School Ties
31 years ago this month I spent 3 days working as an extra on the film School Ties. This is the story of how it all went down.
What happened was this: about halfway through the September of my 8th grade year at Grafton Middle School, I noticed that a quartet of my fellow classmates kept going missing for several days at a time. My entire class had a population just shy of 100 so it was easy to spot the missing dude folk. One afternoon, I decided to ask my history teacher Mr Coleman why these fellas kept disappearing from the scene. His response: “Oh them? They’re in Boston filming a movie with Steve Martin called School Ties.” When I heard this I literally exploded (and yes…I know what “literally” means). There were/are few things on god’s green earth that I love as much as Steve Martin. I awoke from my temporary fugue state with a furious determination to get to the bottom of this Steve Martin movie business…which…in 1991…wasn’t gonna be easy. It wasn’t like I could just Google “Steve Martin movie Boston” and have all the answers in the palm of my hand within seconds. I had to crack the Yellow Pages. Work the phones. Pound some pavement. Shake down sources for some answers. It wasn’t like I could simply approach these dudes when they inevitably returned to school either. You see–they were all fairly cool…and I was…for lack of a more eloquent term…a fucking loser. There were the MacDonald twins, who were already 25 but still somehow in the 8th grade. Here I exaggerate …but they were suspiciously older and were already sharing a dope red Ford Explorer come freshman year of high school. They were also a couple of good looking motherfuckers…so it totally made sense that they’d wind up in a major motion picture. The third kid, Brendan, was kind of a bully but the fourth, Jake, was friendly enough…so I made a beeline for him the second he materialized back at GMS. He gave me the scoop: it turned out he was the one who’d put the whole scene together! He’d been vacationing somewhere in Maine the previous summer and had been approached by a casting director who asked him if he wanted to be in the flicks. Like Eddie Furlong in T2!?? That shit really happened!? He even gave me the name of the casting agency: Sylvia Fay Casting. I was like “DUDE!!! I’m calling them tomorrow and getting in this movie too ARGGRGFGHGG!!!!! Holy shit is Steve Martin nice!???”
Jake: Steve Martin? He’s not in the movie.
Me: WHAT!?
Him: Who told you that?!
ME: Mr. Coleman!
Jake: Mr. Coleman is an alcoholic.
ME: Well who IS in the movie then!?
Jake: (shrugs….walks away).
Somehow I had the good sense to have my mom drive me to the one newsstand in downtown Worcester that sold copies of the Hollywood Reporter, which featured a comprehensive list of all films currently in production. Sure enough, Steve Martin WAS filming a movie in Boston. It was called Housesitter and co-starred Goldie Hawn. And then there was School Ties, which featured…at the top of its cast list…journeyman character actor Kevin Tighe. Kevin Tighe!? I instantly recognized him as the bad guy from the Jimmy Belushi K-9 comedy, erm, K-9…and the bad-ish guy from Roadhouse. So…a few massive rungs below Steve Martin, granted, but still a name I recognized. My mind reeled…thinking about how many dances would I be able to scare up at the 8th grade winter semi-formal by telling the ladies I'd acted alongside the great Kevin Tighe! Years later…in my mid 30’s…I would go on to have a roommate whose first name was Tighe and who was crazier than a shithouse loon…but that’s a story for another day. ANYWAY….since I couldn’t locate the number for Housesitter’s casting peeps, I decided to call Sylvia Fay and say “OI! I’m Tebo and I’d like to be in yous movie! So where the magic happen at!?” To my immediate surprise they were like…”cool.” Did I have a head shot and was I in high school? Yes and heck yes!! (Note: both lies). They told me to swing by the agency later in the week so they could get a look at the merchandise before letting me sign the standard rich and famous contract. I tell you no lies when I say that I barely slept a wink that entire week. I just laid there in my waterbed…staring up at my Gn’R Use Your Illusion tapestry…dreaming about tossing around the pigskin with my soon to be BFF Kev Ti.
When the day of the big “audition,” arrived, my mom drove me straight to the barber and had them give me the boy’s regular…which is just like a medium regular, but without cream or sugar. I was kind of digging the mullet I’d been attempting to grow out so I wouldn’t look like such a chump headbanging to Metallica’s Black Album, but mom’s know best, right? WRONG! When I called the casting agency to confirm, the following conversation took place:
Casting: Casting.
Me: Yes! This is Dan Tebo…calling to confirm my 4 PM audition.
Casting: Ahh…sure…yeah…just come by with your headshot.
Me: Awesome!
Casting: Oh…one more thing–do you have long hair?
