We’ve got a film crew camped out all around us, shooting a something-or-other at the house behind us. The Notification of Filming the production company sent out describes the action as: “Interior, exterior dialogue. Driving scenes. Domestic fight scene. Police activity. Emergency vehicles with flashing lights. Cameras & equipment on sidewalk, in curblane & across street.” Sounds like, well, half the shows I worked on when I was in the business.
The dressing rooms and honeywagon are parked along the side of the backyard and the grip truck is right outside my bedroom window. Ah, memories. The grip truck. My home away from home in my film crew days. I’ve been out of production for six or seven years now but I still miss it sometimes. It was long, hard, brutal work sometimes, but it was also a lot of fun. If I were single I’d probably still be doing it.
So anyway, we’ve got film crew running around all over the place. I did a slow drive-by a little while ago to scope out the production and see if I knew anyone from back in the day but there were no familiar faces.
I have to admit to a little curiousity about just what they’re shooting, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to ask. That’s the thing about working on the set — there’s always a cordon of looky-loos watching every move, whispering among themselves, jostling for the best viewing positions, flagging down anyone who comes near to ask “What are you filming? Who’s in it? Where’s (star name)’s trailer?” Etc. They never get the truth, at least not from me.
“Diaper commercial” was my stock answer. We’d be resetting for a fight scene where a stuntman had just been thrown through the front window of a tattoo parlor and started brawling on the sidewalk, police cars and fire trucks all around with lights flashing, helicopter circling above, SWAT teams hunkered down behind parked cars … and some doughy tourist from Ohio would ask “Are you making a movie?” Nope, I’d say, diaper commercial. And then I’d get back to flying a mambo-combo, producer, and a 4-by floppy in to the set.
Sigh… I miss gripology.
There’s finally a term for the songs that get stuck in your head: Earworm.
Beth and I have had our go-rounds with them and we had already stumbled across one of the suggested methods for getting a song out of your head: make like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and “give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away now!” We sometimes do a sort of tag-team where she’ll give me hers and I’ll give her something different back, and every once in awhile we’ll just give each other one for fun. A perennial “favorite” in our household is Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves. (And now one of you has it.) (I took a short break after writing that last sentence there and guess what — I gave it to myself.)
Even Zoe gets them. We went to Second Spin a week or so ago and picked up some CDs, and among my choices were two from the .99 cent rack: Cher’s Greatest Hits (including our two top earworms: Gypsies and Halfbreed), and one I just picked at random, Jimmy Ray. The Cher was, well, Cher, but the Jimmy Ray actually turned out okay. It’s vaguely rockabilly pop and has a few decent songs on it that have gotten stuck in my head — and Zoe’s head too, apparently. Over dinner the other night she put her hands over her ears in frustration and growled, “Da-a-ad!!! I keep hearing that “shake-a shake-a shake-a” song in my brain!” I immediately recognized it as song #2 on the CD, Goin’ To Vegas, because I’ve been infected with that particular earworm too.
So I did the caring, fatherly thing and I helped her — I gave her song #1, Are You Jimmy Ray? instead. “Daa-aa-aad!!!” was the anguished response. She really was mad at me about it (for a kid with my sense of humor, sometimes she has no sense of humor), so I tried to explain to her how everyone gets songs stuck in their head and how the best way to deal with it is give it to someone else, and that led to me telling her about how much Beth hates Gypsies, and that reminded me of the new Cher CD, so I ran to get it and put it on the kitchen CD player — and when I got back Beth was gone. So I enjoyed a little of it myself.
Halfbreed! That’s all I ever heard
Halfbreed! How I came to hate the word.
And then Zoe left the room too.
