Day cheese for night cheese.

Sleep was the pits last night. You know how sometimes if your throat is itchy, you'll involuntarily scratch it with the back of your tongue? I kept waking myself up doing that. When I got up for real, I felt horrible and I started having the worst allergy attack. I took a Zyrtec, followed by a Benadryl, but nothing helped. For hours, I was sneezing and generally irritated. AND drowsy, thanks to fucking Benadryl. It seemed to get worse whenever I went upstairs at the Dolly house, which is where we were shooting all day, because today was Dolly's bedroom scenes. Maybe there's some kinda dust or mold or ghost upstairs that my body is not genetically equipped to deal with. I was forced to sit out basically everything that was shot today, as the allergy attack lasted for the rest of the day, including right now. Right now, I feel like crapola.

While trying to relax (and hopefully prompt the allergies to go away), I was able to observe Chris watching Phoebe for a while. He told me this job is way more difficult than acting in the movie. We found simple ways to entertain her and when she started fussing and crying over bullshit, Chris would set her down and we would wait it out. After a bit, we noticed she was catching on, and she wasn't crying as much. If we could condition her to wield greater control over her emotions, she could one day develop superhuman charisma. This would allow her to become a secret agent, or just a really controlling, manipulative person. Either way, lots of excitement and drama would follow. Then for dinner, we had chicken, mac & cheese, and green beans. I would say this was my favorite dinner so far. I even started to feel better afterward, but it didn't take. That's why I now still feel like crapola.

Chris pointed out that something like this happens to me every time we shoot a feature together. On WSTEC, I came down with strep throat during one of our hell weekends. On The Comedian at The Friday, I came down with a cold. Not such a big deal, except I was playing a character who specifically does NOT have a cold, because a plot point in the movie is that I catch a cold from the main character. If you watch Comedian, you can see me with a cold, valiantly playing someone who does not have a cold. Then, when the character catches a cold, I still have a cold, but it's very mild, so I'm essentially ACTING the cold. The one scene I did in that movie where my real life cold made sense had to be redubbed months later when I didn't have a cold at all. More acting. But this allergy attack is bad in a very different way, which is that I have no idea how to fight it. Strep throat and the common cold are simple fixes. You just take the medicine and wait it out. But I have no idea how to stop these allergies. The Zyrtec was my only line of defense, and it did nothing. The enemy is all around me, and I don't know how to kill it. It's like mini terrorist cells living in my flawed, allergic body.

-Diego

We think someone Talented Mr. Ripley'd him.

I did not sleep well last night. Today was a little rough. But the actual shooting was very light. We just did a bunch of small scenes of Dolly by herself. Dolly takes out the trash. Dolly gets in the car. Dolly gets super depressed on a children's swing set. Dolly tends to the garden. Dolly talks to her parents on the phone. Dolly looks for a shovel and tests how deep the bay water goes. You know. Just everyday shit.

Now that he's wrapped, Chris is on Phoebe-watching detail. I can see it is trying for him, and I definitely sympathize. Phoebe is really cool, but a lot of the time, she cries when nothing is wrong. She screams bloody murder after suffering very mild disappointment. What if I did that? Just bawled every time I got depressed? I would never stop. At one point, I followed Chris outside to help calm Phoebe down, and on my way back in, I slammed the front door right on my fingertip. And it hurt extra bad because I wasn't able to curse in front of Phoebe. Studies have proven that cursing can help psychologically alleviate pain. My finger still hurts. Consarn it.

Crew has tricked out the property's golf cart with film equipment to make it all pimp. It's all gonna have to come off on Wednesday for the golf cart scenes. But until then, we're the envy of the low speed, narrow range electric vehicle set. Is this a life hack?

The reward of the day was chess and ping pong. I've decided to play the long con on these people. Make them think I'm just an okay player. Then, after a week or so, make 'em go double or nothing until I own them. To really sell it, I'll also act really stupid on set. "Has anyone seen my script?" "Are we rolling?" "Where does the film go?"

-Diego

ALF, don't help Mr. Ochmonek... KILL HIMSELF...

So I went to sleep last night at 7am. The plan was to wake up at 9:30am and go to Target at 10. I woke up at 10:30, stumbled around my room all crazy, thought to myself, "What am I doing?" and went back to sleep. A couple hours later, we went to Target for real. I think everyone else had a similar morning. At Target, we slowly came back to ourselves. Brett was genuinely scared by a children's jack-in-the-box toy designed hundreds of years ago. Here's a tip-- the clown ALWAYS comes out right as the weasel goes pop.

