I can tell you everything you need to know about a movie from watching the first five minutes.
I can tell the mood on the set where it was filmed.
I can tell you what the director said to an actor right before a take.
I'm serious. All that stuff matters. If the actors on a serious film are joking around before they shoot, that crap bleeds through into the film and I can smell it like period blood.
Someone on my set asked me: "Are you wild?"
I said: "Of course I'm wild. I'm bipolar. I'm as wild as they get."
I can tell you the gender of the director just by watching his film. Same with the screenwriter. I know every actor by voice alone. Every movie ever made and who was in it and who worked on it and what studio made it and what it grossed. Can tell the star rating by the length of the opening credits.
"How do you know this is a one-star rating?" Kristi asked.
"Because the credits run too long. A five-star director would have fixed it."
I suggested Kristi and I try the same thing with strangers' virginities so we played that with the staff and customers at Mel's.
Kristi wanted to know why I had bondage photos all over my apartment.
"You want to know in a polemical sense or a colloquial sense?"
"Uh..I guess colloquial."
"I get off on seeing women and men tied up and unable to move."
"You jerk off to these?"
"Of course I do."
I could feel Kristi's look and it was a look of admiration—good: expand her censored little world.
"I admire you for breaking into a historically male profession," she says.
"What, you mean rape?"
"I mean directing."
"That's what I mean. Wanna see my albums?"
"Sure."
So I show her my photo albums.
Girls in mirrors.
Girls smoking.
Girls putting on makeup.
Gas masks.
Women smoking.
Girls in bandages, slings, and on crutches.
"Do you go to therapy?" Kristi says.
"Gotta. Gotta. Do you?"
"I never have."
"You're a virgin!"
I nuggie her head.
"Gotta go to therapy, girl, it's like sex but with someone who's only interested in you."
"But I thought sex—" she starts.
"No," I say. "Sex is for people who want to demonstrate their hate for each other by confusing pleasure and general despise in the least intimate way possible. Don't listen to me. I'm jaded. I'm 40. You're..20 or something. Have great sex while you're young and pretend it's because it's because you love the person. Later you'll learn that sex is an act of war between the equivalent of cold war adversaries who will never get along..no matter what. Don't listen to me. Look at my bondage pictures. Does bondage get you off? Wanna hear a rape joke?"
Kristi is looking at me like her boss is crazy.
"Yeah," she says. "Tell me a rape joke."
"Ok. How do you make an eight year old cry twice?"
"How?"
"After you pull it out, wipe it on her teddy bear."
"Why don't you have kids?"
I roll my eyes.
"A dog, even?"
"I don't want to have pets for the same reason I don't want to have children: I don't want to spend time taking care of them. Consider my math on this one, ok, Kristi? For most people, there's pretty much an equal chance that their kid will be a dud as there is that he'll be Mozart. But with me—and I suspect with you—there's not much chance that I'm going to have a kid who contributes more to the world than me. I bet having a kid is one of the most rewarding things an intelligent being can do. But then again..so is making a movie."
I smile.
"Wanna get fucked up?" Kristi says.
"Yes!"
This is what we did in the wee hours between wrap and call—did weird drugs that Kristi brought over to my apartment. She thought these would somehow help my headaches. And they did, in the sense that they distracted me from them. But every morning at six, whether we had slept or not, a teamster dropped us off at Stage 12 at Warner Bros and we shot our movie. I told Kristi I wanted to drive myself and the headaches weren't an issue but she explained it to me:
"A teamster has to drive you."
"Why?"
"Insurance."
"But I'm perfectly capable to drive."
"Doesn't matter."
"But what if I want to drive myself."
"It's off limits."
"But why."
"What if you were Lindsay Lohan?"
"I'm not Lindsay Lohan. They don't know we're high."
"Yes they do."
"How do they know that?"
"Everyone in this town is high!"
I look at her sideways.
"Is everyone on my set high?"
She nods.
"The grips on my set are high."
"Yep."
"Can we stop that?"
"Nope."
"We can't stop the grips from getting high?"
"Nope."
"Where are they getting high?"
"The craft services trucks."
"The craft services trucks what?"
"They serve more than burrito wraps."
"Well fuck, why did no one tell me?"
Kristi puts her hand on my shoulder.
"I'm telling you now."
I look at the ceiling with just my eyes. Then the teamster gets there at 5:30 etc etc.