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Well,
Tom gave me a call andc told me he needed someone to make the coffee.
Actually,
herefs how it really went down. A guy I know got the contract to be the
locations manager for the new Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai,
starring
Tom as an American Civil War veteran who works for Smith and Wesson and
is sent
to Japan to teach the Meiji government train its army and put down
insurgents.
When he is captured by a samurai, he becomes enamored with the ways of
gold
Japan,h the kind we see all the time in historical epics. Production
was to
take place for ten days in Himeji and Kyoto. This guy I know is pretty
big in
the Japanese entertainment business as one of the most successful
street
performers – juggling, etc. – but he was acting like an asshole, so
they fired
him. So another friend got his job and needed someone on site to do
something,
but he wasnft sure what. In fact, no one was ever sure what anyone was
doing.
So I said ghell yeah, Ifll work with Tom.h I got on the train and went
out to
Himeji to shoot in the scenic hills of Shoshazan mountain monastery. I
arrived
at the production center in the center of Himeji and introduced myself,
said I
needed a pass and transport up the hill. I got in the van and on the
way
stopped in a hotel to pick up somebody else. I was in the front seat
and I
figured, hell, wefre all grown ups, Ifll just stay here. The guy came
out of
the hotel and got in the back seat, but seemed hesitant about not
getting the
front seat. I could only think – dude, Ifm important, Ifm going to be
making
the coffee. Turns out this guy was Mashall Herskowitz and he wrote the
screenplay – and was also involved with TV smash series
gThirtysomething,h the
film Legends of the Fall, and a lot of other top-end Hollywood
entertainment-type things. This came out as I was chatting to the guy,
who
looked totally ordinary. I said – damn, youfre a big shot, you should
sit in
the front seat. He said I donft really care where I sit (but he really
did – I
could tell). So we get out to the movie set and there are crowds of
Japanese
people of all sexes and ages in various stages of disrobement and
hysteria and
so I, Daddy Kool, just stroll right through them, my
all-sections pass
dangling visibly beneath my swarthy visage, to meet my man. My job had
changed
before I arrived and I found myself talking to a guy called MIKE THE
MAN. MIKE
THE MAN is, by all accounts, a very close friend of Tom Cruisefs, and
seemed
like a hell of a guy. Eventually, it turned out he was a bit of an
asshole too,
but hey – arenft we all? So, I found myself working for craft services.
Basically, that meant I had to throw little picnic parties in
appropriate
locations around the location where the actors and whoever could come
and
quickly refuel and shoot the shit. There is science to throwing these
picnic
parties on movies sites for movie people – itfs not just about putting
the food
and the drinks on a tablec youfve also got to create a cozy, happy, pain
free ambiance. These are emotional people who need molly-coddling.

|
Everyonefs
an expert on bananas, coffees, and twinkies. But I figured the
mechanics of all this out, and things went more or less OK. My only
fuck-up
really was a time when I had to be on site in Kyoto with hot coffee
ready at 4
AM and the coffee would not come out! But the problem was
solved, we had
coffee, and everybody was happy. I was happy too because at least I
knew
that it was the other guyfs fault. I wasnft always near an actual
film set,
but by taking things to people and making sure that people were catered
for I
eventually got into all of the areas like make up, shooting, and I got
to see
how things happened. Most of the people out there seemed to be
Australians,
Americans, and New Zealanders. The big shots were American, but the
nuts and
bolts people tended
to be Australians and New Zealanders who had worked on lots of movies
like the
Lord Of The Rings movies, the
last two Matrix films, Brad Pitt
movies, and loads of others. The Kiwi presence was because most of the
movie
was going to be filmed in New Zealand. There is a mountain in New
Zealand that
looks like Fuji, and it is cheaper and easier to film in New Zealand
than
Japan. There were so many headaches based on indecision, bureaucratic
nonsense,
fuck-ups and backpeddling that it was difficult for people to get
anything done
here. It was cheaper and easier to do things in New Zealand with no
language
barrier, especially since Peter Jackson has gotten the ball rolling
down there
as a new Hollywood gSouth-East.h Blue collar union guys truck drivers
who did
grips and dolly and electrical were all Aussies – set builders and all
the
different fields – all nice guys. Some of them have companies that do
very well
doing services for films. A director says we need one hundred cherry
trees and
bing-bam-boom they can get it done. You get the idea that movies are
exciting
and glamorous, but basically the guys who work on these movies are
truck
drivers – they come, punch in, do their job, punch out, and go home.
Nothing to
do with the actors and the stardom. They do their jobs, not to be
involved with
the excitement and glamour but because they are interested in the
technical
aspects of this that and the other. To a large extent itfs pretty
boring on the
set. They turn up at 8 A.M., go home at 8 P.M., and all theyfve done
with their
day is sit at a keyboard, push buttons, and keep silent while stuff
goes on. I
decided that if I ever work on a move again, it will be as an actor,
director,
or writer, but I simply have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the
technical
aspects of it. It was tough being the smartest guy on a set making bad
coffee.
Everything is tightly accounted for, every cent. There were some
interesting
characters there: like Caesarfs just the kind of guy you need to move
large
things in great quantities from anywhere to anywhere. The transport
dude. A
legend in the business. You need a tank, a battle tank, on Sunset
Boulevard at
3:15, it will be there. Mike, Tomfs mate, was a good guy, but an
incredible
playboy. All he could talk about was yodeling in canyons and anal sex
(with
women, not men or ponies). It was tragicomic to see him try to line it
up with
the Japanese nurses. We didnft party much at all on the set, but I was
in a
hotel for those seven nights and I managed to get out a few times with
my buddy
Dave who got me the job. I think I only got about twenty hours of sleep
that
whole week. Ifd never do it again. I couldnft wait to get home. Living
out of
suitcases for six to eight months a year doing this would suck. The
logistics
are staggering, the depth of planning is unreal, and thatfs impressive.
