Got to know when to say Fuck You

Me was taken to school the last couple day or two. But I'm afraid I didn't learn anything. Problem was I. Could not see the lessons for having - well, the biggest blindspot you can imagine. I didn't see what is now obvious about the people I was dealing with. And so I was drained by them. It was like some big executioner/priest pinned my skull against a stone tablet. His dark hairy arm kept me in that postion. And with his tiny prison shiv, really a linoleum cutter, sharpened on the bench grinder. The sonofabitch opened up my jugular like, like a lamb in the temple of blood. Glug, glug, glug.
Friday was a big day. I'd gotten a call to be gaffer on a nice, big MTV promo. I would be working with a D.P. I knew years ago in New York. The job was quite a nice opportuniy. And if it went well there would surely be more of them. Their rate for lighting crew is $550/day - double time after 12 hours. This one counted.
And I tried me best. I stayed up late, grinding and burning. Tuning and tweaking. Looking the notes over. And over.
Three hours into the day, one of the guys I brought on my crew took a huge dive. He started walking around agiutatedly, saying he'd been electrocuted while pulling a 100 amp cable. He was fluttering his eyes, saying he took the charge through his chest. Are you alright, we kept asking him. I don't know, was his answer. I don't know he kept saying.
He had to go to the hospital. He was talking loudly about the shock he'd received. His eyes went back and forth from the Distribution box to the rest of us lighting crew. Someone had come along, he said, and plugged in the 100amp cable he was running. Said individual even flicked on the breaker.
I tried hard not to make a face to say something like: You stupid fucking asshole, would you stop drawing attention to yourself and get back to work!!!! Meanwhile other crew members were gathering around to hear what was going on. I watched this whole new thing unfold. And in my calm I tried to seize on some meaning.
Joe, the Director of Photography and the guy that i was most trying to impress came up and enquired what was going on. Mack gave him an earful. Talking loud. Specifying that someone came along and made his cable hot. Tried to kill him ws what he implied. My face was poker-plain, but inwardly I winced. This kind of shit is bad. Mack finally went off to hospital with a P.A. There was nothing more to do for that business. There was still a big day ahead and we were short-handed.
Mack survived the ordeal. He even came back to the studio at wrap to fill in his time card. The three of us who remained to do the shoot were faced with an enormous wrap. I was peeled. Destroyed. My ass semed to hurt the worst. I could barely walk. Zshoche, one of the other juicers held up a hand to show me a blood-blister from a lightstand mishap. Vince, can I go home too, he asked me. Mack made $500 for the three hours he worked, and now he's putting in a workman's comp claim. At least he had a good day.

Blindspot.

During our cursed, sweaty wrap I got a call to work the following day. It was supposed to be simple. $350 to run a bit of cable and babysit a generator. Photoshoot. I've done hinky little shit like this before. I don't mind it. I bring a book. Maybe a little reefer. There was some other business, about a section of fence needing to be removed. And I was supposed to figure out some privacy screens for the models on the shoot, so that papparazi from neigborhing houese could not scoop whomever it was we were setting up to shoot. It seemed weird, a little. All that shit is P.A. stuff. or locations department is supposed to handle it. But I'm not turning anything down these days.
I gotta keep my Chevy running. And anyway, I'm a go-to guy. I like to think of myself as an operator that way. Someone who sees what needs doing, and does it without making abig show of it. Very stupid. Mr. Smith Goes To Fucking Hollywood.

This was so fucked up. The shoot was massive. It was a Vanity Faer (sp.) cover shot. It would be one of those spreads with 15 actors on the cover. The house they were using for several locations at one time belonged to Bing Crosby. Amazing place this was. Two clay tennis courts. A vineyard! Right in L.A.'s Toluca Lake section. The production had occupied THREE of these huge properties in a row. There were staging areas for the five motorhomes. Valet parking for God-knows-who. So much security.
I spent two hours trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It's a photoshoot, so no one has any idea. There are no 2nd assistant directors like you'd find on a filmset. Instead everyone is a producer (great!). All chicks from new york, typing away into G-4s with no idea how to deal with practical issues. There are no call-sheets. One producer chick is the go-to for everything. I can never tell if she's talking to me or someone else on her hands-free cell. I would walk off on my own and sigh at times. The whole business seemed like a stupid mess.
Nevertheless I felt inspired to make something of the strange job. I felt energetic, despite having been outside in the rain for three hours already. I made notes and then revised them when I got conflicting opinions as to what needed doing. I would find myself going back and forth between the producer and the head of security. He's an ex-army sniper who walks too fast around the estate with his umbrella shouldered like a rifle, aiming at all the possible spots a papparazzi could use to get a shot. I need covergae here, he would say. I need coverage here, pointing somewhere else. Five minutes later producer chick says, no, that's background for a shot tomorrow. No problem, I'd say. Smiling like a corporate cleaner. Let me try something, I would say.
I finally get a handle on the whole detail, and it's insane. They need so much done, and it all has to be THAT night. I gently try to convey to her that it may not be doable. or at least not by me. I'm no key-grip. The produce starts raising her voice. She tells me that she was told it would get done in time. If I was the calvalry, it was time to charge. At 7am the cast of Desperaat Hauswives would be arriving. There has to be all these visual barriers constructed. That's what you were sent here to do, they tell me. I'm standing there going, umm... I thought I was just running a generator and cutting out ten feet of fence. I should have left right then. This was turning out to be a classic case of someone else's failure to plan, turning into my emergency.

