still on vacation I was still interested in the NY scene.

The electric I met seemed apathetic, and a pretty jaded fellow, this seemed to be the attitude I ran into a lot in the city. He said he was the genie operator. I speculated,

"That must be a pretty easy gig."

But apparently they had had some problems with ballasts and other equipment. I wasn’t sure how this related to being the genie op but these be NY ways. Perhaps that contributed to his disinterested state. I later found out that the 'gennie op' in New York, was really the truck bitch, and stayed all day by the truck looking after equipment. These responsibilities fell to the best boy in LA. My new friend suggested that I come back in a few hours, the best boy would be there then. He told me that there were guys with 2 ‘cards’ working on the show. That would be pretty smooth, to have a union card from LA as well as NY.

After a few hours I did come back, just as they were closing up the truck. I met the best boy and gave him my number. He was much younger than I would have expected. When I work on any film set, especially a big union show, and the other electrics are younger than myself I get a bit self conscious. Although I had just turned 40 I didn’t look my age. I'm in better shape than most on the set except perhaps some actors. I can generally tell about how old people are and when those who have union positions, are 10 to 15 year younger than I, I feel a tinge of envy. Although, if I was in the union already I'd probably find something else to complain about.

Someone once wrote that envy is the worst emotion. If you believe in a world based on cause and effect, if you understand the concept of Karma you realize we maybe living out the consequences of our actions, or inactions. To be envious of someone else's place doesn’t make much sense. You do the best you can and try to except that situation for better or worse. It is still difficult when the cards don't always fall the way you want each and every time.

I've come to recognize a few bench marks determining that I've gotten a bit older. When I noticed that the baseball players and other professional athletes on TV were visibly
younger than the man in the mirror I realized that time was moving forward, and dragging me along as well. Recently I observed the same phenomenon at a concert. The 6 guys on the stage all looked younger than me. I had to step back for a minute and thought, "Wow, I’m getting older, what a bummer."

 
The few hours that I did work in NY gave me the sense that if you are in the union in NY there really isn’t very far to go. Even as a New York gaffer, I think you will almost exclusively work in New York. This was not what I wanted to do at the time. The Spring and Fall would really be awesome times to live and work in the city, and perhaps I’ll pursue that when and if I get myself secure in the LA world.

GREEN

After a couple of weeks visiting friends in and around the city I came back to San Diego. I had to find work. Suji, my friend and roommate who took over my job on Red gave me the number of the best boy for the Green unit. Green was starting up with a best boy I had heard little about. The Green show was tentatively titled "Heiress". Gary Cottin was the best boy. I called Gary and left a few messages. I also tried to contact some of the best boys from some of the other units. San Diego was still busy and I was hoping for the best. After leaving Orange to work on Red, I learned that Andrew wasn't interested in having me on his crew. That's just the way it goes I guess, I liked his crew members, but he was certainly not on my Christmas list either.

It seems for this life I have been living along my own set of rules. When it happens that society's rules don’t coincide with mine, I will bend their's to conform to my twisted sense of right and wrong. I don’t speed like a maniac or go through red lights. I think most of us don't think much about bending rules so they conform with our own crooked paths. 

After a few restless days back at the house in San Diego I got a call from Gary Coffin of the Green unit. Gary asked me if I could come in the next day and help with a pre-rig. It was a Saturday and they needed to run cable for a set in Poway which is a city about 15 minutes north of the Stan Klein studios. I was excited to get a chance to work again.

 

HUMPTY DUMPTY SAT ON A WALL
I drove up to the Poway stage the next day. I was to meet
Gary Coffin, the best boy on Green. One other juicer, an electric named Lance was helping out that day. Lance had worked a couple of days with us when we finished at the mansion. Lance seemed like a good guy, didn’t really get to work close with him on Red, but production had recommended him so I hired him in the days of the Walrus. Lance was the smart quiet type. About six feet tall, and from Massachusetts. An intelligent guy who had trouble motivating at school.

 
Lance had scored over 1400 on his college boards. His wit came to the surface, when we started doing the crosswords.  From the start Lance let me know his opinion of Gary. All I knew about Gary was that he had hired me, and that was enough for him to be on my good side. I was trying to put some money away for the winter, and the unforeseen Walrus dropping temporarily emasculated me. When Gary showed up on the day I did recall seeing him way back at the beginning of the Summer. He was the rat faced fellow at the load-in for the shows back in LA. His shiny bald head and stocky build went easily with his beady eyes. Adding to his appearance was his voice, which came out as a whiny high pitched lisp. A lisp no doubt brought on from insecurities developed early on. His manner however wasn’t too overbearing and, he seemed friendly enough that first day. 

 

I came with a good recommendation from Suji. So I believe he initially thought of me as a possible replacement if he was called out of town for a day or two on a more lucrative job. The work that day was pretty easy, just laid out some cable, dropped 4 distro boxes around the set; we were done in a few hours, 'eight and skate' as they say.

I had an immediate connection with Lance; he was from the East, college educated, and funny. Initially I thought I would like Gary, but just after a few days the animosity that Lance felt towards Gary started to register for me as well.

There was a marginally sexy, but altogether sleazy dread headed 20 yr old security guard stationed at the Poway stage. Gary and I had some comments together about her appearance, and if perhaps she was a 'goer' or not. Gary hit on her. At least he was straight, not that there would be anything wrong with him if he weren't. Maybe if he weren't I would have been more sympathetic to his nervous manner. He let me know about the rest of his crew, making plain what he thought of their characters and their work ethics. At the end of the day's rigging Gary asked me if I would be available to come in the next day as he might have a spot on the crew for me. I was happy to possibly be working again. The next day I met the gaffer and a couple more crew members from Green.

