Most people turn into complete morons when you put them in front of a camera, and thank God for that.
Today I've got the digital trained on the two guys in my driveway - one on a unicycle, another on a tall bike. They're getting ready to joust. Their pages (pimply dorks with anime brain) hand them their lances (poles made from PVC pipe). Duct-taped to the ends of the lances are huge stuffed animals, an Elmo and a Hello Kitty. The object? To ride straight at your opponent and Elmo him right onto his Hello Kitty. And if you knock him hard enough to cause (a) bleeding, (b) broken bones, or (c) a humiliating, painful, and yet strangely hilarious groin injury, that's even better.
It's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen and I'm so happy. Watching these guys strap on bike helmets decorated with flaming skulls, I have to keep from doing my own moronic dance of joy.
“This is going to rock,” Rory says, fiddling with the boom mike he's setting up to catch the walla walla of the crowd gathered in the garage and in the yard. We're shooting for our show, "Riot Grrl 16." Our riot girl, Gina, is in full costume: black cherry lipstick, pink and black hair spiked as high as she could get it, striped shirt, and camos. Her feet are bare, but her pants are rolled up so that you can see the tiny tattoo of an ivy vine on her calf. (I told her once that it would be good for the show if she got a dagger tattooed somewhere; she said that the best place for a dagger was my heart.) In this scene, she's supposed to be partying at a tall bike joust when her drug-addicted brother shows up claiming to be in deep with the mob. Instead Gina's busy leveling her patented Death Glare of Obliteration at me. I'm not sure of the reason for this, but since the Death Glare looks good on camera, I don't care.
