Last night I was surfing for something to entertain me. I wanted to find some new music, or a good book review. All the usual sites had nothing I was interested in...same old Nicole, Paris, Britney or Lohan stuff, different day. And, per my earlier post, I was searching for new tv shows to watch. Then it dawned on me, there is a website I haven't visited in a while. I think I will visit and see what my friend has been up to...and here's what I found. A very sweet and entertaining little story that just mesmorized me. I know you'll enjoy it too. Here it is, in it's entirety...and thanks to my friend for permission to reproduce it here on my little 'ol website...
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Little Plastic Castle (part 1)
Babe. Remember that film? The pig movie. Turned a lot of people into vegetarians. It was pretty good. Sweet, but not too sweet. Very slightly edgy. It was a huge hit. I did the poster for that movie, and I was damn proud of myself for it.
I was just starting out at Universal, and they’d picked up this pig movie for just about nothing. Nobody thought it was anything special. I went off to photograph a bunch of barn animals for the poster with my friend Tom Keller. We found all the animals we needed at a farm in Chino, CA, about fifty miles away. Pigs, cows, sheep, chickens. They were all there. And they were all cooperative. The cow especially. She turned out to be the Cindy Crawford of cows. These were not the animals from the film mind you; they were just common, non-union animals. The movie had been shot in Australia, and most of the cast, I guessed, had long since been eaten. But a sheep is pretty much a sheep, I figured.
So we finished the campaign for that film for just about nothing. The poster was delightful. I was happy with it. The film was a humungous success, and everyone at Universal was suddenly telling all their friends that they knew all along it was going to be huge. And almost immediately they signed up George Miller, to make a sequel. Which he proceeded to do.
I remember reading the screenplay for that sequel for the first time in my weird, dark little office at Universal. I was unnerved. It was a weird, dark little screenplay. It made me giggle, in a subversive kind of way. Bad things were happening on the pages in front of me. Clowns were on fire. Dogs were being strangled. Chimpanzees were smoking. And so on. Where as the first film had been slightly edgy, this one was really, really, really edgy. So edgy as to be a problem.
Similarly, where as the first film had been made for practically nothing, this one was having money thrown at it like twenties at a stripper. So when the time came to photograph the animals for the sequel, somebody (not me) had the great idea that I should go to Australia to photograph the actual, er, talent. Union, this time.
Now, granted, this film’s animal cast was slightly more exotic than the original. In addition to the pigs, sheep, dogs, mice and cows there were chain-smoking monkeys and an orangutan in a bellhop uniform. But, really, look hard enough, and you can find all that in L.A.
So I got a two week trip to Sydney, all expenses paid, to photograph some animals. I was thrillied. First class round trip. Quantas. Lovely hotel. The food was marvelous. All was well and good down-under. I did not point out the pecuniary foolishness of the endeavor to anyone at Universal.
Right around this time, my “album of the moment” was Ani DiFranco’s Little Plastic Castle. It had just been released. It was and is a brilliant record. I still listen to it from time to time. I really liked Ani DiFranco. She was cute, edgy, tattooed, talented and vaguely Italian. Content as I was in that first class cabin, I was pissed-off to discover I’d left the CD in my car, and I’d have to spend the next two weeks without Little Plastic Castle.
Landing in Sydney is breathtaking. Having left LAX at about 10:00 pm, I arrived in Sydney at dawn (on some other day), and looking out my window as we descended, the whole place was side-lit in this amazing golden light with blue wisps of clouds around the hills. I’ll never forget that sight. Down there somewhere was an orangutan in a bellhop uniform.
That first day was a bit of blur, like it is whenever you’re in a new place, way out of your time-zone. I met with a lot of people from the production. I walked around the set. I met a great many six-month-old pigs (all playing the lead role). I looked at story-boards. I had lunch with Johnny Friedkin, raconteur and unit publicist, a lovely guy. I watched some dailies in George Miller’s elaborate screening room. I walked back to my hotel through a particularly sleezy part of Sydney.
And when I got back to my hotel room, astonishingly, it actually wasn’t that late. Early afternoon. And I was completely exhausted. I lay down on the bed with the windows open and fell fast asleep.
I guess I slept for a couple of hours. It was getting dark when I woke up. The windows were open, and the breeze off the harbor felt nice.
And I was listening to the Ani DiFranco album I’d left in my car at LAX…
There it was. How could that be? I wasn’t dreaming or hearing voices. There it was. For real. Through the thin hotel wall. Little Plastic Castle.
In a coffee shop, in a city
Which is every coffee shop
In every city
On a day
Which is everyday…
I lay there, so happy. I’d listened to that album so many times that I almost didn’t need to listen to it any more, it was nestled so solidly in my head. But hearing it just then was like having a good friend show up to meet me at the airport. Such a welcome surprise. I just lay there and listened.
I picked up a magazine
Which is every magazine
And read a story
Then forgot it
Right away…
YES???!!!!!
Excuse me, what was that?
YEAH????!!!! WHAT?????!!!!
The song had stopped, and there was some clatter and footsteps. There was some muffled conversation. And then the guitar was playing solo as the conversation went on.
Good Lord, I thought.
That wasn’t the album. That was a person with a guitar. Singing, and then talking and then getting mad and then singing again, off and on, all the while playing that little riff. That riff from Little Plastic Castle.
After awhile I got comfortable with the idea that this was actually Ani DiFranco playing her own guitar on the other side of the wall from me. She must have been touring. She must have had a gig in Sydney. She must have been staying at my hotel. Right there. On the other side of that wall. Playing those songs. Like a boom-box.
I lay there just listening as the room got dark, marveling at how lucky I was and how thin the walls must be. She ran through some more songs from the album. Some of them she seemed to be actually rehearsing, others she was clearly playing just because she liked playing them. There was a lot of muffled laughter and argument and conversation.
I fell back asleep like a kid upstairs during a party.
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Don't you just feel like you went on the greatest little trip? I just loved the story. And maybe because this story was written by our friend FAMOUS JULIAN that I love it even more.
If you would like to see more of just exactly how famous, Famous Julian is, please visit his website: www.julianhills.net
While I tease about FJ all the time, I consider it an honor to have met him through our profession and he's a terrific partner. But in real life, he's a fuckin' kick in the pants and I hate he's in Hollyweird and I'm up here in the grapevines. We hardly ever get to hang out. Anyway, please visit his site, I know you will enjoy it.
Coley
FYI...the beautiful illustration in this post is also courteous of FJ. It's his daughter in 2006 after a weekend getaway. I think it looks like me posting my blog. My mac nestled in my lap on my couch, just typing until my heart's content. Maybe that's why its my favorite on his site. What a lucky chick to have such a cool dad. Even though my Daddy is the best in the world. :)
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