I went coast to coast this week, producing case study marketing films for Microsoft. I did a one-day shoot in Manhattan on Wednesday, profiling a rentals realtor working out of Chelsea.
I flew to San Francisco Saturday to shoot a behind-the-scenes mini-documentary of the big event staged around the announcement of Microsoft's Unified Communications. We stayed at the top of Nob Hill, and the event itself was at the Fairmont Hotel and Masonic Temple. Jay Leno and Rainn Wilson (from The Office) were there as part of the hype-and-circumstance. I've got an interesting shot of Dwight Schrute peering into my camera and asking, "Now where is that Mr. Gates? I want to give him a big smooch on the ass!"
If you're headed to San Francisco, make sure to stop by Lefty O'Doul's near Union Square: in the amount of time it takes you to eat a hand-carved pastrami sandwich and wash it down with a Guiness (poured by a bartender with an Irish accent), you'll hear the all-time campiest piano lounge singer mercilessly butcher all your favorite songs. But try to leave before he does his heartfelt cover of "With or Without You" wherein he may swap the lyric "rubbing your shoulders" for "with or without you" as the song moves to the repeating refrain.
But the strangest thing I saw on my trip was at the San Francisco airport last night, about 11:30pm, as I waited to depart on my red-eye flight back to Buffalo. Near my gate was a man sprawled out on the floor, right in the center of foot traffic, and sort of rolling around quite acrobatically as if trying to demonstrate it was impossible to get comfortable. He had both shoes off, and one sock on and one sock off.
This looked like great fun.
He was munching on a panini, and good-naturedly taunting passers-by. Around him, in a ten-foot radius, he had unpacked his carry-on bags and set up a sort of airport-campsite. Various dog-eared magazines were lying around, and he was thumbing through the latest issue of MacWorld. Remnants of a great feast encircled him - empty bags of chips, large chunks of cookies and crumbs, all ground into the carpet by people walking by. There was a half-eaten scone, and it was obvious he had rolled over it a few times.
I was beginning to admire him as a performance art protestor against red-eye flights and all the indignities suffered by airline travelers today. (Was it Kunstler?)
The Northwest gate agents were pretending to ignore all of this, and passengers were either staring in wonderment or averting their eyes.
Naturally, I approached him and tried to make conversation.
"What's going on? Are you getting on this flight?" I asked.
He said, "No, they probably won't let me on this flight."
"Why not?"
"Because look at me, I'm an embarassment."
"Well...what's going on? Are you loaded - are you drunk?"
"Huh?"
"Have you been drinking?"
"No! Someone spiked my panini!!!"
"Who?"
"They did!" - (pointing to the bistro ten paces away) - "They put marijunana in my panini!"
Those bastards! I hate it when that happens. . . . someone spiked my sangria the other day, and a similar scene resulted in my livingroom.
Posted by: mike | June 29, 2006 at 03:04 AM