katrina ain’t my girlfriend no more

so, i lived in my own two-bedroom, 1200 sq. ft. apartment for a week, and then, because of budget restrictions and general reasonable behavior, i am now sharing a two-bed place with a man who just said, "i've never done a hurricane." we might just get one in a couple days. katrina, i think. i once slept with a girl named katrina. my flat-mate is a fifty year-old british camera-man. he's a drunk and loves cocaine. amazing. his name is graham day and he has "a thing for munchkins." like our waitress tonight and the publicist on our film.

i sweat. i sleep while graham lights our kitchen on fire the other day. he also put the fire out. our associate producer (read: everyone's bitch) thinks i hate her - possibly because i think she's completely neurotic and obnoxious, but i don't hate her. people are too sensitive. i am though the only person on the crew who can remember her name. everyone calls her betty or becky. her name is betsy. my original apartment had a left-handed can-opener.

i may be in louisiana until november. i will have grossed $18,000.

that means vacation-time. central american safari. luaus. california.

i need fun. and bonus summer. and a hurricane.

i shaved for the first time in three weeks.

i watched katrina on the weather channel.

i tried to convince graham that a coke run to nawlins was a bad idea but he went regardless.

i read my loooziana book –all the king’s men.

i was invited to and attended a screening of the 40 year-old virgin.

it was funny.

boners.
i took the producer’s assistant, kelly, to a small rock club in downtown red stick.

loved a band called bones.

talked to them about doing a documentary about the red stick music scene.

they seemed excited and gave me a cd.

the other band i’m interested in filming is a cover band that plays three sets a night – 70’s 80’s and 90’s – with the appropriate costume changes (gold spandex bell-bottoms for one).

kelly and i then went to meet the crew at an unreal club called sogo’s which had exactly the same music, lighting, and clientele as altitude in lake tahoe.

i walked in and to the bar and was immediately fondled by a ridiculously cute and surprisingly coherent and witty southern girl.

she abandoned me after fifteen minutes of potential... for her giant, bald boyfriend.

sogo’s closed.

some people were missing.

we found them in the riverboat casino, but the guards wouldn’t let me in because they thought i had someone else’s ID since in the photo i’ve got a beard and today i shaved.

people yelled at the guards for being ridiculous.

they eventually let me in but requested that next time i visit i bring a second photo identification.

i won 95 dollars at the blackjack table.

fuck those security guards.

at 330 we found a mexican place that closed at 3 but still made us burritos.

i came home to my apartment and ate my burrito.

tomoorw i shoot a church where they are looking to sanctify one of their former preists, whose relics can heal and miracle all over the place.

then we board our chartered evacuation jet to austin.

did you hear that?

yes, it’s a chartered jet that’s evacuating me.

once in a lifetime.

AND NOW DAY FOUR IN AUSTIN:

it's a fucking vacation that has taught me one thing - my life in new york was like a strip club where everything is comped.

also, jesus, that was some fucking 'cane.

sorry to the people. curious about the refugee camp we'll be returning to whenever it is that we return.

excuse us, you homeless hungry and devastated people, but we must return to the very serious business of making us a big hollywood movie!

but not until FEMA gives us our generators back.

oooo, and they mentioned us on tv a lot. we're famous! we were evacuated! we work with the swank!

dispatch from the outskirts of hell - day 9

i may have fucked myself. i am on my ninth day of what could possibly end up being 70. why am i here? someone asked me to come and do sound on a project and it wasn't in africa. baton rouge in august might be worse. and that's where i am.

i sweat. i mouth-breathe. things go on around me and i smile at the movie-star, hoping to make her comfortable with us - the behind-the-scenes documentary crew.

the ten-day forcast calls for a continuation of the exact same weather we've had every single day: highs in the upper 90's, 90% humidity, scattered thunderstorms.

i cannot release any major details as i am bound by professional courtesy. we did film a powerful hollywood man's butt-crack today. hoorah!

also - i want to collect my sweat for a day and see how many buckets it fills. i guess two and a half buckets. i'll get a PA on the case tomorrow.

let's be honest-part 2 (1998)

THIS IS THE SECOND IN A SERIES OF ME CHRONICLING MY EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

i am not qualified to do most of the things that i do for money.

when i look back on it, it seems that i used to be, but with time and the aspiration to do intersting work i have recently found myself in situations i am ill-prepared for.

so, starting from where i left off, lemme splain:

