Totally Unauthorized

Stop. Go back to Wordpress

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

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

Sleep deprivation is fun!

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

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

Hands up who didn't see that one coming?

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

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

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

Damn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll see.

It's been a year! Update your bookmarks!

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

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

Come on over and join the fun!

What are you still doing here?

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

The blog's now on Wordpress!

http://filmhacks.wordpress.com

One more reason for me not to see this movie.

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

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

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

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

Have we learned nothing from that John Landis thing?

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

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

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

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I've got the RSS Blues

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

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

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

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

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

Friday Photo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm back on the fixtures crew for tomorrow.

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

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

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Okay, so some of you care.

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

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

The new link is filmhacks.wordpress.com.

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

Two Years

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

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

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

There is always someone cleverer than me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things a blog won't get me:

Free drinks
Lavish gifts
Famous
Rich
Laid

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

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

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

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

Friday Photo

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

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

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

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

The perils of freelance, I guess.

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

No work, but plenty of excitement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Tis the Season - it's official.

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

Beverly Hills has sprouted chandeliers in boxes.

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

Happy Thanksgiving!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I certainly made up for those weekends I worked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks a lot, now get out.

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

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

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

Guess what happened to me yesterday?

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, shit - Thanksgiving is next week.

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

People, please!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A very food-centric post today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Craft Service/Catering hiearchy is as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick, Look Busy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good point.

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

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

Apparently, we will.

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

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

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

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

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

It's an ill wind that blows nobody good

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

Or something like that.

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

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

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

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

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

Ain't life a bitch?

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

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

Putting in fucking holiday lights, that's what.

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

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

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

It's Friday!

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

I think.

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

Yup, definitely Friday.

Illegitimi non carborundum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She didn't turn around.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What day is it again?

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