First Day Off

What a crazy day off.
After sleeping through most of yesterday today i get up and know that its laundry day. Chris, one of my PA buddies, calls me up to come get me and we decide to go to Wings and Ale with the teamsters to watch the Redskins game. Now, im not a huge sports fan, but i can appreciate the experience of a good loud sports bar like anybody else, especially when hanging out with awesome teamsters. They impart war stories of other films they've worked on and who works with who, and i hear the story of the replacement muscle car that was being driven from set that had a wheel fall off in traffic, and fishtail into oncoming traffic. apparently the driver is fine, and there was no collision, but when the driver tested the other wheel, it had hand-loose lugnuts. Someone is not doing their job.

Anyway after beer and wings, we head off to kmart to get some essentials, and then back to the extended stay to do some laundry. Towards the end of the waiting game with the dryer cycle, we see two young women walk upstairs and be motioned into a room on the upper floors. We look at each other and we immediately and un-spokenly agree what is going on we chuckle, and get on with our afternoon. Later, as we are emptying the dryers the two young women come down to use the vending machine. At the time we are having a conversation with a shirtless man from Texas who is in town for some work (remember, extended stay hotel, so these people are all from out of town) and the two ladies overhear us saying that i am from new york, and Chris is from DC. The blond exclaims "hey, I'm from DC!" and her and chris talk about how hes actually from Maryland, and Shes actually from Maryland, and shes actually from Maryland, and how they are from towns about 15 minutes away. Anyway chris mentions we are working on a film here in town and--- well let me just paraphrase the conversation we had with this lady

--so are you going to school here? working?
-- yeah, i'm sorta going to school, trying to work.
-- oh cool, yeah we're doing production work on that film
-- oh yeah, what does that mean you do?
-- well we keep people away from getting in the shot, and control extras, and escort actors to set
-- oh yeah? you might say i do a little bit of escorting
--really? uh, ok
-- here let me give you my card, in case, you know, you or anybody on the production want to have some fun.
--uh, sure.
-- oh and my friend here is working too, but she's only in town for a week or so, we work out of here
--ok great

so in short, i experienced my first prostitute proposition, while doing laundry in the unassuming back lots of the Columbia Extended Stay hotel.

damn.

So from there, me and chris meet up with director James Wan, and writer/actor Leigh Whannell (of Saw fame) and watch about 5 minutes worth of dailies from the film (which is a pretty cool experience) and just hang out since the two of them are only in their late 20s. We head out to dinner at 5 points and chat up out cute southern belle waitress. She recognises James from being a movie person from an earlier film dinner that they must have had a few weeks ago, and continues to chat us up more than serve other customers. She gives us the rundown of her life (and it turns out she is from the same town as the escort we met a few hours earlier, moved to Columbia with her judge parents at 13, and is going to a Technical college to transfer to a school with a journalism program and grow up to be somebody) anyway, we have some fun with her and tell her that James is the director and Leigh is the writer of saw and we end up offering her a job for PAing on one of our longer more extensive shoots, which means we get her phone number, email, etc. and while she is away from the table wonder if she is really as innocent as she seems. over the course of the night we discover she has a pretty strong alternative musical taste ranging from jam bands (she went to bonnaroo, and follows string cheese around) to stuff like modest mouse, mars volta, etc. she has multiple piercings, a tattoo on her wrist, and was kicked out of catholic school growing up (for something as mundane as wearing blue socks, chewing gum, boring things like that) but damn if she isnt the cutest southern belle i've met in all my time down here. She'll hopefully be working for us in a week or two and said she would love to show us around town. More likely though, she will be preyed upon immediately upon showing up to work by the other actors and PAs. but who knows, maybe by being one of her initial contacts on the job i'll have an in.

Also, i've noticed i've picked up a little of the southern drawl when i speak in sound bites, mostly when telling stories and the like. It seems to naturally help embellish certain things. I try to catch myself because people might think a yankee like me is patronizing the southern drawl. I wonder if I pick it up any more profoundly over the next 7 weeks.