Big Vegas sort-of weekend.

Las Vegas is a hit or miss type of place. I either have a great time, or the trip is a total train wreck that's mercifully funny as soon as I'm back in LA - but completely miserable at the time.

This trip, I had a great time. Girlfriend and I arrived Sunday night about 6 pm, had dinner and then got on the list to the hotel's nightclub (that's one of the fun things about being female in Vegas - I've never had to pay to get into a club), where we danced until about 2:30 am. Some jeweler from Atlanta fell in love with girlfriend, who, of course, was completely uninterested in him. Poor guy. He was a great dancer, though.

The second day (Monday), we woke up, had breakfast and hit the pool, then had lunch. Girlfriend then hit the casino, where she won enough to cover her half of the trip and got us comped at the buffet. I spent the afternoon playing a blackjack video machine (I love blackjack, but I lose at it, and the cheapest table was a $15 minimum), and sucking down free drinks.

We just hung out in one of the bars Monday night, watching the crowd (CES geeks, AVN pornstars, eurotrash and hookers), and the giant animatronic frog (no, really) that would pop up from behind a waterfall every so often and dance to War's "Lowrider". If anyone can recommend a good free video hosting service, I'll upload the video.

My camera died while I was taking the video, so this is the best I could do with my cell phone. Yes, the frog's eyes are really glowing. This was happening right outside the "Parasol Down" bar.

Tuesday, we hung out in the spa, ate our free buffet and then headed home. Great trip.

Impressions of the Wynn Las Vegas:

The rooms are gorgeous, and the view from ours (on the 53rd floor) was breathtaking.



The hotel itself is kind of weird - it just doesn't seem to go together; sort of like they took everything that's classy, supersized it and put it all in one building - Girlfriend says she thinks they're just trying to hard.

Everything is hideously expensive - the restaurants, internet, the room service, spa access - and they charge you for everything (you pay a lower rate for internet if you bring your own laptop, but you have to buy a special network cable, as CAT5 won't work). The agent who checked us in warned us not to even touch the minibar or snack tray, as it's on a sensor and will charge you if you even lift the package.

The hotel staff were all amazing, but the service in the restaurants and bars was abysmal.

I fell in love with the pool. It's really two oval pools connected by a lap pool, and it's glorious. I don't know what kind of filters they're using, but the water was crystal clear, warm (85 degrees F), and had no chlorine taste or smell at all. Pure heaven.

If I can get another discounted room, I'll definitely go back.

[none]

Vegas rocks. Details later.

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The Silver Lining

Tony Pierce was right, and yet it's not all bad.

In June of 2004, Tony wrote "How to Blog", in which he gave all kinds of advice about blogs and writing them - number five being don't tell anyone you know about your blog, lest you censor yourself.

Now that people who know me offline are reading -thanks to the LA Times article - I have been a lot more careful about what I write (I deleted about five blog entries and about 20 photos from Flickr, mostly due to fear of legal action being taken against me), which isn't necessarily good, but it's the way things go.

Sometimes, though, this all works in my favor.

My boss on this last movie kept talking about wanting to eat Fugu (most of these conversations took place in a Hollywood sushi place that we went to while we were on stage - to avoid having to eat the caterer's food which made six crew members sick over the course of the movie), and most of us told him he was a crazy motherfucker with a deathwish.

Now, the LA Times has profiled another blog - Deep End Dining, which has an excellent story about eating Fugu.

You know who you are - I adore you, but you are, in fact, a crazy motherfucker (and that's not a bad thing).

This link's for you.

The best laid plans...

I'd hatched such a beautiful one.

About a month ago, I opened my mail and found an offer for a discounted room at the Wynn Las Vegas (the most expensive hotel on the strip), and thought it would be nice to go for a couple of days - just to soak up the swank (I can't afford the Wynn at anything other than a deeply discounted rate, so I figured I should go while I could. Fate may not throw me another rich boyfriend anytime soon). I talked one of my girlfriends into going with me, and we were planning on having the girls' weekend in Vegas - breaking the hearts of old men, being generally fabulous, getting massages in the spa while drinking something overpriced and fruity with a little umbrella in it.

Since neither one of us are gamblers (over two days, I'll blow about $40 in the casino - and most of that's tipping the waiters), we'd planned to bring another friend who does gamble like crazy - after all, the more money you lose in Vegas, the more love you get from the hotel.

