Coda been a Contender

I wanted to mention one or two last things before moving on to another subject. Working those long hours on the set were made bearable by some of the company I kept on the set but that wasn't often because of my status as "truck rat". What helped me through those long days was the presence of the craft services wagon. Usually you can tell how good the food is by the number of people that hang out around it at any given time.

They'd always have a table with a pretty good variety of fruits, "health" type fruit or nut/grain bars and an assortment of pastries. At first I would only go and get what I needed, eat it and be done. As the days turned quickly into weeks I went began to feel a little more entitled to some extra goodies for myself. This feeling was in no small part due to the questionable accounting practices of the production company. The checks were often late, sometimes a day or two, and once a whole week. The teamsters on the set weren't too happy about it so they went on a strike and most of the non-union workers, including myself, joined them.

All the trucks that moved the lights and other equipment around suddenly were inaccessible. Wow. What a surprise..but apparently it was to the producers who were always very visible on the set.

Now, when I picture a strike I envision a mass of people with signs saying things like "Down with Management" or " Unfair wages"... things like that and there was always some guy with an acoustic guitar singing Woody Guthrie songs. Much to my disappointment that was not the case. The union guys were all the the nearest diner expressing their discontent by scarfing down pancakes, eggs and ungodly amounts of coffee. I'm with you brothers. Freeeeedooooooom!!!!

Basically I was the picket line. I stood by the gate to the lot where we shot most of the footage, holding a sign( I can't remember what it said) to the passersby who would honk in support of my, that is, our defiant stance. For the next few hours I was the face of the strike. My kisser! My MUG! I was actually quite pathetic to look at. It was a dreary, cold morning in October and it was drizzling a bit too. The nearest person to me was about a hundred yards away sipping coffee from the comfort of their car.

Well, the Great Strike of '07 ended around noon when the producers decided they had snorted enough coke in their trailer and were feeling good enough to pay up... I'm speculating, of course,...wink,wink. Nudge, nudge. After lunch we all hugged and went back to living the dream. "We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who blah, blah...blah....blah,BLAH!" And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.