Party Time

Today I slept in, and killed time in the hotel before heading in to downtown for the Cast and Crew welcoming party. I realized by being the only PA in my hotel, I am going to have to make some new friends in the other crews pretty quickly. If not just for the companionship, but also to cut down costs of taking a cab downtown.

Maybe it was because it was saturday, or maybe just because its a lazy town, but as far as i could tell, there wasn't much to do around downtown. I hear there is more action going on down by the USC campus, i decided to stick to the area surrounding the bar i would be at later. After fruitlessly searching for the riverside park ( couldn't even find the river on foot) I head over to the party about 10 minutes early. I avoid the self described "low southern cuisine" and stick to the free drinks. Its a little while before the other PAs show up (i.e. the other people I know) and after that the night goes far more smoothly. Before the night is over, one of the female leads heads to the mic to sing along with the live jazz band. After that, the band starts teasing the melody to 'Footloose' and with some encouragement, Kevin Bacon steps up to the mic to sing the song. not the let the opportunity pass him by, he finishes the song and then goes over to the guitarist and starts a inspired cover of Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night" changing the lyrics to suit his particulars.

After the official party, we join an entourage to head over to the "Art Bar" where there is live music, and a much more crowded bar than we had been expecting which draws some undue attention to some of our more notorious friends. I admit it was kinda fun running interference for all the autograph seekers and people with cameras running around, but like Chris said to me, we're not getting paid for this so we shouldnt sweat it too hard. anyway we leave that bar, because one of the actors is being denied access to the bar from his totally legit (i think california) ID. Apparently there was a problem here a few nights before with the Director's Australian ID so a little scene is made and every body gets up and heads to the empty sports bar down the street. We PA's stick around outside and overhear a good deal of trash talking about our group. Its funny because up until tonight i thought everybody in the south was in general much more friendly and easy going, but i guess punk kids live everywhere.

The other bar was a much better fit, and we all just hung around. I end up getting into a few brief conversations with the director who is around the same age as most of the PAs and is looking for things to keep him interested. He seems like a great guy who has been thrust into a world where his peers are all a good 10 years ahead in life. Even some of the PA's are married with kids, and the director is talking about going out to bars looking for a good time. He confided with us that we may all want to go to a Gamecocks game on one of our days off, so we'll see how that shapes out.

Tomorrow's call time is 4:50 for me, so today is all about laying around the hotel, watching movies and waiting for a call from the other PAs in case something interesting is going on.