We had a rather interesting fellow Garth on the crew. Garth was an older guy, he'd been in the service, The Navy as it turns out. Garth looked to be about 55 or 60, very thin and wiry. He had lost most of his teeth, and his grizzled head of hair was making the turn from gray to white. Somewhere along the line this guy had lost most of his marbles as well. In my opinion he was still a good worker. He was always on the set, albeit talking mostly to himself in what appeared to be English but couldn't be sure. Garth responded on the radio when asked to do something. His main flaw as a SLT, and it was a pretty big flaw, was his attention span. If asked to set a light, he’d do it, but if another order came over the radio, which often happened, he would drop what he was doing and jump on the next task. This is not really the best way to operate. Better off to finish what you are doing before going to another project. Unfortunately the bridge that the neurons take to make this realization seemed to be out on this guy. Otherwise I kind of liked Garth. I was shocked when I found out that he was only 3 or 4 years older than me, as he looked at least 2 decades my senior. Apparently Garth had popped every type of pill imaginable when on his navel tour, and this was now evident in his appearance.

Our gaffer was Bobby Jibb. Bobby was an older guy, semi-retired, in his 70’s. Bobby must have known Garth from a long time ago, because if it wasn’t for Bobby, the best boy Gary would have gotten rid of Garth at his first opportunity. Garth really did seem like he could snap at any moment.

 

Our gaffer Bobby had an unassuming grandfatherly demeanor, friendly blue eyes lit up an otherwise implacable face. Bobby shared with all the gaffers, some past work with the DP Sol. Although the particulars of those projects never came up in conversation, I guessed they were lower budget features and TV shows, not that different than our present gig. Bobby lived in Rosarita, which is a beach town on the Baja coast about a half hour south of the Mexican border. Bobby commuted up from Mexico most days, sometimes he stayed in a hotel in San Diego. I liked Bobby; he had a great sense of humor, was pretty easy going and I enjoyed his company very much.

It wasn't all that difficult to shine out on the Green unit. I knew all the equipment and it was easy for me to anticipate some of the subtle adjustments and the tweaking of the lights that Bobby had in store. Bobby and I had relaxed conversations about movies, current and past; he even got into doing the crossword with Lance and myself. They asked me if I was available the next day as the 2 other members of the crew were 2 brothers that made the commute from LA every day. Jorge and Enrique had been late more often than not. Bobby made it plain to Gary that if the brothers were late again, or if he could find any other reason to let them go that he wanted me permanently on the crew. Lo and behold the next day those two Amigos didn't show and I was hired on. So often you are called in for one day and you end up working the rest of the show. This is just what happed to me on the Green unit.

 

The next week we would be at the Poway stage. The set was a bar/nightclub. The cabaret set had call for many club goers, so there were some pretty sexy extras on the set. I saw Dee Dee there that 1st day. Dee Dee was the French girl who did yoga with us on the Red unit when she was working as the maid at the mansion. Dee Dee was in good company as the extras on these San Diego shows were a real perk. One of Dee Dee's friends had striking brown curly hair mid length down to her shoulders. I guess it was mostly her legs and behind that did it for me. I talked to her briefly a few times during the day. Sometimes its kind of tough talking to the extras but if you apply yourself you can usually chat them up pretty good. Her name was Sara, she claimed she had some landscape business. At the end of the day I stopped her as she was getting into her BMW sports car, asked her if she wanted to grab something to eat. I really wanted to get her number as there was a good chance that I would never see her again. She was pretty nice but wasn’t interested in me as she wouldn't go out with me or give me her phone number. Not so bad, as the next day another pretty face came along to light up my day.

On the second day on the show a new extra appeared, I remember the moment she entered the studio with the other background. Our eyes met, and I was instantly drawn to her. She was 5’3” with beautiful silky blonde hair, straight to her shoulders. Her skin looked remarkably smooth and pure. She radiated freshness with every step. Her thin upper lip was contrasted by an ambrosial lower lip, both turned down, giving the entrance to her mouth a perpetual pouty look. Her sparkling brown eyes in contrast were joyful and dancing, taunting me from her first look. She was wearing a dark blue thin summer dress with white print that revealed all manner of exotic tattoos on her body. Her tattoos were small, and discreet. She had a line of stars that seemed to dance around her hips and disappeared down the small of her back. She also had some writing on her hips that I never made out. There was a curious heart pattern on her ankle, and a compass with points on her wrists. She looked at me and smiled several times during the morning. When I saw her standing next to Dee Dee going into a yogic backbend I had to talk to her.

 

“Nice back bend,” I commented.

Dee Dee mentioned right away that I taught some of the crew yoga on the mansion shoot.

Zoey was the name of this new extra. Turns out Zoey was from Colorado, and had gone to school in Hawaii because she liked to surf. I talked to her on and off throughout the day, she waved to me a couple of times from across the set. Said that next time I taught a yoga class I should tell her and she would come and take it. I was able to get her number that day we even made tentative plans to go up to class together. She seemed keen on going, gave me directions to her house and everything, but canceled on me the last minute, said we’d do it again another time, which we never did. We would text each other a bit back and forth, but like every girl, the more I seemed to be interested in them the more disinterested they become.

 

WHO ARE THE GRIPS?

When I first started working with the grips it was just a day here and a day there. It was all I could do to remember all the specific pieces of equipment that we used. When I started picking up a few days in a row I was able to notice some of what the other departments did and the other members of the crew.

Even though from day to day I was working in close association with the grips it always took me a few days to even recognize their faces. With pretty girls running around who can blame me for taking an extra day to recognize some scruffy guy with a hammer and work clothes. By the time I got on the Green unit, I had a couple of years in the business and was working pretty steadily. I was to the point where now, it only takes me a minute to register each person and their position. 

The learning curve is a fascinating place to be. The familiarization process is surely under appreciated as one of the most exciting aspects of life. Failure, although ever present is more often met at the beginning of the road to perfection. With failure there is frustration. It is perhaps the deterrent of frustration that blinds us to the omnipresent glory of success, which is the polar opposite of failure, both teetering as opposite ends on the balancing stick we use to walk along the precipitous, but exciting learning curve. The rational man always remembers that standing with the exhilaration of glory is the specter of failure, each with their own respective consequences.

Practice is the key. How many countless activities have we tried, and then tried again and again over the course of our lives until the activity no longer holds mastery over us, but we are now its master. With this mastery comes confidence, this confidence can push you into further control and mastery. Sometimes curiosity can prompt you, tempting fate, for only by going past the edge do you know for sure that the other side exists.

