07/19/2005 - 10:06 p.m. | don't call it a comeback

I've been shouting at the computer for the last half hour, trying to make it understand my words and type them for me, as I can still speak a lot faster than I can type. And even if misunderstood me all the time, end maid almay word slike thish, I wouldn't mind because you are smart kids, huh, and you would be able to decipher it by reading phonetically. That's how Christina Aguilera sang her Spanish album, was it not?

Besides the usual drama in the back of my head about chunks of diary entries hiding with Kirk hidden in them ("Kirk was here?!" Yeah, you didn't know!), it gets worse every second because now I have to write about stupid Chicago all weekend and how much fun it was and blah blah blah I can never be concise. So let's just stay focused and hold hands as we trudge our way through this.

To be on time for the filming, we had to get up at 4, and since we didn't go to bed until after 1, this did leave us in great spirits. But we showered fast and got on the road, my head already feeling that strange pressure when I'm underslept. We drove and drove and watched the sun rise, but I was doomed to stay vegetative until I started wailing some Rufus Wainwright, much to Missy's chagrin, I'd imagine. Missy, meanwhile, made the same jokes she did last time we drove to Chicago, pointing out the same things (e.g. the radio tower for sale) and saying the same stuff (e.g. "We should buy that"). Since I'm such a good boyfriend, I let her know.

We got there with little difficulty, all things considered, but we were already as punchy as all hell waiting for the bus. We lurched around like zombies, and I for the life of my could not stop singing the "Manah Manah" song from the Muppets. Such a funny song that is. We took the shuttle towards "extras holding" (Yes, like cattle!) and started in on our snap judgements about people. I decided the one musician guy (with plucked eyebrows) was Vin Diesel and that the fat bearded guy was Annoying as All Hell. You don't know anything about movies, you fat fuck.

We were to be held at the esteemed Harry S. Truman University, notable for its popcorn machine and a complete lack of anything else besides its popcorn machine. How did they manage to secure such a sweet location? I assume they gave the dean a donut or some paper clips or something. We started waiting in line until I gradually noticed that none of the signs indicated that those of us with last names M through Z had any place to go. Conferring with a homeless man, we agreed that we were an hour early, and Missy had to go on alone. I feared for the worst, separated from her all day, forced to sit by some tards and make nice with them, but I tried to stay positive as I walked around Ghettoville. Got a chai and tried to find the Riviera without actually smelling anything too much. Lots of trucks were parked outside, and I sort of hoped I might see the band, but I clearly did not belong and got out of there when their looks grew too painful.

Back at the school, they were letting me in now, so I stumbled forth to find Missy. The extras were set up in a basketball court jam-packed with tables. Hundreds upon hundreds of people, and I don't like people much, friends. I had assumed this would be a simulation of the small shows typical of the 97's, but again and again this was not be the case. I found Missy, and we grabbed some soggy breakfast from the caterers and then sat and waited. And waited. And waited. First we had to wait for all the extras to arrive, then we had to wait for the set to be ready, then we had to wait for various other groups of extras to be sent over. And on and on and on and on.

As we sat there listening to the same conversations over and over again, several things became clear. No one was there for the Old 97's like us; no one had even heard of them even, and the band pretty much became one of those generic things everyone used to start conversations with (like SAT scores at IMSA). "Have you heard of the band?" "Naw, man, I'm not even sure they're real." But God help the poor soul who came over and asked one of us that. "Actually, they're our favorite band ever. The only reason we're here is so we could see them." Shock. But, since no one knew a thing about the band, people tended to dress how they might, say, for an Usher concert, all slutted up and showing off the goods. This means you, Anna Kournikova chick with the tiniest waist and hugest boobs ever. And God bless me, of course you come talk to me when I have a girl on my arm, of course you do.