Me (shooting eye daggers at my mother): Well I did…until about 30 minutes ago.
Casting: Sorry…we’re only taking kids with longer hair.
Me: But…wha…huh…HAH…HUH!?
Casting: Yeah…the movie takes place in the 50’s so we need to slick your hair back. Sorry. (click)
And just like that, my dreams of Hollywood superstardom turned to ashes in my hands over an unsolicited haircut. I had a Titanic-sized meltdown and broke all of my Sega Genesis cartridges and told my mom I was going to live with my dad. I was a real prick about it but DUDE! I was thisclose to meeting the great Kevin Tighe! September turned into October and my classmates kept skipping class to do movie stuff and I stewed unsliently, complaining merciallesly to my circle of three friends about how my mom had ruined my career by forcing me to get a high and tight. One of those friends, whom we’ll call Also Dan as that’s his name, decided he’d make me feel better by getting himself cast in School Ties and then calling me after school to rub my nose in shit. And hey–it lit a fire under my ass! Once I heard this news, I slammed the phone down and said FUCK….THIS!! I went into our living room and told my mom to gas up the Nissan Pulsar ‘cuz we were driving straight to this casting agency and I was going to DEMAND to be hired as an extra. The temporary casting office was set up in the basement of a strip mall in Acton or Boxford or some town that was at least an hour away from our apartment…and I REALLY DID just fucking barge in there like “whaddup y’all!?” Now…I’m someone who suffers from massive anxiety attacks when I have to ask anyone for ANYTHING. I can barely call to order a pizza (they might yell at me!) but 12 year-old me had no qualms about crashing a casting office. The cajones on this kid, huh!? I poured an entire bottle of LA Looks gel onto my skull in a sorry attempt to make what little hair I had look “slicked back” and marched into the office, where there was a line of kids waiting to be seen. When it was my turn I was like “yeah…Tebo…from a few weeks back? My hair is long now, see??” The lady looked me up and down and said “sure…whatever…it’s $50 a day. Be at Middlesex School in Concord at 5 AM this Saturday.” Jackpot! I went home and dialed up Dan and said “guess who else is gonna be in School Ties this weekend, FUCKER!? Also–can your folks give me a ride to the gig?”
Day #1: Saturday
Other Dan and I awoke at around 3:30 AM and were greeted with an unseasonably chilly early October morning. Sunny skies expected with temps struggling to break 50. We set out for the Middlesex School, a coeducational, non-sectarian, day and boarding independent secondary school for grades 9-12 with an Olmsted Brothers-designed campus built in 1901 (note: information cut and pasted from the Middlesex School’s Wikipedia page). We were directed to an offsite parking lot, where shuttle buses were waiting to herd extras to the campus like cattle. For reasons I can’t recall…probably my mother’s intervention…I showed up with a massive duffel bag stuffed to the gills with useless shit; long johns and other cold weather gear, 20 OZ bottles of Coke, my walkman and a cassette of Van Halen’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, a bulky copy of Roger Ebert’s 1990 Movie Yearbook. Not an easily transportable backpack, mind you–a duffel bag that could house the body of a small dead person. We exited Dan’s pop’s car and walked toward the bus. Before I could climb aboard, the duffel’s wonky zipper gave way and the bag erupted onto the dirt parking lot like a slot machine that had just hit triple 7’s. My shit was EVERYWHERE! Bottles of soda exploding and rolling under the bus and all that. I desperately struggled to repack my bag…but the zipper was kaput…so every time I stood everything would just come tumbling out again. The bus driver finally stood up…took two steps toward me…raised his finger and yelled “YOU! Get you goddamn bag…and GET ON THE BUS!!!!” Dan would go on to quote this very incident all the way through high school. We’d see each other in the hallway and he'd scream “Hey Tebo! Get your goddamn bag and get on the BUS!!!” So far–Hollywood: 1…Tebo: 0
The bus deposited us at a sprawling all purpose indoor sports complex with a cafeteria and several lounge areas. The basketball courts had been converted into the wardrobe department, where we were immediately sent to get fitted for our costumes: your standard prep school uniform: shirt, tie, slacks, and a blazer bearing the insignia of the fictional St. Matthew’s Academy. After I had my gear, I stuffed the cola-soaked wreckage of my duffel bag into a locker and went to wait for further instructions….which would not arrive for, oh, a good SIX HOURS!! Like…the sun hadn’t even come out yet and I was ready to boogie, you know? It was also 1991 so it wasn’t like I could dick around on my phone for hours….live Tweeting that shit (OMG R they ever gonna shoot this movie #schooltiezzzzzzzz). I didn’t even know what the movie was about so I asked another kid hanging around in the lounge. His answer: anti-semitism. I did not know what anti-semitism was. Right away I noticed that the vibe was aggressively unfriendly and competitive. Tons of chatter about who got to work on Housesitter and who didn’t, as that seemed to be the preferred gig. “We shot at Cafe Budapest in Boston and we got to eat all night,” one kid was overheard to say. “Wow, what was Steve Martin like!?” I asked. Response: none. I tried to nap standing up…which I succeeded at for at least five minutes. When I awoke I noticed a copy of Premiere Magazine’s Fall Movie Preview on a coffee table nearby so I picked it up and started thumbing through it. About 10 seconds later I felt an unfriendly tap on my shoulder. “Hey kid–that’s my magazine.” Another extra…a good foot taller than me…at least 16 year-old. “Oh sorry!” I said, handing the magazine back.
