Today's Blind Items - One Crazy Summer Part Three
Prior to the cast showing up on the set of the movie, I had been working really long days and then mainly just crashed and went to sleep. Sleep was elusive and after the cast showed up sleep was an even harder commodity to come by. Not only was I still running around being a gofer but because some of the shoots were dragging into the wee hours of the morning, I was lucky to be getting two or three hours of sleep a night. On nights when I did have off and MW had time off we hung out together. It was fun and easy going and it is pretty much the same as it was then. It was because of my connection to MW that I got involved in that crazy trip through Eastern Europe looking for the missing director.
One day before an entire day off the next day she told me that FT and TS were bored with what they had been doing every night. I'm not sure how they could possibly have been bored. It was a rare night when there was not some type of police involvement or payments from petty cash to pay for their damage.
I knew there was a place they had not been yet. At the time it was probably the best time in the city. It still might be the best time in the city. They were all for it and I got roped into driving. i borrowed a van from the set. It was a cargo van. Usually it was filled with equipment that had to be carried. When I think back to me driving that particular van I'm pretty sure only Teamsters were allowed to do so and I keep waiting for them to file a grievance against the production for something that happened so long ago. Never mind. I digress. The thing is there was only one other chair and MW was sitting in that. TS and FT were in the back and decided what they wanted to do was to give up trying to stay in one place and let the van's momentum slam them around the bare metal back. I wasn't driving particular fast and I'm sure they exaggerated their actions to some point but they spent the 20 or so minutes in the back basically slamming so hard against the sides and rear doors that I thought they would end up dismembered or thrown from the back. They seemed to love it. Because the floor was covered in grease and dirt, they looked horrible by the time they stumbled out of the van.
As usual there was a very long line at the door to the club. As we walked down the line past all the people waiting the two guys suddenly figured out that the club was and is a gay club. At the time it was much more laid back and conservative than now. This was before Don't Ask Don't Tell and was the go to spot for gay men and women from town who served in the military. Their short hair usually gave them away. Every few months the military police would infiltrate the place and gather evidence. Then they would wait outside and arrest anyone they had spotted doing something inside that violated same sex interactions.
The owner of the club was really sick that year. He was HIV+ and eventually died of AIDS related complications. He was a great guy and had a vision and an ability to promote and get people in the doors that I used to copy all of the time when I did that kind of thing.
I don't know what FT and TS expected but they seemed to really like it and I remember that even though FT was the bigger star, the guys in the club were all over TS because of a role he had played the year before. They loved him and I got to see first hand how he could hold sway over a group of people and have them in the palm of his hand. It is why he is an A+ lister today. FT, was a star, but he didn't have that certain something to really get him to the next level. Plus he was an a-hole. He knew he was a star and acted like it and even though he was a couple of years removed from his biggest days, he still had that I am better than everyone else kind of attitude. The drugs and booze just made it worse.
FT spent most of his time hitting on women there and deciding which one would get the pleasure of going back to his hotel with him. He treated all of them like crap but most of them never called him out on it. TS on the other hand was spending a ton of money buying drinks and goodwill and was really respectful when one of the managers asked him to please stop using coke out in the open. So, TS popped Ecstasy every 20-30 minutes instead. My guess is he took about 15 total during the night. I'm not sure how he lived through his big drug years. When we all left, FT had two women with him and they all rolled around in the back of the van. TS spent the ride crouched behind the seat talking to MW and me while was driving and telling a long and involved story about losing his virginity. I have heard him tell a variation of the story a few times, but it is always good and is definitely worthy of a blind someday. I remember that I dropped them back at their hotel about the time the sun came up. They all went to their hotel rooms and I crawled in the back of the van and crashed for what seemed like 30 seconds but was probably a couple of hours when there was a knock on the door of the van. It was one of the women that had hooked up with FT. She was wearing a t-shirt and nothing else and said I needed to get to his room quickly because there had been an accident which I will talk about in tomorrow's installment.
