Thank goodness we started shooting our promos for The Benefactor. After last night in Sac, it would have been a painful day ifI didn’t have something to take my mind off the beating we took. At this point, all I can do is trust that Nellie will have our guys ready for the playoffs. Thereare so many ups and downs this season my ears are popping.
Back to the Benefactor. I wasn’t nervous at all. The crew was great. All real nice, no hollywood attitudes. We set up in Culver City with a mission of giving away money to strangers and hoping we could get a reaction that would work for commercials that would promote the show and casting.
If giving away money to strangers sounds like an easy, fun job, it was. Crossing the street at an intersection and just handing someone 20 or 100 bucks as you walk past them and hearing them gasp behind you and then hearing from the crew how they freaked out was fun, but it got better.
We spent time in a beauty school college, asking for fashion hints and handing out money while the song “Beauty School Dropout” ran through my head.
The highlight of the day came while we were outside the school shooting liners for the show. At various times during the day, I would get the expected “Mavs Suck, Lakers Rule” shouts that are normal everywhereI go in LA. But this time while we were shooting, there were some cars backed up at a light, and one guy just had to shout Mavs Suck or Cuban Sucks everytime he saw me start to talk. So we took a pause waiting for the light to change and this guy to drive off.
The light changes he starts to roll forward while we wait and has to get one more Cuban Sucks in there, and then crack! He rolls into the car in front of him. The whole crew just burst out laughing. It wasn’t even a fender bender: there was no visible damange andno one got hurt, but karma had raised its head. Of course, I suggested we go over there and make the most of the situation. So we gave both parties a hundred bucks, put ’em on tape, and the Laker fan gave us some great humbling moments. And the lady he hit. She didn’t want the hundred till she found out it was from me. Then she signed the release because she liked the idea of taking the money from the guy who owns the Mavs. She likes the Lakers too.
More to come later.