Me: So..ahh…what do you think the #1 movie of the season is gonna be,”
Kid: The Addams Family.
Me: What? No way, man! It’s gonna be HOOK! No one beats Spielberg!
Kid: (leaning in menacingly) Yeah…well…Hook isn’t a Paramount movie. And right now you’re working for Paramount Pictures….so I’d watch it with that shit or they’ll fire your ass.
Hollywood: 2…Tebo: 0
The hours ran on and on. Someone pointed out the director, Robert Mandel, who looked like a pretty zen dude and not someone in a hurry to do much of anything. I spied a hairdresser who seemed to be giving out a free shampoo and blowdry to anyone who happened to stop by his chair. His name was Ron and he was wearing a crew jacket from the shit terrible Roseanne Barr/Meryl Streep comedy She-Devil. I queued up for Ron and plopped myself in his chair when my opportunity arrived. He looked down at my $1.99 mouse-encrusted buzzcut, sighed and said “OOF! Nice effort!” He spent about 10 seconds trying to comb my hair before sending me on my way. “HEY! Did you really work on She-Devil!? I asked. Answer: none. Not a lot of answers to my questions on this movie set so far, y,all.
Finally, around noon, we were escorted to the football field where they’d be shooting, you know, football stuff. Dan and I were seated high up in the bleachers on the home team side of the field and proceeded to wait another two hours freezing our asses off while nothing of note happened. I searched IN VAIN for a glimpse of Kevin Tighe but he was nowhere to be seen. Wasn’t he supposed to be the football coach!? Finally the scene was up: it’s halftime…and they’re presenting an award to, I think, Matt Damon’s older brother?? Someone who graduated long ago and was in the crowd as a returning hero or whatever. He was about 10 rows below us. They’d call action…the kid would run out of the stands…turn and wave to his parents and then run onto the field. They repeated this about 5 times over the next hour…and here I have to say that…I’m not sure what kind of fantastical, whimsical ideas I had in my pea sized brain about what actual movie production looked like….but what I was witnessing was NOT IT! It seemed so…slapdash. Ragtag. And SLOW as all get out. 8 hours on the set for one shot!? I started to (falsely…unfoundedly…ignorantly) believe that School Ties was not a “real” movie…but, in fact, some after school special about racism. In fact, the budget was nearly $20 million dollars, a fairly hefty sum for a mid-level high school period piece in 1991. Again, I knew absolutely nothing about anything. Dangerously dumb.
Once the “dude running out of the stands” scene was in the can, a break was called. Dan and I were feeling peckish so we immediately located the craft services tent where we found a decent spread of fresh fruits and juices, freshly brewed coffee, granola bars, and cold cuts to make sandwiches with. A PA stopped us before our mitts hit the mortadela.
PA: Whoa! Are you guys in SAG?”
Me: Umm…I’m not sure?
PA: Do you have a SAG card…or Aftra?”
Me: I think I’m in After…Aftra…I’m an actor.”
PA: (laughing): Craft Services are for SAG only…there’s food for you guys over there.
We looked “over there” and found the following: a large pitcher of ice cold water…and a bucket of apples. Apples. As in “how you like them…” Apples…they’re what’s for lunch! The 15 minute break stretched to an hour. Finally, we were called back to our places for the next set up: an extremely elderly man was to be driven down the field in an old-timey car as part of the halftime show. We were supposed to clap for him. The end. Now it was approaching 4 PM and the sun was starting to set. A wrap was called for the extras. Dinner was to be served in the cafeteria…for the union folk. The rest of us were shunted to a narrow passageway behind the complex and forced to line up and choose between days old burgers or days old hot dogs. Then we had to line up to return our costume, which I want to say took another two hours. We didn’t hit the backseat of Dan’s pop’s Buick LeSabre until around 7 PM…a good 14 hours since we’d been dropped off. I went home and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. I dreamt of apples.
