8/23/23
Newsletter #436
The Crack of Dawn
One reason I am able to write these newsletters and get them out by dawn is that I only proof-read them once. Were it anything else, I’d print it, wait until tomorrow, proof it again, then probably print it again and proof it again, before letting anyone read it. Thus, to achieve this, I must face the shame of distributing “sloppy copy.” Please excuse my typos.
Correction: The Deadhead production designer who saved the Ghoul Trench was Mick Strawn, not Straun. Dirk Straun was the lead character of James Clavell’s Tai Pan. Hopefully, in the ensuing 30 years since I’ve seen Mick, he now listens to something other than the Grateful Dead, but I doubt it.
Finally, as the fourth Hercules movie began preproduction, the fifth film, now entitled, Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur (Rob called me and said, “You’re gonna hate this. I’m changing labyrinth to maze.” I said, “Maze is better; it’s shorter”), was added to the big board. The entire crew immediately complained, saying that they’d all made vacation plans. Of course, nothing was forcing them to work on the fifth film, which they all did, but it apparently did allow them to bitch about it all the time with impunity.
Also, I only got three weeks to shoot, whereas all the other films had four weeks. I asked Rob, “How is it that Doug Lefler, who was Sam’s storyboard artist on Darkman, and has never directed anything, got four weeks; and I, who have been around forever, and have directed a lot, only get three weeks?” Rob immediately fired back, “Doug was kissing the right ass and you were kissing the wrong ass.” Rob has a knack for finding these great retorts.
Flashing back six months to the beginning of production of these Hercules movies, the only person who had consistently given me shit about the “phantom fifth film” that was certainly a figment of my imagination, which I only thought I was directing, was James Bartle, the bearded, graying, elder cinematographer of New Zealand. Jim treated me with blatant and obvious disdain, once making a bit of a spectacle in front of the whole crew (and when it turned out that he was wrong, he never apologized). So, when it magically materialized that I wasn’t hallucinating and there really was a fifth film, Jim really didn’t like it. Also, Jim had a seriously obnoxious, asshole camera crew, consisting of Ian “Turts” Turtill, the camera operator, and Cameron MacLean, the 1st assistant cameraman (who later became the operator on Xena). I spell their names out clearly because, though they were complete assholes then and there was nothing I could do about it, guess who’s writing the history? That’s right, me. I forgive, but I do not forget.
This is the one and only time in my long career that I worked with an actively hostile DP and camera crew. At one point I asked for the zoom lens and Jim proclaimed, “I don’t use the zoom.” Well, guess who doesn’t get to make that decision? I’m the fucking director; I get any lens I want. But as opposed to pulling rank, I calmly explained myself, saying, “The zoom is a tool in our toolbox, just like any other piece of equipment, and it has its place.” Jim said, “Yes, in the truck.” He got a big laugh, at my expense. Fine. But had we used the zoom – which would have worked fine for that shot – we would have saved at least an hour, probably more.
I brought the film in on time in three weeks and everybody was just fine with it, but nobody had any fun making it. That’s not entirely true. Thankfully, Kevin Sorbo and Michael Hurst, who played Herc’s buddy Iolaus, were both in good form, and as I’ve already written about, I think I got the most there was to get out of the obstinate, obdurate, 80-year-old, Anthony Quinn.
Tanya and Jack didn’t work out. I then tried to sweetly woo Tanya over the course of six seasons of Xena, and never got very far. But we were good buddies, and we made a terrific trio with baldheaded, thick and rich, Edith, with her pit bull Kali and her eight -cylinder golden Holden.
Although I didn’t realize it at that time, of course, but those eight years of my life – 1993 to 2001 – when I did Herc and Xena, as well as two indie movies, were my “halcyon years.” Previous to it becoming known as the narcotic “Halcion,” the meaning of halcyon is, “calm and peaceful, happy and prosperous.” Well, I was neither calm nor peaceful, but I was reasonably happy, still hopeful, and somewhat prosperous. Right up until it wasn’t, that is.
It was 2001, but the space odyssey hadn’t occurred. Both Hercules and Xena were canceled. All of my boxes were packed and stacked all over my apartment in Santa Monica – my longest single-running residence in L.A. since I’d first arrived in 1976, 25 years earlier. I’d made it seven years in one place. That was something, but it was enough for me. I was never going to cut it in Hollywood, I just didn’t have it in me. Hollywood is the place where your best friend stabs you in the face. That’s not the environment in which I care to exist. Also, it was noisy as a motherfucker. Between barking dogs, Harleys, Mexican food trucks, trach cans full of bottles being poured into other trash cans full of bottles, I don’t believe that I got one full night’s sleep in seven years.
So, in my infinite wisdom, I was moving into a single-wide trailer in the woods of Oregon, a mile up the road from my old buddy Bruce and his wife Ida. I’d had enough of L.A. forever. Bruce had already bailed out before me.
I awoke at about 6:00 AM and switched on the radio to the jazz station, KLON, which never had any news, and was now broadcasting the news. It appeared that a jet had flown into one of the World Trade Towers. It seemed like it might be an accident. I turned on CNN. Then a second jet hit the other World Trade Tower. That was no accident. That was terrorism!
I ran frantically up and down both floors of the building pounding on every apartment door. I then returned to the boxes in my soon-to-be former apartment and plopped down in front of the TV set – I’d pack that last, of course – and I watched how everything in this country was changing forever. That was the day Americans got really scared. So scared in fact that they let George W. Bush attack the wrong country.
Well, it wasn’t my problem. From where my trailer sat, outside Medford, Oregon, up the road from Bruce, I could not see another light.
It’s not dawn yet and it’s 6:00 AM. It’s already autumn.
Why am I not surprised?
And i do still listen to The Dead!