Last weekend you may not have realized it, but I was not sitting at my computer typing feverishly for your entertainment. No, I submitted my articles ahead of time and scarpered off leaving most of you none the wiser.
You see, I had a wedding to attend.
It’s been some thirteen years or thereabouts since a boy with a guitar at least as big as he was marched up to Mr. Twistie in a coffee house where he was playing and asked to sit in on a tune or two. Mr. Twistie came home that night gushing about the kid. We immediately took him under our extremely odd wings and did our best to make sure he got the benefit of our combined eccentricities.
Well, in spite of all that, last week the kid got married in Los Angeles to a lovely lady who lets him get away with precisely nothing.
It was a great wedding and a terrific reception. Mr. Twistie and I pooped out maybe half an hour before the festivities were scheduled to end. When we left, the mother of the bride was boogieing enthusiastically to Play That Funky Music, White Boy while a circle of admiring much younger folk watched.
But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about my screen debut.
Technically it’s not my first film. That was about twenty years ago when a friend of mine asked me to appear in his class project for his film course. I had a leading role in a parody of Das Boot.
On the other hand, that film was only ever seen by one class of film students at San Francisco State University twenty years ago and half a dozen people involved with the making of it in the living room of one of the actors. It’s not precisely a legendary piece of filmmaking, though it was quite good for a new filmmaker with a nearly nonexistent budget and volunteer actors.
As Mr. Twistie and I and a couple we are friends with were leaving the church after the wedding last saturday, we were stopped by a charming lady in a vintage dress that she wore quite well and asked if we would like to appear in a film.
Since we had four hours to kill until the reception started, and since we were assured this would only take a couple minutes, our response was enthusiastic agreement.
It took more than a couple minutes. This is a real film (albeit a small, independent one) that required filling out real releases and real liability forms. And then Mr. Twistie and I were in one scene while our friends were used in a different scene. Still, it was less than an hour all told out of our day, and we were left with plenty of time to catch up and refresh ourselves before dinnertime.
So why (other than an intense need to brag) am I telling you all this? Because quite simply we were stopped and asked to be in a film because we looked interesting. I know that I in particular looked interesting because of all the women in that church that sunny afternoon, I was the only one who had thought to wear a hat. It was a rather spectacular hat, too, in ruby velvet with a glorious self-double-scroll in front and a wide brim.
Let this be a lesson to you all. Wear great hats. You never know whose eye you’ll catch.
If you want me, I’ll be in my trailer.
lovely! show us a picture of the hat!
Comment by jeannemarie — October 18, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
Yay! Don’t you love ego boosts like that when they happen?
I was once shanghaied into a video because of my resemblance to a women’s basketball coach. I never did hear about the outcome of that project.
Comment by Diana — October 18, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
Oh please post a picture of the hat. I love hats and have often worn them to weddings, especially outdoor garden party type affairs. In spring and summer, it’s straw hats and white gloves (short ones) lessons learned from my mom.
Comment by gemdiva — October 19, 2009 @ 9:48 am