On the set of "Burger King"

(From May 12, 2008)
Last night I was on a Burger King Commercial directed by Spike Lee. Guess since Obama is running for president and Farrakhan is known as a racist meanie in the media, Spike Lee decided to have some white folk in his commercial to avoid his own labels of being a racist and a short director.

Actually I have to say that working on this commercial, surprisingly turned into a very entertaining experience in more ways than one. Also pending on the way you define "Entertaining".

en·ter·tain·ing–adjective
affording entertainment; amusing; diverting:

Or my favorite....Seeing someone who is a complete fool fall apart and lose out on a great opportunity because of his own blatant stupidity. Thus I shall explain further….

The location was to shoot this commercial was over at the Burger King located in Flushing Queens off of Northern Blvd. Our holding area was approximately 6 blocks towards Roosevelt Ave. Now everyone got the same message on Leah from Extra Mile’s wonderful information line where she basically told us “You have a computer, figure out how to get there yourself”! I agree with her in many ways, however there are some “wayward souls” /idiots that don’t know how to use the computer.

Now, let’s back up a little bit…I am not a computer genius either, though I do know how to send attachments and use Google maps or hopstop.com! My seventy-year old Mother knows how to use a computer or at least call up information to figure how to get to a location. Well apparently everyone in the entire universe is able to find information and get to a call time, save for Gene Roberts and Crazy Al.

Now for those of you who don’t know Crazy Al, he is the Staten Island Patron Saint of “exacting” Menace and disturbance! I will never forget when I first saw Crazy all on the set of “Enchanted” where he acted like a “quality control” supervisor and tested all the bowls of chips and nuts on the buffet table and selectively putting it back with his grimy sweaty palms if it did not satisfy the growling beast’s palette.

After the beast finally satiates his huge appetite and calms the growls of his stomach, he then begins to regale to anyone in fear who will listen to his rants about the 911 conspiracy and how Senator Obama is on it. Some of his rants are outward nonsense, though it is again rather entertaining to listen to the verbiage of such a vile beast.

Now this beast snorted his way to set an hour after the production assistants announced that they were overbooked. To my amazement, the beast knew he did wrong, and the beast nonchalantly whimpered and walked out of the steel iron gates where the rest of us were being held captive for the night, and off he went without a sound.

The beast had now a new place in my heart. No more disdain for this foul creature from the “Island of Staten”. He is now in my good books. He has redeemed himself and his grimy palms from this fate. He was set free and now the beast is beautiful to me. Ok let’s not push it!

Let’s move over as now the fool, known as Gene Roberts, trollops in. Alas the fool who claims he was a big superstar in the 70’s and has a big record deal and will be releasing an album at best buy in the summer. Summer of what year, is still left to be determined.

So there he comes in after all of us already have received our vouchers, and hour late and prancing into the holding area as if he were a “Primed Prince” and he had the royal access to get there whatever time he wanted. Well surprise! Surprise! Oh Prince of Putrid Poo!... and absolute retarded directions probably given to you by your wife/manager known as the venemous VaL, no doubt!

I am really sorry that your horse and carriage arrived at the holding destination an hour late and you were sent home! Not! You deserve it. For the Universe pays attention to those who pay attention and can find their way without too much guidance from the planet Mars!

The universe does not take kind to Pathetic losers, who were born and raised in New York, and STILL can’t find their way to Flushing Queens! Amazing! Leave it to the foreigners, the detectives, and land surveyors to find this new land called Flushing Queens! Again, Amazing. Again, Entertaining to see this all unfold in front of me. What did he think his “UNI-tooth” would get him out of this mess. I think not! Again, entertaining and soothing in knowing the Universe does take care of things and fools.

Enough of that, the rest of the night turned out to be decent. When we arrived we were offered wraps in boxes of our choice which included Turkey, Tuna or surprise. The surprise was three day old macaroni or chick pea salad with a rock hard brownie wrapped in used saran wrap. We all thought that was going to be the meal for the night and that Spike was hoarding all the Whoppers!

Crazy Al and idiot Gene Roberts were gone by the time the darkness of the night set in. Soon there were several nine-passenger vans taking us to set in the groups that were assigned to us.

When we got to set, there were over 200 of us standing around in the parking lot of the Burger King, waiting for some action to happen. Sure enough this was just a “test run” and nothing significant happened, until later.

Basically we stood around for about an hour or so hanging out in the parking it where we felt like “teenage kids” when we hung out in Burger joints as we were too young to drink. It turned out to be a nostalgic kind of actually fun as my good friend Linda had her IPOD on her and we shared the earphones listening to “You shook me ALL night Long” by AC/DC! So there we were belting out the song as there everyone was n their group with the “Slickster” the “talkers” The guys with great cars that always showed off and got the hottest chicks.

Of course there were the lovers. In our group Shari and Mike Bell represented the fresh new lovers. They represented the days of innocence with their unconditional attachment to each other.

They were like “Siamese twins” who are con-joined by the hip. They represented something special and very deep. They told us all a story of something familiar to each and every one of us observing. Even though it was getting a little too wholesome and loving for anyone, we all feigned a tidbit of jealously while reminiscing perhaps of a place that we could re-capture a time, a place that brought us comfort and love at one time.

This was the type of reverie that really made this set stand out from most in terms of acceptance and memories and took us back to that place and time that made us feel real. Myself I was lost in the senses while listening to Linda’s’ IPod and listening to the songs, brought me to that place in time where I once felt alive, and it felt great!

After bringing all of us on the set, just to measure space, they cut for lunch at 9pm and a plethora of people braving the huge trek back to holding, marched back where a decent buffet style meal of pasta, salads and select meat was waiting for us.

The rest of the night was just as fun with the scene we had to do. The PA’s had us positioned on the side, some of us on the other side of the parking lot. Others were on the other side of the BK store in the cars were positioned awkwardly to represent a car jam.
On the mark get set go!!! Zoom!!!! Everyone dashed, sprinted, pushed shoved and screamed to get into the BK store. The acting was really good on this part, mainly because it was chilly outside and people were dashing to catch a glimpse of heat inside the store for some relief. It was pretty funny and wild.

The night didn’t turn out to be that long and considering we were all revved up every time we went “back to 1” , to charge into the store, it turned out to be a decent shoot.

The best part was when they finally called “check the gate” and we wrapped! People stormed back running to holding which was over 6 blocks away.

Linda and I dashed into one of the first vans and like the “A-Team” the van ripped and roared out of the parking lot running over anything in its path. Hey a couple of non-union extras are a dime a dozen.

The best part was actually seeing the idiot Gene Roberts leave! Hehehehe…
Ah…Karma..Thanks again. Also thanks to the Universe as it promises to do the handy work and “FIX” problems for me without me ever having to lift a finger!

A .