DeadRooster.com

This is a follow-up to my last post in which I explained how my abnormally shabby visage was exposed to a national TV audience. I also hinted that I would be doing some additional work with a different and much larger production company based in Hollywood.


The first thing I learned was, in the movie business, everything remains a great big secret until the very second you need to know about it. They almost act as if you are a spy and if you knew any specific details you would immediately run off and report it. They are extremely paranoid. However, while driving up to our hotel and after several cell-phone conversations, we were able to put the pieces together enough to identify the blockbuster movie we would be working on, and for us, the news could not be better: we would be working on the new James Bond film. Of course, no one would confirm this.

We were able to make this determination based on these known variables:

1. We were to create a scene involving a Hot-Air-Balloon disaster.
2. The hero would drive up to save the occupants which were to be several beautiful nude women (including at least one well-known actress).
3. The hero would be driving a highly-secretive prototype car.
4. Although he claimed to know nothing about the current project, the aviation consultant we were working with admitted he had recently been involved with several scenes from the new James Bond film.

We were told under no circumstances were we allowed to bring any cameras or even cell-phones if they had a camera. There were three prototype cars on the set and any photographic evidence would be probable cause for lethal injection. These prototype cars, we concluded, must be the famous Aston Martin DBS that James Bond drives in nearly every picture.

After we checked into the hotel, we received instructions on what to do first thing in the morning. According to the “call sheet” we were to be the first to arrive on the set at 5:45 a.m. This early hour is not a problem for us since we usually get up pretty early when flying balloons and are used to it.

The next morning we were sent “on location” to a sparsely populated town several miles north of Los Angeles and onto a private ranch of many thousands of acres. Once inside the gates we traveled another 15 – 20 miles to the spot where the filming would take place. We met up with the set builders who helped us set-up the hot air balloon in a crash position. The basket was tilted at the top of a ravine with the envelope (the colorful fabric) draped over a guardrail and onto the asphalt road. We placed pieces of balloon fabric in the high branches of an old, dead tree. The scene looked extremely realistic for a balloon crash.

Unfortunately, when the director arrived, it was not at all what he wanted. He had us reposition the basket so it was sitting square in the road standing right-side-up and the envelope was laid out across the road away from the guardrail and up a fairly steep and rock infested hill. The pieces of fabric in the tree had to be removed as well. Not a problem, with all the help we had, everything was done in about twenty-minutes.

Soon, an unbelievable amount of people and equipment arrived. There were people taking our order for breakfast, people offering throat lozenges, Chapstick, sunscreen, water, coffee, just about anything you could think of. Semi trucks festooned with all types of camera equipment, fancy rolling restrooms, catering trucks, transport vans—one especially fancy truck was called “The Shotmaker” and had a trailer with a vehicle on it covered by lights and cameras and screens and drapes and curtains where you couldn’t even see the vehicle. I later learned that this vehicle is where they would shoot the interior scenes of the moving car while it was occupied by the actors.

We noticed the prototype cars arriving. They drove these around with a cover on them to hide their appearance—even on this closed set! Only the windows were visible. We also noticed that they weren’t really the right shape for an Aston Martin. Our hearts began to sink as we realized this may not be the new James Bond film after all.

Once we met the actors we knew, without doubt, it was not going to be the new James Bond movie. The nudists arrived (all were covered-up to the shoulders) and they were all grey-haired character actors—only two of which were women, and no “well-known actress” among them.

It turns out that we were shooting a commercial for the 2009 Honda Pilot. Naturally, we were disappointed, but as the day wore on and we saw how clever and funny the commercial was, we were still delighted to be a part of it.

I can’t tell you too much about it since I’ve been somewhat sworn to secrecy, but you will know for sure it is our commercial when you see it because of the details I’ve given you already. And, most importantly, when you do finally see the commercial and notice a bunch of aging nudists in a balloon basket, you will be able to point to it and say, “See that balloon basket? I know the guy hiding behind it with an inflation fan.”

Screenshot of USA Channel’s Character Fantasy which aired last Saturday, March, 22^nd featuring yours truly starting a new fashion trend for television stars: The Semi-Peeved Hot-Air-Balloon-Chasing Scumbag Look.


I sometimes work as ground crew for hot-air balloon companies. This means I set-up, inflate and chase hot air balloons in and around Temecula Wine Country in southern California. When they land, I pick up the passengers and pilot and drive them all back to the original launch site. I also have to pack up the 700+ lb balloon and load it back on the trailer. Although I get paid to do this, I mostly do it for the intense physical exercise.

So, three or four times a month I get a call to chase balloons. Last month (February), I awoke to a 5:00 a.m. phone call from Dominic at D & D Ballooning: “Hey, Bill, How’d you like to be on TV? I think it’s going to be on TBS this time.”

He thought it was “TBS,” but I’m guessing he misheard and it’s going to be on PBS (like last time I was supposed to be on TV) and it will probably be broadcast in an area we can’t even get on our local TV’s.

I look at the clock and consider turning it down and going back to sleep, “OK, let me wake up a minute and I’ll be there.”

“There’s no time for you to wake up, they want the balloon up and ready to film in an hour!”

I’m not too worried about skipping my shower, not shaving and looking like crap because, as I learned many times in the past, the film crew rarely films ground crew personnel; they are there to film the balloon, the passengers, and the pilot. Besides, no one watches PBS anyway.

