The Common One: On Set! Mysteries at the Museum! Season 9 Episode 909 Day 2

Last Monday I was back on set for the TV show Mysteries at the Museum as George "Machine Gun" Kelly.

The blog post for the first shooting day can be seen here:

http://thecommonone-jtw.blogspot.com/2015/11/on-set-mysteries-at-museum.html

The producers wanted to reshoot some of the scenes we did in November, more specifically the kidnapping scene.

My alarm was set for 5am, so I could be up and catch the 7am shuttle van that would take us to the location, a horse farm in Suffern, NY. Accordingly, I tried to plan out my Monday the night before, making sure I had enough food, books and clothes to stay fed, occupied and warm. Last time we shot, there was no leaving the horse farm and no place to go.

After a night of never quite falling asleep I woke up at 4.55am and rolled over to turn off my phone alarm. Before I put on my glasses I could see two alert headlines on the home page of my phone, both saying that David Bowie had passed away at the age of 69.

I pulled myself out of bed, headed to the bathroom and proceeded to get ready for a long day, not exactly tired or exhausted, more a feeling of emptiness.

Monday morning before the sun rises, the city is probably its most quiet and sedate. I walked from my apartment across the empty streets of the village to the transport van location, lost in my thoughts and music from my iphone. Fittingly, two obscure Bowie songs randomly played from my music library.

In the van to the location, I sat by myself, never taking out the earbuds and not really wanting to interact. But then again, at that time in the morning, no one else in the van seemed to want contact, either.

We arrived in Suffern as the crew was unloading their supply trucks. and filtered into the common area, a a large party room for receptions. Nothing had changed since November when I was last there, except maybe a drop of about twenty degrees in temperature.

I scanned the room to try to find a corner where I could be left relatively alone. However, in the large open barn, with relatively little seating space, there wasn't really anyplace to go. Plus, most of the shots for the various stories were going to be done inside the common area. A game of musical chairs developed where cast and crew who were not in one shot would cram into one corner, then for a different shot the camera was turned around and the mass of people shuffled into another corner.

One of the great things about working for Mysteries at the Museum is that since it's such a tight production, every actor is used multiple times during the course of the day. My reshoots as "Machine Gun" Kelly weren't scheduled until the end of the shooting day. However waiting around for hours for my scene wasn't going to be an option. For the morning and early afternoon shots, I was asked to play the role of a 19th century investigator.

The segment was about a candy maker who was poisoning kids using arsenic. Unusual for a reenactment show, the story followed a crime procedural where the detectives hunted down the killer through investigating the town's candy seller and pharmacist until eventually narrowing down the culprit to the candy maker. Of course, some of my scenes were some of the only ones to be shot outside. Luckily, I was prepared with extra layers of clothing and steeled by large amounts of coffee.

Since this was my second time with Mysteries at the Museum, I recognized many of the same crew members, camera operators and directors. I enjoyed watching the crew create the illusion of multiple settings over many eras. Being on set was a great lesson in low-budget production.

As the crew was setting up the first interiors shots in the morning, I tried to warm up by sitting next to a window that was letting in some sunlight. I put my headphones on, and opened up the book I was reading, M Train by Patti Smith.

Most of the book is a collection of random memories, seemingly without much cohesion, references to her habits of writing and coffee, experiences living in the city, traveling and passing comments about family. Towards the end of the book, Smith refers to learning to live with the early death of her husband, Fred Smith. In her own way, Patti Smith reveals that the book isn't so much a linear story as much as a meditation on learning to love, rebuild, and appreciate the memories that create who we are in the face of great change and loss. M Train is a sharing of Patti Smith's both past and present and how equally alive both can seem. Despite being highly personal, the book becomes a public sharing of her grief process.

Over the past year, I lost some people that were substantial to my life. In coping with the sorrow, my thoughts have run to random memories just tangentially connected to what I'm doing. The perfect recall of a long story, or faded glimpses of memories that are not quite fully formed, but important nonetheless. Visits to my waking conscious, or my sleep, unexpected invasions in random places that force a recall, or even just when I sit down to watch TV and my eyes scan along the wall recalling a different time and place. While grieving our own brains feed us stories, without much care for linear narrative or the need of continuity to justify the triggers. Maybe the mundaneness of breakfast or hearing a song again for the thousandth time, and the memories flood the present.

Growing up, I knew of Patti Smith or at least the myth of her. She graduated from a neighboring high school in Southern New Jersey and was always the example of someone who was able to get out and be a somebody, an artist, poet, musician in New York City. I knew her hit "Because the Night" that she co-wrote with Springsteen, and that she was apart of the downtown NYC arts scene of the seventies. Being too young, I didn't know exactly what CBGB's was, but I was very familiar with the bands and musicians that came from that era, that sound, that attitude.

