Trying to sleep when you know you're going to be away from home for two weeks, having an eight hour drive ahead of you, and filming a movie is all but impossible.  I had to leave at about 1:30 a.m. to be in Ohio for my first day shooting the film "With All Thy Getting", an independent film, a political comedy, with me playing the character 'Dirt Bag'.  Perfect role!

Anyway.  I'm trying to nap before leaving... yeah, right!  Tossing and turning from 5:00 p.m. until about 8:00 p.m., I realized this was a hopeless task.  So I got up and paced around the house for about 3 hours, finally settling down to watch some television.  Could I concentrate?  No.

1:30 a.m. ... off I go.  Driving carefully along very foggy roads gives new meaning to the word "chills".  Hi-beams are pretty useless at this point.  Every so often, there would be a break in the fog, and off to the side of the road there would be some dopey deer frolicking around... not noticing the carcass of their recently deceased friend now known as "road kill".  Either Pennsylvania deer are dumber than other deer, or the highway department doesn't have a diligent maintenance crew to clean up dead deer.  Ugh!

Driving along listening to tunes ranging from Motorhead to Partridge Family for over 8 hours gives a bit of time for one to do some personal reflecting.  Here I am, leaving a s**tload of problems at home to do a movie.  Are my priorities askew?  Maybe.  But what the heck.  This kind of opportunity doesn't come around often.

Around 11:15, I get to the filming location.  It's at the Cleveland Skydiving Academy.  The first thing I do is... guys, you know the deal... is find a bathroom and drain the lizard.  Too much information?  Not to those who know the relief I'm describing.  I then walked over to the area where they're filming, and this very cute blonde walks up to me and say's "Hey, Stevie".  Do I know her?  I certainly would've remembered. Apparently, my face preceded me.  She had checked out the website, and managed not to woops her cookies at my picture.  This was Liza Foster, the Assistant Director.

  Blixx , Justin 6.4, Akeem, Justin 6.2           The first thing I saw!  Justin 6.2 as Baby girl            Bob Gray, director, and Liza Foster

They were filming some pick up shots, since the movie is filmed out of sequence.  Here was this midget, hanging from a harness, and all of a sudden a cross dresser pops in.  No, wait... TWO cross dressers.  Hold on.  Make that three!  Jeez!

           Justin 6.4 as Mary J.                                      Hill BillyBob in a harness.                                   Akeem as Peaches

I tried not to be too abrasive on my first day on the set, but I failed miserably.  Not having that "switch" that dictated tasteful conversation from perversion quickly put me in the category of "strange".  Oh, really!  Like everyone doesn't wake up with sex on their mind.  You can't tell ME I'm the only one!  Ha!  Just look at the cast of this movie!

            Size 14, folks!                                           Mickey Parrason, writer,                            Professor, Crazy Jew, Sister Angie

Here we have Steve playing a bum named Crazy Jew, Akeem playing Peaches, a 7-foot PLUS cross dresser, Justin 6.4 playing Mary J., another cross dresser, Justin 6.2 playing Baby Girl, yet ANOTHER cross dresser, Lila playing the nympho Sister Angie, Liz playing the very angry Sister Sunshine, Alex as the Amish guy, Geoff as the Professor, Blixx as Hill BillyBob, Monica as Sister Gail, Rick as the spastic Brother Stevie, and a bunch of others, some of whom I didn't get a chance to meet because I wasn't in scenes with them.

               Crazy Jew                                                       Brianna as Marsha                                  Liberty, Production Assistant   

We had some pretty crappy weather the first few days, which screwed up timing since we were filming a skydiving drop zone.  We shot all the interior stuff, and finally had a break in the weather later in the week.  The plane was able to take off, and some excellent footage was shot.

The production staff was sharp and a lot was done on that crisp, clear day.

      Cameraman Andy, and Rick                            The directors in action.                                  Peaches playing with dogs.

One of the funniest things during the sky diving sequence was when Justin 6.2 as Baby Girl jumped.  We were all looking skyward, waiting.  One chute opens, then another, then another.  Suddenly, we hear SCREAMING from thousands of feet in the air!  Then a chute opens, and there's Baby Girl, in his red, white and blue mini skirt outfit, blonde wig, helmet and goggles.  Upon landing, Justin, in perfect character, gets unfastened from the harness and starts jumping around like a cheerleader.

When Alex made his tandem jump, he must've been a bit nervous, since it was he first jump.  But when the camera was on him as he came in for his landing, he was in perfect character as Levy, the Amish guy, holding a stoic face with just a hint of a smirk behind it.

And, of course, we had a little down time.

We did some shooting at a historic building in Downtown Akron.  There was a strange vibe from this place, and it seemed bad stuff went on with some cast and crew while we were there.

             Lila and Monica                                  I knocked Steve's tooth out.                                     Filming on the street

              Rough boys!                                  Bob, Mickey, and Steve as Crazy Jew                    Liza with Sweetie the dog. 

Bob Gray, the director, wrote, directed and starred in "Bigfoot".  Check out www.bigfootthefilm.com .  It was given the best review out of all the recent Bigfoot movies around.  Two and a half mugs of blood!  We got a preview of the flick.  Excellent!  It was so good, I want to be in the sequel, which Bob is writing now.  Well, at least I'll be in the zombie movie he'll be doing.  This movie stars Liza Foster as well.  A little heads up... in the bar scene, that is real booze, and you're seeing the seventh take.  Yup!

I had a tight schedule, because I had to leave Thursday, 10/20, to be back to play on Friday and Saturday.  My last day of shooting was the intro scene where we meet the two bums, Dirt Bag and Crazy Jew, and my big nude shower scene.  Yes, you read right.  Anyone who has the stomach for it can e-mail me at uncfstr@aol.com , and I'll give you some grim details and outtake information.  That in itself is scary enough to get two and a half mugs of blood!

Anyway, I left at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday eve, drove about 8 hours, got home, stayed a few hours and headed out again to New Jersey.  Can you say "hemorrhoids"?

See you in the movies.