The Deserts of Taiwan

Las Vegas: a vacation hotspot, a getaway, leisure, gambling, buffets, shows... Vegas means none of these things to me. That is because everyone of the seven times or so I've been to Las Vegas was for work.

When I was working in film one of my first real paid gigs and my first chance to work on a whole feature start-to-finish was a low budget indy film called “21”. No, not the 2008 card counting movie you've heard about; the post-college-mutual-friend-dies-and-everyone-goes-to-Las-Vegas-where-there's-partying-and-some-whacky-hijinks-at-a-backwoods-brothel film that you will never ever hear about in your life after this blog post. I had been hired to be the best boy electric (a sort-of lighting equipment/power manager, generator operator and gaffer's right hand man). They were spending the first week of the three shooting in Las Vegas, it was the first time I would be working on a project that was going on location outside of LA. I was thrilled. 

Then they called to tell me I wouldn't be going. Union rules that came attached to their filming permit stipulated that a local best boy must be hired. So I was out and some guy in LV was in.

I got another call from the line producer after their first night of shooting. “It's a disaster,” she told me. “This guy the union sent us has never run a genny (diesel generator) he doesn't seem to know the first thing about lighting, he says he's actually prop guy. Can you fly out tomorrow?”

So I was in and the other guy... was still in (rules are rules).

They were filming at The Orleans Casino and hotel during night hours to avoid the crowds. I'm not sure how thick crowds ever got at the off-the-strip second-rate Orleans. Adjusting to the night hours and twelve hour 'days' made me instantly tired. Sharing a suite with four guys didn't help. There was not much time for the sin of sin city. Some of the crew went out gambling and the script supervisor won around five grand one night, but I was still pretty broke after a year of mostly working for free, so I stayed in and ate mostly at the Wendy's that was close to our hotel.

Like all films I had worked on, it was hard work but it was cool just being in Las Vegas. Even off the strip the lights glowed all night. I sure got sick of the sound of slot machines pounding my brain for twelve hours at a time though.

Maybe a year later, my friend Brandon, who I had worked with on several AFI thesis films, called me to be an electrician for a Tiawanese coffee commercial.

Sure whatever.

At one time I had ambitions of working on some cool films, films that might win a Sundance prize, something I would be proud of working on artistically. Trying to pay bills in LA, it didn't take long before working on a project that paid with checks that were likely to clear, was as good as anything.

The commercial was shooting around Las Vegas. The key word is 'around'. What's 'around' Las Vegas? Nothing! Desert; hot, dry, dusty, rocky, desert (with a few crawly things that want to kill you). We spent our first days working near Parump which is much like it sounds.

The hotel situation was an improvement over my first time in LV, there was only two of us per room instead of four. I was paired with the first camera assistant who kept the camera and a slew of charging camera batteries in the room with us. One doesn't leave a hundred-thousand-plus film camera in a truck no matter how many locks are on it.

The deal was, this beverage company from Taiwan was marketing what they called “American Style Coffee” which was canned and creamed cold coffee sold in a metal can. It said on the label (in English) “American Style Coffee”. I tried some of the stuff that they had on set. It was about ten times sweeter than the Starbucks bottled cappuccino, but other than that, not too terrible.

What was terrible was the craft service. It may seem like nitpicking to the normal world, but in film, even the lowest budget films spend hundreds of dollars a day on their craft or snack table and then also cater a meal every six hour. this production on the other hand had some bags of chips and tiny 8 once bottles of water.

Good thing we're not in the desert... oh wait!

Craft service in Taiwan, I was told, consisted of coffee and cigarettes so i guess we were to consider ourselves fortunate.

The meals weren't much better. One day after a particularly grueling day, I was handed for lunch a Styrofoam box with half a turkey sandwich.

Being way out in the desert had it's interesting points too. Desert people are a unique sort, willing to endure harsh remote living, in many cases simply because they don't 'work and play well with others'. We were shooting on some ladies property, something she was well compensated for. It was a bizarre house that had started out as a trailer and ended up having a sort-of house/deck built around it. The woman was quite particular and we were given a long set of rules for what not to do while on her property. I remember at one point she became quite upset because the set art department had moved some rocks and arranged them in a circle for a shot they needed.

"But even if he puts them all back, they won't be the same rocks in the same place!" she ranted.

A few miles away we shot moving car, truck and motorcycle shots in a valley where there was a general store and bar that looked like they could have come out of a movie along with the characters who inhabited the place

That same location was adjacent to an Air Force bombing range which is pretty much the whole of rural Nevada. A-10 Warthogs would fly overhead alarmingly low, turn on a dime come back and buzz as again. They were surprisingly quite for jet planes.