It turns out two main type of people come to these things, and it leads to a pretty interesting, albeit obnoxious, mix. You have the wannabe actors, who somehow see this crowd-filling as a stepping stone to superstardom. They constantly ask what other scenes you've filmed, what other movies you've "acted" in, and whether you got any camera time or not. "Oh, yeah, I'm right next to Vince in the club scene," says Vin Diesel. "I'm definitely on screen for a good two, three seconds." Well, that's enough for a supporting actor nod, right, chief? They tend to overact and ask a lot of questions and brag brag brag brag brag. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the people doing this for the money. Missy and I came into this ignorant; we thought it was payment enough to see the Old 97's for free. When they gave us forms to fill out for our pay, though, we ended up pleasantly surprised. $65 for the first 8 hours, and a time-and-a-half thereafter. I'll tell you now that we "worked" for 16 hours, which works out to roughly..... carry the one... 160 bucks before taxes. That's not a bad gig... spent sitting on your ass and eating free food all day. As a whole, this type tends not to give a fuck about anything besides staying around for as long as humanly possible, kind of lethargic unless specifically ordered. And call me uncouth, but I do believe that is how they get minorities into large audiences like this. So much has become clear.

Oh - we did run into one person we knew: Carrie, the redhead from the other Old 97's concerts. The one who bought Kyle drinks. At least her reasons for being there were noble. We chatted for a while, and I do believe I found the one fan crazier than ourselves. Seems she knows all about Rhett's child and has taken to buying him presents every show they go to. Little outfits and books and shit. Even I was starting to avert my eyes nervously. And damn it for the freckles in the area of her cleavage. That is most unnerving for me, friends. We asked where her sister Wendy was (because I knew Kyle would want to know) and learned she was in Tokyo. Why am I telling you this, friends? Because I myself had to learn of it.

We sat waiting and eating and mocking people (Missy immediately locked on to the one person there skinnier then here and sent the hatred spewing forth - It is possibly true that I am a bad influence in this respect on everyone I meet) and half-heartedly falling asleep for hours until they finally started calling people over to the theatre. The fake waitstaff (chubby and dressed like gay pirates), followed by the security staff (lol, what? No one even knows Murray enough to shiv him - I kept laughing later on whenever I saw them guarding the stage), followed by the two-day people who, as it turned out, meant us. Due to our stunning features (or possibl blind luck), both Missy and I were scheduled to work two days, which, we figured, meant we'd be on the ground floor next to the band and Jennifer Aniston (Vince Vaughn wasn't in this particular scene, damn it all to hell). Well, we were half right... but not the good half. We were in the area immediately around Jennifer, but it turned out her character had nosebleed seats. Damn it all to hell.

We zombied our way to the theatre. It was kind of pretty, I guess, but in desperate need of a few fix me ups. Still, it was weird to be on an actual movie set with all the lights and microphones and cranes lying around. Air and smoke were both being pumped into the venue, as the building had not come equipped with air conditioning or about 300 smokers. I was also told that pumping fog into the air somehow improves picture quality.

We took our seats in the balcony, watching the lucky bastards below (Carrie was down there! Well, God damn it, of course she was! She always is!), and the staff began the careful process of choregraphing us to look real. Product-placement was in place, so Pepsi and Budweiser cups were given to "fans" randomly (but not too randomly!). "Hold on to those cups for tomorrow. We'll need them for continuity." Glad I didn't have a damn cup. Some extras were given a specific task - walk to their seat, for instance, or call for a friend on the stairs - and I'm sure they felt like some lucky ducks. Missy and I just sat and listened in on conversations, waiting for the band to show up.

Movies are about the slowest process ever. Everything has to be done multiple times and getting each time set up takes so very llllooooonnnnggg. I mean, it's bad enough waiting for just a concert to start, setting the equipment up, checking the sound, making sure the lights work, but in a movie, there's more equipment and a sound and light check every take, and they don't want the slightest margin of error. But we sat and waited and waited. I was kind of looking around, mostly watching the band, and I noticed a person in front of us who looked like Anu from IMSA. Still, I wasn't sure, so I kept my mouth shut. As time passed (and as she kept trying to steal glances at me), however, I was eventually positive it was her... but I still wasn't about to say anything. I didn't know her at all, and something about her always rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps it was Lisa Yung. Missy yelled at my for being so antisocial.

