Chapter 7

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Ugh
I’m not sure if I’m going to last the week. I’m trying, but this is all turning terrible.

From the Toxie 4 craft services guy…
“We never had a steady food budget. It was the lowest bidder on a day by day basis. Each day I’d have to dig up the cheapest crap I could find. I used to go to the bagel shop and get their day old bagels they were going to throw out.” At least some things remain the same.

Lloyd’s anger
We’ve been unable to find a good actress to play 8-year-old Katie, so Jamie wrote Lloyd, asking “Would you consider having an 11 year old boy as the child?”

Lloyd shot back in a rage. “I’ll take a fucking 82-year-old midget at this point…just audition kids and stop wasting time…The time to waste my time is AFTER you have determined that the shit can act… send me the audition tape and I’ll decide…where is the tape of the fat man singing?…so far everything that you have sent (which is one tape with about six brain dead poorly photographed sad cretins)has sucked…how can you permit such shitty photography,too…feel free to call me for details…”

After this, I was forced to endure a one-hour-long verbal flogging over the progress of the film. Fuck.

Thursday, June 30, 2005

more dank protests….
85 Buffalonians crowded in the sweaty basement, singing and dancing and practicing absurd protest chants for several hours tonight. It was magnificent. I’m exhausted.

Zombies
I met a man with a missing finger yesterday. He was perfectly happy to have it used for the art of Poultrygeist. When I heard about another man, with a wooden leg, my first thought was Above or below the knee? If it’s a fully missing leg — he could be the wishbone victim…

And just now this email came in: “I would like to be considered for a position in your movie. I have a neural impairment that causes my head to be crooked, practically on my shoulder, and turned to the right. I am 5 ft 9, 44 years old, no acting experience, willing to work hard. With the impairment I look and walk like a zombie. “

I feel like a fucking Coney Island carnie.

Lloyd’s anger #2
Another email from Lloyd, who’s still irate. “That kid you sent on the tape is catatonic…stop fucking around don’t send shit like that again…” We just signed a 7-year-old girl, who seems to be a great actress, so hopefully these psycho emails will soon come to a halt.

Edits
While casting has, for the most part, been a complete fuck-up thus far, we did finally manage to find two amazing actors, and cast them as Arbie’s parents. They’re perfect — know how to act, appreciate troma humor and style, and have a fucked up sense of humor about it all.

So just now, Gabe called to let me know that Lloyd has cut the roles of the parents from the film.

An email that made me smile…
Oh! How I would love to be a *Chicken Zombie.* My five Grandsons and I love Zombie Movies. I would be their hero if I actually had a part in a zombie movie.The Return of the Living Dead Part Two, is one of our favorites. I happen to be in between jobs right now ( canned ) and available! How I would love to come home to my wife and say, “Hey honey I got a job!Well, it doesn’t pay anything and it will probably ruin my chances of ever getting a real job again, but at least I’ll be out of the house.”

The Media
Now that the media is finally running stories, applications are pouring in. Chicken Zombie-wannabes, PA applicants, weird punk rockers etc etc etc.

A cameraman from The WB visited the church to interview me today. I felt like a bore, parroting what Lloyd asked me to say. The cameraman said I’ll probably be on tomorrow night.

Friday, July 01, 2005

An email that didn’t make me smile
My name is Brittany. I live in Buffalo. I am 17 and will be 18 in July. I am over weight. I am writing because I would like to audition for your movie. I am willing to play any role. I have always wanted to act. The only real special ability I really have is Writing Poetry.

An email from Lloyd…
The more big fat people we can have as protesters,the better…also as customers… That guy Bernie had a great look…but only feature those who don’t look at the camera etc…IQ above 80 is suggested…but all fat people are needed retarded or other…midgets.and all weird people for protest scene and then chicken zombie scene also…Two headed people,qudra amputees are good for protest and then chicken zombies so people can recognize them when they become chicken Zombies…

Space
Every day there are emergencies. With all the distractions, I sometimes forget small things…. like the air conditioning at the McDonalds. I didn’t even think about it. Lloyd asked and, as always seems to happen when Lloyd asks about something… it didn’t work.

Lloyd lost his shit. There was an hour of screaming, and the days since have been filled with pissiness or just pure silence. We called around, trying to find a repair guy, but for each half hour of service it’ll cost $80. Ugh. I know it’s going to take days or weeks. It was my fuckup, and it’s not worth the headache, so I’ve offered to pay for the service out of my pathetic salary.