The fact that the grip equipment is essentially hardware, with no internal circuitry makes it far more durable and long lasting than electrical equipment, which is more prone to failure. It is not surprising that a key grip who has been in the business a number of years may start amassing a truck full of equipment, which he eventually rents out, often with himself as the driver. The Key grip on Green was a seemingly cool cat named Reg.

When I first saw Reg he was sitting in a director’s chair by the monitors looking relaxed but in charge. Because he looked younger and had an interesting hair style - short dark hair pushed up into a triangular point at the top of his head - I incorrectly assumed he was the best boy grip, but he was the key. Reg was pretty fit. He was broad shouldered and had some experience with jiu-jitsu, but didn't have cauliflower ears. I wasn't sure how much he had rolled verses how much he just lifted weights. Judging from his manner and physique I went on the assumption of an equal amount of both.

One grip that provided me with a source of amusement was this guy Jacky. If I had had Jackie in my department it may have been different. I have been living out West now for 15 years. Anytime I run into someone from the East it's quite refreshing, especially a guy from New York. I can relate much better to guys from the East Coast. Although quite gruff and admittedly suffering from ADD, I had an immediate soft spot for Jacky. I think he reminded me of my father. The 3 o'clock shadow, the disheveled clothes, short dark hair running in all manner of directions. A disorganized sense of calm permeated his demeanor. The functionality of his dress also reminded me of dear old dad. It was overwhelmingly his complexion that I found so familiar. Mid to late 30's he was firmly a blue collar man, which was undeniably what my father was. My dad was the child of Hungarian immigrants. My grand parents had met on the boat on the way to Ellis Island.

My dad was a 2nd generation commercial electrician with a smattering of social skills that left something to be desired. Jackie was from Long Island originally, guessing South Shore, he was down in San Diego to look after his father who was battling cancer.

Most of the crew down in San Diego was extremely green; even Reg's best boy had perhaps one show's worth of experience. A couple of young guys like Cliff, an early 20's honest looking kid had been working construction for a while and somehow happened into the crew.

As mentioned earlier, Sol the DP was rarely on the set. What happened most often on these crews was that the most respected, sometimes, just the loudest department head would make the decisions for the shots and how we were to set the lights. On the Green unit there was Bobby, our gaffer as well as Reg, the key grip. But Bobby called most all the shots as he was the oldest and most experienced.

TRUE COLORS

It wasn't long before I saw exactly what Lance was talking about when he complained about having to deal with Gary Cotton. Gary would rush onto the set and completely disrupt any harmony that may have existed that day. In the beginning it was not so bad because he often stayed on the truck, attending to the daily best boy duties, such as paper work and equipment. Whenever there were any large lighting set ups he'd come in and start ordering us around, it was a real drag.

After a week in Poway, we returned back to the Stan Klein stages, and to stage 1, my old stomping ground. Our new set was a restaurant set that we would be shooting at for a week or so. It was in the recesses of the Sudo Ku, the fake Chinese restaurant that I learned that Garth, my electrical brother that looked like a burned out Rhesus monkey, was just a couple of years older than me. We were talking about health benefits, and he mentioned the year he started to receive these benefits from the Navy. I realized that he must have been out of high School not much earlier than I was.

I was transported to a similar conversation I once had with an equally emaciated individual at a rock concert several years in the past. I was resting on a bench between sets, trying to spark the remnants of a roach I had smuggled in, when I met Lenny. I struck up a conversation with him, He was the same age as me, but in a state of rapid decay. This guy had his drug experience and to his demise, degradation, within the context of a carnival arena. He was a carnie, God knows what manner of pills and serums they must litter their bodies and veins with. I didn't get any specifics out of Lenny, suffice to say, his brain and body were no doubt quite a bit the worse for wear.

On some of the bigger days, as with the Orange and Red units we called in some extra guys. One guy started to come in frequently, this was Peter Ortega. Pete was Gary's friend from some past show and Gary owed an allegiance to Pete. Any friend of Gary would no doubt be suspect, but what can you do when you’re not doing the hiring. Pete was on the Purple unit which went into a brief hiatus after Green started. Pete was a 5’ 5” stocky, dark haired Mexican American. His Mexican accent was so thick I had to ask him if he was making it up or not when he spoke. But Pete was a hard worker and I can’t take that away from him. In addition to Pete, Gary auditioned a couple of guys. Ramblin' Phil Shamblin made an appearance, as well as a couple of nondescript young guys. Some brain dead automaton named Sherman worked with us for a few days. One time when we were shooting he loped right through the shot oblivious to the world at large. To make matters worse he had a large piece of cable coiled up on his arm, we were all in disbelief. This didn't make our department look any better for the moment.

We were at the Stan Klein studios for a couple of weeks. After stage 1 we made a move to Stage 7, where they had constructed the set for Daniela’s office. Danielle played the FBI agent in the show. I thought Danielle was pretty cute in a Simian sort of a way. She was a New York actress that seemed to be quick witted. She had dark silky hair, creamy skin, wildly dark Italian eyes, and an enduring smile.

I talked with Danielle a few times, but was pretty sure she had a boyfriend back East. When working on the film set everyone does in a sense have access to everyone else, but as with any social situation, you must know where it is appropriate to engage another in conversation. When situations and timing cooperate, there may very well be an accessible window where shared conversation gives way to a relationship. Whether that relationship continues to move forward is anybody's guess. A variety of factors usually have to be in place for any relationship to nurture and grow. Although it is not unheard of for an electric to start dating an actor or producer, it is not the norm. This is because your association with these individuals is quick and in passing. When you are in the gaffers shoes or in the position of the DP, then instead of dope to smoke, and cable to coil, you may have more time to be charming anyone within ear shot.

The eye candy that was abundantly available in the form of the actresses on the shows could not be denied. We had a variety of inexperienced crew members mixed with all manner of miscreants, as well as several really good guys. We may have been working for a low rate, officially the lowest of any IATSE technician in the nation by one grips estimate.  But we had some righteous hotties on the show.

