Movie Day

My movie day started at 4:30 am. That is the earliest I have gotten up in a long, long time. My call time was 6am at the Tennessee Titans stadium parking lot. Since I don't know the area I wanted to give myself a nice time cushion. Fortunately traffic was light and my brother's GPS kept me right on track. I arrived in the parking lot at 6:03 am. There we loaded a transit bus that took us to the War Memorial Arena. We signed in and sat around the holding area waiting to be taken across the street where filming would take place.
Here is a shot of holding area. Actually this is the stage in front of the holding area where they where doing some makeup on extras. At the bottom of the stage they provided pop tarts, coffee and fruit.
At about 8:30 we were herded across the street to where we would see the action. I was put into a group they dubbed 'The Ramones'. I think they like to give jazzy code names to groups that was easy to remember. Other groups were called 'Thundercats' and 'Devo'. The Ramones were to be in the front two rows. Here is a picture from my seat. Taking pictures was a no-no on set. Many people got caught and had to either leave or the crew would watch them delete the pictures from camera/phone. Hence my pictures are limited and not well framed.
Gwyneth Paltrow played the role of Kelly, a Brittany Spears type country singer, that has just come back from Rehab. Let me tell you this...Gwyneth was fit!! She wore a black mini skirt and her legs were muscular and toned. And she is an incredible actress. It was impressive to see her do take after take, always having to cry at the end. I also got to see Tim McGraw every scene, as he escorts her off stage.
Here is a covert pic from the balcony of the theater. It was taken in between takes. Because of the crying scene at the end, Gwyneth had to have makeup re-applied after each take. You see her Front Center Stage. I spent about 3 hrs 20ft from her but I didn't risk a closeup pic.
This picture is during concert shoot where they put the cameras close to the stage. You can kind of make out Gwyneth/Kelly in the video screen behind her.
I got chosen to wear a concert Tshirt but I had to surrender my Driver's License (which I had just gotten the day before). They really wanted to get this Tshirt back.
During lunch, I met a girl I had noticed earlier. In a room full of attractive people this girl had stood out. Also, she seemed to run into me often...her path was always squeezing past me. She had friendly eyes. So when I found myself standing next to her in the lunch line, we naturally struck up a conversation. She told me that she was from Dallas. She told me she found out about this movie through an agent. She told me she was a model. Something clicked in my mind. A few weeks earlier at my brother's bachelor party, a friend of my brother's was telling me about this girl who broke his heart from Texas. So I ask this girl standing next to me...do you model for Ambercrombie & Fitch? Her reply...she use to. I asked if she recently dated a guy from Nashville. The look on her face was priceless...How do you know him? I explained I just met him. She started putting pieces together...she noticed how I looked like my brother, who she had met and she knew Bethany. In fact she immediately had to send Bethany a text. It is amazing that a girl from Texas and a guy from South Carolina meet at the filming of a movie in Tennessee and actually know the same people. There were 500 extras there, I had conversations with about 6 different strangers and this one I knew just from a 2 minute conversation a month earlier. What are the odds?
Here is a pic of Me and Lindsey
After 13 hours of standing, cheering and applauding the same 5minute scenes I was ready to be crawling into my bed. My hands were sore from clapping, my mind was fuzzy from only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before. When I was walking back to my bus I noticed how the bridge was poetically lit up behind my home.

I had an incredible experience. Now I just have to wait for my check in the mail.

I have found My Purpose

A friend brought to my attention a new TV series on MTV. It is exactly what I have been floundering about to pinpoint with my project. The show is called 'The Buried Life'. It is about 4 guys in an old bus traveling around checking things off of their list of 100 things to do before they die. For every item they mark off the list they help a stranger mark something off their list.
I had been stumped. How could I give back to others while pursuing my own goals in life. This answer seems so simple to me now. I always knew it would be a great TV idea. A kind of 'Pay it Forward' mentality.
So, I am now going to focus all my energy into this specific purpose. I may recruit some like minded souls (I don't think it will be all that difficult). Finding sponsorship might be a little easier with a purpose greater than serving myself. Now I must implement a plan to make this happen.
I am so excited. I just wanted to make this post. I will post pics from movie day yesterday later.

I dig the little things

I got a paid job. I will be an extra in the movie 'Love Don't Let Me Down' with Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw for the day tomorrow. It isn't a big deal in the big picture of things but it is the little moments like this that make life interesting. I did extra work on the movie 'Leatherheads' with George Clooney for 3 days and although you only see me if you pause the DVD and look closely, those 3 seconds of fame were pretty cool. I figure I am due another 14 minutes and 57 seconds. Maybe I can add another 3 seconds to my resume tomorrow.
Today the weather has been sunny and nice, probably 45 degrees. Nala and I went for a walk to a local park. More of a trail to the river with a plaque describing an obscure civil war battle, but it is the most enjoyable outdoor time I have had in a while.
I met a curious fella and his daughter on my walk. He told me he home schooled his daughter and I got the distinct impression that they were homeless. He gave me some good info on the local bus system (he doesn't have his own vehicle) and provided some interesting theories on 'Hollow Earth' and Antarctica. It was really eyebrow raising when he thought the North Pole and Antarctica were in the same place. He was a friendly guy though.

Legal Tennessee Resident

Ok, I went and got my license that shows I am a Tennessee citizen. I had to have 4 different documents proving that I live here. No easy feat for a mobile man like myself. But I am determined. Now I can go get some work.
On my way to the DMV I stopped by Autozone and picked up some spark plugs to try and fix a generator problem. The problem that when the generator did finally run, it surged. That means it sounded like the engine was being revved and released, revved and released. This caused very unstable electricity flow, my lights would glow bright and dim to the tune of the surge. Fortunately replacing rusting spark plugs seems to have fixed the problem. Now that sucker purrs.
I may have an alternator issue. My starting battery died, when I wanted to drive somewhere I would have to jump myself off (that phrase just doesn't sound right). I would connect my jumper cables to my house batteries and then to my starting battery. I had hoped that driving around town would charge the starting battery but no such luck. In fact, when I had my first riding passenger, Keith, the battery totally died driving to his place. It was nighttime and my headlights drained the last little juice out of the battery. We drove the last 2 miles in the dark without headlights. Good news is that a diesel engine doesn't have spark plugs (it runs off compression instead of a spark) so my engine still ran strong once the battery died. I charged the battery at my brother's house and I tightened what appears to be a loose alternator belt. Hopefully that solves the problem, I will know if my battery dies again.
Here is a pic of jumping the starting battery.

I stayed in front of Keith & Bethany's house while the battery recharged. Here are the newlyweds at home.