Watching the Lakers-Celtics game at Ty's - we've been sightseeing the last couple days. I think I saw one of the actors from that show "Full House." Full report tomorrow - I promise!

I'm a professional zombie! The awesome story follows:

I got into LA after dinnertime, which meant I stopped for food before finding a hotel or anything like that. Food (tacos) was fine, but I was mostly focusing on a weird conversation going on at the next booth. It went something like this:

First guy: Are you kidding? You've never been a zombie before?
Woman: No, never.
Second guy: And you've been here how long?
Woman: Since August of 07, so a little less than a year.
First guy: That long, and you've never been a zombie. Hasn't your agent ever heard of the Fear Channel?

It turns out the three of them were all playing bit parts in a new movie called "Zombie Diner," where the undead take over a hip LA eatery without anyone knowing. (According to the zombies, everyone jokingly referred to the movie as "Zombie Fourthmeal" because so many of the cast and crew ate at Taco Bell during lunch breaks.) The two guys, Vin and Ty, had both been around town a lot longer than the woman, Carole, and both had played zombies plenty of times before, on TV and in movies. Vin had been a zombie at least a half dozen times, while Ty had, among other role, played four zombies and six medieval soldiers. He'd also been a seat filler at awards shows at least eight times.

I got to talking with the three and mentioned that I'd played a vampire in a movie my friends shot in high school. (Like the zombies, I did turn my victims into food, but only for myself; my character didn't have enough ambition to franchise.) Vin suggested I come by the set for the night shoot, where they and the other zombies would hold a giant murderous picnic. I said yes - it's not like I had anything else to do, after all!

So I followed them over to the set, which was really a big outdoor space on a film lot. I walked with Vin, Ty and Carole toward the makeup space, and before I knew it the makeup crew had me in a chair to get disfigurements and bruises and things added to my face. "I'm not in the movie," I protested. "If you're here and you're not allergic to latex makeup you're in the movie," the guy said.

Soon it was time to shoot the scene - a long shot in which the camera would run along a track covering the entire "picnic grounds" and show zombies eating together - I got handed Jack in the Box takeout. We must have been there for probably 5-6 hours because of various technical problems but eventually they got what they wanted and we all got to go home - or, in my case, to Ty's, since he let me crash there.

This morning we all got up at 6 and drove back to the studio for another multi-zombie scene, this one where the zombies have some sort of financial panic and they all make a run on the bank. (There's a similar scene in "It's a Wonderful Life", although they weren't undead.) This was different in that the director was supervising this scene himself - last night's scene was done by the 2nd unit guy, so this was a bigger deal. The director was a short European guy with wispy, longish hair and a temper. I guess he'd made a lot of horror movies in the past and had begun to refer to himself by his nickname, "The Shockmaster." He'd do this when he was angry or upset about something, which was most of the day. "HEAR THIS, ZOMBIES," he'd say, sternly. "THE SHOCKMASTER WILL NOT ACCEPT MEDIOCRITY ANY LONGER. THE SHOCKMASTER DESERVES BETTER THAN YOUR WEAK PERFORMANCES. 'ZOMBIE DINER' DESERVES BETTER THAN YOUR INEPTNESS AND INDECISIVENESS." We got through it - though The Shockmaster reduced a zombie to tears for flubbing a scene with an ATM. "ZOMBIES WOULD NOT REMEMBER THEIR PIN CODE THAT QUICKLY, IDIOT GIRL," he yelled. "DOES THE SHOCKMASTER HAVE TO PLAY THE SCENE FOR YOU?" The movie's supposed to come out in the fall - hopefully it'll come out after the election, cause I won't have time to check it out before then.

I'm back at Ty's place for one more night, catching up on e-mail and thinking of what to do tomorrow. I wrote my parents last night about getting to be a zombie and my mom, apparently not realizing I was talking about a movie, wrote back, "If you're a zombie after four days you're not getting enough sleep on this trip... I knew this would happen."

Photo by joelf

I'll blog more about this later, but I (finally) got into LA tonight and I think I landed a part in a zombie movie. I'll tell you the full story in the morning - right now I have to wash off my fake blood and zombie makeup.

A slightly complicated day. I got up early because the hotel staff told me at check-in that the free continental breakfast would be down to half a bag of Sugar Smacks by 8 am. I was elbowed out of the bagel line by a large bearded guy who said his dog was hungry. The dog was hiding inside his backpack and was about half the size of the bagel; it took about four licks of the cream cheese and then went back to sleep. (I sent this story to my boss at the Viva Bread party office and they may be able to use it for one of Mr. Basketry's speeches.)