One reason I got into show business in the 1st place is because I like being around pretty girls. Some people seem to think flirting with the opposite sex is a crime. If you make them uncomfortable then you probably are infringing on their rights, but it really is the most natural thing in the world.

Granted it is difficult to concentrate in some situations when distracted by outrageous cleavage or the hint of a tattoo on the small of a centerfolds back, but such is life, and I'd rather be in no other place.

The star of our show was Analyn. I first noticed this strikingly thin but utterly vivacious sex pot on the trailers we shot back in May. It was lunch time and I was on my way to the catering truck. I was struck, stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this stick thin bombshell. Her long blonde curls like Goldilocks spilled over her shoulders and down her back. Overflowing like an inviting garden, vines with flowers escaping from the confines of a white picked fence. Her wild blue eyes and sensuous mouth drew my eyes like a dart to a bulls eye target. The muscles of my jaw reflexively slackened, parting my lips in awe. I don't believe we got to shoot her on the trailers, although I must have been behind the scenes coiling cable and kicking Dan's ass at chess on the truck, because she was there, made up like a goddess for some reason, other than distracting me into oblivion.

Analyn played the obvious Paris Hilton Character. The rich, rebellious, socialite daughter of a hard scrambled, self made millionaire. I really didn't follow the story too closely, having given up on these lame scripts several show’s ago. I was just happy to see her on the set. "Fashion House" had Natalie prancing around half naked on the set, "Heiress" had Analyn. They each played their fledgling off screen sexy roles to a tee.

On different occasions, but in pretty much the same situations I feel pretty confident that I caught a glimpse of both these girls’ nipples. They were wearing low cut, revealing dresses. Jumping around swooshing this way and that, they both wore 'A' cups, which sometimes can make it easier for the nipples themselves to give a peak out now and again, as there is less bosom to be captured by the dress.  Natalie, being Cuban you would think would have dark nipples, but they were deep red and luscious. One grip said that I made his week when I told him her head lights were not dark. Analyn's were a disappointing pale red.

As with all the San Diego shows we maintained a shooting schedule that was obscene. 17 to 20 pages a day. This was ridiculous. Most productions shoot 2 to 5 pages a day. Our production company was able to do this because we shot scenes for multiple episodes. As long as the set or location was right, and the actor was available, we did as much as possible in one direction, then turned around for the other direction.  After a while I could see that this process was beginning to wear on our gaffer Bobby. The fact that Bobby was retired and drove up from Mexico just to work on these lame shows made me think that he was just doing it as a favor to Sol, the DP.

JIM QUITS

One extra guy that we worked with a few times was this kind of nebbishy guy named Ken, he was another friend of Gary's.  Ken was a nice soft spoken guy, and according to Lance knew about lights and was a fairly experience DP. Personality goes a long was in any business and apparently it hadn't gotten Ken too far. It was a haul for Ken to come all the way down from LA, but work is work and he did it a few times. While I did my job, I really didn't take these telenovellas seriously. They were in all honesty a joke. It was however a job, and that in its self is reason enough to be serious. On the other hand they really were a joke. While some in my department respected me, and my ability to do the job, others, like Andrew, and shortly Gary did not.

One week, when we went back on location, Gary had personal business to attend to. He wasn't going to be able to be on the show for the 1st few days of the week. For whatever the reason, Gary brought down Ken from LA to be the best boy in his absence. The first day Gary was away our gaffer Bobby did not show up. In fact Bobby took that day to quit and we never saw him again. The week before, I saw him get into an argument with one of the cameramen, and maybe that was the last straw for him. For the most part Bobby rarely if ever lost his temper. But I think the low pay, and the commute plus the fact that we were on such a lame show got to him, and he must have asked, "What am I doing this for?" And he didn't come back.

With Bobby gone, Reg, the key grip easily picked up the duties of gaffer, making all the lighting and camera set up decisions. Gary was away, and Ken filled in for him, and ended up being the gaffer for 3 days. I never got the full story, but mid-week, Reg didn't come back either. We speculated that he must have had some personal issues to attend to but we thought he was negotiating a higher rate, as all the responsibility of the show would now be resting on his shoulders.

The days without Reg were some rough days. In Reg and Bobby's absence, Gary ended up gaffing. On several occasions I almost turned to Gary and said, “Later, I quit.” Gary was not a person who should lead people. It is not a position he was made for. It was hard enough following his frantic directions when he was the best boy. But to have him as the gaffer was even more intense. Most successful gaffers that I’ve dealt with have the ability to remain calm and focused no matter what else is going on around them. I admit I lost my temper a few times as the best boy, even as a juicer, but you can’t do it when you gaff, there are too many people relying on you and looking up to you.

Gary was such a wreck and such an anal stress case that not a moment of relaxation went by when he was on set. He literally made my skin crawl. On several occasions I confessed to Lance a deep desire to deck him, to my credit I never acted on this desire. Gary was like a relative from the Addams family. Lance and I nicknamed him ‘Cousin It’. He would streak unto the set and rant uncomprehendingly, speaking nonsense at a hundred miles a second, then he disappeared in a blur. Lance and I would look at each other dumbfounded.

Somehow we got past a few days with Gary and I heard that Reg was going to be returning to be the official gaffer. As the key grip we were to have Reg’s half brother Alex, who had gripped a lot in Los Angeles. This was a tad exciting for me as I liked Reg and thought it might be nice to work closer with him.

Alex, Reg’s brother turned out to be great fun. He had grown up in Hawaii, and he had a relaxed island nature about him. Alex was health conscious, and in great shape as was his brother, and they made a good team. If was fun sitting and bull shitting by the monitors with the two of them.  Alex had some interesting things to say. He had spent a lot of time sailing in the Caribbean. In Jamaica he met a German tourist who later became his wife. Reg who was in the midst of building a Jiu-Jitsu school in San Diego also owned a fighting gear store that did most of its business on-line.

