Whatever You Want

About the same time, McCoy was shooting his own BMW car commercial.  So I got a call from Hana one Sunday night, after spending all afternoon making a large pot of seafood gumbo.  She was on set down in the Port of Long Beach, and they wanted a piece of gear from the office, and wanted me to get it for them.  Supposedly they needed it immediately, and it would take them too long to send someone up for it and back.  Based on what gear they were asking for, I knew it was not mission critical, so I declined, and sat back down in front of my soup.  I got called back a few minutes later, from McCoy’s wife, saying that he really wanted it, and I was their only option.  McCoy had said to “give him whatever he wants” in return for my assistance.  She assured me that she would make sure he followed through.

So I hurriedly polished off the bowl of soup in front of me, but the pot on low, and headed to the office.  It took me a few minutes to find the device that they wanted, and I headed down to Long Beach with it.  It took me a little while to find them in the shipping yards, since I had never actually been in the port complex before.  When I arrived, I was not amused to find ten people sitting outside the production truck, just waiting around.  I was told the main team was out driving around shooting, and the support crew was just waiting until they came back to reload.  Clearly the sense of urgency they felt earlier had been lost.  They had tons of people they were paying to be there, just standing around, who could have easily made the half hour drive to the office.

I stuck around to see how long it would be before the crew came back to pickup the gear I had brought, but gave up after a half hour, and headed home.  I was not happy to have had my evening wasted for no good reason.  On the drive back, I pondered what exactly I should ask for, should they be ready to follow through on that promise.  I didn’t necessarily want to ask for something expensive, that is not my style.  I preferred something unique, that I would be unable to get anywhere else.

Finally the perfect thing occurred to me.  They were getting started on the planning for the Navy Seal movie, and one of the first shoots planned was on a Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine.  Rarely are civilians ever let on to one of those, and due to the cramped conditions, we were only going to be able to take a small crew.  But that would be a uniquely Bandito experience that I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.

I was a bit surprised that anyone even remembered that promise the next morning, but it was the talk of the office on Monday.  The crew had known when I left the set that I wasn’t happy that my “important mission” had been totally unnecessary.  So at lunch time everyone wanted to know what I was going to ask for.  When McCoy showed up, Hana brought up the issue, to make sure he was going to follow through.  He acknowledged the promise, and asked what I wanted.  I told him: “you guys set me up with a ride on a nuclear submarine, and we will call it square.”  “Alright, I will talk to the line producer, and see what we can do.”