Day #2–Sunday
Second verse…same as the first. Same call time…same bad place…although this time my enthusiasm for the project has completely evaporated. I pretty much showed up for the $50 and the apples, of which there were plenty, likely from Hutchins Farm just up the way (delightful place for fall apple picking if you're in the area. Try the cider!). This time, after picking up our costumes, Dan and I just took off and tried to see what kind of trouble we could get into. We wandered around campus, giving ourselves tours of whichever buildings we found to be unlocked…occasionally dropping by the football field to see if anything interesting was going down, filming-wise. I mean…they had 1000 extras up in the joint. It’s not like they were keeping tabs on any of us. Eventually we noticed that someone was handing out wooden signs on the visitor’s side of the football field and made a beeline for them. “AYO! Can we get a couple of those thingers!?” Surely we’d be able to find ourselves on screen if we were wearing signs, right!? These weren’t just any signs: they were made out of wood that had been painted on and were about two feet tall. I guess they didn’t have foam fingers yet in 1955 or whenever. You had to put it over your head and let it rest on your shoulders. It was heavy as balls and I regretted it the minute I put it on. My sign said “Lambaste Saint Matt’s!” I did not know what ‘Lambaste” meant. (Note: I do now). Instead of getting packed into the stands, this time we were going to be standing on the edge of the field, right in front of the action. (not that I could’ve sat down with that fuckin’ sign on anyway). They were going to be running an actual football play…where a receiver (later revealed to be Matt Damon) drops a pivotal pass from the QB (Encino Man’s Brendan Fraser). I was the very last extra at the end of the line on my side of the field…so every time they called action…I would creep further and further away from the pack…jumping up and down and trying to draw attention to myself…like NO ONE is going to notice some shitty grandstanding 13 year-old extra! Again…pulling some showboat shit in front of 1000 people and a massive crew on a prestige production?? Bold! They ran this play twice in an hour and then it was back to waiting….and waiting…and waiting some more. My fingers were completely numb and my breath stank of Granny Smith’s. A fellow extra done up like a greaser tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the scoreboard, where a young boy about my age…maybe a year or two younger…had been enthusiastically changing the score during the scenes. With a flourish, you dig?
Greaser: You see that kid on the scoreboard?
Me: I do
Greaser: I fuckin’ hate that kid. He’s a little shit. I was supposed to get that part. And look at him up there…rubbing it in my fucking face.
Me: Well..aren’t you…aren’t you a lot older than he is?
Greaser: So? What’s your point?
Me: I…I…
Greaser: He’s gonna have a hard time flippin’ that fuckin’ scoreboard after I break all of his fingers after the shoot tonight (walks away)
After the Greaser split I overheard a middle aged lady mention that she’d done a few days on Housesitter a few weeks earlier.
Me: Hey! Is Steve Martin nice!?
Lady: Yes…I’ve done every local production going all the way back to the Brinx Job!
Me: And Steve Martin?
Lady: I have to say…The Witches of Eastwick was splendid. Richard Jenkins and Veronica Cartwright were so delightful to work with (note: you can actually see this lady as Jenkins and Cartwright’s secretary…before Cartwright starts to barf cherries and Jenkins murders her with a fire poker).
After a few hours of Matt Damon dropping the pass, Dan and I went foraging for food. Apple lunch wasn’t gonna cut it and I was hungry enough to start chowing on the goddamn football field. As we were walking back toward the school I noticed a granola bar sitting on a table at the edge of a tent…so I quickly snatched it and stuck it in my back pocket. A voice caled out from inside the tent: “Hey kid…are you out of your fucking mind!? Put the granola bar back!!” I looked in the tent to see 5 or 6 stern faces with headsets…staring at monitors. Let’s take stock of the potential victims: eventual Paramount president and world's most terrifying movie boss Sherry Lansing. She was on set every day. Academy Award winning cinematographer Freddie Francis. Legendary TV uber writer Dick Wolf. It coulda been any one of those folkses granola bars!
Hollywood: 7….Tebo: 0
As the shooting day wound down we were herded back to hot dog alley and then off to wait to return our costumes. Dan got a whiff that if you were in SAG you didn’t have to wait in line at all…you could just drop off your gear and screw. After spending 24 of the last 36 hours in the freezing cold living on nothing but icewater and Pink Lady’s I was ready to say fuck it and retire my school tie 4-eva. We bullied our way to the front of the line and were stopped by the same PA who barred us from craft services…who somehow didn’t remember us from one day earlier.
