(The Last Blunder is a humorous weekly serial detailing the making of a true independent filmmaking catastrophe. I hope all of you who read along find it entertaining and can relate to it to some degree. The names of the participants have been changed. Any comments, suggestions, compliments, or criticisms can be sent to damianATkaverasfilmDOTcom. Enjoy!)
The Last Blunder: Chapter 12 by Damian K. Lahey
For the first week of production, we were shooting at the lead character’s house. This was good because we had no company moves and didn’t have to wrap the set every day. After weeks of fine tuning the schedule, Biff told me we were going to be shooting late every day regardless. Biff loved to reiterate that the crew needed to pay their dues. He had already paid his. He loved telling the story about him setting up a t-shirt company in some hick town in North Carolina and driving the old man that had been there for thirty years out of business. This was his way of telling people that he would beat the competition at any cost.
If there’s one rule to low budget filmmaking it’s that you feed your crew well. The way to a crew is to their stomachs. No matter how little you pay them, always feed them well. Biff and Spankenstein had found a greek lady that would cater the film for dirt cheap. In return, the food was dirt poor. Crews usually wait for lunch with anticipation. They dreaded it on The Last Blunder. I always tried to take lunch off set to avoid the bitching and ridicule of the crew.
On the first day of shooting, Balthazar showed up without his director’s notebook. He’d lost it the night before and couldn’t find it. That wasn’t good. Then, Morrison and his gang took half the day to set up the first shot. Beleaguered 1st AD John Gavin pulled me aside during lunch. He was only going to be with us for two weeks. He had some comic book convention to attend after that. He was almost as fat as Salami and wore the same Farscape hat every day. He busted out his copy of the schedule and asked me what shots could either be cut or rescheduled. We were woefully behind. I looked over the schedule and cut out a couple shots I thought wouldn’t affect the continuity of the story. But I wasn’t too worried about it. I had to go to Kinko’s to reprint all our sides and then go to the office and redo the schedule. You see, the day after my crew dinner party and the day before we started shooting, Spanky had decided to do a “polish” of the script. While it wasn’t much, it made all the sides and all the schedules off by a couple scene numbers.
One thing for sure, our set certainly did look professional. We had the trucks, the equipment, and certainly the man power to make it look that way. We couldn’t afford it, though. With an army of ADs milling about and everybody piling up on interns and assistants, we blew our craft service budget for three days in one. Biff didn’t mind us blowing our wad making it look big. He wanted to impress those investors. And on that first day, they showed up. Unfortunately, they were greeted by Shifto, Studs, and Billy Bold. Even though these guys had brought their children and wives to check out the movie they’d invested in, Bold thought it would be best to talk about picking up chicks and curse like a sailor, while slurring his words and guzzling from his 40 oz mixed drink. One of the wives shielded her children from Bold and walked away in disgust. He and Studs thought that was awesome.
Later in the evening, Suzy Midriff showed up wearing a bosomy dress and heavy makeup. She made her entrance like she was the grand dame of southern independent filmmaking, but nobody noticed. Spanky made it clear he had no time for her. He was making a movie. He had to stay focused on his vision. While I was typing up the next day’s call sheet, I saw her storm off set, bawling. Howie, the leprechaun looking art department lackey, came out and consoled her.
At that time, I liked having my own private wet bar on set. I set it up in the camera truck. I also had my own portable office of a lap top and printer that I would set up at each location. I preferred the wet bar. Our camera loader was a burnt out surfer dude named Armstrong. Armstrong liked Victoria Secret and decorated his truck with cut out pictures of the models. He smoked pot all day long when his hands weren’t in the tent. He had a good sense of humor and was the kind of guy you wanted on an independent film set. Having a drink with him while making production calls was always a good way to get away from it all.
While I waited on one of the runners to get back with the call sheets, I made the rounds. I liked to bond with the crew on set to boost morale. I liked dropping in and telling a well placed joke here and there. Basically, I felt really guilty they were being treated so badly. I tried to keep everybody laughing because I constantly had butterflies in my stomach. I nursed my drink and walked past the art department truck. I thought I saw Karen in the back. I was trying hard to get on her good side. She was miserable and making a big deal of it – telling everyone in town about how incompetent we were and what a degenerate sicko Spanky was. I walked up the ramp and opened my mouth to say something when I saw that it wasn’t Karen at all. It was Howie, standing in the back of the truck with Suzy on her knees, giving him a full-service-Johnny-blow-job. I watched for a second as Suzy bobbed up and down like her very soul was at stake. Howie noticed me watching and put a finger to his lips, ssshhh… I slowly backed down the ramp and hoped we’d be wrapping soon.