This offer, combined with a long positive update I just sent him, led to a sudden peace in the air. He wrote back quickly with a comeraderie I haven’t seen in weeks or months. “Take it out of Gable’s salary!!!…just kidding…try to promote free service in exchange for a part…we need air so please move on this…” Sometimes LK is really unpredictable.

Long days
I just realized that for the last few weeks, I’ve worked 122 hours a week. Others have worked even longer hours. Lord Have Mercy.

Tonight, I’m stealing away for 22 hours to Charleston for my cousin Michael’s wedding. Lloyd’s not happy.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

A brief respite
Flying to Charleston, I saw my family for the first time since the whole Poultrygeist affair began. I couldn’t help tearing up, and then actually starting to cry. It was just so refreshing to be surrounded by people I love, and not to be afraid or overwhelmed.

While in the airport
I sat eating sushi in the Detroit airport, reading the latest draft of the script (something that gets rewritten every two days), and all of a sudden overheard words from a conversation between two soldiers, sitting at the next table over.

“So there he is, this guy just fucking this demon chicken-”

I did a wild doubletake. A crazy-man glaze came over my bloodshot unslept eyes.”Did you just say demon chicken- are you talking about Poultrygeist- cos I’m working on that- and- and- did you really just say that?!!!” My mind was just reeling. I knew the media had started carrying stories about the film the two nights before (Air America, CBS, and The WB), but this was outrageous! It was sweeping the nation overnight!!! We had a hit sensation on our hands! And here I was, part of it all! My hands gripped the side of their table, my hair was wild like Kramers, and sweat and excitement pored from my face.

The soldier’s eyes opened wide. He looked scared and confused. Who the fuck was this freak?!?!?!

“Huh? I said he fucked a demon chick. You know… She was real ugly, like.”

I then realized: I am starting to go slightly insane.

Old Bikers
Dave Ray, the perpetually-stoned sasquatch of local FX, has some days off work. Alone, bored, he’s started visiting the house with a trail of old bikers buddies in tow. “Wild Will”, parking his bike in the church lawn, was apparently one of the stoner buddies.

“I heard you had this woman here, you know, from Sweden. Maybe I could meet with her?” Wild Will suggested. He wanted to show off his portfolio: photos of his airbrushed artwork, on the sides of custom bikes and the skin of buck-naked women. I told him Bitte couldn’t be disturbed. He wasn’t too pleased.

Other bikers started to come around later. One brought a 14-year-old girl with him, a shy-eyed child that didn’t seem like his daughter. “Dave told me you could get Debbie a job on the film.”

It was somewhat tolerable when he and his cronies stood in the front yard, smoking their hand-rolled cigarettes and trying to chat up girls, but when I found Dave Ray lecturing one of the FX interns on how he was doing everything wrong, I had to take him aside. “David, I can’t have you distracting the kids… we’re working on a tight deadline here!” He looked me up and down. I could read his thoughts: Who is this kid, half my age, with none of my accomplished FX know-how? Who the fuck is he??? He left immediately, taking the entire gang of Buffalo Angels with him. A few hours later, I received a curt and cold email.

Don’t worry, Andy, I’ll not “distract” anyone over there again…

As Lloyd wrote yesterday, “Safety to People’s Feelings is NOT one of the three rules.”

The Deadline
Lloyd comes to town on Thursday, and expects us to have everything from the first two weeks of the shoot (ie. the first half of the script) ready for him to see. We are, frankly, so fucked. So little was done while I was in Charleston.

One of the few things that was completed, against all odds, was the “Fantasy Counter”. I was damn impressed. By contract, we’re not allowed to shoot any nudity at the McDonald’s, so we’re shooting it in the church basement instead. I’m not sure which is more ironic: the fact that eye-gougings, torso-rendings, head-crushings, lesbian-defenestrations, oral-impalements, and so on, are more acceptable than a pair of breasts, or the fact that we’re going to be shooting the porn scenes in a church basement.

Monday, July 04, 2005

An email that’s just asking for trouble
“Lloyd – My daughter is 16 years old but looks 18.”

Next week: See what happens when sweet Uncle Lloydie comes to Buffalo. A few hints: one of the art directors turns out to actually be color blind, the star of the film disappears, and something leads the landlady to start the eviction process. Then, see pictures and find out more on Andy Deemer’s website.