Far-L

24. What is "Mr. Fun's Mondo Adventure? Is there any relationship to the "Cat in the Hat?"

Now, since I already kind of covered this in an earlier post I will take a detour here to tell a different production story.

I have a term for the sort of run and gun shooting style where you hit a location, shoot whatever you can get as quickly as possible, then get the fuck out before anyone (neighbor, business owner, johnny law) has a problem with it - "Guerilla Porn".

One fine spring day when it was just getting warm enough to shoot in Los Angeles a producer called and said we would be shooting on the beach. Now anyone who is from Los Angeles knows that essentially the entire coastline is public property and in a city the size of LA there is really no such thing as private beach... but a paycheck is a paycheck when you get the call.

So I went with a starlets, studs/dick props, crew, and producer jim powers to the beach. Within minutes the fact became pretty apparent that we would not be able to shoot there due to too many civilians who naturally had emerged from under whatever bit of concrete to enjoy the sun and sand. We packed into the cars and headed a bit farther north hoping to find a better location.

The spot we ended up at was close to Zuma and it had a small hike down to the water from the parking lot. The bunch of us headed down there and began to discuss what and who we would be doing that day. I knew my day was going to be crappy when the girl due to screw me told everyone and anyone standing there that she didn't like working with any guys except the big lumberjack who went by the name "Wolf" who was assigned to work with one of the other models.

Oh well. At least I was still going to get paid.

As the shoot began though I started to get super nervous about more folks showing up at the beach. In fact, some of them even seemed to be taking a vantage point on the hill where they would have a clear view of the show going on below. I am the type of person who is still very instinctually aware of my fight or flight reflex so to deal with that i moved a comfortable distance away from where the shoot was happening when I felt no one was listening to my advice that we should get out asap.

That is when I noticed that at the top of the hill there were some new members of the audience, the uniformed kind.

I was far enough away from the shoot, but not close enough to my car which just happened to be in the lot which now looked like a little hornet's nest of cops. I decided to just go for it and marched up the hill to the lot. When I got to the top sure enough even more cops were showing up. They were buzzing around asking each other who brought the binaculars.

I offered some assistance.

"I think I might have a pair in my trunk."

They looked at me suspiciously.

"You aren't one of those porn stars are you?" One of them grilled me.

"Hahaha, do I look like one of those to you?" They laughed. Being a plain old mook has never served me so well as it did that day.

"Do you guys mind moving your cars so I can get out?" I asked.

When I hit the road there was no point looking back. I might have missed the payday but the day had certainly taken a turn for the better and with a blue sky overhead anyone would have to say that taking the day off was the best option anyway.

Everyone else was busted except a photographer assistant that wisely made a swim for it and got away. Most had to pay a fine but a few had warrants and spent their day in the can.

I love LA!

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