 A-10 'Warthog' over Nevada

I had to take a reflector halfway up a hill about a quarter mile from the road and halfway up a hill. My journey took about twice as long as it would have had I not been certain I was going to step on a snake over every rock. In truth I have only ever seen two rattlesnakes in the wild and both were at Runyan Canyon park about a mile from our apartment in Hollywood.

This was the first time I had worked with a camera car. Camera cars are usually heavily modified pickups—engine, suspension, brakes nearly everything. It serves as a moving camera and lighting platform complete with it's own diesel generator, that can follow, lead and often tow behind it the “picture car” (the vehicle being filmed).

 A film camera car

Working with the camera car was a lot of fun. It's basically a giant erector set of Speed Rail that you can build into any sort of rigging you need. It was also great to ride on the back of the thing while filming. The owner/operator of our camera car had worked on a number of things since the '70s. He told me about how in the first season of “CHiPs” the motorcycles looked odd being towed by the camera car since they didn't lean into the turns the way motorcycles usually do. They asked him to develop a system that would tow two motorcycles and have them lean naturally into the curves.

The most interesting thing about the experience was seeing American Stereotypes through Taiwanese eyes. Our little commercial had a star. She was a cute girl that we were told was the hottest pop star in Taiwan—of course they would say that. I'm sorry, but to my eyes, Asian female pop stars all look (and sound) very much alike.

Let's just suppose for the sake of having a name to use, that she was Mandopop star Jolin Tsai—one of the more likely candidates I researched.

Jolin Tsai

She was probably a little famous, at least in Taiwan. There was a small but devoted entourage that followed her everywhere including some dude with a video camera who documented her every waking moment in a way that made me wonder if he also shrink-wrapped, weighed and cataloged her doodies.

Every shot of the commercial which was also being used as one of Tsai's rock videos, so the American cliche's were rampant from the beginning: hitch hiking, bikers, Harleys, truckers, Peterbuilts with flames painted on the engine cowling. The desert, Las Vegas, parties, blue jeans (the canned coffee itself was printed to look like blue jean denim), leather jackets. Tsai and her troup of attractive Asian biker friends were constantly holding up cans of the syrupy sweet stuff and shouting at the sunset.

On one occasion when we were actually shooting in Las Vegas, Jolin was sitting on a motorcycle that was being side-towed by the camera car. Between takes I would take a flag and hold it out over her to keep her out of the Sun.

A side tow rig off a camera car

This could go on for ten minutes or more which became very tiring and hot (I was still in the sun myself). When they broke us for the next setup she looked up at me and thanked me in her limited MTV-learned English “Yuh suh kuh” -you're so cool... I think.

The singing portion of her video was thrown together in the last moments of useable light on the last day with a boom box for playback and a second unit camera. I would pay good money to see that video just to find out how it turned out.

My film days ended—thankfully—and I did most of my work in the air-conditioned world of television game shows. This too led me on several trips to Vegas including a Jeopardy remote in 2009. They are still recovering from the union fees.

Before that, I drove my bosse's F-350 dually to Vegas to run some electronics for a group of guys who were trying to pitch a gambling show to the Casinos. The first Casino they were visiting was “Caesar's Palace.” I was told to simply show up at the front entrance which I did. I unloaded all my equipment onto my dolly and two bellhop luggage carts complete with bell hops to push them. We proceeded into the casino, through a mall, through back hallways up an elevator, more hallways, up another elevator that opened onto a wide featureless hallway that was so long I swear I could quite nearly see the curvature of the Earth. Through the doors on the other side we wound through a maze of cubicles and finally into a small conference room where I set up the presentation. One of the folks in the office told me. You know you could have just gone to the loading dock downstairs.

The next hotel was the MGM Grand. What kind of labrynth was this going to be? 

“One floor up on that elevator, second door on your left,” said the security guard.

The two-hundred-fifty mile drive to Las Vegas is a bit of an adventure itself. It is in fact a requirement for LA citizenship; only true Angelenos can state there best 'Vegas drive time' which is often too short to be believed. The highway crosses some of the hottest, most rugged country in the US and goes from elevations from nearly sea level to over fifty-five hundred feet. It can be very beautiful in a rugged desert sort of way. Reference: the opening scene to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. There's a town called Baker around the halfway mark that boasts the worlds largest thermometer (134Ft). It ranges from thirty to one-hundred-thirty five degrees. The highest I've ever seen it was one-hundred-twelve, but that was after dark. It's a good place for lunch and the gas prices are stupid but not yet insane.