Eventually, things finally started to click in place, and they were going to film some shit. We'd been given a sheet before the show, telling us things we shouldn't and shouldn't do; it had given us the impression that the band would not be playing and that we would all have to be dead silent, pantomiming our cheers and applause. While this sounded entertaining on one level, I was much happier when both the band and ourselves were told to make as much noise as possible. The director came out and started, uh, directing, which seemed to mostly consist of clapping his hands over his head and saying "shhhh" over and over again through the PA system. As we waited for them to start rolling, Missy and I wondered, "What song will they play? Something new? A fan favorite? 'Four Leaf Clover' or 'Niteclub' maybe?"

Oh. "Timebomb."

Yeah, yeah - I guess it's a good song to get people acclimated to the band (It worked on me, didn't it?), but that shit was used in '98. They've released three albums since then! Anyway, though, that was the song, and they had to play through it, God, four or five times, always doing roughly the same things. It must have been sort of weird for them, as they themselves probably hadn't played for that big of an audience before - and certainly not one so hyped up - but the whole thing was a farce. I noticed a certain trend a lot when I glanced at people, and I think it's given me a new respect for legitimate actors. They weren't people at a concert; they were people thinking about how they would act if they were people at a concert. It's weird and very deliberate. Lots of weird fist-pumping and devil hands and raccous dancing, but none of it meant a thing because they were carefully considering everything they did. I could actually see it in there actions. They didn't think they should just stand still. "Okay, first I'll dance around for a while... now I'll jump about... then clap some... then punch the air... then clap again." Missy and I, as a couple of the only actual fans there, probably seemed like the most genuine actors because we did what people in crowds do: We kind of shuffled around and screamed the lyrics out and cheered at the end. This one idiot girl thought we were really good actors - that we'd never even met before and had merely decided our "characters" were a couple. "Do you guys know each other?" We were caught off guard, but we really should have said no and started making out with each other.

The band did a few other songs, all from "Too Far To Care," which I thought was weird, and the director spent most of his time getting the crowd to a) shhhh b) not look at the camera and c) give him more energy. I gave him a looksie before we left that morning, and this was the fellow who made Bring It On, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes remake (starring Kirk Cameron in one of the last things he made before his Left Behind period), and "Back to the Future: The Animated Series." Clearly, this man knows what he's doing. The crowd wasn't always the most cooperative, though. For instance, he was trying to get us to do the encore clap nice and slow, but we always got ahead of ourselves and came too quick. Clap... clap... clap... clap, clap, clap, clapclapclapclapYAAAAAAAAAY!" Poor guy. It's in our genes, I assume, though, and who is Peyton Reed to fight genetics?

Eventually, all the leaping and jumping was done (three hours later, but you've been pained long enough), and it was time to break for lunch... except, wait for it, the people up in the balcony. Seems Jennifer was to be filming a scene, and we were to stay around and form her crowd. This meant waiting around for an even longer period while the staff tried to construct the area around Jennifer, using only the most attractive people. Sadly, Missy, Anu, and I were not picked, but it did allow us plenty of time around that awful, awful girl in the yellow fishnet shirt. Fat people should be banned from fishnets altogether (except possibly as bait)! Anyway, she was an aspiring singer / actress, and she would not shut up for one damn minute. She talked about all the "parts" she had (as an extra, I mean) and how she worked as a production assistant and how she knew most of the people on the staff of this movie and how she had the same acting coach as Natalie Portman and blah blah blah amusing anecdote about Natalie etc. etc. etc. When she heard the 97's were using a backtrack for their performance, she started in on Ashlee Simpson. "I just knew the first time I heard her sing, that she was going to need surgery eventually. I just knew." She loved to say that over and over and over again. And when we were all finally turfed over to the side behind Jennifer and away from the attractive people, she wonders aloud, "But they had me do a walk-by earlier - they need me down there again if they want continuity!" She practically imploded on herself right then and there. Clearly if they cared that much about continuity, they would not have shifted the whole crowd around to put the uggos away from Jennifer.