I arrive at the launch site which, this time, happens to be Wilson Creek Winery in Temecula. I see Dominic and another pilot, Hunter, have already started to unload everything from the truck and unpack the balloon. “They want to film the inflation,” says Dominic. “So, let’s just get it hooked up and ready for when they get here.”

Dominic had just spoken to the producer on the phone and now has a few more details: It is not, as I suspected, TBS; however, it is not PBS either, it is for a show called Character Fantasy on The USA Channel and we are all DEFINITELY going to be on camera. I look at my reflection in the truck window and my hair is not too bad, but there’s a few pieces sticking up, so I quickly run to the restroom and run a wet comb through it. The sprigs of hair don’t want to stay down so I really get it wet and finally they—sort of—stay put.

By the time I get back the film crew is there and it’s time to start cold inflating the balloon. The way this is done is we fire-up a couple of high-powered fans, open up the mouth of the envelope (the big colorful fabric part of the balloon) and start moving air into it. So, there I am, holding open the fabric skirt with freshly wet hair standing in front of two high powered fans just before the cameras start to roll. And—lucky me—this is going to be nationally televised.

By the time Dominic starts adding fire from the burners to get the balloon to stand up my hair resembles a wild combination of Albert Einstein and Buckwheat from The Little Rascals. Lucky for me, the camera guy is laughing so hard he can’t hold the camera still enough to film my hideous form.

Somehow, I managed to escape any shots of me with the horrible hairdo but I wasn’t out of the clear yet; after the flight and after I sweat my balls-off recovering, packing and muscling the heavy balloon back on the truck, it was time to drive back to the winery to shoot the opening sequence. In other words, we are supposed to act like we just arrived to do the pre-flight instructional portion of the “balloon lesson” in which Tobie, the girl with the fantasy of being “a hot-air balloon conductor,” learns how to fly a hot-air balloon.

By now my hair is all sweaty from the physical labor and on camera it appears all greasy-looking. To the television viewer, since this is the opening sequence at the winery, it looks like this is the way I normally roll. They also got as many shots of me looking confused as possible. The reason I look confused is because during filming, they interviewed us in turn and the other two guys that went first had wonderfully prepared lines and I was going to look like an idiot. I was not confused, but amazed at their speeches. I was also realizing that the other guys have already revealed everything there was to know about hot-air ballooning and there was going to be nothing left for me to say. I’ll just look stupid. No problem.

Again, I lucked out. They cut all on-camera speaking lines from me and Hunter. Whew!

But right now, as I write this on Tuesday morning, I am getting ready to go to Hollywood for a movie shoot. The producers are keeping everything secret except to say that it involves a simulated balloon crash, several naked women and a nudist colony (God, I hope this isn’t a porno). I swear that is all I know. That, and they said one of the naked women is a “well-known actress that I can’t reveal because then I’d have to kill you.” What a cliché!

I am not supposed to be on camera, I’m only there to work on the set. But, just between you and me, I’m trimming my toenails for the nudist colony scene, just in case…

Stater Bros. Cocoa Comets Cereal: A sweet part of a nutritious breakfast, or mind altering hallucinogenic dream enhancer?


Men should never be allowed to go grocery shopping unattended. If we are, we will always come home with either A: several cartons labeled Beers of the World containing many obscure and unusual tasting beers from many lands; or B: at least one food product designed exclusively for child-type nervous systems, usually with colorful and exciting sugar-based packaging.

Yesterday I went shopping. Since my refrigerator was already full of a mysterious, life-form producing beer from Porcupine, Alabama, I decided to go with two boxes of Cocoa Comets cereal. I had never even heard of it before, but it was on sale for two bucks a box and the illustration on the front suggested an astronaut-oriented-chocolate-fantasy. I had to have it!

When I was a kid, it was easy to tell which breakfast cereals could potentially kill you; they always had the word “sugar” in the title: Sugar Crisp; Sugar Smacks; Sugar Pops; Sugar Frosted Flakes, etc. But, over the years, things changed: now you have to read the list of ingredients to figure it out, and let’s face it, I’m not going to do that unless I eat the product, begin hallucinating and need to find the emergency hotline number.

So, last night, just before bed, I decided to try some. Before I knew it half the box was gone and I was flying around the house like Superman. This stuff tasted better than anything I’ve eaten in 20-years! I loved it! Of course, it didn’t take long before I was experiencing a sleep comparable to a morphine-induced coma.

I’m not sure what they put in this stuff, but the dream I had was weird on a scale that is off the charts! It involved an oversized, steam-powered mechanical vehicle rolling at a snails pace down the street sucking up screaming, panicked pedestrians that should have been able to outrun it, but for some reason, could not escape.

Each person, after being captured, was instantly converted into a fully-articulated garden gnome featuring the classic pointy-red-hat and white beard. One by one they were shot from a large cannon-like smokestack which sent most of them into the trees and onto rooftops; others simply crashed to the ground where, uninjured, they scurried off to create mischief.

What was most disturbing to me though was that every person that was once terrified and running for their life was now happy, even gleeful to have been converted into an evil little garden gnome. Unfortunately, I woke up before I found out what type of diabolical plans they were to unleash.

To those of my readers that happen to work in the psychiatric community, please consider that this was most likely just a children’s cereal-induced episode before you decide to send the guys with the white coats and butterfly nets.