a moment in the day: movie star

The camera is aimed at the back of my head. I stand next to Stephen, posed casually, or what I hope looks casually, staring at the cellists while the crew rolls film. The location is the Blue Sky Gallery, and Stephen and I are working as extras for Northern Flicker Films' first full length feature, The Black Sea.

It's scene seventy. I know this because every time the woman claps that clapper thing she says it's scene seventy.

Stephen and I were the first extras called into the scene, a fact that to me feels very important. Our job has been to step across the gallery with the camera following us and then stop here and watch the cellists while the camera continues on. Between takes, Stephen lifts the back of my hair out from where it's fallen down the neck of my jacket.

Does every kid want to be a movie star?

I was eleven and on a camping trip at a place called Campland on the Bay, and a small film crew was taking shots of the beach for a commercial. I guess we kids were bugging the film crew a little too much, because they gave us a job building a pile of sand for "Friendly the Wolf" to sit on. I was so excited. People watching the commercial were going to see a mound of sand touched and shaped by my own hands. My life was complete. I was a TV star. A little.

I was thirteen and I received an envelope in the mail addressed to me by Steven Spielberg. I was so excited. I'd written a fan letter in hopes of starting up a dialogue with the famous director since I was writing a script for the sequel to the film E.T. When Mr. Spielberg accepted my query, I hoped to star in the film. Inside the envelope was a form response and an invitation to join the E. T. fan club.

I was twenty-two and in Tokyo, Japan, performing as a clown with the circus - well, sort of performing. We were supposed to do a firehouse gag, but the little fire truck hadn't arrived, so Tim was doing a clown number with his trumpet and I was mostly selling programs in the seats and then joining the cast in the ring for finale. I wanted to be in the trumpet number too, but Tim said he didn't need me. After a while, the director of the show came to our little dressing room and asked, hey, why isn't she working? The director spoke to Tim and not to me. My face went hot with shame and hope. So Tim agreed to put me in his trumpet number, where I tromped around the ring and clapped my hands as he played. At some point during the month-long Tokyo run, the entire program was filmed for Japanese television. I was so excited. When we watched the show, I saw a tiny glimpse of myself taking a bow during finale.

The camera is on my back as I pose, staring at the cellists. What is my motivation in this scene? Are my hands clasped behind my back in a way that conveys just the right amount of art-patron-enjoying-music? Has my hair fallen back inside the neck of my jacket? I act casual and pretend I'm not excited. In front of me, facing the camera, the cellists pantomime playing a piece that will be dubbed in later, the touch of their bows soft against the strings, making only a whisper of music.

*

Find out more about The Black Sea movie and Northern Flicker Films here. 

There's a funny article about the marketing of Friendly the Wolf here. 

How to Make Vegetarian Thanksgiving Gravy in Eight Easy Steps

Step One.













Step Two.














 Step Three.














Step Four. [also known as "A Good Dog Waits"]














Step Five.












 Step Six.

Step Seven.


















Step Eight.

Repeat.

first interview

I can do this.

This is what I tell myself as I sit in front of the computer with the interview questions up on the screen and the microphone plugged in and the phone [dreaded phone] in my hand. I can call up some man I've never spoken to and ask him all sorts of questions about his life and not trip all over my tongue because of my heart which is not pounding in my chest as hard as it did that time I sat with the phone in my hand for forty minutes [I timed it] trying to call up Dan Hayman and ask him to winter formal.

I'm over forty now and I should be able to get on the phone without going into a panic. The clock says 6:59. I can do this.

The I-can-do-this I tell myself sitting with the phone in my hand this time around is different from the I-can-do-this I told myself when I was offered the chance to write two eBooks in two months. That was more like I-assume-I-can-do-this, which I tend to do all the time, before I stop and think about what the this will entail:

Researching all the statistics anyone ever wanted to gather on becoming an accountant or a glazier [someone who installs and repairs windows]. Compiling the entire [interesting part of the] history of the accountant and the glazier. Creating four to five profiles each of accountants and glaziers from different parts of the country and in different segments of their careers, meaning hunting down and contacting these people and interviewing, interviewing, interviewing.

The clock says 6:59. I'm about to make my first call to conduct my first interview. If I haven't come up with the perfect set of questions to produce the perfect set of answers, it's not the end of the world.

Stephen showed me how to hook the microphone up to the computer and I experimented with the laptop's sound recorder to make sure it will actually record, and I practiced with the phone to make sure I know how to put it on speaker.

The clock says 6:59. If I say stupid things and come across as a complete ass, it's not the end of the world.

When the clock says 7:00, I tell myself it's better to wait one more minute because it would look weird if I called exactly on the dot.

When he answers the phone, he says, "Hello?" and I'm an Amazon warrior, a prom queen, a presidential candidate. I'm pretty sure my smile gives off a gleam.

"Hi! This is Gigi! Is this Bob?!"

"Nope," he says, "it's Bill."

Oh no, it's a wrong number, yay, it's a wrong number. "Oh, I thought I was looking for a Bob. Uh..." looking at my notes on the computer screen, "Dole?"

"Yeah, Bill," he says. "Doyle."

I just called my first interviewee Bob Dole.

He pretends not to notice. I put him on speaker phone and we start recording. I manage to ask him how he first became a glazier, and he starts to talk and he keeps talking. His voice is friendly and laid back, and he's saying all sorts of interesting things and I love him and I'm so happy and I can actually do this.

I look over at the sound recorder open on the computer screen. It's recorded exactly one minute of audio and stopped.

Oh holy flying hell, what the hell use is a sound recorder if if only records in one minute increments?

Bob, I mean Bill is still talking. I'm going to have to interrupt him so I can start a new file. Then I'm going to have to interrupt him at one-minute intervals throughout the entire probably half hour phone call.

During minute number three, as Bill's talking, the recording of minute number two starts playing, so I - and Bill - can hear Bill's voice and - even better - my  braying ass voice loud over everything.

"Oh, wait, oh, wait, I'm sorry!" and I'm fumbling for the mouse to try to find the button to shut the damn thing off. I can't make it stop. My hands are sweating. It's not the end of the world.

a moment in the day: the reading

Spotlight is a yellow veil in front of my eyes, cheap net hanging from a bad hat, a Tiffany lampshade on my head. I stand at the podium reading to a good-sized audience at Someday Lounge, worrying that my writing is cliché, worrying that I'm mixing my metaphors.

In these new girly shoes with the high heels, I was afraid I'd trip coming up to the mic, but it's my tongue that's been tripping. I keep reading. If I look confident, maybe no one will notice.

Now the sentence that does its slip-on-a-banana-peel out of my mouth contains words that aren't even on the page. My pronouns are the Three Stooges, running around, and I is where you should be and you is where he should be, and maybe that's more Abbot and Costello than the Three Stooges, but I keep reading. If I look confident, maybe no one will notice.

Now I'm back on track, and things are going along fine. I read a line and the audience laughs. But as I read, I'm thinking about the experiment I decided to conduct prior to this event, where I would not let myself get all over-the-top about practicing like I always do, how I'd just read my piece through once or twice and then get up there and perform it, like every other writer does - how this was not a successful experiment.

My dry tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

Now Shemp does that thing where he pokes the V of his fingers into my eyes, and my words take a tumble again.

"Can't I just read this?"

Did I say that out loud?

Keep reading.

Maybe no one will notice.