Written By
Ted Nicolaou
During the Making of Subspecies
September – December 1990
NOV 18 — Sun — Sleep til 11. Go down for coffee, feeling depressed and dehydrated. There’s no mineral water in the breakfast room. Keith and Michelle are finishing breakfast, getting ready to take a walk. I decline their invitation to join them. I have work to do, breaking down scenes for the coming week, going through the script to see what remains to be filmed, since there’s no official schedule to consult. I work for a couple of hours and come down for lunch to find the rest of the gang eating with Michelle and Keith, who still haven’t gotten it together to go for their walk. After lunch I continue working, while the others walk to the nearby park and ride the roller coaster, putting their faith in the rusty technology.
I request a phone call home, and it goes through much faster than I expected, so I wake Becky up and we talk for awhile, but since our son Alex is still sleeping, I have to call back later to talk to him. I work awhile, turn on the TV and find some awful Italian sci-fi movie dubbed into Romanian. I lie down awhile and watch it.
My second call home comes through, and Alex sings me the main title theme from GILLIGAN’S ISLE, which resonates more than he can ever know.
Vlad and Oana come to the hotel to talk, and then Carmen and Valentin, a production man from Buftea Studios, who seems more earnestly helpful than our regular production team. We discuss the coming week, with me stressing the importance of working full days, having everything ready to shoot, so we can wrap Michael’s scenes before he leaves a week from Tuesday. Valentin informs us that none of the sets have been dressed yet. And we’re scheduled to start shooting tomorrow afternoon. Vlad seems depressed and pessimistic about the prospects for the coming week.
It’s PASTA NIGHT. The one meal of the week everyone looks forward to. Valentin hand delivered the ingredients to the chef earlier in the day -- a one kilo package of pasta, and one small box of tomato sauce, which I don’t see how is going to feed 12 of us.
I order soup and salad just to be safe, and when the pasta is ladled onto our plates and the small gravy boat of sauce is passed around, I let everyone else serve themselves first, and end up with the last smattering of sauce. I add some butter to make it edible. Laura orders a plate of sausages to add to the pasta, and somehow the waiter understands she’s ordering sausage dinners for everyone. When the waiters bring the sausage dinners, we don’t accept them -- only four of us take the dinners. But when we get the bill, it’s 4673 lei for 12 people -- 400 lei each -- equal to about 11 dollars per person, which sounds cheap by American standards, but seems expensive here, especially since it includes food we didn’t order.
We call the waiter over to dispute the bill. He turns belligerent, insisting we ordered sausage dinners for everyone. He refuses to acknowledge that we sent back 8 of the dinners. He summons the head waiter, who’s even more antagonistic. Finally, our waiter snatches the bill out of my hand, saying we don’t have to pay. But we don’t accept the guilt trip. I chase him into the kitchen and try to give him the money we calculated that we owe, but he refuses it. I leave it on the counter, but he takes it out to the reception desk and leaves it there. We explain to the reception lady what happened. She’s no friendlier than the waiters, telling us to speak with the chief of the restaurant. We go back and find the chief and try to tell him what happened. He doesn’t speak English, so the head waiter translates for us. God knows what he’s saying. We make a list of everything we ate, and the chief finally returns to tell us we’ll settle it tomorrow.
By now it’s beginning to feel like everyone at Hotel Flora hates us. We decide to check out of this remote clinic and move to the Hotel Bucharest in the center of town. Carmen must think we’re all crazy assholes, but she remains calm, promises to talk to Ion, and she and Valentin will organize the move by Tuesday.
We buy a few more bottles of wine and go outside to talk. Lurking in the lobby here doesn’t seem like a wise option, so we go up to the mezzanine rec room. Laura is drunk and wild. She starts wrestling with me and we go spinning around the room. The hotel detective and a policeman burst in to tell us to be quiet. We retreat upstairs to Michael and Brenna’s room. I intended to go to bed early, but they insist that I stay and hang with them. Laura is out of control, like a hippie on a bad acid trip on the retro cop show DRAGNET, pacing the balcony, flopping on the bed, calling Ion on the phone to make wild demands.
By midnight, I’ve had enough punishment for one day. I have to meet Assistant Direcctor Relu and my assistant Carmen at 11:30 in the morning to go to Buftea Studios to meet with Vlad and Art Director Lucian at noon. I head to my room, add this day to my journal, and crawl in bed.
NOV 19 — Mon — Woke up from a bad sleep. Crazy mixed-up stress dreams and rumpled sheets. Got out of bed and found this note under my door:
DEAR TED,
I KNOW YOU’RE IN DIRE STRAIGHTS, BUT I’VE BEEN FIGHTING WITH MY PRINCIPLES ALL NIGHT AND I’D RATHER FIGHT WITH YOU THAN THEM. PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT I’M NOT WORKING UNTIL I GET WHAT’S OWED TO ME IN MY CONTRACT -- NAMELY, (DOLLARS) CASH PER DIEM WHICH COMES OUT TO FROM LAST THURS. TO MONDAY (TODAY), A TOTAL OF $75.00. IF THE CASH IS NOT FORTHCOMING, PLEASE DO NOT WAKE ME UP TO DISCUSS LOYALTIES BECAUSE MY MAIN LOYALTY IS TO MY CONSCIENCE. TED, PLEASE KNOW THAT THROUGH ALL THIS STRIFE I’VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU AND THINK YOU HAVE A SEXY SMILE. KEEP GOOD CHEER. GILLIGAN’S ISLAND IS ONLY A PLANE RIDE AWAY.
MICHAEL R. WATSON
I call Ion and tell him the news. He swears he has no money to pay for anything. We were expecting Steadicam operator Tani Canevari to arrive from Italy last night with cash from the States, but Tani wasn’t on the plane. I understand everyone’s concerns over money, and fully support their right to expect timely payment. But the sums here are so minor, and the stakes for the film so huge. Am I going to have to pay out of my own pocket to keep the production afloat? If we miss shooting with Michael today, it jeopardizes the whole film. Every hour counts now with him leaving on the 28th.
STILL MORE TO COME. . .
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Ted Nicolaou
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