Ten hours from now, the last day, day 60, commences.
Day 59 was long, everyone scrambling to get all of the things they forgot, or didn't have time to get.
We got a lot done, and are in good shape going into the last day. I am continually struck by how film is a business in los angeles. It's not like this is a secret, but it is something that I never really thought about.
This has been a fun excursion for me, but for everyone else, this is what they do. After this, i will have some time off to re-adjust to sunlight, then I will go to an office for a fairly normal 9 hour day. All of these people will go on to another show, on inhospitable locations, and overly catered stages. Someone was complaining yesterday about wondering if they would go to another show, because she had lost her life, working so many shows.
We had an unusually late call today. The parking lot was over full, and I was instructed to park in Sony Plaza, or some such. This is the very corporate brass-glassed building at the exact opposite side of the studio. I felt very out of place, in my dusty jeans and t-shirt. People were in suits. Nice suits.
It was valet parking, but he told me to take my keys.
After midnight when we wrapped, I walked down the pleasant fake main street, onto the older columbia studios buildings. It's kind of charming, Human scale. There is a George Burns building. It's kind of like a museum, kind of like a college. Or a mall, with a collegiate theme.
The gates at the very end, down in the older, corporate part, were locked. There wasn't a soul around. My feet hurt, and after the third locked gate, I contemplated climbing over the 12 foot spiked topped iron fence. I started yelling for security. No one was around to hear me.
I ended up at the "police station." But was it a real police station, it looked like Mayberry. One of the doors was unlocked, and i went into what seemed to be the security office where I got my badge the first day. All of the lights were on, but no one answered when I yelled hello, multiple times. I was getting pissed, I was tired, my feet hurt.
I went back out, and a golf cart had pulled up next to the building, and I started yelling hello, and I caught a guy before he went into the side door. He had a clipped accent that I can not figure out. He showed me the button next to the unlocked door. The voice in the button said that they would send someone to the gate to unlock it.
A few minutes later, a bike rode up and unlocked the huge gate.
In the plaza, there were no lights on, but the only elevator was inside. The guard at the gate told me to go into the lobby. At the top of the stairs, they had strung a dark blue nylon ropes that are used to control a line. I didn't see it until I reached the top of the stairs, and I tried to go under it, but my knees were stiff, and my backpack got caught on the rope. It knocked over a few of the poles on stands, and they started rolling down the stairs.
I scrambled to catch them both, and got it all back in order. There were two cones in front of each set of glass doors, and I realized that a security guard was standing watching me. He started to walk away and I sprung forward, and went to rattle the door with the cones in front of it, but they were't locked, and I almost smashed myself in the face with the door.
He asked me if i was okay, as if he thought I was blind drunk.
I said that I needed to get to my car, that it had been a long day, and that it had "taken me three hours to get out of the gates." I used the work fuck multiple times, but I was pleasant.
He asked me something like "what did I think my next course of action was." And I told him that I needed to get to my car, and that I needed to get the fuck out of there and go to bed.
He pointed to the elevators, explained which gates were open, and how to get out. i thanked him and waltzed into the elevator bank of a building in the middle of the night, with the blessing of the guard. Even though i had every right and reason to be there, i felt like I was getting away with something.
It turned out that the parking lot was full was because it was Wheel day, the day they tape Wheel of Fortune. I got there after the audience. A group of white haired ladies in casual warm weather attire watched me eat my hamburger today, as part of their tour.
And now comes the bed part.
ONE MORE DAY
