Craft Service

(Image courtesy of Crew Stories)

I stood at the craft service table contemplating the selection of donuts arrayed before me, feeling like a horny “john” eyeing the lineup of baby-dolled hookers in one of those pay-for-play pleasure palaces that have made Nevada a destination for male tourists from all over the world.

“How may we fulfill your desires, sir?” cooed the Donut Madam in my head. “We have glazed, chocolate, jelly, powdered sugar, candy-sprinkled, or plain.”

Decisions, decisions … which of these high-fructose, trans-fat-laden, artery-clogging heart attack bombs did I desire?

“Desire” is too strong a word, really. After all, they were just donuts, not a bevy of scantily-clad young beauties ready to fulfill my every carnal fantasy in exchange for a fistful of cash – or credit, so I’m told – and having downed a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns from the breakfast spread barely an hour before, I wasn’t the least bit hungry. Still, that didn’t stop me from taking a long look before I chose a lovely glazed donut. Calories and cholesterol be damned.

Making movies and television is a tedious endeavor. The cameras can’t roll until everything is exactly right, so each department works hard and fast to get their ducks all lined up, then steps back as another department takes its turn in the barrel. This is a time-consuming process, and given the watchful-waiting nature of the job, the temptation to graze at the craft service table – hungry or not – is powerful. Truth be told, we stuff our faces more out of boredom than hunger, which is one reason a few veteran crew members resemble Fatty Arbuckle more than Brad Pitt.

Civilians get excited at the prospect of visiting a film set, but are usually disappointed at what they find: rather than witness a thrilling car chase, gun battle, or massive explosion, they see a group of people wearing tool belts working with odd, unfamiliar equipment. When the camera finally rolls, the result is anticlimactic — a line or two of dialog followed by several re-takes, then the cycle begins again. It’s a slow, painstaking process that holds all the drama of watching paint dry.

Still, one thing never fails to amaze and enthrall visitors: the cornucopia of comestibles arrayed on the craft service table. The offerings vary in quantity and quality from job to job, but even in its most elemental low-budget form, craft service represents free food, the most basic and irresistible of perks. A variety of snacks are provided for those working on set – some healthy, most not – along with coffee, soft drinks, and water. Meal breaks are required every six hours, but the craft service table takes up the slack in the meantime.

Like so many things in life, this is a double-edged sword. One of my three struggles with dependency over the years came in the form of an uphill battle against “Nutter Butters,” a devilishly mouthwatering blend of peanut butter and edible industrial polymers formulated to tantalize my taste buds while neutralizing my dietary defenses. What Kryptonite was to Superman, Nutter Butters were to me. Back in my fat and happy years working on television commercials, the craft service tables were well stocked with these deadly cookies, which I inhaled at a pace that would put Jabba the Hut to shame, and eventually I came to resemble the Hut himself. While back on the Home Planet over the Christmas holidays that year, my mother appraised me with a critical eye, then gently poked a finger into the flabby spare tire around my waist.

“My, you’re getting portly, aren’t you?” she said.

It wasn’t a question.

Portly … the word pierced my heart like Ahab’s harpoon. “Portly” was for middle-aged insurance salesmen with their placid, cud-chewing wives, three wailing kids, and a four-bedroom house in the suburbs. “Portly” was the working stiff who plunks down in front of the TV with a six-pack and a fistful of Slim Jims after another suffocating day down at the plant. “Portly” was the pear-shaped presence of Robert Morley in “The African Queen,” Sidney Greenstreet in “The Maltese Falcon,” Orson Welles in “Touch of Evil,” and Alfred Hitchcock surreptitiously eyeing another blond starlet on set.

I’d been skinny as a rail all my life: six feet tall and barely a hundred and fifty pounds according to my 1980 driver’s license. Sure, that was ten years out of date, but no way could I be considered “portly” — until an unflinching look in the mirror confirmed my mother’s diagnosis, and that if anything, she’d been diplomatically polite. I stepped on the scale and watched all those Nutter Butters peg the needle at a hundred and ninety pounds. In the bleak glare of the bathroom light, my pale, doughy body resembled Melville’s Great White Whale itself. That was all I needed to see — the shock of that moment imbued me with the strength to resist the seductive petrochemical delights of Nutter Butters from then on.

Not that it was easy. Swearing off Nutter Butters proved almost as hard as quitting cigarettes ten years before, but it paid off as fifteen pounds melted away over the next year. “Rail-thin” might remain forever in the time capsule of 1980, but at least I was no longer “portly.”

The free-lance life below the line is one of a hunter-gatherer, riding the roller coaster of Hollywood’s feast or famine existence. Driven by the knowledge that the current job won’t last forever, we grab what we can while we can, and — along with the usual swarm of extras — raid the craft service table like sharks gorging on the bloated carcass of a dead whale. If you serve it, we will come, because God only knows when the next job/paycheck/free meal will happen.

The spread at craft service depends a show’s budget. While working on a hit like Will & Grace, those treats were very good indeed, and they just kept coming. Lower budget shows offered less enticing treats, and when it’s the same stale bagels, BBQ chips, and diet sodas day after day, ignoring the craft service table is a lot easier.

I can’t recall the absolute worst craft service table I ever came across — and there have been some bad ones — but the worst lunch is burned into my memory. Our first day of filming a low-budget non-union feature titled “Full Moon High” took place at a high school in the San Fernando Valley. We broke at the mandated six-hour mark to find “lunch” waiting atop a folding table: a jar of mayonnaise, a squeeze bottle of mustard, two loaves of Wonder Bread, and a few packages of supermarket cold cuts. The paper plates and napkins were already blowing away in the hot wind.

This would have been a weak offering on the craft service table of a micro-budget feature, but for lunch? No. Fucking. Way.

The Screaming Cameraman was not amused, and immediately launched an intense high-decibel assault in the face of our suddenly backpedaling producer/director. By the time the screaming stopped, we had a firm promise this would not happen again.

Which, to his credit, it didn’t.

Having banished the Nutter Butter demon back to the highly-processed Hell from whence it came — and finally able to maintain a steady 175-to-180 pounds — I had the craft service demon under control. Still, while playing out the string of my career in the relatively low-stress backwater of multi-camera sitcoms, I’d stop at crafty every afternoon for a cup of coffee laced with sugar+cream, and whatever cookie looked good.

A coffee and cookie — no big deal, right?

Two years later I pulled the plug on Hollywood and paddled in to the sunny beach of retirement, where no craft service table could tempt me … and two years after that, found that I’d dropped another twenty pounds with no effort whatsoever, going from a size 38 waist back to 35 inches.

I guess the little things really do add up after all.