I was pretty sure that Gamblor wouldn't spend enough to comp our room, but he'd probably manage to get us another discount room offer in the future.

Right? Right.

Wrong.

Gamblor has the flu and can't go - AND my girlfriend just called and bailed.

Not a problem, except that we were going to go Sunday, and had to cancel the room by noon today. It's now almost 6 pm.

Since I have to pay for the room anyway, I'm just going to go by myself. I won't have as much fun as I would with my friend (and not splitting the hotel bill with anyone puts a serious dent in my mad money), but since I haven't had an actual vacation (you know, where I have some quiet time and can do whatever I want) in a very long time, I'll still have a good time.

I've got a few calls out to folks (including one to my ex-boyfriend who probably won't want to go, but I called just to be sure), but so far no one's called me back.

I just hope my aging vehicle makes it across the desert and back - I sure as hell can't afford to rent a car now.

UPDATE: Girlfriend just called. She just got a check that she wasn't expecting, so she can go after all! Yay!

Look out, fellas.. here we come (well, not right now. Since we're not going until Sunday, you're safe over the weekend)!

The cell phone saga: Part three

Yesterday, while hiking with The Blonde, I lost my cell phone. I think it's somewhere at the bottom of Bronson Canyon, but who knows.

I decided that my chances of getting it back were slim to none, so I went and got a new phone. Verizon lets me upgrade once every two years, and since I never liked the last phone, I'm not all that broken up about the loss. I had an old phone that had 90 percent of my phonebook loaded in it, and the other 10 percent I can get off of my old crew lists.

I got an LG VX6100, which is the first camera phone I've ever had - I've always tried to avoid phones with cameras, as some shoots confiscate them (as does the green room at Jimmy Kimmel Live), but Verizon's not carrying any decent phones that don't have a camera.

Although scaring the cat with the flash is fun, I can't see that I'll be using the camera feature all that often - my digital camera's much better, and I almost always have that with me.

I officially retract everything bad I've ever said about Michael Bay.

Some of the most interesting stuff I hear pops up during casual conversations (in this case, over ribs with a bunch of other crew folks).

According to a friend of mine who's lined up to work on Transformers, Michael Bay is refusing to direct the movie if it shoots outside of the United States.

Basically, what this means is that if Paramount/Dreamworks decide to film the movie in Canada, they'll have to find another director, and they'll still have to pay Michael his rate under his "pay or play" contract.

Sweet.

Michael, you rock. Keep that work at home!*


*no offense intended to any of my non US-based readers. You all rock, too.

When bad Botox happens to good people

The Blonde is starting to scare me.

She called me this morning, as I was watching the rain-soaked Rose Parade on TV and thinking this was the year to have gone (the grandstands were half empty, and I've got some bitchin' raingear because of work), and suggested that we go have brunch and finally exchange gifts, since I was working right up until I left town.

We met at The Farm (the one in The Grove - which is expensive and so not worth the money, but she loves it) about 11 am.

The light at 11 am is unforgiving to anyone of any age, but it's especially unforgiving to thirty-something women who have gone way overboard with the botox.

She started out getting botox on her eye wrinkles "just once". She kept getting it over and over again, and now she's starting to get that "Beverly Hills surgery lady" look. I really don't get it. Before she went on the fix-it frenzy, she didn't look bad at all - she looked like a really pretty thirty-something woman.

When I asked what the hell she was thinking, she told me that I just don't understand what it's like to have to look good as I age (this is true - no one really gives a rat's ass what juicers look like - even when we're not on set, and for that I'm grateful). Apparently I'm not under the same enormous pressure to be flawless as she is.

Pretty far-fetched for a makeup artist (albeit one with her own upcoming TV show), but I think she's just afraid of getting older in Los Angeles - land of perpetual surgery-assisted youth and the fat, bald, middle aged men who won't accept women who look older than 19.

As we were walking out she turned to me and said "Guess what I'm going to get done! I'm going to get all those scars and wrinkles lazered off my hands. I think they're really holding me back."

I just shook my head, and wandered off into the rainy afternoon.

I went to the gym and worked out, and after that I sat in the steam room and drank a ton of water, which I guess is my version of botox - except that it makes me feel better even if it doesn't make me look any younger.

