For some reason it always takes me a few days to figure out exactly what happened. Maybe, though, really my issue is that I have to more accurately remember what happened, only to be contradicted through lists upon lists of privately sent e-mails after I’ve said the wrong thing. I don’t know. I remember Friday night in spots, at least: I went to a film shoot with the hippie. We were—along with a pair of twins-cum-models, a film-school drop-out and a weird old man with a short brown beard, a black hat and matching bag and leather gloves—hired solely to walk across the street and stare venomously at the female lead of the movie, a Eurasian actress I’d never met before with a perfect little mouth and a perfect little hat to go with it. We were to do this, mind you, as she almost hit the film-school drop out, a very amiable sort of guy whose name totally escaped me the moment I heard it. As it turns out, not knowing the actress was quite all right as well—she was from Tennessee and had hated Los Angeles so much that she never wanted to go back there again, though she was perfectly willing to act in indies forever. Kudos to her for sticking it to the Man.

For what we were paid (food and credit) it was almost worth standing outside in the wet cold. Friday night was one of those typical Chicago early-spring nights: the fog out there in the loop chopped off all of the tops of the buildings so that, when I looked up and saw nothing but windows cut off by a sea of fog, I thought a few times that that was where the city actually might have ended, that somewhere above the sky just stopped and no one and nothing—even the stars that you never see downtown anyway—existed anymore and that, by the end of the shoot, we’d each be handed a release form and told, “Oh, by the way, while you were here we cut off the rest of humanity. You’ll have to walk around here in the wet cold forever. Blah.”

And being that the hippie had never been on a film set in the first place (I’m cruel like that sometimes—I send lots of people into places where they know nothing and are forced to adapt, though often they survive somehow.) the irony of the whole situation would have made for a great story, told to all those poor dupes who decide to go into film in any city, anywhere.

Luckily, the gods’ sense of humor didn’t got that far. The shoot lasted about three hours over all, so that, when we were wrapped and our release forms signed, we needed something to warm us up.

For better or worse, I’m most at home on sets or on stages. I knew what sorts of procedures we were going to have to follow for the shoot; that we were going to stand around until the director yelled “Back to one!” at us, that we were going to re-set, and re-set,, and re-set again until she and her cinematographer were happy at what we gophers were able to accomplish and, with a handshake and possibly a smile, send us on our merry ways. I had no idea what was to happen next. It was Friday and I had no other plans.

I am most out of my element when I walk into a place where I know no one at all, where I don’t know the staff, the procedures, or the specific vibe of a given place I’m going to. Since I made the mistake of failing to plan the next move, the decision was in the hippie’s hands. Where did we go?

She used to work at 10 pin (330 N. State, next to the House of Blues), a place where, when she and I tried this whole dating thing the FIRST time, I’d stupidly suggested that my sister, her boyfriend, and I go to the one weekend that they had come to town to see me. That night was a little awkward, not only because I hadn’t known my sister’s boyfriend for more than thirty hours and was, consequently, still trying to figure out how to intimidate him into kowtowing to my sister’s every whim but, on the other hand, it was also the first time my sister would be meeting the hippie—meaning that all sorts of crazy judgment were doing to be tossed about.

Tonight was supposed to be different though, right? My sister was now back in Boston, and the Hippie and I have just gotten off of a shoot and could use a few drinks. We go.

The thing here is simple: I don’t necessarily like not having control of the room and I knew that we were going not into my own element, but into hers. I figured someplace in the back of my mind, though, that after submitting the girl to the wet and the cold and what little screen time we were going to get, she deserved to go to a place where she could have some of the control that I normally hog all to my lonesome.

As it turns out I didn’t have to pay too dearly for my lack of influence at this particular place. She was offered a job as soon as we walked into the place: I stared at the huge screens and gawked at how every single song played (from “straight Up” to “never Gonna Give You Up” to “Tell it to My Heart”) made me incredibly happy that time had moved on from big hair and bright colors. We got drunk on fabulously strong vodka tonics and Jack-and-Cokes, bowled two games in such a marvelously horrid way that I was actually proud of our ability to smile at each other despite neither being able to break a hundred (though I blame the booze, thankyouverymuch.)

We talked about movies.

We talked about music.

We talked about the last time we’d been at the place this long; about how no one was around tossing judgment every which way. I’d tell you what else we talked about, but really most of it would only make sense if you, too, had been bowling with us and dancing badly to bad 80’s music, in the cool foggy Chicago springtime Friday night.

(for all you film buffs-- No, we weren't REALLY being shot with a Bolex; I just needed a damn title :-))

Write Comment
Name:	Guest
Title:
Comment:
Code:*

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!