MILESTONES

As these shows were an experiment of sorts, we never really knew from one week to the next if they would be canceled or not. That mixed with the fact that we had unimaginably unstable characters in positions of authority, who seemingly acted on their own up and down emotions just as much on rational thought. I put mile stones ahead of me, that I hoped I would reach.

After Bobby quit, I said, “If I could just hang on, deal with Gary’s insecurities and micro management, just until the end of the year, I would be happy.” I kept debating when I would make my return to LA. My goal was always to work on big shoots, films that a lot of people all over the world got to see, movies that won Oscars. In order to work as an IATSE member of such pictures I had to get into the LA local. There was talk that the days working in SD might transfer to the LA local.

One of the electrics, Carl, from the Blue unit was in a similar boat as myself, in that he came down from LA to work. When I asked him about it he said that he had struck his own deal with the producers at the start of the show. I had also spoke with a sound guy who said that the main producer sent down from LA, a gentlemen named Henry spoke about back pay due to an accounting audit that was being performed by an outside company. I was able to get a meeting with this Henry fellow.

This Henry was a piece of work. He still has me believing he is on my side somehow. After my experience with him, I would say he would make a fantastic politician. It seems that a good producer knows exactly what you want to hear and tells you exactly that and more. He made it plain at that meeting that I was in the exact same situation as Carl, the electric who had his own deal. In order to get into IATSE 728 you must work 30 union days in a 12 month period. If he was going to get his days as a ‘distant hire’, than I would as well. Well this never came to fruition and while I heard Carl is now 728, I’m still working on getting my days. But the company is being audited to make sure they ran the show as per the letter of the contract that was agreed upon.

I ran into Karen the production manager a few times as she was running around between units. At first I wasn’t sure who she was. She dressed very casually, as did all the producers. I remember the first few times I saw Jim Cook when I was on Orange. Before Henry came down Jim was the big LA production company’s man on the spot. He was always dressed in jeans and a button down collared long sleeve dress shirt. But there was something about the quality of his jeans and shirts that struck me as luxurious. He was very fit, yet older in his late 60’s. I always pictured him in casual meetings, or on the golf course with the foreign billionaire who owned the network. Later Norm, the Walrus would inform me that Jim did know the billionaire conglomerate owner. Always kind of difficult to know if everything the Walrus said was true, he did tend to exaggerate.

When I did see Karen the first few times I couldn’t place her. Just thought she was kind of cute. I thought she may have been an office PA or a prop girl. She was dressed so casual, had glasses, and clip board, and looked really young. Then one time when she asked me how it was going, I recalled our conversation in her office, and realized that she was the UPM. After a few passes in the hallway and on the set of Stan Klein studios I sensed that any slight amorous feelings that she may have had for me had slipped. Perhaps Gary the weasel had bad mouthed me. That in connection with any negative talk that Andrew may have thrown my way would most likely have skewed her vision of me toward the negative. During one of my brief conversations with Karen, I found out when our Christmas brake was. Production in December as a whole is a slow time. Shows shut down for a time and don’t start up again until mid January. Because the telenovelas were on a tight schedule, Karen said we would resume the 2^nd of January, with a break coming Dec. 16^th. I thought if I could just make it till then I would be happy not to come back.

SERPENT DEFLECTOR

Baita was one of our directors for the Green unit. She was a real cool lady. I didn’t know Baita’s relationship with Sol, or the other producers, it seemed that all the directors knew one of the producers in some capacity. Baita was in her mid-fifties. She had a quiet strength and force of will that is an essential element to being able to communicate and deliver your vision of a script on the screen. Under the preposterous schedule of 20 pages per day there wasn’t much room for creativity.

Constantly riding Baita and the rest of the crew was the production department. Production is led by the 1^st AD and the 1^st AD on Green was a bearded dark haired fellow name Mark. Mark hid the fact that he was over weight by wearing an extra shirt, often with understated Hawaiian patterns over his undershirt which was usually a t-shirt of some kind. Mark was in his mid-thirties, and seemed to be a fairly experience 1^st AD. In my experience the 1^st AD is a pretty calm fellow. This is often a mystery to me because the 2^nd AD and the set PA’s run around all day and seem to be on crack. These are all ranks that a 1^st AD would have to graduate from before arriving at his position. Maybe because when you are in charge you can comfortably relax. But being a 1^st is not a relaxing job. You really have the weight of the production and its schedule on your shoulders. Maybe the confidence of being a 1^st inspires overcomes any hysteria that maybe implicit in the position. 

Marks’s 2^nd was a rough mouthed Irish guy named Keys. We called him ‘Irish’, although I often called him Keys. None of the production staff had a good word to say about Irish. I guess he was a fairly pessimistic guy, although his brash demeanor started to grow on me. After a couple of months I came to enjoy Keys. Once you realized that his bark - which was shockingly ferocious, and constantly heard in the background of the set - was much worse than his bite, you could see that he had a pretty good sense of humor. 

Stan Klein himself was at one time associated with the military, as the stages in addition to being a film studio housed a military special forces training unit.

Of course in the beginning when we saw the soldiers in desert fatigues, we thought that they were part of some set on some other TV show. No one ever communicated to me that we shared the same lot with the TV show “Adrian Carr”. So I assumed the GI’s were part of another show. But the soldiers seemed authentic, and when I saw a sign at the entrance to their sound stage reading: “No film crew personal”, I asked someone what the deal was. Turns out Stan - a jovial older Jewish guy in his 60’s who I saw a few times walking through the offices - had worked with the army special forces and maintained some government contracts for military training. Stan used a couple of his stages for military training, both tactical and academic.

I’d talk to the GI’s every once in a while. They didn’t seem to interact with the crews too much. Whatever your stance on the war in Iraq, it would be pretty tough not to sympathize with the plight of the individual soldier. There was a restroom by stage 3 and I struck up a conversation with one of the GI’s while waiting for the John. Curious as I was as to what he did on his stage in terms of training, and as to where and when he was going to be deployed. He was just as curious as to what was going on in our arena. I know they’re out there, but it is hard to find anybody that doesn’t at least have some interest in show business, even the lame ass show we were on had the usually trappings of any film set. Big lights, camera, and pretty girls are enough to catch a small fire in the eye of any American. I volunteered to walk the young soldier briefly through the set. It was the least I could do for this young man with short hair, about to risk life and limb for me and my pot smoking buddies. I am discreet by nature and was just walking him around the fire lane.

