You ever drive through the "bad" part of town, and think to yourself, "Man, I am happy I don't live here."
Yeah...that's what all of Shreveport is like. It's a city that's all bad part of town. Actually, I don't think it's fair to call it the bad part of town. It's more like the old, run down part of town that used to be nice, but everyone left for the suburbs a decade ago.
If it were 1978, I would be really excited about my rental house. In 2008, it's a bit dated...well actually, I am still kinda excited about it because it has a huge front and backyard and has four bedrooms, and you know--I'm making a movie here. I think I could sleep in a tool shed and still be pretty excited.
To be honest, I am kinda scared of the house. Not because of anything in the house. It's a normal four bedroom house, furnishings are a bit second tier, but whatever, it's not like I'm fancy.
What I am scared about are how excited Jeff and Nils are about the house. Sitting here in the living room right now Jeff is already planning how to build a water slide that goes from the roof into the above ground pool. He's drawing up schematics as speak. And Nils is trying to figure out how to work a slip-n-slide into that equation. Which won't be a problem, because it is at least 100 yards from the front curb to the end of the backyard.
That's only the beginning. Since we got here, a few hours ago, we have already had Murph crash into the front glass door (she has never seen one of those and tried to go right through it to get outside), broke a window open on the second floor so we could get onto a porch that didn't have door access, pulled off a bunch of broken window shades and tossed them into the yard, and hit all the wax fruit on the dining room table onto roofs of various neighborhood houses with an axe handle.
Speaking of axe handles--the first game we played was a new game we invented called Axe-Ball. We found an old axe in the closet, Jeff took the metal head off, and we hit tennis balls with it. You score points by hitting the passing cars with the tennis balls, hitting the houses across the street, or, of course, breaking a window. Any window. I ended the game quickly when I pulled both tennis balls into a fenced yard with a Mastiff in it. I think that made me the winner, but not everyone agreed. The rules are still developing.
Another game we came up with that we'll play when we're out drinking: Cajun Bingeaux. We are going to write up a tic-tac-toe square, and in each square will be something like, "Hear someone describe the Civil War as 'The War of Northern Aggression." Or get someone to say, in an angry voice, that "Huey Long wasn't corrupt, he was framed by conspirators!" And of course, center square is any reference to the Shreveport/Bossier City rivalry. When you have bingeaux, you have to kiss a girl missing some teeth. And tongue the hole.
Nils and Jeff have their own place that is nice and normal, but they have both decided to commandeer rooms in the party house. This means that my two assistants, Greg and Benson, have only one room left between them. We've decided that every night we'll come up with some contest for them to see who gets the bedroom that night. It can be something as simple as a Mario Kart cup race, maybe an MMA fight, perhaps a long-division speed race. I think we'll film these and have a running series of them, like Spy vs. Spy. Assistant vs. Assistant! Winner gets the bed, loser get the shed!
The gun stores are awesome. You know how long the waiting period is for an assault rifle? You have to wait until they take it off the wall and hand it to you. YES!
Oh and get this: They only asked for a $900 deposit on the house! I think we have already caused $500 worth of damage, and we haven't even picked up the kegerator, above ground pool, beer pong table, or lawn darts.
And by the way: We're here to shoot a movie. But I'll worry about that on Monday. As of right now, we have a house to destroy.
EDIT: I just got back from a night out, and I like this place. It's still a run-down shit hole, but I like it. Good looking girls, fun people, lots of drinkers--my kind of town. This is going to be a great three months.
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