"That Bike Movie"
Day 6.0 - Friday
“Who can we call?” asked Gina while we crawled out of our
beds, still laughing from my previous morning phoning disaster.
Our biggest concern at this point was
breakfast. We left off last night wondering if we were supposed
to eat before we got on the van (which we would assume they would have
mentioned our needing to do in the call sheet) or if we were going to
pull off somewhere for a quick bite once we hit the road (which we
assumed they were avoiding mentioning because that might be some form
of a commitment they had no intention of suggesting).
So we’re in the parking lot and everyone wants
breakfast and Jennifer Prod Coordinator is saying No with that sort of
rile-inducing confident attitude that really makes me frustrated that
murder is illegal. She insists that we must be back in Los
Angeles by noon (even though all we were doing was breaking up and
going home) and we can’t have any delays. So UPM Larry is smiling
and saying he’ll reimburse us if we want to get something along the
way. So I’m like Cool, breakfast, and I get in the van and Craig
is disgusted and completely unpleasant and is long past defeat that no
matter what Larry said, tiny Jennifer has overruled him on account that
she’s driving the lead van and she’s insistent that we don’t stop
because we have to be in Los Angeles by noon. So I’m amazed and
more than a little put out, and I harp on and on about how we must
stop, if only to top Jennifer’s side-sticking attitude.
We roll for all of a half block into an AM/PM to gas
up the vans and I confront Jennifer about this overruled breakfast
declaration (they were cheap to have us travel up last Friday and make
us pay for our own lunch, but to follow with their law that we had to
stay the night last night and then not feed us was the sort of thing
that makes people sorry they didn’t beat the crap out of them for the
Friday lunch thing). She smirked that we had pulled over,
smirking toward the AM/PM for breakfast of plastic wrapped vacuum
packed fat and sugar snacks. I was furious (DEFCON 4) and went
back to sit in the van while Tracy and Marcy went in for breakfast
snacks. They quickly returned with Marcy announcing that Tracy
had bought us breakfast (a box of doughnuts) and assuring me they
really let Jennifer have it when they were inside (big whoop). So
they lay out their little napkins over their knees and begin politely
picking at their doughnuts, and I suddenly decide that the least I can
do is go in and ring up a full receipt of garbage that they’ll have to
reimburse me for. While inside, I realized that while the least I
can do is charge them money, the more I could do to Jennifer was really
really take my time buying breakfast. So I s-l-o-w-l-y reached
for the middle size coffee cup and s-l-o-w-l-y put it back and then got
the large cup and spent a really long time filling the cup with one
shot of Irish Cream flavor coffee, then one shot of Hazelnut flavor
coffee, back and forth and back and forth until I moved on to the tiny
sugar packets which I sprinkled about 5 of individually, careful to
tear the edges at just where the two sides of the packet paper
joins. Craig was off to the side working on corn dogs and various
other snack side dishes while a couple of other people were grabbing
their food. By the time I turned around, everyone was gone from
the store and I saw the vans were pulled to the curb, waiting for
me. Heh-heh. So I pay my 99-cent coffee and get my receipt
and head back to the van.
So we all pull away and I’m back to DEFCON 2 and
partake of the really-bad-for-me-and-I-didn’t-want-them
doughnuts. Not five minutes has passed before Craig announces
that he’s got to pull over, due to his corn dog entrée choice,
and we’re all sitting in yet another parking lot for nearly ten
minutes. I steal a glance at Jennifer, who is kicked back in her
driver’s seat, not really impressed with our delay, and I’m most
pleased. I comment that this delay is a brilliant response to her
forcing us to gas station breakfasting, and Tracy amends the remark by
stating justice would have been served if Jennifer had gotten ill
instead of Craig. Agreed, but hey. Craig returned and we
tell Tracy she’s up for the next delay. She waves in the
affirmative and tells us to just give her the sign.
We’re awhile down the road, done with our
discussions of who’s hitting on whom, who’s hung up on working out, and
Marcy says most happily that Danny "leaves an immaculate dressing
room." which she and Tracy agree can't be said about all
actors. Marcy said she explained to Danny at the first fitting
how leaving a messy dressing room adds to the work load for wardrobe
people, forcing them to search for the discarded clothes and make sure
everything's there before dealing with the laundry that night.
"He leaves his shoes sitting together right next to each other with his
socks and his shirts hanging up on his hangar!" Marcy must have
told this story three or four times, she was so pleased with him.
Just as the conversation moves to who is exactly is who in the grip
department (“Now, there’s the hound dog one—“ “Justin. Spooky
looking but cute.” “Who’s the guy with the little head and short
hair? Tall.” “Oh, he’s shirtless and his pants hang down to
almost whoa?” “Yeah.” “I don’t know his name.” “Bob.” “That’s Bob?”),
and we see that we’re coming on to the real AIDS riders, on their last
leg toward Los Angeles.
So Marcy sits up from her book (a break which has
nothing to do with filmmaking) announcing “Research!” and she and Tracy
begin noting the differences between our extras and how these real
riders look. “None of ours have stuff on their helmets. A
lot of these guys do,” she observed. “There’s a chicken stuck on
that one. Mickey Mouse ears. A condom hat. Oh!
Curlers and a net! That’s great! ANOTHER curlers one!
I’ve got to go to the Pic’n’Save this weekend and do some
shopping.” I, on the other hand, was completely sucked in by the
emotional reality of seeing the real McCoy riding right next to us – an
ant line of bike riders, 15 miles long with the Pacific Ocean behind
them. Craig said “Come on, guys, cheer ‘em on!” and he starts
hitting the horn in quick bips that we hoped encouraged them instead of
scaring them off the road. But they responded in waves and
triumphant fists in the air and Tracy, who owned the front seat and
only completely open window (the remaining van windows were the
push-out kind), rolled down her window to wave. I tried reaching
my arm out her window and shouting a pathetic “Yeaaaaaa!” which I
feared only went into Tracy’s ear, she assured me it did, and that got
kind of futile. So I waved at my window and bleated an
enthusiastically weak “Yeaaaaaaa!” every few moments into the
glass. I sounded like a sick lamb and waved like a five
year-old. Marcy, who was completely amused, suggested I try to
wave out my window, but I demonstrated the best I could do with the 2
inch opening was shove my fingers out the edge and sort of
windshield-wipe them against the side of the van, which amused Marcy
more.
Finally, the riders turn off the 101 freeway down
toward the Pacific Coast Highway and we once again only have ourselves
to entertain us. After a passionate one-sided debate about
something from Craig, he announced “Let’s play sleepy car!” and dropped
his sun-glassed head to his shoulder, driving with limp hands. I
fell apart laughing, and he orchestrated the full-impact hit against
Jennifer’s van. “Come on, everybody. Lay back in your seat
like you’re asleep,” he commanded. We laid back as
instructed. “Now we have to pass them to make it really
effective,” Craig continued. “When a car passes you, that always
makes the driver look at it.” So we pass them, asleep with Craig
watching the road through his sunglasses and Jennifer’s van doesn’t
look impressed. We give up.
Craig half-heartedly suggested a game of trying to
make them wave, something Chris Farley was really into when he was
driving him around some movie set in Chicago, but we were tired of them
and nearly home, which we finally reached and where Gina, who was
riding in Jennifer’s van, said they did see us playing Sleepy Car and
thought it looked really cool. Then Scary Larry’s van pulled up
and they opened the side door and a cloud of smoke billowed out with
Enya.
See you Monday.
"That Bike Movie"
Production
Journals - On the Set
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