I saw that Keys was running the set when he noticed me and my guest.  He immediately gave me a, “What are you crazy?” expression. Shrugging his shoulders a long moment with palms facing the ceiling, jutting out his jaw, and tilting his head to one side. I automatically returned his expression with an extended shrugging of my own shoulders, and upturned palms, dropping my jaw with surprise as well. Then I saw a thin smile cross his face, I knew in that moment that he really didn’t take himself as seriously as perhaps he was letting on. Even Mark, who never seemed to acknowledge me, started to say, “Hey Man” to me towards the end of the shoot.

As far as other members of the production staff on Green there were a couple of hotties. We were lucky to have a sexy albeit somewhat prude Aussie girl working as a set PA. Her name was Dedra, I started calling her “Dirtya”. She was pretty fun to watch on the set. The fact that she took her job so seriously became a turn off to me. But there was no denying the star power of her bosom. Dirtya stood 5’4” with straight blonde hair, a protestant nose; Reg described her body pretty good one time.

     “Wouldn’t look so good in a bathing suit, but would       look good naked.”

I had to agree with him on that one. Her legs seemed like they could be a little thick, and her ass may have appeared flat in a bathing suit, but get her with her clothes off and that thin waist and D-cup would be just what the doctor ordered. I had a couple good conversations with Dirtya. But her Boy Scout attitude soon got to me, and while I still dug checking her out, I convinced myself we could never be together. She had a boyfriend anyway.

Gary settled on Pete as our 4th crew member and I started spending a bit more time in the truck. The truth is I just didn’t want to be in the company of Gary as looking at him made me want to vomit.

Most of the last location for Green was a cavernous sound stage, with stagnant air that we tried to keep moving with the help of blowers piped through a large air conditioner. Anytime I could sit outside off the set was a luxury. Once we had our lights set for the day it really only took one guy to maybe tweak a light four or five feet in one direction, and we were done until another large light set up which wouldn't come for another hour or so. For the most part I was counting the days when I could happily leave San Diego. In addition to the light work load, we had Lenny parked permanently on the set, reading the newspaper, no doubt having intense conversations with himself which he was known to do. He was however still ready for any light changes it they were about to happen.

RETURN OF THE CAJON

Pete had to take off for a few days and unbeknownst to me, as I didn't know he still was in town, we got Spence, my old gaffer on the show.

I was very glad to see Spence. I had always thought that Spence was a cool cat. Maybe with a bit of a temper, but it didn't seem to come out so much when I was his best boy. He was definitely a big time pot smoker, and it would be fun to hang out with him again, we listened to some good music, and had some great stoner sessions. Now I had a chance to work with Spence side by side as a juicer. To my surprise, Spence was far from an even tempered electric. Whenever anyone would respond on the walkie to his requests he would voice a sarcastic disapproval most all the time. I couldn't understand why he would slip heavily into these somber uncommunicative moods. I often had to check myself with Lance, the one other rational personality in our department. I had to verify that I was seeing things properly on set. I know on many levels I'm not always the easiest person to deal with, but I like to think that there is a cord of lucid thought that carries me through the day. A rational aspect of myself that permits me to deal with others in a constructive way. Lance would reassure me that I was normal and that it was Gary that was the anti-social element of the equation. Fortunately he agreed with me as to Spence's seemingly psychopathic behavior.

The 2nd or 3rd day Spence was with us he was heading to his car to smoke a bowl. For years now I have been trying to cut back on my smoking habits. I'm pretty good at going a few weeks without smoking. It just generally makes me tired and I am often disappointed when my energy is down on those days when I do smoke. But the day seems to arrive when I am really bored and I feel like a quick little puff will offer some temporary respite from the boredom, so I partake. A little change in attitude session is a hard thing to pass up. I also enjoy the act of smoking, sitting in a quite spot with a friend or two relaxing while the world floats by. There is a lot to be said for the calming effect of smoking. I have often said to myself that to have some decaf pot would be nice. I could sit and puff but maybe not get tired after. Strange to say, but often it's more fun to smoke than to be stoned.

Over the course of several months I came to realize that there were many on the crew in various departments that went through most of the day in a stoned haze. Some positions didn't lend themselves too well to getting work done in a stupor. When working with live electrical equipment, where a stupid/stoned mistake could cost you your life it does make sense to abstain at least until after work. Even with all the safe guards that are in place, the set still can be dangerous. Still the temptation is often there when you are so bored, and after performing the same tasks hundreds of times over again, it's pretty safe. That element of risk, inherent in any job involving heavy equipment, with multiple parts is not amplified too greatly when having a little toke once in a while.

I asked Spence while he was going to his 75' Ford Thunderbird for a session, if I could come with. Spence had gotten his ride functioning again and the car was actually a great looking machine, full of personality. I felt that Spence and I were close and I considered him a friend. Even though a tough nut, I felt I had bonded with him on many levels since we started working together on Red. He didn't hesitate to ask me for a ride to work when his car was not working. Although it was out of my way I helped him out with a lift on several occasions. This is why later in the day, when one of the grips came up to me and asked me if I had any pot, I unhesitatingly offered up Spence's name. Even now, in retrospect, I don't feel like I committed as great a faux pax as he made it out to be. I treat people how I wish to be treated, granted, I am often considered a 'bit out there'.

If a friend of Spence's had come up to me and said "Spence says you have some smoke", I would see if I could turn that guy on. This was a mistake. In that respect Spence was a far more private person than I was. I of course do not advertise the fact that I am considered by some a pot head. But I never heard the end of it from Spence. When I tried to explain myself to him, offering my argument that a friend of Spence's is a friend of mine, he refused to even listen. I regret that there was a wall between us after that unfortunate event, because although he was pretty temperamental, I still enjoyed his company.

WANT TO GO HOME?

