And the Production Assistant Rules

This post is for Bone, Doug, and Dan for living through the prior one. They’re all exceptional bloggers with totally different blogs but are single, (well, Dan’s love life is an interesting subject into itself) straight, from different areas of the country, and I could go on and on but read their blogs.

I’m going to have a post in Bring it on! on Tuesday entitled The belle of the brawl It sounds whiny but is really a political statement about how we devalue aging and every person and thing associated with it.

That title isn’t original to me but is the name of Sar’s new blog. Sar and I began our blogging friendship in what seems to be typical fashion for me, we sparred.

When I lived on East 63rd Street my block was often closed for dreaded parades; that was bad enough. But seemingly weekly until the city made ordinances against filming in one area or one block too often my block was closed off for movies, TV, commercials, et al. They all seemed to star Hal Linden, who looked just like my father. This is important only because I would mistake Hal Linden for my father and tell him he needed to call first. My father thought he owned my apartment which was weird as it was a rental and I held the lease

In the mid 80’s I didn’t know anybody who had a cell phone; in the late 80’s I would see people on the Hampton Jitney make really important calls to their wives to tell them to meet the bus or have dinner ready. On Sundays, not Saturdays, they would have their phones at Main Beach in East Hampton, my sister’s favorite beach since in the off season she would run into Paul McCartney. I have never quite understood who is so important that they need to have their phones on the beach on Sundays in August when your broker, accountant, lawyer, and everybody else are at the same beach, but…

Back on East 63rd Street off Fifth I didn’t have a cell phone, but I did get phone calls and didn’t like to spend my time on public phones getting messages when I had perfectly good phones at home. Little problem: often my street would be cordoned off and I would try to walk past the horses. A young woman, always dressed in sweats with varying layers depending on the weather, would stop me:
“Can’t go down the street. Production in progress.”
“I live here?”
The young woman would strut her shoulders to show her authority. She couldn’t compete with me in the shoulder strutting world as this was the 80’s and I had big hair and shoulder pads surgically attached to my shoulders.
“the street’s closed off.”
“And I live here. Am expecting very important phone calls.”
The production assistant finally takes the gum out of her mouth
“Well, ya’ll have to wait five minutes. The street is closed.”
“Sorry but as I said I live here. Residents always get priority.”
That had worked once.
“No they don’t. (Places gum back in her mouth.) This is very important to the city’s economy.”
I would shrug.
“Is that what they teach you in PA school? I could have been home already.”
I can be very obnoxious. I would always get the street open. And I have a bazillion of these stories because they were a frequent event.

When The mirror has two faces was filmed, Lucia’s street was filmed at night. Giant lights went into the apartments in the middle of the night in a block where many families have school aged kids. It was totally gross and unnecessary. I’ve never seen that movie in protest though I’m curious.

Last week on Little Luce’s 15th birthday we saw giant white discs that looked like huge moons that fell to earth. Just new fangled night production lights.

Today I was walking on Broadway and 73rd Street to the bank. There was a cute double Decker tour bus parked outside of Gristedes which is located in the Ansonia, a faded beautiful beaux arts building restored to its original grandeur. In the 70’s it was the home of Plato’s Retreat, and I ain’t telling you about that. Never been there; it was totally gross. On the other hand the new Ansonia is the home to the most famous Weight Watcher’s meetings in New York. Lucia’s going and I will be there eventually. It’s an Upper West Side woman meeting magnet for new friends. Kind of like any writing class I have been in but with a different type of competition.

Back to Broadway today. Everybody on the tour bus was a bit too perfect but I was plotting out my Bring it on! post and not really paying attention. When I came back from the bank there was a lanky young woman shouting out that the street was closed, and that we should find alternate means of going somewhere. She actually used those words. It didn’t make sense because when I stepped off the sidewalk, there were wooden horses made for pedestrians to walk down.

Didn’t even have a reason or time to get angry. They’re even friendly at my bank. New York’s going through a niceness epidemic.

Yeah, I like it. But what am I supposed to write about? How every time Law & Order films in Lucia’s building they do something to make the building prettier?

I have a small but luxurious one bedroom. If Nora Ephron or somebody like her would like to use it…Law & Order also, any of them….