Father Geek here with the second regular Wednesday installment of our on-going geeks quest for glory and gainfull employment in the land where dreams are made and torn apart, Hollywood USA. If you missed part #1 Just Click Here to catch up on Scrubbing Bubble's (Josh Boone's) truelife trek to fortune and glory, or...

The Crystal Ship

Episode Two

LOS ANGELES!!! PIET ARRIVES!!! PLANET OF THE APES!!! DIABLO!!!

Los Fucking Angeles.

New Year's Eve. The 10 West which takes you right through and into LA is emptied out. There's cars, but nothing like the traffic I remember from when I was here before. I assume it's the holiday weekend.

With no trouble, I swoop down into USC territory and park my car outside of an apartment building on Hoover and 30th. It is here that I will spend the next week. Adam has already left for Israel. LA is quiet this weekend.

At the apartment I'm greeted by "The Guys Across The Hall". They're both totally cool guys. They're also complete potheads. Nothing wrong with that. They hook me up with the keys and I unload my stuff into Adam's apartment.

His walls are covered with memorabilia from the films of Richard Rush. Lev loves Rush and is in the midst of doing a series of interviews with him. Rush made three fantastic films in the '70s. "The Stunt Man", "Getting Straight", and "Freebie and the Bean". Then in the '90s he made "Color of Night". Lev has been trying to convince me for two years that this is a good movie. The film's poster hangs on his wall. It's signed by Rush with the following scrawl: "Adam, I'm delighted at how similar our tastes are. Sincerely, Richard Rush". I find all of this pretty damn cool. Rush is some kind of genius. If you haven't seen "Getting Straight", go find it. It's phenomenal.

So I make nice with the guys next door and we all drive out to the Beverly Center to see "The Gift". I have a review due in the morning for a newspaper in Va Beach. The flick is good. The performances stick out more than anything else.

Back to Lev's. It's nowhere near midnight and I'm already tired. There's no way I'm going to be awake to celebrate. I'm asleep before ten.

New Year's Day. The streets are still empty. I have breakfast around the corner at Denny's by myself. There's a bunch of kids nearby who have just gotten through with a rave. They're all my age but I feel a severe generation gap that isn't even there. Piercings, dyed hair, colorful clothes. Not my scene exactly.

I'm feeling lost this morning. I'm here and I have no idea what steps I should take to get a job. And I don't mean McDonald's or anything like that. I can work something like that back east. There's no point in being here if I'm not working in the industry. I'm not talking some great job. Shit work as fine, as long as its on a movie set or in a production office.

I go back to Lev's and I get on AOL and lo and behold one of my best buddies is online. Piet Beerends. One of the kindest guys you'll ever meet. He's also a blast to hang out with. For months I had tried to get him to go to LA with me. No luck. He wants to make movies. He would be a fantastic director. But he's stuck in his comfort zone just like I was. But something's strange here. It seems that Piet will be at LAX in the morning at noon. He might stay. He wants to crash with me and together we'll look for jobs. The cloud has lifted.

So I spend the night online. Networking. Within a few hours, I have a job working the following week in the Accounting office on Tim Burton's PLANET OF THE APES. 110 bucks a day. YAY!

So I'm just in Accounting opening mail and alphabetizing hundreds of invoices. I'm in a new studio they just built on Wilshire and Bixel. They shot "Charlie's Angles" here. Next to the Accounting office is a the production office. The walls are lined with hundreds of storyboards and paintings. Armies of apes going into battle. Should be a cool flick.

The best thing about the movie business if you're poor is the catering. You eat for free. Breakfast and lunch. There's a fridge always stocked with water and soda. They bring you a menu for lunch and you order whatever you want. It's like heaven.

But I'm worried about Piet. He's back at the apartment by himself watching DVDs. I've gotta find a job we can both work.

Back on the internet. And by the way, the internet is the BEST tool for making Hollywood connections. All it takes is a little work. And a little work led me to my second job.

New Line's DIABLO starring Vin Diesel and Larenz Tate. Piet and I working three days on set and running food from catering to the actors and crew. And they need two people. So Piet and I are hooked up. 100 bucks a day. We have to be on set at 6:30. We drive down to San Pedro that morning to the harbor. It's cold and there's a huge line of trailers we weave through to find a parking space.

Working as a PA as a food runner is slack for the first half of the morning. We watch the shoot. Many, many, many takes of Diesel beating the shit out of a Mexican guy. About halfway through, they bring the actors over and splash some blood on them. At lunchtime all hell breaks loose. We have to go person to person and take orders from every individual. The food is already prepared. It's been laid out assembly line style and we have to fill styrofoam containers with each order. A van waits nearby. We load about half, drive to set and deliver, and then go back and do the whole thing over again. The time flies by. Near the end of our lunch haul, Vin Fucking Diesel himself comes up to Piet and asks what's on the menu. Little does he know that his assistant has already talked to me and ordered his food for him. So I walk up to Diesel and show him what his guy ordered. Vin nods cooly and tells us that looks good. Diesel is tall and seems to be completely calm at all times. He's polite even to us. And PAs are the lowest of the low. We run back and get his food and load it into his car for him. After he leaves, everyone gets ready for the big scene of the day...