After procuring several necessary provisions, we stopped for lunch at Chili. I realized in my head that with the appetizers and milkshakes we were ordering, we wouldn't be hungry in the slightest for our actual entrées. But I didn't say anything, because I figured the mutual discovery would be more fun. Luckily, my lunch was kinda gross, so I didn't feel the need to eat too much of it. But it was still super fun. I don't get to go to places like that very often in LA. Our waitress was kinda frazzled. Maybe we weren't the typical Sunday afternoon patrons.

When we got home, I helped Brett schedule the next few days of the shoot. Where last week was the Dolly & Harry week, this week will be the Just Dolly week. All Dolly, all the time. Nothing but Dolly in the morning and Dolly in the evening. We're starting with day shoots, which will be kinda nice, I think. I dunno. During the campfire shoot last week, Chris said he was enjoying the night shoots. And on that night, I definitely agreed. But too many indoor night shoots can fry your skull. Of course, that was not our last campfire shoot, so we'll get to do that again. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The next few days, we'll be watching Dolly basically creep around a farm by herself, nonstop. Both before and after the... well, you know. Brett and I scheduled the next three days, but it took a few hours, because after the second day, Brett went upstairs to take a nap.

At this time, I walked back to the Harry house, where Schatz was teaching Chris how to play chess. He seems like a really good teacher. He was telling Chris about principles and variations of chess I'd never even heard of. I like chess, but I'm a very casual player. I can beat you if you kinda suck. I prefer Risk. Or Sorry! Or... I dunno... Uno?

When I went back to the house to finish scheduling with Brett, I found that Anne was attempting to occupy Phoebe with some videos. First there was a VHS recording someone had made of Looney Tunes. This was in pretty decent condition, with some really kickass Sylvester cartoons that I was frankly really enjoying at the current age of 27, but Phoebe couldn't give a shit. Then, Anne put on Muppet Treasure Island. Phoebe seemed to find it mildly interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the discovery that she could climb the back of the recliner and flip the light switch on and off. So she did that for a while, until Brett stopped her. Eventually Chris came down and we enjoyed the touching ending where Tim Curry can't bring himself to shoot the stupid kid. My favorite Muppet is Pepe the Prawn. I don't think he was in this.

After that, there was a lot of tentative meandering as we realized we had forgotten what people do for fun. Maybe there was just too much pressure to have a good time because this was our first day off from shooting. We played Apples to Apples. Chris was winning, then I caught up, but right before we finished, Phoebe came in and ruined the game. The thing Phoebe seems to love more than anything is cards. There's a deck of cards in this house and I don't think a day has passed that Phoebe has not grabbed the cards, run up to me, given me the cards, run away, run back, taken the cards back, run away, run back, and repeated that same shit for an hour. Cards, for some reason, are her favorite thing in the world, right next to uncapped pens and cheddar bunnies. So when Brett told Phoebe she couldn't play with our Apples to Apples cards for the rest of her life, Phoebe lost her shit. No one won that game.

Later on, I found that the crew, after a fine meal at a seafood place called Suicide Bridge, was kicking back in the Harry house with some drinks and ping pong. I tried to mix myself a drink. It was nice. Then I went back to the Dolly house and we watched Joe Dirt. This movie is such an oddity. But David Spade keeps it rolling with a kinda backwards charisma and a lot of heart. Who wouldn't love Joe Dirt? He and Jamie Pressly are magic onscreen together. And the soundtrack is pretty rockin'. The Hollywood Reporter says Spade is developing a Joe Dirt animated series on TBS. I feel bad for David Spade.

When I came back, the dudes in the Harry house were watching Ghost Writer. I thought to myself, "I won't put my laundry in the dryer yet, because they're watching a movie. I'm considerate." But now I'm running the dryer when people are trying to sleep instead. I think sometimes I do dumb things. I just hope people realize I mean well.

-Diego

Life's a garden, dig it.

This blog was written yesterday.

When I woke up today I was under the impression it was around 9 am. Only about an hour into the day did I find out it was 1 pm. The overcast sky must have hid this fact from me. The rest of the day was spent reading Erich Fromm's The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, playing Apples to Apples, receiving a chess lesson, watching Joe Dirt, and eating way too many ginger snaps.

