8/12/22
Newsletter70
The Crack of Dawn
It’s already dawn because I got a late start.
When I first moved to L.A. in 1976, and lived in a $65 a month apartment, I worked a dozen non-film, bad jobs I never stuck with for more than 2-4 weeks. I finally got a job as a cashier at Shep’s Deli on Pico Blvd. This was an old-time Jewish deli that served enormous sandwiches. It was located not too far from 20th Century Fox. One of the most regular customers who ate there 2-3 times a week was Brian Wilson and his psychiatrist/keeper. Brian was in bad shape mentally at that point, rarely spoke, and was over 250 pounds. He would order two of these gigantic corned beef sandwiches on onion rolls with fries, then devour them both. Brian always paid with a credit card and his signature was so psychotic looking that waitresses and busboys would come to me at the cash register, ask to see it, then sadly shake their heads and say, “Man, he’s fucked up.” One day the owner of Shep’s, an old Jewish man named Mr. Shapiro asked Brian, “How are you today, Brian?” With difficulty, Brian managed to say, “Fine, Mr. Shaprio.” Mr. Shapiro then said, “You look good.” Brian answered, “Fine, Mr. Shapiro.” I’ve seen him in more recent interviews, and though he’s still fucked up, he’s better than he was.
Another regular customer was Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac. He was at the pinnacle of his career, had an enormous, frizzy, long hairdo, and we never spoke. Whoever he was with paid the bill.
One day in came Farrah Fawcett at the peak of her career with Charley’s Angels. She too had a giant hairdo, was gorgeous and as sweet as could be. She asked Lou, the fat deli man from Brooklyn behind the counter, for a pound of sliced turkey. As she waited a crowd built up around her. Charley’s Angels had been on the night before. As Lou handed her the package of turkey, he said, “You were great last night.” Farrah smiled sweetly and said, “Thank you.” The erroneous implication was obvious, but so blatantly not true that the whole crowd, including Farrah, all burst out laughing. Lou looked confused, then finally got it, blushed and said, “You know what I mean.”
Speaking of Iggy & the Stooges yesterday, the band’s lead guitarist, Ron Ashton, and I co-starred in the movie, Mosquito (1994). Ron couldn’t have been a nicer, friendlier fellow. We had a fairly lengthy dialogue scene together that was cut out of the movie. Thank God it’s included in the extra features on the DVD.
My old buddy, Gary Jones, was the director/co-writer of Mosquito. When I the script, I called Gary and said, “There’s a nude sex scene with my character. I’m 35 years old, I can’t strip naked. I’m out of shape.” [I was a fucking Adonis compared to now, 30 years later]. Gary said, “It’s OK, you don’t have to be naked.” Oh, good. When I arrived at the old factory in Detroit where they were shooting, and headed inside, I knew every crew member I passed. All of them looked at me in astonishment and asked, “Are you really doing a nude sex scene?” And I replied, “No, Gary said I don’t have to be naked.” When I got inside I said to Gary, “Everybody thinks that I’m doing a nude sex scene.” Gary nodded, “You are.” I said, “But you said I didn’t have to.” Gary smiled and said, “I lied.” We shot in a tent set up on a plywood platform. They had hired the girl at a strip club in Detroit. She was happy to get naked, but couldn’t act at all. Fully naked, she and I pretended to hump on the hard plywood floor beneath the tent. Gary took a lot of time shooting this scene and kept saying, “Roll around” making it all the more painful. And meanwhile, any time I’d ever been in a similar situation with a woman I naturally had an erection. Now, however, that seemed unprofessional. So I mentally willed myself to not get hard, as we humped and humped and rolled around. Plus, this girl had extremely sharp hip bones that poked the hell out of me. Gary took two hours shooting this scene and clearly enjoyed the pain he was causing me, repeating, “Do it again.” When I finally left the set that day, every part of my body hurt from the plywood floor, I had black and blue marks from her sharp hip bones, and one of the worst headaches of my life. What we endure for the sake of art.
It’s fully daytime.