Monday I went to the Boston Premeire of the Ben Affleck Directed "Gone Baby Gone". I had worked three days on it in the summer 2006. It was a very good movie, I really enjoyed seeing the non-postcard neighborhoods of Boston. Perhaps it doesn't do much for tourism but it's just a part of the city you don't see at all in films.
Alex' wife and my friend Jessica went to the screening. Lots of news trucks and general chaos. We did see the top of Matt Damon's head as he was coming in through the press. Before the film started Ben spoke briefly and thanked a long list of people.
I worked one day on the first unit as a 2nd asst. camera at a bar called Murphy's Law in South Boston. I was filling in for a friend of mine who had to leave town that day.
If I remember correctly call time was 9am. I had handicapped it thinking I'd be there for 12-13 hours, pretty typical working day. The night before I had a very difficult time sleeping and probably only had 2 hours when I got up in the morning. It was June 16, two days before my birthday.
I still had a lot of time before I had to be at work so I walked down Brighton Avenue in search of coffee. The heat was really oppressive and the sun was blinding as I was walking east.
At some point, I begin to feel "that way" which becomes a very powerful simple-partial. When I have had a simple partial that becomes a grand-mal there's such weight and acceleration to the simple that I know it's going to be trouble.
The dejas-vu/jamais-vu feeling continues until my next conscious memory is walking really fast and I begin to ask myself where I am going and why am I going there.
I feel completely exhausted. I look at my hands. My palms are scraped-up and bloody. My face hurts I touch it and look at my fingertip; blood.
I quickly walk back to my apartment. There's a mirror facing the doorway of my apartment; I get a good look at the bloody mess coming into the apartment.
I'm out of post-ictal by now. I remember my job starting in less than in an hour in Southie. I shower and prepare and drank a quart of gatorade. Every part of me ached and felt that I was carrying one-hundred pounds on my shoulders. I drive to Southie and go into the set inside the bar. The first friendly local face is the rigging grip named Dave. He's standing near the door of the bar and says, "are you going to have a seizure?".
Let me say that I consider this guy a friend and he's the kind of guy who loves to get under your skin with personal crap. Ordinarily I would have laughed but that morning I wanted to slug him.
The first six-hours of the day was a fight scene and gunplay in the bar. This is really where I felt my worse and kept asking myself, "what are you doing here?". The 2nd half of the day I began to feel like myself.
So the other night when I saw this scene in the movie, it kind of made me sad to in some part, re-view the scene and re-live that day. It did remove myself from the viewing experience just a little.
I was still on Tegretol then and I told no-one until 2007. I was very into blaming myself for not being in control.