Ooh - and there she is now. Hello, Miss Aniston! Let the great suck up fest begin! Producers and directors swarmed on her like flies on shit, the whole of the crowd seemed to watch her every move while we waited, and Missy and I just sort of sat. I mean, it's true that it is sort of weird to see a person you've only ever seen on TV or in movies or magazines all of a sudden all tiny and real and in the flesh, saying things not written for her by a Jewish person, but I was not starstruck. At least not enough not to suggest to Missy that we yell, "Too bad Bra dumped you!" and dive off the stage. So, they started filming her scene for the day, which I guess was just her leaving the concert that day (Tough life), and Missy and I watched and tried to stifle our laughter. It would seem the most attractive people are also usually those who ham it up the most while on camera. Motherfuckers were dancing insane, I tell you what.

Anyway, I was pretty pleased just to sit there and slowly die of starvation, but suddenly a production assistant grabs me and tells me to come down on the walkway, like a foot away from Jennifer Aniston's head (Noogies were in order, I thought, but I did not need to be arrested as of yet). They were doing more walk-bys, I guess, and I was one of the lucky few. I'm positive it has nothing to do with my physical appearance - in fact, I will be surprised if you see my wrist as I'm walking by - but I heard from somewhere that you usually get that sort of stuff by being a good extra - staying quiet and following orders without asking a lot of questions. Then again, it helps if the big black PA wants to do you, too. No, that's not me - that was that other girl. The beerslut from hell in the super tight green tube top that Missy and I had already rounded mercilessly thus far. You'll be happy to know I now know more about her than anyone, huh? She's a legal assistant and she has been for seven years but she's not really sure she wants to do it her whole life and AAAAIIIIIIEEEE MY SOUL YOU'VE STOLEN MY SOUL. Meanwhile, the PA is all up on it. She's like, "You want me to bob up and down to the music while I walk?" And he's all leering and like, "Yeah, baby, you do whatever feels good." He didn't say a damn word to me, shoving me forward whenever I needed to go. That's fine, though, as she looked like a freaking retard from what I've heard. Missy, meanwhile, said I had the most serious look on my face, which is probably true. Yes, I was surely nervous, but that is still how I tend to walk, all pissed off looking, but also because I had to pee for about four hours now roughly and did not want to soil myself on camera. Not that I didn't briefly contemplate it ("Yes, I'd be filled with infamy and shame, but what an outtake!!"), but I thought it best to hold onto some High Road while I still have a chance. Method Acting, it's a bitch.

We were finally freed for lunch and fought our way through the crowds for the last of the mostacholi. It was, as they say, not great, but somehow doing nothing is still pretty exhausting. When we finished, there was still tons of time left 'til they'd call us back (I presumed) so we walked back to the Riviera and poked around looking for the band. No one knew shit, though, and there was a hell of a lot more security standing around looking surly. Our attempts to hide our over 21 bracelets (our "props") were defeated, and we ran the hell back to the school... only to learn our group was going back to the theatre to film some more.

Or so we thought. We learned again and again that this production company was just not that logical at handling this many people. A huge crowd was brought over - all of us, maybe even - and they didn't wait until we started log jamming at the entrance to explain their insane sorting system to about four people at a time. "OK, were you in the top section? Now, were you in the middle two quarters of that? Or the extra people we told to stand aside? Or the people shifted around?" No one had any idea what we were doing - we just kept getting shifted around to avoid broken windows and the occasional pallet being carted in.

"Excuse me?"