Another part of the adventure is the sometimes near death experiences along that most dangerous stretch of the I-15. Remember how Angelenos brag about their 'Vegas times”? The I-15 between LA and LV is one long drag strip for those dudes and duddettes vying for that killer time. You can be going eighty miles an hour and people will still pass you like you're standing still. Add to that, trucks on steep grades, disabled cars on the shoulder and weekend traffic that is beyond insane and you have a certifiable death trap, or good sport—depending on how you look at it.

Comedian Sam Kinison and his girlfriend were some of the many to die on that stretch of highway; then, they were having their own adventure at the time.

The last third of the trip is the most desolate and gas prices and emergency services at the one or two outposts are downright abusive. Ask me how I know.

The company I worked for built a custom poker table for “Celebrity Poker Showdown” and some other poker events. Vegas union rules (screwing me once again) didn't allow for me to work on the actual production of those shows, but I still was able to work on setups and strikes. At the end of one of the poker shows I drove a rental truck to Las Vegas to bring back all of our gear. I decided it would be a good idea to take Audra along since she loves Las Vegas. It was only for one night but a road trip to Vegas is a road trip to Vegas!

We had to do some running around before we left so we weren't on a full tank when we headed up the Cajon pass into the desert communities and the Mojave desert beyond. We were running behind and I didn't want to stop to get gas in Victorville or Barstow. As we passed Baker I took one last look at the gas gauge. Just under a half tank. We had an hour to go till Vegas and we could get some fuel at the border in Primm if need be. It was a truck with bigger than normal tanks to get through a day of deliveries I reasoned and the truck is empty in back to boot. No problem, I thought.

The really scary part of the desert where the only real exit for thirty miles in either direction is where we were when I noticed the gas gauge needle. It was at an 1/8^th of a tank and I swear to you I could see the thing moving.

This event began the following dialog in my head:

“What if we don't make it?”

“We're totally not going to make it.”

“But maybe...”

“No, not going to happen.”

“But what if...”

“Nope.”

“Not even...

“Not a chance.”

“So you mean we're actually...”

“Yup.”

“Damn!”

“You said it.”

All I could do was see how far we could get and hope we could coast to an emergency phone. It wasn't long before the truck started to sputter and loose power. Fortunately we were on a down grade and we coasted to a phone. One might ask where were your cell phones? We both had ours with us and both were completely drained of batteries. There have been rare occasions when my phone or Audra's have been completely drained but never before or since were they out of commission at the same time. Oh, and we both left our chargers at home.

Like they say in the movie airplane “Looks like we picked the wrong week to give up being stupid” (paraphrased).

While we waited for the truck to come with a gas can, we opened up the back of the truck and sat in the shade it provided, feeling the truck jerk to the side every time a big rig blew by.

 The I-15 North right about where we ran out of gas
I remember it well.

So, guess how much it costs to have a can of gas delivered in the middle of the Mojave Desert?... $110!

Guess how much gas they give you in the middle of the Mojave Desert?... Just enough to get to the hillbilly Podunk, middle-of-nowhere gas station that belongs to the guy who delivered the $110 gas who charges—and remember this was when gas was normally under $3 a gallon—$4.10!

You don't want to know how much they wanted for phone chargers!

We passed.

One thing I'll say, it sure feels good rolling down the highway again after you've been sitting along side for an hour or so.

Without phones we couldn't tell the crew in Las Vegas we were going to be late. So we just showed up late and it was all good. It's just as well. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about running out of gas in the middle of the Mojave.

After loading the truck I was drenched in sweat. I can imagine how I looked when I checked into our hotel. For reasons I can't even remember we ended up having to drive back that night after just taking a shower and getting some dinner. We sure topped of that tank before we left town.

About two years ago I got a call from an art director friend of mine for a job. It was the end of a very lean summer and I was pretty hard-up at the time. He offered me a job doing graphics for the new “Let's Make a Deal” game show. They were shooting in Las Vegas.

I passed.

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

Good news! All the work I have been doing has enabled me to purchase a car stereo to replaced the broken one in my car. It might not seem much of a step forward musically, but now I can rehearse singing in the car again. Almost all of the vocal progress I made leading up to my album was done in the car. When my old stereo broke it took the wind out of my sails but after some soldering and pushing and pulling and reading through the complex (for a car stereo) manual I'm ready to go! It'll be a pleasure just to have music back in my commuting life! In the health department: I am going vegetarian, gluten free, dairy and sugar free for at least a week while I do a little cleanse of the liver and other bits. I be honest, it sucks, but not as bad as I thought it would when my wife hit me with the idea. That is after I got up from the ground crying, screaming and pounding my hand and feet on the floor. I mean DO YOU UNDERSTAND NO DAIRY MEANS NO CEREAL!!!! And no, I won't do soy, or almond milk, I'd sooner plaster mayonnaise on a sirloin steak. I have this food thing you see, but I'm fairly sure I'll survive... mostly.