(I want to thank everybody for reading and hope you continue to read as the misadventures of The Last Blunder continue next week…)
I just received a very important email from Mr. Todd Rohal alerting me to this potentially shocking revelation. Is it just coincidence? Or was it a bit of subliminal marketing from the This Is It team, who were hoping to ride Mr. Holland’s coattails all the way to the bank? You tell me:
I was just about bursting with excitement for Friday night’s Leonard Cohen show at Madison Square Garden. Aside from Neil Young, who I still haven’t seen, Cohen was the one favorite artist of mine who I felt would be able to deliver the goods this late into his career. I figured that, in Cohen’s case, age might even add a measure of stature to his music, which had the power to transcend the inherent cheesiness in this risky set-up: playing songs forty years later to aging fans in a gaudy arena. I felt strongly that he would still make it seem classy and first-rate. As the rain fittingly began to fall, my girlfriend and I made our way through the Chelsea streets, up to MSG, where we made it to our seats by 8pm—two sections up but directly in line with the floor’s tenth row—and prepared to take in three glorious hours of majestic music.
Things started well enough, as he played a newer song, coated in the glaze that has always teetered on the edge of becoming too Weather Channel/smooth jazzy for my tastes. But this was the new Cohen, and when he sang the chorus on “The Future,” I was on board. I assumed that when he journeyed into the past, he would make the necessary changes to the musical presentation.
And then came another slightly jazzy groove, which I didn’t recognize until he started singing, “Like a bird, on the wire,” and I had a crushing realization. Nobody else seemed to mind the cheesy new glaze on this classic song—especially those holding lighters in the air—but in that opening line, my balloon of excitement started deflating. Without saying anything, I looked at Holly, who looked back at me with similarly disappointed eyes. She knew it too. We stayed for an hour, then left to catch up with friends back in Brooklyn.
Let it be known: I am not here to say that Leonard Cohen, his band, and basically everyone except us was wrong. Time changes things. But when you have an idea in your head and that idea reveals itself to be the thing you desperately didn’t want, it’s impossible not to feel crushed. In recent years, I’ve sworn off going to see the “old greats” for I understand that the environment, as well as the ticking of the annual clock, will always turn the event into a disappointment. This show was the final nail in that coffin. The next morning, we woke up, laid in bed, and listened to Songs of Leonard Cohen as the overcast sky cast a gray light over our bedroom. This was what I’d wished for all along.
(ADDITIONAL NOTE: I now no longer feel as critical of the documentary Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. At the time when I saw it, I was outright offended by the overriding cheesiness of the musical presentations, the session players and “noteworthy” singers doing covers of Cohen songs in that Weather Channel style. But after seeing Cohen’s current approach to his own music, replete with a “master” guitarist and “soulful” saxophonist, I realize that the documentary was more accurate than I would allow myself to acknowledge.)
I’ve been meaning to turn this site back into a daily diary/column type of deal but life has been getting in the way. Not to mention the fact that having exposed myself in that manner for the past many years seems like a rather pointless endeavor. But let’s see if I can get those juices flowing once again.
CMJ has invaded NYC this week, and I am going to have slight dabbles with it. When I first moved here in ‘98 and lived on the Lower East Side, there was a palpable buzz in the air that made me want to dive in headfirst, soaking up as much music (and alcohol) as I could. But I was younger then. Now, I’d rather have a quiet night at home in Ditmas Park. That said, I still love music, and am still committed to supporting friends, which I did last night at Local 269 Bar as Louis Schefano’s Regia showed the kids how songs should be written and sung.
Unfortunately, I will be missing tonight’s Polyvinyl Records showcase at the Bell House and won’t be able to see good buddy James Husband deliver his own melodic goodness unto the kiddies. James Husband is Jamey Huggins, multi-instrumentalist and longtime member of Of Montreal. I’ve been waiting ten years for Jamey to step into the spotlight, and now the time has finally come. Luckily, I’ll be able to attend today’s day show at Bruar Falls in Williamsburg so I won’t be missing out entirely. Jamey goes on at 2pm, so if you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to check-a-check it out.
Why am I missing tonight’s showcase, you ask? Why, I have another musical performance to attend. Another CMJ showcase, you ask? Not quite. I have a more lofty engagement. The place: Madison Square Garden. The musician: Mr. Leonard Cohen. This will be my first live encounter with one of my all-time favorite musicians. If it’s even a fraction as good as this clip, it will be money very well spent and a Friday night that I won’t soon forget:
(The Last Blunder is a humorous weekly serial detailing the making of a true independent filmmaking catastrophe. I hope all of you who read along find it entertaining and can relate to it to some degree. The names of the participants have been changed. Any comments, suggestions, compliments, or criticisms can be sent to damianATkaverasfilmDOTcom. Enjoy!)
The Last Blunder: Chapter 11 by Damian K. Lahey
Our final production meeting went well and I was pleased with that. I couldn’t believe we had pulled it all together. Our first day of shooting was going to be the following Monday. I decided to throw a dinner party for the department heads that Friday at my house. It was something I liked to do. It was a calm before the storm sort of thing and if it reeked of me sucking up – it was because I was indeed sucking up.