The morning of the last day before the Thanksgiving holiday Gary was late. The call was for 7:30, normally Gary is on the set a full thirty minutes before call to start the generator, but I hadn’t seen him. I looked at my phone, it was 7:31. I said to myself “Well someone has to represent the department.” I went to set to see what the set up might be.

I walked over to the set; Batia, the director was telling the cameraman what the 1st shot was going to be. I listened to the tail end of the conversation then asked her to elucidate a bit more clearly what she wanted so I could get a jump on the lighting. She was quite happy to go over it with me, and I felt that it was too bad that I couldn't gaff this show, such is life.

A few minutes later I turned around and Gary had showed up. I immediately went over to him to relay what Batia had said, this is when he really just lost his mind. He must have had insecurities running so deep that any bump in the road or perceived slight to his authority just put him into a tailspin. Out of nowhere in front of the entire grip department he lost his temper.

     "Do you want to go home right now? Do you? I'll send          you home right now, is that what you want?"

I just looked at him calmly in disbelief, "No Gary, I don't   want to go home. What did I do?"

He told me I should just do my job and if I were lucky I'd keep it. Later when I had a chance to speak with him, his exact words were.

     "Your job is to fuck me in the ass."

After reading the contract several times I was sure that this was not something that was required of me. For some reason his paranoid delusions thought that I was trying to get him fired.

These shows were so lame, I didn't even enjoy being the best boy, why he thought anyone would want his job I couldn't imagine. I just wanted to have a secure job through the end of the year. I had someone subletting my apartment in LA, and just wanted to save some money to have a good time in Colorado during the break. The week ended on Wednesday as the next day was Thanksgiving. I drove out that morning to my parent’s house in Arizona. I was looking forward to seeing the folks, they are both in their early seventies and a six hour drive is not really much of a trip to see them.

We had a decent Thanksgiving. Friday came and I saw late afternoon that I had gotten a message from Gary. When I checked my voice mail I couldn't believe what I heard. He said that he was going to have to let me go. He thought that I was a good person, but that we weren't working well together and that he couldn't afford to have what had happened with the director happen again. He was worried that Reg was going to run a tight ship and that all our jobs would be in jeopardy. As soon as I got that message I called Gary back. Although I hated the guy, and he was right about me not taking the job seriously, I was counting on these next 3 weeks of work for bills, and my end of the year visit to Colorado. I was able to leave a voice mail for him. I told Gary that I was going to show up Monday no matter what. Furthermore, I told him that I was going to speak to Reg, and that Reg wasn't going to let him fire me. Gary called me back. He was not a bad guy, just a bald guy, and pretty insecure. These insecurities made it hard for him to be an effective leader. There are many characteristics that make up a strong leader, respect, patience, effective communication skills, charm, charisma. He was lacking greatly in most of these qualities. After telling me that it was his decision alone as to who would work for him in his department, he let me beg for my job back, which I did. He still didn't want to give it to me, but I gave him my word that I would take the job more seriously, and that I would do whatever he said, the only words he would hear out of me were, "Yes", and, "Yes sir". I just wanted to work till the end of the year, and he relented. When I got back to work on Monday I made it a point to shake Gary's hand. Of course I was more attentive. We finished up the last few days at the hospital set that we had been working on and moved back to Stan Klein for what was to be the remainder of the show.

AND SO IT'S CHRISTMAS

Our official Christmas brake was the 16th of December back to work on the 2nd. There were about 6 more weeks to the end of the show. Supposedly there was another show waiting in the wings right after "Heiress", but for me the end of the road was coming up. I had had enough of these shows. I didn't move to California to work in the world of television. I was glad I took the job; I got to be the best boy for a spell. A job that I really did not enjoy, but at least now I knew how to do it. I even got to play gaffer for a few days, that I did enjoy. I racked up a sufficient amount of unemployment insurance and accrued full union health benefits for a year. But the idea of spending another few months working with Gary was not appealing in the least. I did enjoy working with Reg; I liked his brother and most of the people on the crew. But just to finish this show after Christmas would be enough for me.

A week before the break Suji said that his crew was going down to 1-1 and 3, as opposed to 1-1 and 4. This referred to gaffer, best and juicers respectively. This was an order that came down from Henry and the big production company in LA that was running the shows. These shows could operate on a smaller crew, this was true, the nature of the set ups being what they were provided so much coverage on multiple episodes, we didn't need extra guys sitting around for most of the day. The fact that the extras and stand-in's were making far more than the regular crew, was an ugly truth. Some days with 40 extras' you'd think they could hire 1 less extra per day, and keep a skilled lighting or grip tech.

I had a feeling that Norm had told the higher ups that he only needed 3 juicers, and the producers took this to heart. Most gaffers that I have had dealings with fought tooth and nail for every man they could get; Norm was from a different camp. For Suji's crew who had been struggling for months to find a 4th crew member that Norm was satisfied with there wasn’t really any debate as to who would be let go. When I heard the news of a cut in crew I forecasted that this reduction would be pervasive. While I was debating not coming back for January anyway, I thought the few grand couldn't hurt, and I could probably stomach Gary until the end of "Heiress."

Clearly Garth, his dedication and omnipresence not withstanding, had erratic tendencies that made him a liability. If they had picked him to fire over me I would have resigned. Garth although only a few years older then I, looked like Keith Richards older brother, and most likely would find it difficult to find another job in the industry. Although looking for work is not my favorite pastime, I knew a lot of people in LA and felt confident that I could find another job. The fair thing really was for Peter Ortega to quit, as he was the last hired, and Spence's bi-polar behavior had keep him off the crew for several weeks. It is hard to get an answer out of any Californian that is not peppered with their serpentine intentions. Gary told me that Reg liked Pete, and wanted to keep him. I proposed swapping weeks in January with Pete, which he said he'd go for, but in the end Gary got his way and I was not hired back after the Christmas break.

When I returned from Christmas a week later I found that the crew had been cut and I was out. I can’t say for sure if Gary bad mouthed me to Reg or not, but Reg never returned my phone call as to why I wasn't hired back. I probably would have spent a few less days in Colorado if I had known that the security of my job was on the line. But Reg had said,

     "You can come back any time you want." With all the sincerity of a person from California can muster. I had my fill of the telenovelas and headed back to LA land to hopefully pick up 728 union days.

