United States of Tara and the Trivia Cards

Pickwick Gardens:  Tomorrow I have an online test to be on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  So I have chosen to use my ample holding time reading trivia cards from the 90s Game, Trivial Pursuit and Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit.  Of course I'm surrounded by nosy ninnies curious as to what I'm doing and eager to play as well and all are mighty impressed with my trivial knowledge.  Of course the test the next day has an error to it and doesn't save, but that's beside the point and I can proudly say 3 years later I can't remember anything on those cards.  The actual filming aspect of the day was simple.  I was bundled up and watching ice skating from the side lines and was of course freezing the whole time.  But I can't help but feel some pride whenever working on United States of Tara since it is supposed to take place in my hometown and I can say that I definitely participated in indoor ice skating rinks in my youth.

Bones and the SCRIM

Today was an especially embarrassing day on set where I, in all my classic clumsiness, walked THROUGH a scrim on set.  To be fair, I was wearing sunglasses and looking down at the time, but that does not excuse the giant hole that my right foot left in the bottom of the scrim.  I was humiliated and had to put up with grip and gaffer nasty comments for the rest of the day.  They called me an idiot, and at that moment I never felt worse.  For those who do not know what a scrim is: A scrim is a very light textile made from cotton, or sometimes flax. A scrim will appear nearly transparent if a scene behind it is lit, but there is no light on the scrim.  So I'm telling you...it was transparent!! Not my fault!!! REALLY!! (okay maybe a little)

Cost of a scrim: $150

Cost of a clumsy extra: $64

Monk and the Reunion

Dear Monk,

Without you I would not work at all. Thank You.

Sincerely,

Mary


It has been 5 weeks since my last extra gig. Depressed, poor, and willing to do anything for money, I was called in to work on Monk at Paramount with my car. Of course my car is too noisy for those spoiled sound guys (what on earth did they do before hybrids??!!) so I was a pedestrian for the most part. It was perfect timing too because I just returned from San Francisco/Berkeley visiting Kate just yesterday. (God I needed that). What is really funny is that I was reunited with this guy Chip who was the stunt coordinator for this independent movie I worked on called S.E.R.E. I told him how the old gang was doing and he offered to work for free on this horror script I'm writing. I'm shocked how much faith people have in the project. It really motivates me to keep on working. Our identities and how we knew each other was bugging us for hours, until he laughed, then I knew that I knew him from somewhere. His real name is Lee, but his friends call him Chip...that's when it hit me. So glad we figured that out. I told him I'd mail him a copy of the movie..must get a hold of Jonathan. It was so fun reliving the S.E.R.E. days right after graduation when I thought this was only the beginning......haven't done much since though.

The guy who plays Mr. Eko on "Lost" was the guest star...I don't think he is really Nigerian...but damn, he can play it really well. (Okay..I checked on IMDB and his parents are Nigerian, but he was born in London, which explains why he spoke perfect English at Lunch...he also looks like a football player)

Monk and the SAG VOUCHER!

"Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I've got a wonderful feeling, everything's going my way" Today seemed just like any other day on set. I worked for maybe 3 hours yesterday which was brilliant because I needed to go by Universal Studios to pick up a free ticket that I got when I purchased my annual pass. I was so afraid that I was going to miss out on a great deal. I was a jury member so basically I sat down for 3 hours and then was let go. The next day they recalled me however, and I guess they didn't have enough SAG people so what did they do? THEY GAVE ME A SAG VOUCHER!! My very first one..and it only took me a frickin year to get! One down, two to go! Also, I was done by 1 pm...another short day, and decided to go to Universal Studios afterwards with Ashley to celebrate. Such an amazing day.

Entourage and the All Nighter

Working 9 to 5, ain't it tough to make a living......yes....especially when those hours are 9 pm to 5 am.  Fact: LA is cold at night.  So when doing extra work in the wee hours of the night outside it is essential to find some form of heat whether it is sitting on the generators or cuddling with a fellow male extra who has an unknowing girlfriend sleeping at home.  In this case we were cuddling on a generator. (keepin it classy).  But since my reasoning for the cuddling was purely survival, I feel no guilt or regret since he has a serious girlfriend.  This was probably the most tiring day of extra work ever, but what makes it more memorable is that I started writing the script for Rainbows and Butterflies (a horror movie obvs) on the back of a voucher.  These long hours provided me with the inspiration to write a script where everyone dies. 

Southland and Dac

I abandoned my dear friend Kate who was visiting to work on Southland for the night. The call was at 5:30 so Kate and I were able to spend the day in Malibu and at the Getty Villa before I had to head out. It was a pretty easy call at the Hollywood and Highland complex. I was a journalist/photographer. Ashley called me while at work because the guy she like Dac was there. Towards the end of the night I heard someone say Mary and he came up to me to introduce himself. He was not the dolphin that I though he was on CSI: NY. He told Ashley that I looked grumpy. You'd be grumpy to if you had Kai's look-a-like talking your ear off. Look-a-like asked me what was wrong and I just told him I was tired and annoyed...he asked me what I was annoyed with...I just looked at him. He never took the hint.

Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Naked Zac Levi

6:30 AM call time in Long Beach. Joy. I just LOVE waking up at 5. (eyes roll). Then when I arrive to set, they are out of eggs. This day was not going well so far (though later I heard that the eggs were almost inedible). Luckily I had friends on set. Becky was her usual self and then she befriended a guy named Brian who liked magic, but refused to tell me his secrets...especially to a certain poker chip trick which has been nagging me. Then there was Paul who went to USC and is a friend of Ashley's I met at a Superbowl party. It's amazing how well you can get to know someone in 16 hours. I feel like we've been friends forever and we created a geek scale to measure geekiness.....somehow I won even though HE watches Battlestar Galactica and loves Sci-fi. I'm not sure how that happened but I do blame most of it on the Chemistry Holiday called Mole Day (Which is on October 23rd for you non-geeks out there because a mole is 6.02 x 10 ^23).

The day turned instantly amazing when I realized that Zac Levi was the star of the movie. Since I totally have a crush on him and all. I even got to see him in his underwear for a dream sequence. I was smiling ear to ear. That boy has some thighs if I do say so myself. He was in tighty whities. Yay! (though I prefer boxers). Oh how I wish he weren't a man whore. It was fun seeing him act all awkward and he would try to be funny in between takes.

Then we had a choreographer teach us some dance moves and about 300 of us had to dance to the Chipmunks singing "Shake Your Groove Thing". My arms got tired of waving back and forth but seriously...how priceless is it to have 300 people dancing to the Chipmunks. The main song we had to hear over and over was this song called "Family" and we had to shout in synchonization F-A-M-i.l.y. I wrote it that way because we would scream F then A then M and then the i, l, and y were run together very quickly and many of us didn't get the letters correctly because of this. In fact, Becky kept saying l-e-y. It's also very difficult to chant the word chipmunk over and over again. I started realizing after awhile that I was saying shitmunk. It's much easier to say. Crazy times. Family was their song entry into the all high school talent show. Apparently Charice Pempengco, the famous girl from the Philippines who has been featured on Oprah many times, is from a local high school......also from a local high school...the break dance crew Quest which has Hawk and Dominick from "So You Think You Can Dance" in it. That was pretty amazing. They were doing flips and tricks left and right. It was phenomenal. When I wasn't jumping up and down shouting F-A-M-I-L-Y, I was sitting in the bleachers at the top where they had these crazy dummies. They all had man faces except some had makeup to make them look like women. It was amazing. Here is a pic of me and the best dummy there.