A NEW WORLD

So there I was… I still vividly remember the Australian P.A. saying I could stay in the van.  But no, the plump little first time director had to have it her way, or no way at all.  I instantly did not like this first director I met.  I had know how idea at the time how much of a living Hell this person could make my life, but over the next four months she did her best to educate me on the matter.  She forced me from an air conditioned van and perched me on top of a cliff overlooking Bondi Beach, one the most iconic beaches in the world.  I was at the top of a stone staircase that followed the curvature of the coving beach a hundred feet or so down to the board walk below.  

For two fucking hours I sat at the top of this staircase, starring at the, just yards behind me, air conditioned van.  I’m wearing Jeans and thick red polo shirt in the 90 something, oh I forget, 30 something degree Celsius heat outside.  After hours of my pale Scottish skin frying in the ridiculous hot and powerful Australian sun, I don’t know what I’m more pissed about, the fact that I’m literally drenched in sweat or the awesome farmer’s tan tattoo I’ve been forced into receiving.  I look back and see the same Aussie P.A., still enjoying the climate controlled van.  He rolls down his window, just enough to be heard as to not let any of the air conditioning escape.  Wouldn’t won’t to do that now… jackass.  Actually, he’s a nice guy; it’s the bitch of a director’s fault I’m out here.  He tells me that he’s just heard on his Walky that I can go down to stairs now.  Australians love to put a “Y” sound on the end of every noun… like it’s the only possible fucking way to communicate here.  Okay, we get it… you’re country is cooler than ours.  

With my heavy bag, I begin walking down the hundred foot staircase to the board walk.  I get to the very bottom, only to find that bitch of a director.  She looks me square in the eye and in her half ditzy, half pretentious voice (or what I call Los Angeles Speak) tells me they were just making sure they had the right camera angle, and that I had to walk back up the stairs to the top and wait to come back down again.  I think the bitch derived some pleasure from giving me this news.  Awesome.  So, with my heavy bag, I walk back all the way up the hundred or so stairs to the top.  Once I was at the top, I got the “real call” so I descended the cliff again.  

Now I’m soaked in sweat, obviously burnt, trying to be as pleasant as I could possibly be.  After all, it is my first day on the job.  At the bottom, I’m signaled over to introduce myself to a Middle Eastern looking young woman, Parisa.  At least I’m not going to want to sleep with this one, I remember thinking to myself.  I carry my bag, and now hers as well, after all I am a gentleman, up the board walk to hail a cab.  We go through the initial bull shit pleasantries.  I could tell right away that Parisa was most likely the intellectual of pack of females I was being thrown into.  She was well spoken, well read, and we seemed to share a common political ideology.  Good, I thought to myself, I’ll have no problems with this one.  

“So, where you from?” I asked.

“New York, I went to NYU.  I just graduated.  You?”

“South Mississippi.  I went to Ole Miss.”

“Where?”

“Everyone always says that… where Eli Manning went.”

“Oh, ok… I’ve heard of that.”

No she didn’t, she was quick to pretend she knew anything about the culture I considered home outside of the stereotypes Yankees place on Southerners.  Confusing the adjective “Southern” with “Country”, which is then further misconstrued with “Racist”, “NASCAR”, and “G.W. Bush”, who is Texan by the way, and Texans are not Southern (as much as they want to be).  Texas is Texas; it is its own world all together.  Digressing…

“So where did you wait all day?” she asked. 

“At the top of that staircase I came down when I saw you.”

“That sucks, it’s so hot here,” she replied, “I was just in this van all afternoon.”

“You don’t say,” I said with a crooked smile, trying to swallow my appertaining rage.  “Well, I’m just glad to finally get this party started...  and maybe some aloe.”