Update 121-01
Update 121-01
Adventure
21st January 2007
9:30 PMYesterday I did a 60 year old lawyer's surprise birthday party.
It was at this really up-market jazz-bar-place in Beverly Hills. It was just a 4 hour gig which I made $350 from. What's up with lawyers and posh old-age parties? This is the second one I'm filming in the span of a month! Its either lawyers all 1) Live to an old age 2) Like to party or don't now how else to splurge their money.
It went alright I guess. The lighting was
HORRIBLE but I suppose my camera managed to cope with a bit of tweaking and extreme low-light gain. The quality would've been more normal if I had more light but well... I didn't. So here are some unedited and very-pixelated stills:
That said, the shoot went rather smoothly without too many hitches. The real trouble happened AFTER the party. Following our departure from Beverly Hills around 11:30 PM, our tire hit something in the middle of the freeway. Pulling over to the side of the road, we realized the tire was flat. Almost simultaneously, a random tow truck pulls over out of nowhere and the driver hops out to greet us. We thought we were saved. Turns out we were most horribly wrong and that his arrival would essentially catalyze what would turn out to be a four hour ordeal.
Anyhow, the chap turns out to be Russian/Eastern European:
"You folks need ze help, da?"
"Umm yeahhh... Our tire punctured..."
"Tire ka-put? No no. Ve do not do zes tire punk-ture. Ve only do kar ak-cident help."
With that the guy climbs back into his truck and drives off merrily. So we're stuck. Thankfully we had a spare so my Dad and I started pulling out the screws to the tires. To our horror however, we realized that the last screw on the tire was different - It had some kind of lock which prevented people (Probably poor, inner-city African-American 'gangstas') from stealing the tire. The problem was, we didn't have the key to that 'lock'. So we try our level best to salvage things from the car to use in an attempt to break this weird-looking screw. I broke both a butter and pen knife in half trying to somehow clobber the thing out to no avail.
Then my Mum says she has to take a piss. Which kind of sucks considering we're in the middle of friggin' nowhere at the side of a God-forsaken highway. But she does it anyway - Into an empty Starbucks cup I was drinking out of a few minutes before. We finally give up bashing away at the tire (It's all scratched up now). That must've been a funny sight: Two Chinamen garbed in business suits hammering away at a car tire in the middle of the highway at 12 AM.
Thankfully, we magically find a card to the insurance company in the glove compartment. So we call and the cliched kind-but-company-policy-following-bureaucrat decides to help us out by sending a truck our way. Its 1 friggin AM btw. Problem is we don't know where the hell we are. My Dad randomly whacks a city 'Burbank' and the operator asks what STATE we're in. My Dad cheekily answers 'a BAD one'.
So we sit in the car and wait for an hour before another tow truck pulls up. And yes, you guessed it - Its ANOTHER Russian/Eastern European guy. Gosh what's up with that? I swear there must be some sort of Cossack syndicate operating these trucks. Anyway, the guy tells us to 'check ze glove kom-park-ment' for the key. Which we do find... Which kind of sucks cuz if we had known the damn key was in there we would've already been home by then (It was 2 AM then). Anyway, the nice guy helps us out and changes the tires for us.
"Da you see? Viktor fix tire for you."
However, just when we thought it was home-free, the car battery dies... Sighs. To make things worse, we have to call the company AGAIN who has to verify it with the driver (and other bureaucratic red tape), etc. Sighs. ANYWAY, the guy gives us a temporary jump-start.
The guy can't help smirking "You fellows... harve bad luck zes night, da?"
We finally reach home 2 hours later.
Gosh what a scary... And amusing situation.
Things I learnt:
1. Always keep a jackhammer or blow torch handy (Or make sure the screws on your tire are all uniform)
2. Memorize the number to the insurance company.
3. Be nice to the operator because they're the only ones that can help you.
4. Always keep torchlights in your car. Coincidentally, I had one of those police flashlights from 'The Vault' days.
5. Tow truck drivers that work the dead-night shift are somehow from Eastern Europe
6. Not all of them are Communist - My dad gave the chap a $5 tip and he said 'God Bless you'. That single gesture already debunks two stereotypes.
7. Have a cup in the car handy for nature's calls. After doing your business, leave it at the side of the freeway for some unsuspecting homeless bum or someone desperate enough to drink out of a Starbucks cup along the freeway.
