Blue Bloods

"Hello Bizzanos," said the PA to the extras going to the rehearsal for the shoot (I thought they only said that on Super Mario Brothers from the 1980s Saturday morning cartoons--my kids have been watching it on Netflix--apparently, I was wrong).

The PAs begin shepherding the people to the allotted areas so they can have a clean shot. But there is one lady staggering through the crowd toward the crew. She hollers out, "Where do you want me to move?"

The first assistant director mutters softly, "To Cleveland."

Later some guy comes and the AD calls out, "Spumoni Gardens." The crew cheer and yell out "Yeah!" Some consider this the best pizza in the world. Others have referred to the pizza maker as the Picasso of Pizza.

In their eighth filming episode, with writers from The Sopranos sporting their lively imbd sheet, they filmed in my neighborhood, about a mile from my home. The giraffe crane (I loving call the crane hoisted on the back of an suv) filmed what would be considered by anyone on any day other than today at that particular location, at that particular time; a perfectly normal and harmless thing to do--picking up clothes from the dry cleaners.

He walks to his car with a glorious view of the setting sunlight shining on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the background, chatting on his cell phone to someone he loves ending with "You're the light at the end of my tunnel."

Then he puts his clean clothes into the back of his sparkly blue 1971 Chevel Super Sport 396 Hardtop Coupe with its smooth ZL1 engine the crew members loving referred to as a "monster engine" that could reach 145 mph easy. This car is a star in its own right as it was previously in a different color in Life on Mars.


The guy with his arms folded was Will and the guy next to him is the director.

I stood around for a little while finding out more about the rare and wonderful facts of filming such as people can work full time pre-graduation (I think high school) during the summer. ADs are the loud echoes of the directors. If you want to work on this show get to know vintage and high end modern cars--you'll have a foot in the door.

Mr. Selick was finished for the day when I got there.

I talked with an enormous security guy--he was nearly as tall as Goliath. He was all friendly until I asked him how long he had done security work, then he got his suspicious face on and asked very intimidatingly, "Who are you?"

I felt like running and hiding under the nearest rock, but I stood my ground, smiled and said, "A watcher and a reporter for my blog."

Then he said, "Do you have permission to be here?"

I said, "I've been here since they were setting up. No one has asked me to leave, but if you need me to I can."

He said, "You should talk to the assistant director, but she's busy now."

I said, "Well, she saw me here. We made eye contact and everything."

He said, "I guess it is okay for right now."

Then he moved closer to the cast.

After a few minutes my family called and I went home.