Having been exiled from bageldom, I tried to grab a banana and some yogurt - which is when I saw the dancer who chased me through Union Square! Either he was staying at the same hotel or he was there looking for me, I don't know, but he was at the front desk scowling about something, and that wasn't a good sign for yours truly. I went back up to my room, listening to KQED with the door double-locked. (It's just as well I did - Talk of the Nation did a piece about recent college grads and the job market. Lots to think about once the campaign is over - like do I want to use my boss, Moonbow James, as a reference?) I spent a little time Googling the dance troupe - turns out their mission is to teach good eating habits through dance. This explains why they got so mad about the cheese doodles I was eating, though I don't remember seeing anything in their performance that would encourage me to eat more vegetables. Except maybe the whole "getting chased around San Francisco" thing.

The coast was clear by midday so I went out for a little fresh air and sightseeing, which is when my car vanished. I parked it on 22nd street in what I thought was a parking spot to stop in a nearby coffeehouse. In retracing my steps, the sign above this parking spot did indeed say "PARKING," but only as part of the phrase "NO PARKING - STEEP DROP." Even this might not have been a problem had I not left the car on and in Drive. At the time I figured the car had been stolen, but it had actually rolled down the hill, spun around a couple times and nearly run over a group of protesters, who were trying to outlaw the manufacture of circus peanuts, or at least give some of the royalties to elephants. Or so the extensive police report told me.

The wisest course of action at this point: to clear out of San Francisco at the crack of dawn, praying that no dancers pursue me on the way to LA.

Now listening to: Sinead O'Connor, "The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance" (chosen by me, not my sarcastic iPod)

(Photo by pengrin)

And I'm off! Slept in, had a big breakfast, and then time to hit the road. The drive to San Francisco went well - nice going, car! - but I think I'm going to have to take breaks more often. By hour three I'd been going pretty well non-stop and I was making up songs about the exit signs. "Petaluma, I wish I knew ya / Driving south, I'm gonna get down to ya" is the only one I remember. I think I did one about Sebastopol to the tune of "No More Tears" by Ozzy Osbourne, but I don't remember the words.

It feels good to be on the road - don't know if I'll feel that way 8 weeks from now, but one day at a time, right? When I wasn't making up road sign songs I listened to KQED - heard a great piece on The World about how people in developing countries can't get weather forecasts.

Got into town about 4 pm and filled up on cheese doodles at a mini-mart near Union Square. I caught a preview of one of the dance outfits that's part of the International Arts Festival, only one of the cheese doodles must've slipped out of my hand, cause the next thing I know one of the dancers topples over, holding his ankle, and two of the others try to come after me. I tried to apologize while hiding behind a row of grandparents, but it didn't work - one of the dancers screamed "I'll make sure you never dance in this town again!" over and over. Then one of the grandparents turned on me because there was a cheese doodle in her hair. Ran a couple blocks back to the car and drove off to find a hotel - the iPod shuffles to "There's a Riot Goin' On" by San Francisco's own Sly and the Family Stone. My MP3 player has a sense of humor.

Photo by Pargon

Packing for the trip. So far I've got:

* A laundry bag full of clothes
* Crackers (2 boxes)

I guess I'll need a road map, although the car's got a GPS. I'm thinking of going down to San Francisco first. It's funny - I've lived in California pretty much my whole life but I've never been to San Francisco. My family always went north for vacations - we'd go up to see the redwoods or maybe up to Oregon, but never south. "Birds fly south for the winter," my uncle Bill would say. "Are we birds?" I don't know what that means. My brother (now 19) says he got "locked in a redwood" on one of the family vacations. I don't know what that means either.

Nine weeks to go before my job starts in New Hampshire - I've been hired as a field director for the Viva Bread Party and their presidential candidate, Otis H. Basketry. Actually I hadn't heard of the party until I got hired, but the campaign people seem nice and they didn't mind that my degree (History of Disco - my senior thesis was "Would Thucydides Have Done The Hustle?") wasn't related to politics. Their platform calls for spending $300 billion on pastry as the solution to pretty much any problem, but clearly I'm in no position to throw stones. But I think I can do a good job - and they say there's plenty of free donuts at the campaign office!