I was going to cook chicken and shrimp with penne pasta. I bought a couple bottles of booze, but aside from that, it was BYOB. Biff wasn’t going to attend. Neither was Karen Hall. She was going to a “real party” for a “real show” with her big shot art department lackey boyfriend. Spanky, Shifto, Studs, and Billy Bold would be absent as well. This is because they weren’t invited.
At this point, I need to introduce you, my gentle readers, to Randall Dillon. Randall was our key electric. He had worked sporadically on a prominent TV series in town and had been fired for being an out of control drunk. He day-played on various other gigs in town to pay the bills. He constantly worked because his girlfriend was a big makeup artist in town and pulled all the strings she could for him. No one understood it. This shit kicker had missed four out of six production meetings. This was because he would get slobbering drunk at this honky tonk across the street from his girlfriend’s house. Don’t get me wrong. He was an all right guy, but he couldn’t hold his liquor. After a couple drinks, he would start whoopin’ and hollerin’, screaming ‘the south will rise again’ at the top of his lungs.
He’d missed our final production meeting because he’d flat out disappeared. His girlfriend had shown up looking for him. It turns out he’d passed out in a ravine outside of his 24-7 watering hole. Some morning joggers had come across his body Law & Order style around eight in the morning and called 911. The fire engines arrived and a paramedic revived Randall with some smelling salts. They offered him a ride back to his house, but he begged them off. He walked across the street to his girlfriend’s house and raided her liquor cabinet with a vengeance. A fifth of vodka, a shower, and an hour of internet porn later, Randall was back at the honky tonk. When confronted with his tab from the previous evening, Randall responded by grabbing a beer from the guy at the stool next to him and chugging it ferociously. The police were called and Randall was thrown into the drunk tank. On the ride home, he promised his girlfriend he’d stop drinking and go to AA meetings. That lasted till he climbed back into his girlfriend’s refrigerator and sucked down beers till he passed out on the floor.
The next day he woke up feeling like crap. A note from his girlfriend let him know he’d missed our last production meeting and that he should call me. He did and was all apologies. There was really nothing I could do to the guy. We weren’t paying him enough and we were shooting in three days. He was excited about the party, though. He said he was going to bring a twelve pack and his world famous potato salad. He was going to use a recipe that had been passed down to generations of Dillons, beginning with his great-great grandfather, Confederate Col. Jeremiah Dillon. Jeremiah used to make his potato salad to boost the morale of his troops during the civil war, or ‘the war that got away’, as Randall liked to refer to it.
I spent the day sipping whiskey sours and getting ready for the party with Morrison and Phil Lately. I persuaded Lately not to invite any of his homeless buddies. I also put him to work since he was incapable of paying rent for the third month in a row. I was using the party as an excuse to not go to the office and listen to Biff Frank complain about us being broke. We only had enough money to shoot for three weeks. I had scheduled the shoot for five, but knew realistically we’d need to shoot for six or seven. It was just dawning on him that we were shooting in three days. He was getting the jitters and to be honest, so was I. Everyone was, except maybe Randall, who was getting ready for what he thought was going to be a five week party. He’d have to settle for three. That was another reason I was throwing this shindig. Guilt. Biff and I weren’t telling anyone they were out of a job till the end of the third week. I didn’t feel good about it. Especially considering what we were paying them.
Everyone showed up and had a good time. I was glad. It’s always good to lift people’s spirits before a no holds barred independent film production. The Savantis were huge Stones fans and brought over Goat’s Head Soup, Bridges to Babylon and It’s Only Rock N’ Roll. The drinks flowed and everyone enjoyed the food. The only person who didn’t bring anything was Salami and she ate and drank twice as much as everyone else, while boasting about how she didn’t spend any money on us because she wasn’t getting paid enough. Biff made a point of calling when things started hopping to tell me about a mistake I’d made on the first day’s call sheet. Biff didn’t like it when people were having a good time and he wasn’t there. But I understood his stress and frustration. He had made some promises to the vendors he knew he couldn’t keep. There was only one ace up our sleeve. Investors were going to be visiting the set weekly. Biff had spent some production money on a gamble. He wanted everything to look as professional as possible to impress the money men so they would give us more cash.
Just as things were winding down for the night, I thought I heard some noises outside. I grabbed a cigarette and walked outside to check it out. We lived in a fringe neighborhood and sometimes when we had social gatherings the dregs of society would come knocking for money. I opened the door and lying on his back in our front yard was Randall Dillon. He was wearing most of his world famous potato salad and the bowl he’d brought it in was shattered on the sidewalk next to him. There was no sign of the twelve pack. Morrison and I carried him into the house so he could sleep it off. After that we called it a night, told everyone to have a safe ride home, and to be on time Monday morning for our first day of shooting.
(I want to thank everybody for reading and hope you continue to read as the misadventures of The Last Blunder continue next week…)
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