I don't think botox does that, does it?

Happy Cancelled New Year's Eve

It was going to be such a fun night - The Blonde invited me to some B-list starfucker extravaganza on the Paramount lot - an event which was cancelled due to the rain that dumped on LA all day.

Before all of you in other parts of the country decide that we're wimps, remember that Los Angeles is not a city built for rain. The city was built to suit it's arid climate - technicolor stucco buildings on wide palm tree-lined boulevards which have very poor drainage due to both the soil and the geography. The streets flood if more than an inch of rain falls in a 24 hour period.

Since it rained fairly heavily all day, there was citywide flooding (of course), and quite a few of the outdoor events got cancelled. Although I've got wet-weather clothing which would enable me to stand in the rain all night and be perfectly comfortable, it's not exactly something you'd wear to a party and I wasn't really looking forward to slogging through rivers of runoff water while wearing open-toed shoes.

So - I spent the evening in my underwear, watching Simpsons DVDs and listening to my neighbors fire guns in the air at midnight.

I have a bad history with New Year's Eve. Something always fucks it up. Last year, it was a Bel-Air house party full of twits, the year before that it was two bitchy gay guys who couldn't find a good party and dragged me all over the city with them while they complained. I think the year before that it was a psycho boyfriend.

I'm kind of glad this one was quiet.

Here's to an uneventful New Year's Eve and a good year to follow.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Wish me luck.

I have to replace my hard drive.

My firewall software took a dump and now my drive has been fucked up from an unfortunate influx of all kinds of nasty things. Since the only sites I visit are my email (yahoo), some blogs, myspace and Defamer, I'm wondering who's fault this is.

Since I've never changed a hard drive before, I may just end up fucking up my computer (I may not - it can't be that hard, can it?), so hopefully I'll continue to have internet access.

So, today I've got to back up the stuff I want to keep (all my photos, my blog backup, phone book, etc), and tonight I'm going to put in the new drive.

Hopefully I'll be successful - if not I'm doomed to posting everything from the internet cafe until I can make this work.

January - project month

In the past few days, the film production rumor mill has cranked up to high speed again, and when I went to pay my union dues I heard rumblings about a "bunch of stuff" starting up around the 15th of this month.

While work is always a very good thing, I have to be honest in that I have conflicting feelings about this.

January is the one month when I know I'm not going to work, so I can do things like upgrade my computer (which requires six trips to Fry's and at least two screaming matches polite conversations at the exchange desk)*, clean my house (when I come home from work every night, I throw whatever's left of the LA Times in the recycle basket, so after a few weeks I've got a pile of newspapers the size of the blob in my living room - not to mention the dust bunnies), and drop the five pounds I've put on while sitting on set eating too much crafty.

I also have to go through my work bag and figure out how many tools I need to replace before it gets busy again. I do tend to lose tools due to absent-minded borrowers, but some just wear out, get damaged (if you use a screwdriver to pry apart two bates connectors that are stuck together, it can bend the screwdriver - or blow a chunk out of it if there's still power to that line. They just don't make tools like they used to), or are dropped on a concrete floor from 40 feet in the air.

I also have some stuff to do for the next micro-budget we're trying to fund, finish the SAG paperwork for the last one (it's halfway through edit #3 now), re-cover the couch (I've had the fabric for two years and just haven't gotten around to it), and soak the front window screens in solvent (damn teenagers) to remove the graffiti.

I'm going to hope for more work - money doesn't spoil, and I can always put off my projects until spring.


* Does anyone have any suggestions for a good hard firewall (i.e. not a software firewall) for home use that doesn't cost a jillion dollars?

Travel anxiety

The last few times I've been out of town for longer than one night, I've had the same recurring nightmare. I dream that I come home, pull up to the house, and discover that it's a smoldering ruin - a rubble heap from which I can salvage nothing. In the dream, I stand there, wondering why I didn't pack more clothes, since now all I own is what's in the car.

It happened again this trip - as I lay in the cold bedroom on the lumpy twin bed, I tossed and turned, repeatedly waking up my sister who snapped on night two and suggested that I might be more comfortable on the floor in the living room (the couch was taken up by the other sister).

