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.”