Well, sort of.
Living in Hollywood, USA can be interesting. A couple of years ago, just around this same time in August, a film (“Powder Blue”) was being filmed up the block and one afternoon I shook hands with Kris Kristofferson just a few yards from my front door. Let me tell you that for a rock/country music fan like me, that was quite a thrill.
Later the same day, I watched Forrest Whitaker dressed in a Santa suit sitting and sweating (in 100 degree temperature as it turned out to be the hottest day of the year) on a bench at a bus stop on Hollywood Blvd. Filming a scene for the same movie which never made the final cut.
Yesterday down the street, they were shooting the pilot for a new HBO series, “All Signs of Death”, based on Charlie Huston’s 2009 great pulp fiction/neo-noir crime novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. It’s about a twenty-something slacker who “stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner.” He stumbles into a mystery too, of course.
Now, this is obviously the vehicle they’re going to use in the series, parked around the corner from the filming, under a nice shady tree:
Notice there’s no phone number displayed. Who you gonna call? Somebody else, because these folks are fictional.
Actually, “crime scene cleaning” is big business these days. You can earn a six figure income in this profession. I wanted to know how one became a crime scene cleaner-upper. I went to a website run by Amdecon. They offer training and certification in just ten days! First step? Purchase the Amdecon training DVD program for $295.00.
Another company, Crime Scene Steri-Clean, LLC of California, like the fictional Clean Team, offers both commercial and residential services, and not only will they mop up all the blood from your crime scene, but if you have a need, they help with rodent removal, too. What’s more, Crime Scene Steri-Clean will also clean your car, no trauma required.
Here’s another view of the Clean Team vehicle. I didn’t check to see if the license plate is real. I have yet to see any vehicles like this on the block, but we haven’t had any murders, lately. A few rats, though.
I hope they don’t run huge vacuum hoses from these vans into the houses or apartments they service like those carpet-cleaning guys do. I hate that. What a racket. By the way, while I’m thinking about it, let me say, and I realize this is not really Buddhistic of me, that I am of the opinion that anyone who uses a gas-powered leaf blower should be shot on sight. No questions asked. Electric leaf-blowers, too. Besides, in Los Angeles it is against the law to operate those things within 50 feet of a residential building. A law that not a single leaf-blowing person has ever obeyed.
Anyway, back to “All Signs of Death”: I looked up the cast in case someone cool is going to be in it. I didn’t recognize any of the names. I guess I haven’t seen any of the television programs they’ve done. This guy here in the brown shirt is one of the actors. He might be somebody well-known. I don’t have a clue.
This next picture is how it looked from across the street. Elise’s has been in that location for fifty years. The tattoo parlor is a more recent addition.
In 1983, directly across the street here, the legendary director Ken Russell directed legendary actor Anthony Perkins in scenes for “Crimes of Passion” a much underrated and almost forgotten film that also starred Kathleen Turner. They put up a row of false storefronts, including a bar which they kept in place during the several days they were shooting scenes. After the first night, they had to post signs that the bar was not real. People kept trying to go in.
Well, another exciting day here in Tinseltown, and for this blog, a day’s respite from heavy stuff. At least in terms of this new HBO series, you can you saw it here first. Who knows, it might be the next “Dexter.”
