I walk on Pigeon Poo

Ah, joy! The high concept Linus poster shoot! Oh, the joy of driving around town – pre-shoot site sortie (check), film (check), snacks (check). Clinton, Larry, and Austin Caustic can’t make it but have the good sense to let me know so it’s easy to adjust the concept. I called Mara to ask her to loan Kenny her shotgun (sans shells) for the shoot and she agrees. Naturally, any preparations are a vain attempt to control the uncontrollable.

Sure the Dimes, Gina, and Charlie show up on time (7ish) but as we get closer to the time to shoot (8pm), the rest of the Kimonos are looking more and more dodgy. Josh and Steve the two brothers are going to be late (one gets off of work at 8pm) and Kenny is nowhere to be found (mind you, Kenny’s car and Mara’s shotgun are central to the shoot). Soon, we’re running out of daylight and we have to roll out to the site. We finally get a hold of Kenny who knows nothing of the shoot and his car is dead. Great. Rosa’s older BMW may add a trashy Euro vibe so we recruit it but when we arrive at the Linus rehearsal space there is Stevie’s Car - a 70’s Impala. Perfect! Then at 8:45 with dwindling light, we finally throw our hands in the air and rapidly put the shoot together. The light, of course, is quite low by this time and, in the sudden rush to get to the space, Rosa dropped her tri-pod adapter causing the potential for the disastrous shots to increase exponentially as the required slow shutter speed is quite unforgiving to the most minor movement. Despite the diminishing light, Rosa works with what she has and we knock out the shots. Gina is in the foreground with a pistol facing off facing the Dimes who are exiting the Impala while Steve and Charlie (of Linus) are lying dead on the road. By this time it’s 9pm and still no Josh, Steve, or Kenny yet somehow I assume that they might still make it.

Given the dubious lighting conditions outside we decide to take a back-up shot inside the warehouse. To our thrill, the back of the warehouse at the LP4 rehearsal space is now covered in a layer of Pigeon poo thanks to a small crack somewhere in the 50 foot high glass ceiling. Naturally, the roaches love this! Then in a stroke of genius, Steve decides to arm the Dimes with some real and replicated firearms. The Dimes of course have no idea how to hold the props – varying from holding them in fear to waving them carelessly at people – so we immediately jump in and show them how to hold a firearm and how to not kill anyone. Mind you, rule #1, even if you have removed the bullets, you still act as if the gun is loaded. Rosa gets some shots despite there being a lot of giggling involved from cast and crew. By the time we're done it’s almost 10pm. At this point, we assume the rest of the Kimonos are no-shows and we let Kenny and Mara know that they can turn back. We’re beat but the Dimes grace is with their other talents: Jose shows-off his juggling while Iram demonstrates his skating moves. Who knew?

Well here is the result of all this work (though we’re still looking for the roll of film containing the exterior shots). My apologies to Michalangelo Antonioni.