Ain't no party like an Extras Party, 'cause and Extras party ain't real!

First of all, a shout out to all my pipe-hitting peeps that recognize the title.

Second of all, it wasn't really even a party for extras. But let me start at the beginning.

I did two days as background on a film called MR. WOODCOCK. It stars Billy Bob Thorton, Sean William Scott, and Janet Weiss.

I was part of a parade scene set in a small town in Nevada. We were supposed to wear overalls, earthtones, no designer named clothes, bandanas and the like. Basically, if we could get our hands on some Billy-Bob teeth, we should probably wear those too. This is a symptom of something for another blog entry, but fuck a bunch of Hollywood and their "flyover state" mentality.

At any rate, I managed to get myself invited to a party for the "featured" extras, some doubles, stuntmen and the like. Regular extras were not supposed to be invited, but I happened to befriend Courtney and Casey, a couple of other extras who are friends with the casting (coordinator, assistant, director?) person in charge of arranging the party. They were the only "regular" extras invited, and they invited me. Bitchin'.

The (ghey) casting guy was leery of inviting me, but since his friends were insisting, he gave me an invite.

The party was in a moderately-priced hotel near Magic Mountain, which is about 25 miles north of Hollywood. So I had to fight the traffic home, shower and change, and then drive all the way back there.

When I arrive, Courtney and Casey are mingling with some of the people we saw up on the float, who were sitting next to Susan Sarandon for the parade scene. There was a nice spread of finger sandwiches, queso and chips, spinach dip, and some other relatively good snacks. And, low and behold...AN OPEN BAR! Woo-hooo! Figure out how to get home later, there's free booze kiddies!

I was relatively impressed with the party when I asked where "Burgess" was (the casting guy).

Oh, he set up and got out of here right away.

Really? Crap, I was supposed to give him Joe's card.

Heh, he's probably at the real party.

Huh?

It's explained to me that this is sort of a "diversion" party. Some of the more seasoned extras in the room claim this tradition dates back to the 20's and 30's.

It turns out that it's not so unusual for there to be two parties after such a shoot (our stuff was the tail end of 20 days of reshoots). While there were extras that were around the lead actors for extended periods of time, not to mention their stand-ins and stunt doubles, these people apparently don't warrant an invite to the "real" party, or the one with the famous millionaires.

I was actually stunned. I am not easily shocked, but this was frickin' bizarre. I understand not inviting regular extras to the party. In my brief experiences, regular extras are weirdos, aspiring or failed actors, and generally creepy. I wouldn't invite me either.
But the S.A.G. featured extras are pros aren't they? And certainly the stuntmen know how to act around the dainty and sensitive geniuses, right?

Everyone else laughed it off. Most of them already knew about it, and it didn't phase them. Just the idea of a second party didn't phase me either. What freaked me out is that people pretend that there's just the one party, and everyone is going...and it's been going on for 70 fucking years!

Why still the charade? Why act like everyone's equal when you have shoes worth more than my car? Or to set economics aside, let's not pretend that we don't know where the set medic would head first if I was dying of a sucking chest wound and you had something in your eye.

The party was still a blast. A few old-timers told stories about working with Angie Dickinson, Christopher Lloyd and Dustin Hoffman. We made fun of the Production Assistants that we didn't like on set. Others were doing coke in the bathroom. Even the fake party still has coke in the bathroom. Natch.
But my good friend Whiskey was at the party, and he's always good times.

I guess in a city that's built on maintaining illusions, it's reassuring to know that even the little people get to have smoke blown up their collective asses as well.