RUDIMENTS, pt. 731
('get your hands off my risers')
One time, about 1988, I
was in a movie. That sounds
so big deal to say, but it's
really just a pile of crap.
Jeff Goldblum, Roseanna
Arquette, Rory Cochrane,
and even Samuel L. Jackson,
for jeeper's sake. The story
is so long and dreary about
how I got involved that it's
almost laughable. Now, I
admit, I and my cohorts
here aren't in any sort of
feature role, but there
is a story to tell and I'll
tell it. Eventually.
-
There's a mass of people
about today, out on the
everyday hustings - news
people, 'political correctness'
and cause junkies; they 'proclaim'
(which is about all they do). The
things they proclaim are actually
totalitarian demands for their
own versions of things and
nothing more. It's been a long
time already, and I'm quite sick
of it. The main premise of these
folks is the false proclamation
of some sort of moral superiority
for themselves and their cause,
over that of others. They seek
only to make other people feel
bad. There is no joy involved,
no grace or enlightenment.
Just a scratchy and parched
negativity that lets them go
and spit back at others; at
others. But they won't take
anything back from you.
In fact, you're not even
supposed to or be allowed
to think unless it's in their,
special, self-righteous
God-awful way. They're
not satisfied unless you can
first be made to feel really
small, sad, and sorry about
yourself. I call them five-year
people; because that's about
their longest attention span for
anything, and by then they're
on to something else and forget
all about whatever it is today
had them so viciously occupied
with. Problem is, their tattoos
don't then go away, their gender
heave-ho's often get them
screwed up too, and a lot of the
detritus of their old, past lives
comes with no back roads or
exit lanes. They're stuck.
-
This movie thing was funny.
It all had to do with motorcycles;
they sought maybe 15 Biker
types, for a scene in a film.
It was to film overnight, on
something like March 1,
about 1988. The premise
of the movie was some crap
about a father, (Jeff Goldblum),
reconciling with an estranged
son (Rory Calhoun, I think it
was), who, of course, is found
to be mixed up with the wrong
crowd, which in this case involved
nasty Bikers, a biker den (a beach
house on the water in Belmar, NJ,
which in the film was meant to
be Asbury Park, where Roseanna
Arquette was that fortune-telling
lady, already of some note for
having been mentioned in some
Springsteen song. Very tenuous,
all these connections, but, that's
how it went. The Bikers had some
new drug, an LSD-type product
they peddled - much of it out
of the nasty, crowded beach-house
they kept. Which is where we came
in. My coterie of Bikers. (I watch
these scenes now, can see the faces
and remember the people, guys, and
girls. Some are dead. Some are lost
to me. Others, I still know of, where
they live, etc. It's all strange), was to
mill around, pretend at tough, nasty,
strange. No lines, nothing to speak,
just extras to the noisy scene(s), as
the varied stars did their stuff, and,
in some cases, had their scenes
spliced in as if they were present.
Adjoining rooms, lover scenes, etc.
All very stupid and beyond compare,
but funny as hell to do. The scenes,
which is what took up the 8 or so
overnight hours, were done over
and over and over. 15, 20 takes.
For no reason ever, that I could
see. We were supplied with fake
beer ('near beer') to be drinking,
and all the cigarettes we desired.
(It was a heavy, smokers' scene
and the haze in the room was,
authentic). [Funny how that goes.
I was passing through a town
yesterday and there was one of
those pedestrian crossing things,
and the sign read 'Heavy Pedestrian
Crossing.' I chuckled and commented
to those with me - 'Look at that,
they have dedicated crosswalks for
fat people!'].
-
Anyway. back to this film-scene,
Killer/Biker montage : During all
these re-takes, and the waiting and
the breaks in between, my handyman
friend John - always quite the
character anyway - had it upon
himself to stay quite busy. (We
helped, inasmuch as it meant
carting things away and into his
three large bike-saddlebags). He
was progressively stripping the
house of anything that could be
unscrewed and taken away. Really,
no BS. That meant light-switch and
plug coverings, small fixtures, some
moldings, outlet-joints, wires, and
the like. In addition, on the outside,
having found the supply trailer for
the shoot (left open and unattended),
there were multi-paks, 16 or 24 at a
time, of batteries - D-size, A and
triple A's, etc. A veritable battery
bonanza. This all ended only when,
under the further influence of the
cold beers in his saddlebag, and a
bar down the street (where, during
a 'dinner-break' we were treated
at no charge to a large smorgasbord
of free food, and beer. Believe me,
these actor schmucks eat well),
John discovered the make-up trailer
of one of these starlets in the scenes.
She was bored to shit, lounging,
a little annoyed, but free and happy
too, which is all Johnny-boy needed
to realize. He went at her with great
style and charm. It was working
too, until Security caught up to him
at the off-limits trailers. He was
shooed off, with no further ado.
-
I'll have more about all this,
next chapter, but one last
comment : After the starlet scene,
at the trailer, with John, he said
something like - memorable, and
I remember - 'She was so bored,
now I know why they carry
around all those battery-paks.'
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(end of pt. One)