And that's how we met Julie. *sigh* Julie. OK, admittedly I am in love with her, but we won't let this diary be any less objective than usual, will we? Of course not! Anyway, she said her name was Julie (*sigh* Julie) and that she had been sitting behind us for the first part of filming. Like us, she had no real idea of where to go, so she asked if she could stick with us. Soon enough she touching the small of my back and saying how funny I was. The tube top girl from before tried to make friends with me in the standard sorority girl way, but I brushed her off as soon as possible. I was taken, damn it. Julie is a 26 year old grad student at Loyala by way of Pittsburg, as well as a model, a frequent extra to make money, and a groupie. She's about as tall as I am with short black hair, green eyes, and the most perfect teeth I have ever seen on any person ever. She likes indiefag music, somehow meets about every band ever (probably in the same way Sarah does), once dated the current bassist for Alanis Morissette's acoustic tour, loves "Boy Meets World" about as much as I do, and was super, super nice. She also had the best habit of giving me the most amazing amount of eye contact when she spoke. My heart was all a-flutter.

So, it turns out we did not have to film after all, so we walked back to the holding, and it was clear there was some sort of power struggle going on. Nothing explicit, as both Missy and Julie were too nice for that, but there was still some crazy battle for control going on. I am not vain enough to say it was about me, but it was still interesting to see. For instance, Missy was talking about how much she ran, and Julie starts in how she used to run and how she did a marathon without practicing but now does yoga and how it's made her sooo flexible. Back and forth, weird little things like that. I preferred to stay out of it and hum a little song in my head:

"I don't fight
I don't aruge
I just hit that chick with a bottle"

And then Lil John goes, "It's a bout to be a what?? ... GIRLFIIIIIGHT!"

I know, Missy knows, everybody knows what a sucker I am for attention, so clearly she was marking her territory. Julie, who was maybe oblivious, maybe not, kept suggesting we should all hang out in the future, but considering she knew Missy was from Kansas, one might get suspicious. Again, I was just sort of there. I don't expect anybody to really like me, so I remain skeptical (if hopeful) about the whole thing. Anyway, we got ice cream and hung out for a while and were eventually called back to set, albeit not in the same place. We were filling in the crowd down in the bar area, but by this point the three of us had enough of movies, I think, and lurked around behind the bar and talked. We were eventually spotted and told to move up to the front of the crowd (what a punishment!), and then I was pretty much too distracted for anything else.

See, the band was done for the day, and I kept thinking about telling Missy we should leave, and another good thing would happen. I was gonna say it while watching Jennifer Aniston, and I got the walk-by. I was gonna say it after lunch, and we met Julie. I was going to say it pretty soon again, but I was in hysterics before long. See, since the band was done (although still hanging around), they could just play back their recording for us to dance and look excited to; however, to assure we would still be looking in roughly the right area, they had assembled themselves a fairly hilarious Fake 97's band wearing approximate outfits and standing in their spots. Murray turned into some Mexican guy with a huge black polo shirt, Ken became Party Bob, Phil's doppelganger... looked roughly the same, but Rhett was the best, having transformed into some huge fat guy. He even tried to wear a pink buttoned-up shirt like Rhett but was far too big far, leaving it open over the blue tucked in shirt stretched over his tummy. Fake Rhett was just as charismatic as his counterpart, though. Whenever the music came on, he'd start riling up the crowd just like the big fat guy who yells "SPRING BREAK" should, waving his arms, jumping around, flapping his shirt, yelling, and more or less pretending like he was the baddest motherfucker ever to live. I bet they lost thousands of dollars of footage because of my hyuck laugh going off within earshot. Well, in fact, I know I personally fucked them for quite a bit, as we were told not to lipsync lyrics (not a concern for most), and I just kept on forgetting.

