Warning: This journal is rated R, for restricted audiences. It contains naughty language and adult situations. If you are under 18, do not read without the consent of an adult.
Ghetto superstar,
Thursday, July 30, 1998: Production Day 9
So our location has moved to lovely Downtown Los Angeles, the tall buildings of which seem to serve the same purpose as a hair trap on a shower drain: various debris and undesirable particles of filth and refuse are caught and collected together, gradually degenerating into unwholesome toxic sludge. I had never been downtown before, and I must say this particular corner of LA is a far cry from the sandy beaches, Range Rovers, Melrose schoolgirls, and cell phones we all associate with this land of silicone plenty. Even I, stalwart and street smart as you know me to be, feared for my own life. I urge anyone interested in crack cocaine, car theft, prostitution, or baseball bat conversations with lead pipes to hop on the first bus to lovely 6th street and partake in some of the local flavor. I can only imagine the violence and looting that will ensue when these forgotten and desperate people catch wind of our movie shoot; lord knows if I ate cardboard every night and slept on a bed of soup cans I would find comfort and solace in smashing a 17,000 dollar camera over the head of a movie star earning 1000 times more in a week than my entire block's gross annual income, sprinkling his body with heroin and Night Train, and eating his heart and brains raw. Our paltry and unprepared security force is laughable when juxtaposed with the thought of hundreds of Skid Row denizens descending on our vainglorious art-party, and even if a small percentage were picked off like the proverbial zombies returning from the dead, certainly the remaining barbarians would be sufficiently annoyed by our futile defense to really give us a good dutch rub. Make no mistake, I'll serve Cameron Diaz on a plate to a bunch of blood-thirsty C.H.U.D.'s before I go out like a sucker. Save yourselves, pampered thespians, I'm only making 10 dollars an hour. I'll catch your pillaged corpses back on Sunset. Anyway, I was thrilled to survive the brisk walk to location, and was surprised to find an entire floor of a building jerry-rigged to appear only 5 1/2 feet tall. The 7 1/2 floor they call it, with unsuppressed smugness, delighting in the scintillating constructions of the writer and director, forgetting that the working classes among them will actually have to carry heavy objects back and forth bent over like pack animals in the inhumanely cramped conditions. I can't imagine what role this Lilliputian dungeon will play in this movie, as it is growing stranger and stranger with each development. No monkeys or ocelots, however, so perhaps we have graduated from our bestial stage. Note to self: acquire some self defense mechanisms, perhaps a firearm. Million dollar idea: sell Cameron Diaz to the highest bidder.