Itfs
like a war. Everything is planned for, but there is slippage factor for
things
that donft happen – like trucks that canft make it up steep roads and
never
arrive – yet everything has to work out. There were people in Japan six
months
before any shooting was done and there were hundreds of people involved
directly on the set. Tom Cruise was in the country for four days (it
made the
national news the day he arrived in Osaka Kansai airport). In the seven
days
that I was there, which was the extent of the shooting, only three or
four
minutes of Japanese footage were shot. We were in Kyoto for four days,
but they
shot only ninety seconds of film. Tom was on the set for two hours.
Meeting Tom
Cruise was an interesting experience. I donft really think itfs Tom the
person,
so much as Tom the extremely wealthy Hollywood stud persona, that
creates the
aura. The old cliché about money and power being the ultimate
aphrodesiac is
totally right. Not that Tom was getting me wet (although I would have
let him
kiss me for a million bucks), but after five or ten minutes, the aura
fades and
hefs just that dude. It might be great to be Tom Cruisefs buddy, but it
might
be good to be that dude that is pushing that camera dollyfs buddy too.
Basically, hefs just a person with an excellent job. I spent three or
four
minutes chatting with Tom. I was working with directly was his close
friend, so
that was a way to meet the man. When youfre there seeing it all happen,
it
seems mundane and banal. Its just a guy saying his lines on a stage and
when
you watch a movie every now and then you go gright, oh yeah, its a
movie,h and
there are people all around the actor with cameras. You get involved
with a
movie and you donft think about the artificiality of it. But having
this
experience, my suspension of my suspension of disbelief has become a
lot
more informed. There are people jerking off, farting, just inches from
the edge
of the screen. And the idea that somewhere beyond that is a jerk-off
like me
pushing cold coffee cracks me up. But what do you expect – itfs just a
business
where you put one dollar in one end and pull twenty out the other. Itfs
actually
easy to make a movie and it gets a lot easier when youfve got a hundred
million
dollars to spend. The logistics and execution were impressive, but the
actual
nuts and bolts of what a movie becomes is also a compelling story.
After that,
itfs just all about making it look good. It was an opportunity that Ifm
glad to
have taken, but I will never do what I did again. They offered me the
chance to
go down and set it all up in New Zealand, and I said NO.
People said WHY
NOT?, I said ITfS BECAUSE I HAVE
A LIFE HERE IN JAPAN.

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Bonus
(Japan only): Lists!!
Why
were
they written? Intolerable books
That
Dave Eggers book
The
Dune series
The
Tale of Genji
Infinite
Jest
100
Years of Solitude
Pictures
of the Water Trade
anything
by William Faulkner
anything
by Tom Robbins
Kathy
Acker
A
Confederacy Of Dunces
Lester
Bangs
The
Snob
List! Films I donft wanna see
I
thought
about making a snob list for some time, but then I wondered what could
actually
be accomplished listing for all to see the movies that I donft
have time
for; the films that Ifm gtoo goodh for; the films that just arenft
worth it;
the stinkers you can smell from miles away; the films that fly in the
face of
good taste; the films that are guaranteed to be uninteresting, a
miracle that
they ever got made, the sure bets for the studio that try to hit all
the same
spots that the other hits did and still canft be interesting.
Not enough hours in the day-type
films. Would rather be picking my
nose-type
films. Wouldnft even watch them on
TV if there was nothing else on-type films.
Trapped on a long flight with nothing
else to watch-type films. Scraping
the bottom of the barrel-type
films. You know the type. Films like:
The
Juror
Psycho
(remake)
Wild
Wild West
Pearl
Harbor
K-PAX
Kate
And Leopold, Signs of Life, or any recent Meg Ryan flick
Signs
Jurassic
Park 3
Planet
of the Apes (remake)
Collateral
Damage
Black
Hawk Down
End
Of Days
Any
recent Robin Williams movies – Flubber, Patch Adams, Bicentennial Man,
Fatherfs
Day, Jack, etc.
The
Sum of all Fears
Evolution
The
Edge
Jack
Frost
Rock
You
Oceans
11 (remake)
The
Legend of Bagger Vance
Spy
Game
The
Replacements
Any
Given Sunday
Proof
of Life
Perfect
Storm
Family
Business
Panic
Room
The
Horse Whisperer
Red
Dragon
Bird
On A Wire
All
The Pretty Horses
The
Horse Whisperer
Reindeer
Games (Ben Affleck etc.)
Tomb
Raider
Red
Dragon, the Cell, etc. etc. etc.
Famous record
store clerks round the world
Masonna,
Alchemy Record Shop, Osaka Japan
Jad
Fair, Mickfs Picks, Flint Michigan
Tom
Waits, Tower Records, Butte Montana
Tol
Polhurst, Bobfs Discs, Camden Market
Thurston
Moore, Time Bomb, Osaka
Meaningless
phrases used by older people
As I
said earlierc
Since I
already mentioned this, I wonft mention it again.
It was
literally raining cats and dogs.
To make
a long story shortc
Youfre
not getting any younger, you know
Weapons
of mass destruction.
I donft
believe you – prove it!
Sure
I believe you. A thousand other guys wouldnft, but I believe
you.
Getting
back to what I was saying earlierc
To make
a long story longerc
I hope
Ifm not boring youc
Ifm not
racist, butc
Ifm
just as open-minded as the other guy, butc
I never
said that.
I never
did that!