That finished up after a while, and after a long wait, it was decided they did not need us again, and we were sent back to holding. Where we remained... for the next 5 hours. Or something like that. Julie ran off to make some phone calls, and I think she got sucked into the theatre for some more scenes that Missy and I somehow missed, but that's OK. We were getting paid just the same. We went to play on what we originally thought was a playground but turned out to be an adult obstacle course. Besides the weird yuppie there, Missy and I met this three year old who was pretty damn cute. He said his name was Robinson (or that was what Missy heard; I heard Robitussim, but that'd probably just wishful thinking) and he was pretty strong for a little kid, swinging from the bars one-handed, doing flips and all. He kept calling me a big boy and Missy a little girl, to which I would always congratulate him, for he was clearly correct. We talked about Spiderman and Scooby Dooby, and I thought it was pretty cool how he switched back and forth between English and Spanish without really noticing. His mom or cousin or babysitter came out and brought his little brothers, who were also very cute. He was a very good big brother.

AND I DID NOT LIKE THEM ONE BIT. Hmph.

Once we said goodbye to him, we went back inside holding and waited for pretty much the rest of the evening, our hope never coming. This girl overheard I was from Champaign and came over to talk for a while, which I guess was nice, and they had lots of Nabisco snacks and shitty crackers and granola to eat, but it was pretty boring, and Missy and I were getting tired. Plus, there was the work thing. I had skipped the housing authority entirely, but I was pretty sure they would not notice. However, I had a shift at the cookie place that night, and no one was getting a hold of me to say they'd sub (It later turned out that in my stupor that morning I had typed one number of my number incorrectly and thus could not be reached... Kyle's boss - my boss too, now - passed it on to him that it was a "disappointing" trick. He had his friend sub, though, so it was OK)

There was one girl there who had me seriously unnerved, like I might have recognized her. Might have recognized her from Champaign. Might have made out with her at some point in my life. Can't recall entirely! She with her big eyes and all! That's worrisome! Very worrisome!

Around 10:30, people were told to start lining up to sign out for the day, but this was just as disorganized and slow as everything else they had done. They kept trying to announce certain names over the megaphone they'd been using all day, but no one had ever been able to hear that, so it was mostly chaos. The line snaked out the door and started looping around and going in strange directions, even as more people started trickling back in from the set and automatically getting in line. Missy and I sat and waited for a long time, but we were getting punchy. I guided her about the room, making her sing Quad City DJs as we tried to rummage for more bagged snacks like all the other hobos. A few tumbles during some piggy back rides, and we eventually decided it was time to get in line ourselves.

I'm sure she saw right through it, but I told Missy I was going to try and find Julie so that maybe we could join her ahead in line. Really, Julie had been talking about exchanging numbers since we'd met, and I wasn't about to miss out on a number from a pretty girl. We swapped digits and hugged, and I was about to suggest maybe letting us cut when the fellow behind her bared his teeth at me. I ran off and joined up with Missy, in an especially good mood now. I know, I'm still a shit.

The line was slow, but not horrible, and every passing minute was more money for us, so I couldn't complain. We got through and did our shit and hopped a double-decker trolley back to the parking lot. We were up on the top, dangerously close to some obstacles, I felt, so I kept telling Missy to lick the underside of bridges as we passed under them. This one frat guy pulled a branch off a tree and tossed it at a stop sign. "Yeah, man! Fuck that stop sign!" I yelled, winning me the instant respect of at least those people. We got off the bus (next to the huge pile of cat litter), "Manah Manah" still stuck in my head somehow, and now only had a two plus hour drive ahead of us! I somehow convinced Missy to stop at a McDonald's for Filet-O-Fish and root beer and then quickly passed out while Missy swerved her way home. Apparently she felt quite drunk, but I was in no shape to drive home myself, and she refused to stop and take a nap.

We made it home unscathed sometime around 2, a mere 22 hours after we'd left that morning. It was definitely an interesting experience, but movies are so slow and tedious and calculated that I'm sure I'd want to do it again...

Unless I'm poor. Then I'll probably do far worse things just for a bite of your Clark Bar.