04/30/2002
in the hollywood movies

got into work today via a detour. the hulk movie is filming.

there's a crashed cable car in front of my building. they keep running it into the ground. they've hired all these kids to look like they're on a school trip to San Francisco and then roll off. there's a police car and a black SWAT van in the boss's parking spot. this block where i work is in the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid, one of the views here that looks *actually* SF and not just ambiguously whacked California style.

apparently the kids can't fall off convincingly. they keep doing it. they've been doing it all day. Ang Lee keeps yelling at them "ok, rile down, kids!" i can't belive Ang Lee says "rile down". illusions shattered. i mean, he directed crouching tiger, even.

my favorite part is watching the people on lunch. there's this huge crowd, people staying to watch the cable car crash 2 and 3 times over again. i stayed through my entire lunch. we're all hypnotized by it. there are literally a thousand people in the cast and crew, helping out along the street. this is the hollywood machine. and we have a coffee table in common.

i talked to a bunch of the crew guys. said they'd be here for the rest of the week. are you having fun? i asked. "we're working," they said.

"i'm a writer," i said back. "when i'm performing, i have fun. the shit i do in that office, that's just typing. but do you like what you do?" i asked.

the guys looked at each other like a big trade secret.

"we're typing," they said.