"Aaand..cut!"
Everyone goes limp, sighs, looks at me for direction.
I can see they're done and I know we have it in the can.
"That's it. I suppose as you say down here: That's a wrap. Close it down. Ruiz, we'll use take two on that last shot."
Ruiz makes a note in the script.
"Everybody, thank you. You did the thing when the thing needed doing. I'm not going to praise you, ok? You know you did a good job. You know you did. You don't need me or some critic or any number of audiences or box office totals to tell you that. Go home. Give each other a hug. Go get drinks at The Hungry Cat on Shelly's dime. Stop by payroll, get paid, get laid, and know I'm prouder of this than anything I've done in my life. Thank you."
Then I stop talking.
Someone from The Hollywood Reporter comes to me from the depths of the set.
My cast, my crew..they laugh and get their checks and wander off the stage.
The Hollywood Reporter presses record on his phone.
"So how'd you get Warner Bros to fund a porno?"
"Kid, did you read the script?"
"I have my copy right here."
"Well, the reason we give press people scripts—under lock and key—is so you can read them before the interview."
"I just wonder—"
"No. The interview is over. Don't go. I said the interview was over. The lecture has just begun. Now. Did you see the scene we just shot?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever seen a woman die like that in a porno?"
"It depends on what you mean by a porno—"
"You were born after the invention of the internet so you'd prob'ly jack off to a monkey tied to a tree but there is actually a genre of film called pornography and it follows its own set of rules just like every other genre of film and I wanna know if you're gonna look at the scene we just shot and tell your magazine that what we're shooting here is a porno."
"I guess we'll have to invent another word—"
"You don't have to invent another word. The word is thriller. Erotic thriller if you want to help me sell some tickets. Now get off my stage."
"But Lauren—"
"You know my father is connected to the mafia?"
"Is that a threat?"
"No, but this is."
I open my Swiss Army Knife—the one MacGyver inspired me to carry—to the largest blade.
"What? Are you threatening to hurt me with your Swiss Army Knife?!" the kid laughs.
"No. I'm not threatening you. I'm informing you that if you don't get the fuck off my stage I'm going Contra on your ass with my Swiss Army Knife, yes."
"Contra? Isn't that a video game from like the 80s?"
"You don't even know what a fucking Contra is."
I lunge at him with the knife.
"What the fuck?! Security!"
"No, this is my stage. I call security. Security! Get this Pee-wee the fuck out of here!"
"I'm going to write about this!!"
"News flash, greenhorn: I know that."
As security was dragging his ass away, Kristi took his script from him and bopped him on the head with it.
"THEY ALWAYS SAID DIRECTORS WERE CRAZY," he said.
"No shit," I said under my breath.
I folded my knife and put it in my front pocket.
"Come back again I'll kill your ignorant ass."
"I HEARD THAT!"
"GOOD!! PUT IT IN YOUR BLOG THAT NO ONE READS!!"
"WE HAVE 12 MILLION READERS!!"
"YOU'RE JUST SELLING ME TICKETS!! WHEN YOU TAKE A PISS, YOU'RE SELLING ME TICKETS. AND HAVE FUN JERKING OFF TO THAT MONKEY."
They pulled him out kicking and screaming and I never saw him again. My security people knew better. If he had ever made it within a hundred yards of me I would have gone Zodiac on that motherfucker. And everyone knew it.
Kristi and I took a week off while our editor worked up a rough cut. We went north to Santa Barbara and sat around reading trashy novels and watching films on our tablets and showing each other our favorite scenes and admiring the beautiful work inherent in even the worst movies. We were both junkies for low-budget horror.
And the beach—one near Santa Clause Lane, which we just called 'The Santa Clause Beach'—is one of those places not many people alive will ever get to go, but it's one of the goddamndest beautiful places I have seen in this country. People who don't get LA think that the smog and the traffic and the politics would make it impossible to live in—a place they would never want to. But people who get California know that living in LA is completely worth it due to the food and the theaters and the beaches. Maybe it takes you two hours to drive from LA to Santa Barbara, but it's worth it. You pack a bottle for the drive up (which is always sunny and not much traffic once you pass Westlake Village) and you take a bottle for the beach (we always took Jameson) and you smoke a little pot by the train tracks and you watch surfers and make friends with the people on blankets all around you. Everyone is special. They're either special 'cause they're rich or special because they're an actor or special 'cause they're making a movie—working on one in some capacity. And you don't have to say a word. You don't have to say you're a director. You can just bask in the glow of Jameson and your lucky-ass profession and talk with everyone you meet about the beautiful mundane..the wind and the waves and the sharks below the surface. This is why I love California.