Notes From A Burning House

Further Chronicles of Hollywood Heights, an independent film currently being produced by a few friends of mine.  I have been volunteering on the film crew and my jobs have been varied.  Last night I was slate boy, car driver, and drunk-wrangler at our edgiest location yet.

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The first shock of the evening was the director’s hair. 

Mr. Nelson is preparing to go to Burning Man, the annual blossom of anarchic wonderfulness in the Reno desert.  As part of his costume for the festival, he has dyed his hair green.  Hereafter, he will be referred to in this blog as Verdilocks, or El Verde.

Among L.A.’s neighborhoods, Highland Park does not have a grand reputation.  When people talk about Highland Park, they usually don’t mention the Southwest Museum or the Audubon Center or the historic architecture.  Maybe you remember Jackson Browne’s song about the chicano gang called The Avenues.  Well, this is where they live.  But then again, so does Jackson Browne. 

The cast and crew of Hollywood Heights came here after sundown Sunday night to shoot a few scenes outside of a somewhat-frightening-yet-very-personable hole in the wall: Mr. T.’s Bowl.  Overall, the place feels like it has a lot of exposed nails, but the folks running it couldnt have been nicer to us. 

The place is a former bowling alley with large areas roped off or hidden behind curtains, leaving a cozy dive bar where Paulina waits to pour you a Guinness or perhaps something stronger.  We were greeted by a quiet guy with named Arlo.  Arlo is the sound engineer and D.J. here.   The man is as gentle and unassuming as a soybean farmer yet he doesnt miss much of anything that goes on inside the bar or out in the parking lot.  By the way, Arlo is good at what he does.  It was a little slow at Mr. T.’s last night, and as midnight approached I found him going through all of the free weekly papers that were stacked up near the sound booth, looking for a crossword puzzle.  When I asked him if he liked sudoku, he twitched his salt and pepper moustache and said, "God, if I wanted to get into those I’d have to stop drinking." 

For extra lighting, our cinematography guru had cliplights powered by his truck’s battery.  Quietly, we went about our business while the neighborhood did its thing around us.  I was more or less adopted by a drunk Vietnam vet who still wore his cap from the service and could not, simply could not believe I didn’t smoke. 

We had other onlookers as well, oh yes we did.  There was an encampment of homeless people on the opposite side of the parking lot, sitting in abandoned chairs and drinking cans of beer.  At one point, their celebration of moonlight and song grew so joyous we had to take a break and wait for their discussion to subside:

"You know what’s a great song?  Here’s my favorite song!!  RROooooWWWWRRR!!!   ARRRROUUURRRRR!!!!!  GRAAAAARRRR!!!!!"

"GRRROOOWWWRRRR!!!!  ARRRRRGGGGHH!!!"

When a car from the Sheriffs Department rolled through the parking lot to check things out, El Verde whispered to Richard: "We are making a student film!"

There was also a tribe of young jerks who were more than slightly smashed, conversing amongst themselves in the parking lot at a volume level one notch below "Ungodly Scream."  They paraded back and forth into the bar, taking notice of the ladies in the cast, and attempting to lure a black passerby into a fight with them.  The black man didnt help things by shouting sentiments such as, "I hate white boys!" Perhaps he had consumed a cordial or two himself.  He went off about his business, leaving his white van parked there. 

Those "white boys" evidently bore him a grudge.  At about 11:30, they piled into their pickup truck to leave, and backed straight into his white van.  Bang.  To our amazement, they moved their truck forward, straightened the wheels, and did it again, ramming the van as hard as they could for a second time before speeding away. 

Through it all, we looked at one another with wide eyes and simply continued with our business as meekly as possible, doing our best to go unnoticed as we drank beer and shot our little movie.  At midnight, the battery powering one of the cameras gave up its ghost and brought the night to a close.

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