Sometime in January I heard that the plug had been pulled on all the shows. They cut the shooting schedule down significantly, cutting episodes and entire units so that by the end of the month all the crews were down. The two shows that were running nightly on the network in prime time became a once a week deal, being replaced with an Ultimate Fighting show that was actually pretty good. Suji moved back to LA, Hamby went back to rigging concerts and rock and roll events. I've heard from Francisco and Ellis a few times, but the whereabouts of all the others that I've worked with are now unknown. I worked a couple of days on the Paramount lot where I ran into Herman, the key grip form Orange, as well as some of his boys from San Diego Alukai and Tony. I saw Dirtya working as a set PA on another show but that's about it. I spoke with Jackie, my favorite grip who reminded me of my dad. He was on some TV show in New Mexico. For my part I had gotten out from under credit card debt, and gained some valuable work experience. There was an accounting audit of the show to determine if they followed the monetary guidelines and stipulations in the initial contract. Apparently they did not, as many of us received lump sum checks of several thousand dollars, that was pretty nice.

I look back on my time in San Diego as an adventure, a time away from LA working for a lower rate with some interesting people. In this business you have to take whatever work comes your way. Hopefully one day, you are in a position to pick and choose what projects you are able to work on, that would be something.

Glossary

AD-Assistant Director. Member of the production department.

Art Director­-Responsible for the look of set pieces on the set.

Assistant Chief Lighting Technician-See: best boy electric

Back-A light set to add edge or separation from the actor and the background.

Ballasts-Portable transformer of electricity specific to certain lights.

Best Boy Electric-Gaffers right hand man. Responsible for manpower, equipment, and paperwork for the electrical department.

Breakers-Electrical safety device in a switch form.

C-Stand Arm-Metal arm with an adjustable clamp used to hold equipment in place during a film take.

CD 80-Brand of a dimmer board.

Call Sheet-Piece of paper containing individual call times, and location specific to each day of filming.

Call Time-When a member of the crew is expected to start working.

Camera Department-Department responsible for running the cameras used to make a motion picture.

Camera Operator-Member of Camera department who operates the camera. Often the DP.

Catering-Department responsible for breakfast, lunch or dinner for the crew on the set.

Chief lighting Technician (Gaffer)-Head of the electric department. The DP’s right hand man.

Condor-Crane with a basket used for aerial lighting.

Construction Crew-Department responsible for building sets.

Craft Service-On set position responsible for snacks and water for the crew throughout the day.

Day for Day-Day scene shot during the day.

Day Player-See: Extra Men

De-Rig-Removal of equipment from a location.

Diffusion Frame-Grip equipment used to diffuse a source of light.

Dimmer Board-Stationary piece of equipment used to control specific lights from one central location.

Director of Photography (DP)-Head of the camera department. In charge of the look of the film also know as the Cinematographer. BSC,ASC(British/American Society of Cinematographers).

Distro-Power distribution equipment.

Distribution Box-Portable box like piece of equipment used as a central point to distribute power to different areas of the set via cables and stingers.

DIT-Digital Imaging Tech. Member of the camera department responsible for relaying digital aspects of the captured image.

Electric Department-Department responsible for the running of electric power to the set.

Executive Producer-Individual who contributes money to the production of the film.

Extra Men-Additional crew members hired for one day only.

Extras-Actors used as background of a scene.

Fill-A light set in contrast with the key light.

Fire lane-A four foot perimeter inside the building, kept free of any equipment in case of an emergency.

Flag-Grip equipment used to shape a source of light.

Gel-Piece of material cut from a roll used to alter the visible color of a light.

Generator-Portable device that creates electricity.

HMI- A lamp containing a metallic gas medium(mercury-halide), used in motion pictures to mimic daylight.

High Definition-Digital film stock used to make a motion picture.

IATSE-Motion picture mechanics union.

International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees

Inky-Small 200 watt lamp.

Jockey Boxes-Storage areas located in the belly of the truck.

Juicers-Set lighting technicians.(SLT’s)

Key-Main source of light to light a scene. Also head of a department

Load In-Process of loading equipment from the rental house to the truck.

Locals-Geographical areas associated with a particular trade. 495(San Diego), 80(LA Grips), 728(LA Electrics), 600(Camera), 52(New York)

Monitors-Television or computer screens that carry an image of what is recorded by the camera operator.

Practical Lights-Everyday light fixtures that are seen on the screen.

Principal Actor-One of the main stars of a film unit.

PA-See:Set Production Assistant

Production Department-Department responsible for coordinating the budget with the process of shooting a script.

Props-Responsible for the placement of set pieces that an actor touches.

Punum-Yiddish word meaning face.

Rigging-Adding of equipment and cables to a location.

SLT-Member of the electrical department. Responsible for setting lights and running power to the set.

Set Dressing-Responsible for the placement of set pieces that an actor does not touch.

Set Production Assistant-Low level assistants to the production department. Operate on set or in the office performing various ‘gofer’ tasks.

Shot Bag-Small Sand bag used as a weight on stands.

Sides-Small booklet containing the script dialog and mini call sheet specific to each day.

Single-New York term for ‘Stinger’. A shot of just one actor.

Soco packs-Electrical cable with controllable power leads.

Soft Edge-A light set to add separation from the actor and the background

Stand-In-Person used in place of principal actor for dialog, blocking and lighting of a scene while the principal actor is in make up and wardrobe.

Stinger-Extension cord.

UPM-Overseas the daily production and preparation of the show.

Unit Production Manager-See:UPM

Union Days-Guaranteed hourly work days at an agreed upon IATSE rate specific to each local contact.

Union Gaffers-A gaffer that is in an IATSE local.

Universal Studios-Major motion picture studio in Los Angeles.

Wrap-End of allotted shooting time for day, week, location, actor etc.

10-100-Walkie Talkie code for Restroom break #1.

10-200-Walkie Talkie code for Restroom break #2.