I know that it's just a dream, but it's an exceptionally vivid one, and always carries over into my waking life - I just can't shake the imagery, and to drive it out of my brain, I do things like write stupid haikus (see yesterday's post), and make a valiant (yet invariably unsuccessful) attempt to finish the New York Times crossword.

None of it seems to work, though. I spend the last day of every trip with this grinding, irrational anxiety gnawing at me.

Sure enough, when I got home, everything was intact, and the only catastrophe was a very angry cat - she'd eaten her food ration too quickly and had an empty bowl.

It's good to be home.

Airport Internet Kiosk Haiku

Five dollars for 15 minutes.

Go!

Turbulent aircraft
The shaking invigorates
Where are my fillings?

So many head colds
Recirculating air - yuck!
Please try not to sneeze.

The plane boards at last
Passengers packed like sardines
Soon I will be home


I promise I will never post poetry ever again.

Holiday Checklist

I'm off for a few days to visit the family.

Since I've been on a movie set for the past few weeks, I thought I'd write myself a reminder list - since I'm sure I've forgotten how to behave around folks who don't think farts are funny.

1. "Hey, motherfucker" is not an appropriate greeting.

2. The dessert course is not the "Abbey Singer*".

3 The proper response to someone passing gas is not to stand and applaud.

4. If someone asks me to do something, do not reply with "Copy that**".

5. Don't inhale dinner - I've got more than half an hour to eat***.

6. When we're almost done opening presents, do not yell "This and two moves us to pie!+"

7. I do not have 'cinematic immunity' in my rental car++.

8. If my mother manages to drag me to church on Christmas eve (she's usually unsuccessful, but she does try), I do not get night premium.


Happy Holidays, everyone!

I'll be back on December 28th.


*Abbey Singer was a famous assistant director from 'old Hollywood' who was famous for saying "just one more shot, just one more shot". Now, the second to last shot of the day is called the Abbey Singer. The last shot is called the martini. Okay, it was a lame joke. Merry fucking Xmas.

**Walkie-talkie speak. "Copy that" means "I've understood what you've said."

***You can always spot film production folks in restaurants - we inhale our food, faces a few inches off the plate, eating as fast as we can. It's from years of only having a half hour for lunch. The faster you eat, the more time you'll have to sleep on the lift gate of the truck.

+More production-speak. "This and two moves us" means, well, this shot and two more moves us to wherever we're supposed to be next.

++ "Cinematic Immunity" refers to film crews flagrantly breaking traffic laws in front of police officers, and not getting busted.

Another one in the can*.

I always feel several emotions at the end of a show - relief that it's over, the same kind of sadness I got as a kid when summer camp came to an end, and a slight panic at the idea of resuming the 'day player hustle'.

We ended up wrapping out Wednesday night after all (once again, they really cracked the whip on that poor director and we wrapped 12 hours after call time), although our 2+ hours of work to get everything back into the truck meant that we missed the impromptu party at a nearby bowling alley (this happens a lot - there will be a huge party around us, while we're working our butts off. It usually ends just as we close the truck doors). It's just as well - I'm sure none of us smelled all that great, and we all just wanted to go home.

We met at the rental house yesterday, unloaded the trucks which we've called home for the past five weeks, checked our equipment in, and when we were done, shook hands all around and went our separate ways - all of us on our phones, trying to line up the next job.

* The expression "In the can" means that the film has finished shooting.

One more day

On our set, you can feel that no one cares anymore. A few people have already left to go home for the holidays, and everyone else is just marking time until we're done.

Our wrap plans have gone seriously awry. Were going to wrap tomorrow night after we finished shooting (three hours of double time - since we're figuring it's going to be at least a 14 hour day and this contract doesn't pay double time until after 14 hours), do one day at the rental house and then have Friday off, but the UPM doesn't want to pay that three hours(which I can understand - she'd be paying double time for us and grip: about 10 people), so we have to go back to the school on Thursday (whatever time we get there - it'll probably be about 1 pm), wrap the location, send the truck to the rental house and unload the truck Friday morning. Although I was looking forward to having a day off before I leave town, an extra day of work is not a bad thing.

The 'eeewww' moment of the day was craft service setting out leftover pizza (last night's Domino's) drenched in ranch dressing - we figure it had to be a joke.

Please tell me it was a joke.