Something in the Graveyard Part 3! (Finally)

Friday, June 12

The video director, Mark Easter, asked us to be at the Virginia City Graveyard at 9 in the morning. I dressed for the occasion–a tank top with a ’50’s style zombie exterminator ad on it, cargo shorts with tons of pockets, and my redneck cap with the skull and crossbones on it. I brought a tube of sunblock, some fruit I nabbed from the hotel, and six bottles of water. I was READ-AY!

The gatekeeper opened up for us and let the production vehicles drive in. Still, we had to carry stuff about 100 yards to the main video site. I carried tons of equipment along with the guys–at that point, I was the only chick there. Everybody was impressed with my ferocity (and my GUNS, baybuh).

We set up at an impressive gravesite at the top of a hill. There was much debate as to whether the musicians could step on the grave itself or not. Being a perpetual bad influence, I insisted that the poor bastard had been dead for over 100 years and didn’t give a damn. I won.

The band had two lead guitars (EJ and V.C. Graves), a bass guitarist, a drummer, and a guy playing a Farfisa organ. (That thing weighed about 80 pounds. EJ and John were NOT happy about carrying uphill to the video site, but they managed.)

There were three cameras. Mark the director had the central stationary camera, and then there were two guys with handheld cameras. Mark appointed me the Official Playback Wench. It was my job to play the song, over and over and over again, as the band played unplugged instruments and sang (even though their voices wouldn’t end up on the final video–the studio version of the song will). I had to take down notes and mark the time for every part of the song–first verse, chorus, second verse, bridge, and so on.

While the camera dudes were setting up, I chatted with Tom Gordon, the sweet young man who was playing our head zombie. (Yes, he DID get 12 copies of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for his birthday.) Tom is 6′ 8" tall. They wanted a zombie who could tower over EJ, and EJ is 6′ 2". Tom is a great guy, and we talked horror films and books for awhile. Then everything was ready, everyone was in position, and we were ready to go. Mark hollered for the cameras to roll, and then pointed at me and yelled PLAYBACK! I bravely hit the button. Music blasted out of the boombox as loud as it would get, which was surprisingly quiet in the vast graveyard. Mark yelled CUT and repositioned the boom box behind a tombstone and right next to Chuck, the drummer. The only problem was that I would be in shot if I stayed where I was. So Mark told me to just "hit the button and run." Well, okay then! I hit the button and sprinted out of the shot, leaping nimbly over tumbleweeds and scrubby brush. The band "played" all the way through the song, and they were looking FINE. Mark yelled CUT, and then it was time to do it again. And again. And again.

I slathered on the sunblock several times during the day, but we shot outside for more than seven hours. I fried like an egg. My skin ended up the color of a boiled lobster. (So did poor Tom Gordon’s nose.) Mark shot the band from every possible angle, over and over again. Toward the end of the day, Tom suited up in his zombie gear and lurched through the graveyard a few times, creeping up on EJ. It was fairly awesome.

I had a great time talking with the musicians and crew. They were all wonderful, and they dug the fact that I have an encyclopedic knowlege of obscure gothabilly.  I was thrilled to death to learn that the organist was a former member of the Cult of the Psychic Fetus, one of my all-time favorite psychobilly bands!

It got hot that day, by Virginia City standards anyway. It was about 85 degrees. I was fine in my tank top and shorts, but poor EJ was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, black slacks, a long black coat, and a leather cowboy hat. He was slowly roasting inside his clothes. Tom was boiling too, in his rubber zombie mask and gloves. By the time we finished shooting for the day at about 4:30 PM, everybody was exhausted and filthy. I looked like a teacake covered with dirt. I’d sweat, then run out of shot kicking up dust, which stuck to my damp skin. It was NOT pretty.

We all pitched in to lug the equipment back to the cars. But the day was far from over. We were scheduled to shoot inside a bar called the Washoe Club at 7PM.

I scooted off to the hotel for  a fast shower. The amount of mud runniing down the drain was truly horrifying. But I got all purdy and girlie. Mark had mentioned that they needed people for the crowd in the bar, so I put on a slinky black dress, cowboy boots, and (gasp) makeup. I was looking pretty damn cute, if you ask me. I went back to town, wolfed down a slice of pizza and a beer at the Red Dog Saloon (nobody got any lunch during the shoot) and headed over to the Washoe Club.

There were already quite a few goth vampire cowchicks hanging around. These were adorable young hotties wearing goth/western duds. There were also plenty of zombies. No "normal" crowd. Mark hollered "We need more zombies!" The next thing I knew, I was getting rags draped over my pretty black dress, bony-moldy body paint sprayed on my limbs, and putting on the fugliest zombie mask I’d ever seen. The makeup guy liked my tattoos, and left my arms bare. My mask had only one eye. They sprayed black makeup around the eye that would be peeking through the eyehole, so no one would get a glimpse of my fishbelly white flesh. I ended up looking like the dog Spot from the old Our Gang TV show.

EJ’s wife was there, along with John’s wife and Chuck’s girlfriend. Our awesome gurl still photographer very kindly took over playback duty for me so I could be in the zombie shots. Basically, the band was just going to play the song like they were playing a regular club, but the crowd consisted of vampire hotties and gruesome zombies. The best part? We were supposed to dance!

A few zombies just danced like regular people wearing zombie suits. What fun is that? I did a creepy, jerky, stiff zombie dance like my rigor mortis hadn’t quite worn off. Everyone was duly impressed and horrified. At one point, I started an all-zombie mosh pit. Yeeeeehaw! In the last couple of run-throughs, Mark had all of us zombies and goth chicks reach for EJ, like we either adored him or wanted him for lunch. The effect with all the hands was REALLY cool.

During the course of the evening, we saw more Virginia City town dogs. A big white one visited us for awhile, and an adorable black-and-white pitbull baby hotlapped the bar a few times. He seemed totally unruffled by the loud noise and the zombies. PUPPY!!! I had to take off my zombie mask and rub my cheek on his furry little head.

We finally wrapped for the day. The poor band was exhausted. EJ’s feet were killing him from being in cowboy boots all day. We all chatted in the bar for a few, then staggered off to our various beds.

I stripped off my sweat-soaked dress and turned the shower on, but made the water very cool. I could feel the heat coming off the skin of my back and shoulders. I had the worst burn I’d had in years. I washed my face and hair, then tried to wash the body paint off of my arms and legs with just soap and water. No dice. I tried a washcloth. OOOOOOWWWWW!!! Let me tell you, scrubbing waterproof body paint off of badly sunburned skin SUCKS CANE TOADS.

I turned off the shower and ran a cool bath, then spent the next 40 minutes gingerly scrubbing the nasty, sticky paint from my blazing skin. COVERED WITH SUCK! I kept hoping that my heartfelt swearing would summon Rosie the ghost to come sympathize with me, but yet again, she was a no-show.

Finally, I was clean. I got out of the gigantic tub, put on a big, loose t-shirt, and tucked myself into bed. Even the soft linens hurt my skin. Whine. Tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep.

I put on some jeans and went down to the bar. After a few drinks, my sunburn miraculously stopped hurting! I (kinda staggered) back to my room, fell into bed, and crashed like a ton of bricks. Rosie could have appeared and tap-danced on my ass and it wouldn’t have made me wake up.

Despite the sweat, the dirt, the sunburn, the tumbleweed-leaping, and the lack of food, it was an incredible day. I can’t remember when I last had so much fun. I was really  happy to be a part of the production.

Thrilling photos from the shoot!

in the next exciting episode, the video shoot wraps up, and Lorelei skips the state and tries to waste a tank of gas!