Sometimes I'll start reading a book simply because the title makes me laugh. The title factored into my decision to read the aforementioned book, but I've also enjoyed other works by Fromm. Marx's Concept of Man was something I read at a formative age(for me that was around 20 years old!) and it has stayed with me until this day. Fromm died not too long ago. I will always consider him one of the thinkers who opened the door to a world of new ideas for me. Brett has a good policy, he won't ask you what you're reading because he hates when people ask him. It always takes too much explanation. Most books I've read have titles which are esoteric, purely poetic, or just plain ridiculous. If you ask me what I'm reading then you should also be prepared to endure a half mumbled and highly confused explanation of what the book is. This doesn't mean you shouldn't ask, I guess this is more of a preempted apology for future confusion. I'm sorry.

My chess lesson was more intensive than I had anticipated. The great Michael Schatz has taken me under his wing. He's a great teacher and he likes to lighten the mood by nibbling on Cool Ranch Doritos while we work. He taught me about the 7 imbalances, which kind of sounds like a principle of the martial arts, a Lars Von Trier film or a concept found in Buddhism. We played a few games while he gently corrected my mistakes and offered encouragement. I should be able to hold my own by the time I'm done with my lessons, so if you see me on the street I'll be taking on new challengers.

We laugh a lot. Sometimes I like to stop and think how lucky I am to have such funny people in my life. In fact, I'm very lucky, because the people in my life are funny and talented. I could just as easily be surrounded by a bunch of talented but humorless bastards.

This is the way I want to make films. I like working on a small scale with people I trust and love. It's not a job, for me it's a labor of love. No matter how tired or frustrated I might become, I always try and remember how lucky I am to be part of something I believe in. I have high hopes for this film. It feels special.

While playing Apples to Apples I accumulated several adjectives which I hope don't describe me. I guess that's the risk you take when you play the game. When you dance with the devil he inevitably takes the lead.

Anyway, a rainy day, a good book and good friends. I'm satisfied.

How do you make cumming subtle?

So it was late afternoon on the final day of our first night stretch when Chris knocked on my door and said, "Brett wants you in the other house." I thought for sure I was busted. Brett had found me out. Soon everyone would know. But it turns out he just wanted to make a totally new schedule for the day. So we did that. As we did, Priscilla was trying to think of something to do before the shooting started. But there was nothing that she really felt like doing. She didn't want to sleep, or even chill out. Eventually, she settled on eating an Oreo.

I chased Phoebe around the yard for a while (she liked it, obviously; I wasn't doing like a "most dangerous game" thing). Then we shot scene 121. You know what scene 121 is. It's the one that's kinda sexy, kinda fucked up, kinda sad. As part of this scene, Marco was forced to record the TV playing a movie for like 20 minutes.

Lunch was really nice. I was able to supplement my PB&J with a pizza that Brett made, but mangled horribly when removing it from the oven. Then everyone got together and dished about mutual acquaintances from film school. Weird pizza may have been the entrée, but disturbing gossip was our dessert. Then we reshot one of the setups from scene 119 that had been slightly out of focus the day before. When this was done, actor Chris Shields was officially wrapped. He will never play the role of Harry Walden again, until the ADR in a few months. And possibly "Harry's House," an upsetting spinoff short for the DVD that may be used as a series pilot for HBO or USA.

At this point, I'd like to express my satisfaction with the product Zyrtec. Where Benadryl would only fight my allergies for a few hours, while making me mildly drowsy, and also sometimes just wouldn't help at all, Zyrtec gives me 24-hour allergy protection with no sedatives contributing to the pre-existing drowsiness of working on a vampire-scheduled film shoot.

Because we were shooting all night, we weren't really able to have a 9/11 party. One of the things I like about Brett is that he has celebrations on days that would otherwise be occasions to feel depressed. The day Patrick Swayze died, he invited people over to watch Point Break on Blu-ray. That was in fact the sole reason he had bought the movie in the first place. It was really fun. Anyway, when the shoot was over, I ran back to Harry's house in the rain (it just started raining yesterday and today) and set my alarm to wake up 3 hours later for an early morning Target run. But that's a story for another blog.

In closing, I'd like to address the fact that there's a reader of this blog who apparently thinks that my language is excessively profane. I say to this reader, and to all other readers forever, that there is nothing wrong with the words I'm using. The spirit of the text is what should matter most. I do not write messages that are hateful or small. I'm writing about a beautiful experience; about a dozen people just living on a farm, making an awesome movie, and creating a bond that will last forever. And I don't think it undermines that if I occasionally say something like "breast" or "cunt."