My dreams as a child of what I wanted New York City to be were heavily influenced by the exploding arts and music scene of the late seventies and early eighties. Among the artists and musicians I admired, Patti's name and work come up time after time as an influence. I didn't really listen to her seminal album Horses until I was in college and then didn't own a copy until I was living in Brooklyn, right out of college. Once I owned a copy, I listened to the album repeatedly, trying not only to unlock the secrets that others, such as Bono or Michael Stipe, had found but also to try to connect to the New York that I wanted. In the process, I became a considerable fan. Bare bones and direct, Smith's music and writing was highly personal with a very Southern New Jersey attitude of take it or leave it. The work was not for everyone with no apologies.

New York City's only constant has been change. I was surprised when I first arrived in NYC after college, how little the arts scene resembled the dreams I had as a kid. The New York City I watched as an outsider no longer existed. As always, the city became something else. Yet, many of the people that I thought made this place great and unique, still had substantial roots here. As the years passed, I was able to cross paths with many of those people, older, changed, different than my memory would allow, and my interactions with them brief and cordial, were always reminders of how extraordinary New York was as a place to live. As time passed, many of those people that I loved, admired, respected, would cease to live.

So, I sat in the freezing cold barn, waiting for my turn to go to wardrobe and reading through Patti Smith's book. Turning the pages with frigid fingers, Smith's reflections on death, time, place and change lead me to recall my own recent musings on life changes, and on the impossible reality that David Bowie had died.

As a guiding light in this city, none was brighter than David Bowie, and yet none was more ethereal. I knew where his apartment was, his neighborhood, the bars and some of the restaurants he frequented, but in all of the jobs and possibilities, our paths never crossed. However, knowing that Bowie still blended into the fabric of New York City was comforting.

I can't think of a time in my life when I didn't know who Bowie was. From classic rock, to the beginning of MTV, Bowie seemed to be the rare star that was both classic and completely modern. Bowie's videos were on MTV, he was in movies, at Live-Aide, and his classic albums from the 70s played on my best friend's father's turntable as my friend and I read comic books.

In college, Bowie's presence only seemed to grow. Thanks to being on the Columbia House "12 for 1" CD giveaway service, the Greatest Hits/Changes/Bowie Cd appeared in many collections. Several artists in Generation X, including Radiohead, Nirvana, and even rappers like Q-Tip, were quick to point out their respect and admiration for Bowie. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails went on a successful tour with Bowie. Bowie's influence even extended to independent comic books. My favorite comic book in college, Mike Allred's Madman, borrowed heavily from Bowie's Ziggy Stardust Imagery.

My acting teacher in college frequently cited David Bowie's performance sensibilities as well as his voracious curiosity and fearlessness to change as hallmarks of not only great acting, but as an example of approaching life as an artist.

After moving to the city I used Bowie as a template to physically shed my conservative education in finance, to become something else. I experimented with changing my hairstyles and color and fashion a few times before realizing that not only was I heading the wrong direction, but there was only one Thin White Duke.

Yet, throughout my time living here, I constantly kept my eyes open for where Bowie might next creatively go. My fashion and hairstyles never wandered too far from the trends he was setting.

For a certain generation, Bowie was as big and important as Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or even Michael Jackson. With the speed of access to information and social media, celebrity news can seem like filler. Bowie was a mega-star and his death deserved the top headlines. Yet, Bowie's death felt like losing a close friend. Seeing the tributes and outcrying of sadness since his death, many people felt the same.

As I sat with Patti Smith's book, thinking of Bowie, I realized that despite being a super-star, Bowie's art, his music was very personal. For all of his success, Bowie always tried to pursue the authentic, and when the direction no longer felt real, he stopped and he changed. Easily, Bowie could have played as Ziggy Stardust with the Spiders for years and probably still would have been a highly successful rock band. However, as the fame and fortune was increasing, Bowie halted the act and changed his direction. After Bowie's immense success on MTV in the mid-eighties, the fame and the fortune began to feel hollow and he went a different direction, yet again. Maybe the changes gained and lost fans, afterall the business of music has been known to be fickle. Yet, the fans that remained loyal to Bowie and his different iterations, were able to develop a very a possessive reaction to the work and therefore to the man. Similar to Patti Smith, Bowie's music was highly personal and I like to believe that the Brit was possibly tinged with a Southern New Jersey attitude of take it or leave it.

After a couple of morning hours reading in the cold, I was asked to go to wardrobe and get ready for my scenes as an investigator. My mind filled with thoughts memories of other days and other places, I tried to shake off my morning cobwebs and refocus on the long day of work ahead of me.

I'll post multiple alerts, once I know when the episodes air.