THE EXPLOSION!!!!

That's right, we're going to see a vehicle explode and land on top of another vehicle.

It takes a long time to set up and they rehearse several times. We put earplugs in and wait. Finally, when the stunt does happen, it doesn't work quite right. The car does blow up, very cool by the way, and it does jump in the air, but it fails to flip over onto the other car. So they wrap for the day. No one seems to be too upset that it didn't work perfectly. Maybe they'll try and shoot it again.

I'm worried about Piet. He's got an inner ear problem. When he flies, he has to constantly adjust his pressure or he gets pain in his ears. He fell asleep on the plane and ever since he got off, he's been having problems. He has a hard time keeping his balance. Piet says it feels like he is on a boat, and his ear hurts. Saturday is our day off and we drive over to Beverly Hills to the Free Clinic. It's closed. Piet is not happy that he has to wait until Monday to get checked out.

We spend the next few days working Diablo. Timothy Olyphant stops by the set one day to see Diesel. Olyphant is a brilliant actor. In "Go" and in "The Broken Hearts Club" he created memorable characters. He looks like a movie star. I don't know how else to put it. Do not listen to what these people say in interviews. Celebrities are not like you. In person, on the set, in public, they are the image that the silver screen and the media has created/pushed on them. They glow. They have incredible presence. I believe that you project most of this on them yourself. It's almost like mass hallucinations. Everyone sees the same thing, therefore they are that thing. I believe it is possible to befriend them. The circumstances for something like that happening are probably the same as the number of times it rains per year in LA. But if it ever happens to me, I will do my best to stick it out until they let their guard down and realize that they aren't going to be used or taken advantage of. I think once you get past that point two things will happen. One, you'll gain a great friend, and two, the mystery will be gone and the hallucination will end. They'll be your friend but will no longer be that shining star you remember upon meeting them for the first time.

I remember when I was a kid my favorite movie was STAND BY ME. I loved those four guys and I would always daydream and imagine what it would be like if I could be a part of their gang. I just thought it would be the coolest thing in the world to hang out with Teddy, Vern, Gordy, and Chris. I've grown from STAND BY ME to movie stars. Sometimes you just wish you could be their friends.

So in less than two weeks I've racked up over six hundred bucks worth of pay that I can pick up soon. Crazy. Piet and I are working on finding a home. We're out of Lev's Thursday. As I watch this, it's already Tuesday night. We're looking at hotels, hostiles, apartments, etc. We'll figure something out this week. It also looks like we'll be jumping onto MGM's upcoming "FIREFLIES" for a long preproduction haul. Steady work! YAY! We're not sure of the start date yet, so we might have to do some more networking and get hooked up with another job for a week or two until it's time.

I'm here. I'm not "sucking dick in bus stations" as a few of you have suggested. I'm working on real movie productions. It's hard work, just like any other job. But there's just something about it that's wonderful.

As always, more to come.

So now that I've updated you guys, I just want to say that I appreciate all the mail I've got, the votes of confidence, the offers to read my stuff, etc. Wow! Kids in Brazil wrote me e-mail. I apologize if I haven't gotten the chance to write everyone back. It's been busy. Once we have a place and get settled, I should have more time. Questions. There have been tons of questions. It seems I tapped some universal well. I got atleast thirty E-mails from kids all over the country and abroad who have told me that they are exactly like me to some degree or another. The letters were all so similar that it was kind of disturbing. There are so many people who want to make movies. They all want to know what advice can I give offer, they wish me good luck, keep in touch, etc. I'm really moved by all these. It's really neat to know that so many people are on the path to making their dreams come true. So many just give up. And there is nothing sadder than that.

Writing.

This is a very, very important topic. I'm going to be talking about writing a lot. First off, I am not the know all on this subject. I'm not going to offer advice on it. I have way too much to learn to be giving folks advice. I'm just going to tell you about MY process. Weekly I will update you on my stay in LA, the highs and lows, etc. I will also progress you through my writing of a new script.

I won't talk much about story or plot, because this is a public forum and until the script is registered, etc, the details will be sketchy.

I haven't written a word since arriving here. But I have an idea for a film that I've been working on for a few months. When I say working on, I mean mulling over. I've been endlessly thinking about this script. Things are coming together and very soon, by my next posting, I'll have started writing it.

So next week we'll start getting down to business. There's some meetings coming up and some things brewing. If they actually happen, you'll be the first to hear about them.

'Nuff said for now.

See you all next week.