-Diego

Things That Make You Go Hmmm...

Here is a deleted scene from the original first draft of "The Waterhole Cove Murders," dating back to 2007:

INT. WORKOUT STUDIO - NIGHT

A woman steps into frame. She's wearing a white fencing armor with mask and clutching a sabre. This is DOLLY. She faces her opponent. A man in a wheelchair, wearing the same armor and mask, also holding a sabre. This is ORLANDO.

They circle each other. She lunges. He parries. She tries again. Again he deflects. They trade swipes with their blades, always a second ahead of each other, even though Orlando is in a wheelchair and has to perform swift surgical maneuvers with his left arm on the wheel. She runs up walls and jumps over his head. He does the same, all while in the wheelchair. Finally, they both strike at each other and the blades collide and SHATTER. They remove their masks. Orlando has a thick lumberjack's beard.

ORLANDO

I've taught you well, Dolly. I fear our skills may be so matched that there is no challenge left for us except death.

DOLLY
I've taken a job as the caretaker of a farm. Well, it's not really a farm, but they call it that... it's in Maryland.

Orlando is hurt. Dolly is like a daughter to him.

ORLANDO

You're like a daughter to me.

DOLLY
I'll miss you terribly, obviously. But I think this is something I need to do. I just don't know if I can.

Orlando throws his sabre. It stabs the ground perfectly and wobbles a bit, like in Braveheart. He lifts his legs with his hands and puts his feet on the ground. He then braces himself on the armrests of the wheelchair and struggles to lift himself up. Exerting Herculean effort, Orlando rises and stands, presumably for the first time in his life.

ORLANDO

I don't train pushovers. I train champions. You are Dolly Mayble. You can do anything.

Dolly gazes into his eyes. Although she never believed herself worthy enough, if things had been different...

DOLLY

Thank you.

Dolly turns and walks away. She pulls a graham cracker out of her pocket and eats it as she leaves. As he watches her leave, Orlando never sits down.

FADE TO BLACK.

Music videos of myself.

When I walked in yesterday, Phoebe was going nuts. Anne sat her down next to me and put Yo Gabba Gabba on the iPad. It was an episode about bugs. Phoebe watched it, and when it was over, Phoebe grabbed the iPad and put on another episode. But it was actually the same episode. She then proceeded to watch the episode about bugs again. Breakfast was brocco-cheese soup. We reshot another dock scene again during magic sunset time, from a new angle. Then Chris threw on Melody Time. This is a 1948 movie from back when Disney used to release animated features that were just packages of musical shorts. They should really do this again, considering all the different marriages of music and animation styles possible. Like, it's seriously such a waste to not be doing this. The closest thing we have is the short before each Pixar movie. Melody Time included Bumble Boogie, The Legend of Johnny Appleseed, Little Toot, and Pecos Bill, among others. It was awesome.

The rest of the night was spent shooting the rest of the long dinner sequence we started the day before. There was a lot of down time as we waited for the crew to set up the shots. At one point, scene 119 was set up to be shot from the rolling priscilla wagon, but it ultimately didn't look right, so they decided to scrap the wagon and just set it up stationary. I like that they could spend so long setting something up, but still be like, "It sucks, let's start over." I'd rather wait a long time for a good shot than a short time for a crappy shot. The shortcut ain't always worth it. Take your time, do things right; you'll get the benefit.

I was wearing a Ninja Turtles shirt on this day. I got it for like five dollars the night before flying out. I used to wear Ninja Turtle shirts in elementary school. I seem to recall that some of the other kids would make fun of me when I did. Like, what, we're too old for the Ninja Turtles? We're in fucking elementary school, you little scumbags. Of course, that kinda eloquence would escape me at the time. I would just clam up and be sad for a while. No one here made fun of me. At least, not within earshot.

Another thing we needed to do yesterday was create a small amount of fake blood to dress a prop. The director was dead set on using his own blood, but Anne and I insisted he shouldn't, just because it's a biohazard and stuff. Anne made the blood out of a mystery mix of kitchen ingredients. It took a number of tries, but it came out great. Never give up.

God, this blog entry sucks. It's just boring and shitty. No one cares about any of this. I don't want people to think I'm a bad blogger. Please like me. Please. I should just start this one over, take my time, and make it really good.

Fuck it.

-Diego