If one has never worked as a grip, then it would be hard to convey the logistics of this operation. I would guess we had 1,000 lbs. of pipe, in 20' sections. We were having to build numerous 20' X 20" frames up; big sails which need securing to Ford axles hammered three feet into the ground. 100 #2 spring clips. I didn't get the order in for the gear until 3pm. And this was a Friday. That's when shop-guys usually start opening their lagers. And I managed to raise a crew of three dudes. Ready to BURN all night, in the cast of 1k open-face worklights, in the drizzling, eye-burning rain.
The stakebed truckdidn't arrive until 8pm. It was full of grip stands, speedrail, a 100 amp putt putt generator for all the worklights. It rained steadily on us all night. We worked for ten hours straight. All night in the rain. Squishy boots and pine nettles stuck to us. As stupid as it sounds, I even found time to build built a walkway for all the talent to cross between the staging area lot, and the hero house. And I got it all done. I was the last one there. I'd been there 22 hours, except for one hour I went and had dinner.
I felt sad and torn up and I just wanted to go home. I still had 10 miles drive on freeway, in the rain, in my old car. What do you mean you're leaving, the producer asked me. Who is going to babysit the rig we'd done. This was supposed to be taken care of, she kept insisting. I said it was all good. I didn't really know who was going to babysit it the rig. I'd been there twenty two hours already, I reminded her. It was out of my hands. I was a fallen soldier.
Apparently not. Some people feel very let down by me. I'm not kidding. Phone calls will be made about this. I guess a real team player never tires. Never weakens. And when you drop, they find some other non-union Joe, some nobody to tantalize with carrots of more big, glamorous New York jobs. And they'll cut you open and use your guts to grease the treads on their tanks. Sell your fucking tusks on ebay and leave the rest to rot under a freeway.
Some dark thoughts crossed my mind. Along the lines of flipping the chess board over. I should have bailed. It was the charge of the light brigade. Remember this story when you read Vanity Faer. Whatever that means.

Ruben Ponce. 6am, having coffee and a roll from the roach-coach.

The dudes from Jalisco. Manuel and Tomas, cooking up some vittles.

My neigbhor's kid Eliana, showing off her iguana.

Who won the Superbowl?

Not that I really care. But it is something that people ask. What was I doing instead? I was kicking it with the neigbhors. I don't do bullshit sport holidays. O, maybe I once or twice did. I thought it would be nice to fit in. But it's not something I take very seriously.

I managed to wake up at 4:45 am and meet Ponce in his driveway for the trip to the Swap-Meet. I'd been saying I was going to accompany Ponce up there for years. Yesterday I actually woke up, got dressed and hit the road. It was raining lightly.

Ponce is crazy about the Azusa Swap-Meet. I guess he's been going every Sunday for the last 40 years. It's goddamned far too. It was an hour ride in the dark cab of Ponce's truck. And I was fucking tired. And yet it was nice. The occasional thwap of the wiper blades acroos the windhsield. And the daylight still not awake. We were on the 210 freeway, along the Foothills. And there was hardly another car. Just big rigs. Rolling and Shifting. Ponce as always wears his flannel jacket and Sprinkler Fitter's baseball cap. We said little. I slept for twenty minutes there in the cab.

The swapmeet itself is kind of a letdown. It's just a big old flea market really. Biggest one I'd ever seen. The most curious thing was the class of vehicles all the traders rode in with their stuff. I'd never seen so many old trucks. Fords and Chevys. All from the 70s. Funky-ass camper shells. Trailers. Dodge camper vans with louvered windows. And they all CHUMPF CHUMPF CHUMPF at idle. If you stand behind one you feel like you're going to faint from the exhaust fumes.

Mostly Mexicans. So many guys wear cowboy hats, and boots. While they set up their stalls and tarpaulins. Their kids sleep on the front seats of cluttered vans. Very social.

I spent most of the day sleeping. I slept in my clothes. Lovely and warm. Dark and overcast outside.

That night I found myself wondering what the hell to do. Everyone was off at Superbowl parties. That is a big fucking deal for people here. My neigbhors next door (on the other side from ponce) were drinking and barbecuing. I could smell their backyard fire for hours. I loved the woodsmoke in the afternoon. It brings me back to little towns in Chile and Mexico. I felt shy, but I went over anyhow. It was cool. They made me some slabs of meat, and brought out a bottle of Pueblo Viejo tequila. And we drank.

We all expressed the same sentiment. That in this country you just work and work and work and it never leads anywhere. I'd be more succesful if I was watching the superbowl. But instead I'm drinking tequila and listening to mariachi with the neigbhors.