Courtesy of Dreamworks SKGThe Long Beach Dub All Stars—known to most of you as Sublime with former All Dayguy Ras filling in for Brad Nowell because, you know, Brad's dead—are good guys. They're good guys if it doesn't bug you when rock stars decide that one of the perks of rock stardom is being able to request of the video director that female crew members show their tits and then keep honking the horn of the van in which they're sitting, as the sign that now would be a good time. No? Well, how about now? Honk!Not yet? If we honk the horn now, will you show us your tits? Aw, come on! Hooooooooonnnnnk!
Faced with the opportunity to grab a share of the gobs of Dreamworks SKGmoney floating around director Billy Henderson's shoot, we agreed to work as part of the crew for the “Trailer Ras” video. Concept: white-trash people dancing and porn stars on trailers.
The first day of the Aug. 30-31 shoot took place in a big ugly dirt lot next to Naga in Long Beach, with several buses with cowboys and mermaids airbrushed on them lining the lot's perimeter. The one for the porn stars—because a video isn't a video unless it has porn stars; just ask Blink 182or Rolling Stonemagazine—was labeled “Talent.” The one for the band was marked “Band.” Much crew hilarity ensued.
It is little-known how much contempt a crew generally has for a band on whose video it works. Eyes are rolled silently. Venting comes later, at a more discreet time. We once met a girl over Sunday-afternoon cocktails during a fab Bourbon Jonesshow who had had the misfortune of being assigned to personally assist Hole's Courtney Loveduring a video shoot this year. She was happy to blab and blab and blab about Ms. Love's despicable snottiness; par example, our snitch was told to never enter Love's trailer without knocking (the rest of Hole had a little hole in which to stew; Love had the whole shebang). When our friend knocked (even though her arms were undoubtedly full of organic celery for Ms. Love's bloody marys or some of the $300 worth of foreign Vogues Ms. Love sent her out to buy), she received no answer. After a minute or two of waiting, she entered, only to have Love coldly state that if she entered again without knocking, Love would throw something heavy at her head. “You've been warned,” Love reportedly said, dismissing her like a servant.
Now, the Dub All Stars were not so bad as this. Aside from a minor snit over not being able to hear themselves on the monitors during their rooftop synch-along—and of course that whole thing with the crew and its collective breasts—they were reasonably professional. The drummer even played through a nastily debilitating case of food poisoning, slumping prostrate over the drums a couple of times. It wasn't that they were bad guys; they were just irrelevant. This was especially noticeable the second day of shooting, which was stripped down to Ras, Opie, another guy, and eight or nine crew members: the crew chatted and flirted and got to know one another while the band huddled together in their big truck. Out of sight, out of mind! The first day had been a zoo, featuring a few hundred fans; bikers; hair and makeup ladies; lots of security guys and gals; a very cool, extraordinarily pregnant lady from the record label; and, of course, the porn stars. (The pregnant lady from the label was the one who originally suggested using porn stars.) They stood on top of a couple of trailers, wiggling themselves daintily, as the song played again and again. A director's assistant rounded out the number of girls on trailers, as they were short a porn star, but we hear she made up for it by not wearing any panties under her blinding-silver miniskirt. The only porn star we had heard of was Misty Rains, whose name makes us wonder if she's one of those female ejaculators we can't seem to escape. When you watch the video, look for the guy doing the triple flip off the trailer: that's the singer from Secret Hate, and he broke both of his arms doing it.
On the second day, we actually helped instead of just standing around awkwardly; of our four tasks (we walked across one scene, hand modeled in another—those are our blue nails!—went to the store for snacks, or “craft services,” and then fetched ice), we radically fucked up one: we left the 20-pound bag of ice in our trunk. It melted. The most fun part of the day was going to Vons for snacks for the boys. With another PA, Jean, we chose crap like beef jerky and boxes of Rice Krispy Treats. The mom in Jean came out after we gagged that we felt like we were shopping for a bunch of 4-year-olds, which pretty much was what we were doing, and she suggested we buy some fruit as well. None of the fruit got eaten, but the band did have a Rice Krispy Treat-eating contest—you know, to impress the ladies. But the only way to impress the ladies was to be a grip: we were madly in love with all of them, especially the two cute Leftists who started conversing with us on the finer aspects of Michael Mooreand Roger N Me. Shockingly, we were never ordered back to the store with, “Talent wants more Rice Krispy Treats.”
The album hits stores on Tuesday.
We sped down to Ensenada this weekend (really, going far too fast for the curvy sea cliffs, but we got the Mexican insurance, so it was okay) for the wedding between OC Weeklyfood critic Kelly McGinnisand her longtime beau, Mickey von Hemert. And really, there's no point in anyone ever throwing a wedding again. It's all been done.
With about a hundred guests staying together at the Hotel Coral and Marina(very resort-y pools, with lounges in the shallow end and a bar to the side; oddly, the TV stations available in our rooms were basically Trinity Broadcasting Networkand porn), we were extremely grateful not to be the guest about whom all the other guests were gossiping. It's much better to be the gossiper than the gossipee. And although we're dying to detail the juicy bits for you, we're thinking of Kelly's parents; they couldn't very well put them in the scrapbook.
Friday night's fiesta was held at the historic Riviera del Pacificoin downtown Ensenada, with a pretty good (and very loud) mariachi band playing “Tequila” several times while everyone ate extraordinary mole and chiles and taquitos and good stuff. The drunkest mariachi guy looked just like Newt Gingrich, and he blew kisses at photographer Jeanne Rice, who attended with Shane from Element 17. Then we went to Papas N Beerand danced to techno before abandoning it for the very Lab-like bar downstairs, where a man was soulfully belting out Kansas and Elton Johncovers.
Saturday was spent lounging poolside like a rich person. The nice thing about the Hotel Coral is that all the employees there are handsome and don't look like they're starving, allowing one to drink margaritas poolside without that vexing guilt we certainly hope you feel when confronted with starving people. At 2:30 p.m., the guests boarded shuttle buses to the vineyards at San Antonio de las Minas, where chairs wrapped in white cloth like little brides were arranged under the shade of a circle of sycamore trees.
The ceremony, conducted in Spanish with an English translation, began as tuxedoed groomsmen walked on the soil toward the guests. The pixyish flower girl, glaring, walked solemnly (Ann Conway alert! We can't help it!) in a dress with flower petals encased in tulle. But we couldn't really see it because we were already sobbing. We spotted the bridesmaids, two of Kelly's supermodel sisters among them, milling outside their white tent. Their gowns were a stiff champagne satin with beaded sleeveless tops.
And then the groom arrived, cantering down the ridge in a sombrero and vaquero pants on a golden palomino that somehow even matched the bridesmaid's dresses. It was probably intentional.
Most brides are beautiful, but Kelly McGinnis used to model in Milan; besides that, she's a really nice person, which always shines through, disgustingly enough. She wore a crown and a lace mantilla, and her simple sleeveless gown was a golden cream, like flan, maybe. And then we cried a bunch more and were emotionally exhausted. And then there was the reception, but we've run out of room. (If there were any room, we'd tell you about the drunk guy who . . . Well, now, never mind that. And never mind the porn stars at the top of the column, too. That's what the rest of us do.)
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