Job: maid at the Alder Inn, South Lake Tahoe, CA - January 2-3, 1998
Expected Skills/Knowledge/Training/Attributes: be able to vacuum, make a bed, tidy up, have no pride, no math needed.
Actual Qualifications: burdened with some latent obsessive/compulsive tendencies, inherited, i am pretty well suited to this task. unfortunately, my life up until now has not broken me nearly enough to be content at minimum wage and picking up giant chunks of food left behind by people who don't even finish their natural ice twelver - so, overqualified again, i guess.
The Experience: Short. I nabbed the job with a quick interview on Christmas Eve, then went home for a week, and returned on New Year's Day. January 2 and I start it up, and like a fire built of only dry old pine needles it blazes hot and dies quickly, and I am left a housekeeping burnout. I show up 45 minutes late on the first day, am not reprimanded in the least, and still vow that i will work there no more than two weeks. This ends up being one of the few proclamations I have ever made that actually comes true. On my second day I show up a half our late and think that this (along with yesterday's tardiness and my intentions of retiring from the profession) makes me a cool motherfucker. I do clean toilets though. Not so cool there. My second day does net me one Coors Light and two Meister Braus (the sludge of beer), and 26 pennies (a tip?). I plan on working the next day, a Sunday, and then giving her a weeks notice and telling her I also won't be working the next two days.
Result: Instead of going in to work on that third day, I call in snowy. 2 feet of fresh at 6am when I'm supposed to be headed in to scrub toilets for $5.25 an hour means I'm going snowboarding. I tell the boss as much over the phone and she asks me not to come in for the rest of the week, and tells me she'll call if it's going to be busy on the weekend. I never hear from her again, but one day, a month later, I stroll into her office, too broke to buy ramen or the makings for my daily grilled cheeses, and she has the $40 check ready and waiting for me. Amazing. I apologize sheepishly for my irresponsible behavior and never see her again.
Music: the death rattle of a small dog. or is that the sound of a large bong being sucked on?

Job: counter boy/barista/baker?, embassey vacation resort, South Lake Tahoe, CA, late-January through mid-March 1998
Expected Skills/Knowledge/Training/Attributes: make coffee, use ovens, be nice, look nice, shave every day or two, some math.
Actual Qualifications: a little weak on the shearing tip, but this was never made clear to me until well after i had been hired.
The Experience: i find a home here, make friends with the other resort staff quickly (by proffering free lattes and shit), bake amazing white chocolate macadamia cookies, get reprimanded for my beard, get my friend a job working with me and then quit after a couple months because i want a month free of work before i head back east. i also really get my espresso skills honed to the razor-edge of a precise surgical-caliber implement.
Result: i learn that cage dancers DO NOT make good girlfriends for valets. i snowboard every day. i return to my parents as broke as i was when i left.
Music: muzak.

Job: office production assistant/2nd assistant editor, corra films, inc., ny,ny (tribeca), june through august 1998
Expected Skills/Knowledge/Training/Attributes: an interest in film production, the strength to lift things and carry them, can touch computers without breaking them.
Actual Qualifications: got 'em all. plus, it turns out i can choose really sweet textures of paper to shoot as backgrounds.
The Experience: i learn tons of stuff and get fired and rehired before i even hear about being fired. the boss's girlfriend is about my age and he is twice it. she and i and the office manager (female) and her friend (female) and two of my friends (males) go out for a night of heavy drinking. nothing happens but then on monday, from south dakota, my boss tells the office manager to fire me. she does not. the next day he calls and asks if she fired me. she says no. he says good. at the end of work that day she lets me know that i was fired yesterday, but i shouldn't worry about it because i was rehired today.
Result: i somehow still think that working in film is ok, even though it's fairly obvious that everyone is crazy. i have some money saved for my first semester in college. i have film experience.
Music: i am introduced to palace and fall in love instantly with all of oldham's incarnations. this signals the beginning of my six year depression.

Job: PA, john leguizamo's "freak," hbo, ny,ny, last week of august 1998.
Expected Skills/Knowledge/Training/Attributes: know how to fill up a cooler, distribute and collect walkie talkies, do what they tell you, no matter how ridiculous-sounding, without a word of complaint, work on three hours of sleep.
Actual Qualifications: i'm young and willing and think that maybe i'll get to learn something useful.
The Experience: i meet some interesting people and tell a joke that makes spike lee laugh. it is a joke about white people. on the last day of the shoot, three of us are sent driving in a circle around the island of manhattan in a nearly empty cube truck to drop off seven or eight items at exactly rush hour. upon completing our tasks, as outlined by the production coordinator, without any slacking off whatsoever, we are brought into the office and harshly reprimanded for taking so long. the production manager yells at us and then retreats to her office where we hear yammering and the unmistakable snorting of lines. then the bug-eyed coordinator comes out and blabbers almost incoherently about schedules and things. we explain that we did exactly what was asked of us, and her frustration boils over to the point that i start giggling because i'm pretty stoned and she looks like a crack-whore trying to get money from another junkie who clearly doesn't have any money and is heavily on the nod and really can't hear a word of it. eventually we just turn and walk out. my pager(!) goes off about twenty minutes later and i call the number and the PM is crying. "we liked you a lot and this just hurts so much!" she can barely get the words out, "i don't know what happened. where did it go so wrong?" i tell her that i don't know, but i never meant to hurt anyone, i was just doing what i was told. i hang up and never speak to any of those maniacs again.
Result: i somehow am still interested in working in film. i will PA on and off for the next 6 and a half years, when i will officially retire. i have a little bonus cash to spend during the first weeks of college, which, it turns out, includes nothing but partying. sweet.
Music: "Cocaine Decisions" by Frank Zappa. right?

now i don't work anymore and just go to college for the rest of the year. there will be a whole different honesty series devoted to this phase.