PA: Whoa…this line is for SAG only!”
Dan: Yeah…we’re in SAG.”
PA: Let me see your SAG cards then.
Dan: It’s in my locker.
Me: Yeah…we didn’t want them to get lost out on the football field, you know?
PA: (heavy sigh) OK, go return your costumes and then come directly back to me with your SAG cards. If you’re lying to me I’ll make sure you're here till midnight waiting to return your costumes, got it!?
Us: SURE!
We returned our shit with the quickness, had someone sign our vouchers so we’d get paid, and then waited in a crouch for this dude to turn his back so we could spring out of there. When the PA looked away we fucking beat it by him like a couple of goddamn little asshole jerks. We heard a halfhearted “hey!” as we sprinted toward my dad’s Porsche, which was waiting to ferry us away forever.
Here’s what happened next: it was Columbus Day weekend…which meant plenty of time to recuperate on a schooless Monday, right? As soon as we pulled onto Route 2 I remembered that I had promised Dan that I would accompany him to something called a “Lock-In” at a local bowling alley called Town & Country. This seems just as insane to me now as it did back then…but once in a while they would fill the bowling alley with underage kids and lock them in from midnight until 8 AM. I’m not sure how much it cost…but you could bowl until your rotator cuff split in half. We arrived back at Dan’s house around 8 PM…just…fucked up tired. The plan was to eat dinner and then go to sleep until 11:30, when we’d catch a ride to the bowling alley and pull an all-nighter. Did this 2 hour power nap restore my cognitive abilities in any way? It did not. I was a fucking zombie…and I absolutely suck at bowling (unlike Dan…who was on TV and had bowling trophies and shit). It was also clear that kids went to this to fuck around and drink and smoke butts and do drugs and dry hump against the disabled Pole Posiiton game in the arcade. Shit, had I been hip at the time I woulda tried to score myself a bump or at least some Adderall. Did they have that back then?? I’m not sure who was in charge of locking people in but they did a piss poor job. There were…like…gang fights and regular fights and some kid broke a pool cue over another kid’s head and arggghh it was awful! I desperately tried to sleep but when I would drift off my friends would pour Mountain Dew on my head and tell me that if I fell asleep, I was entering into a world of pain. Bowling lock-ins–zero stars….do not recommend.
Day 3:
So it’s about two weeks later and I’m finally caught up on my sleep. My two days spent on School Ties hold zero currency in the halls of Grafton Middle. You were in a movie? Yeah. Who was in it? Not fuckin’ Steve Martin, that’s who! The phone rings on a Tuesday afternoon:
Me: Hello?
Casting: Is this Daniel? This is Sylvia Fay Casting?
Me: Yeah?
Casting: We’re wondering if you’d be able to come back and work on School Ties again tomorrow?
Me: Meh.
I thought about it for a hot second and realized that “tomorrow” was a Wednesday…which meant that I’d get to miss a day of school….and I HATED going to school!
Me: Can I bring my buddy Dan? He’s already in this shit?
Casting: Sure.
Hollywood: 7….Tebo:....1?
Day #3–Wednesday
Call time for this gig was a far more palatable 8 AM. There was no shuttle bus or any of that business…and about 80% less extras there in general. We went to wardrobe and were told to report to the courtyard to immediately commence shooting…in two to four hours. This time we were handed sacks of school books that were tied together with a rope. What, did they not have Jansport’s back in the 50's? When they called action we would run around the courtyard with our books while the cameras focused on a gaggle of main characters as they did a walk and talk around the campus. This was really the first time I got a glance at the main cast…and noticed that they were all extremely tall.I also didn’t recognize any of them. Not a single one!
Me: Any idea who any of these guys are?
Random Kid: That one is Brendan…he’s the lead. He’s really nice.
Me: Eh
Random Kid: And that tall dude…his name is Randall Batinkoff
Me: HOLY SHIT! From the Molly Ringwald teen pregnancy drama For Keeps!??
Random Kid: Uh…yeah…I think so
Me: Kevin Tighe and Randall Batinkoff in the same movie!? How do they manage to keep the paparazzi away from the set!? (note: I do not say this last thing).
The sun started to dip around 3:30…as it’s known to do in the middle of October. The air was frigid and we had apples and water sloshing around in our bellies. There’s one more scene they needed us for before releasing us to hot dog alley. The main characters were going to exit their dormitory and run across the lawn, where scores of students will be streaming into the chapel. And Dan and I? We’re gonna stream with them! For this scene they’d wheeled in a wind machine, which is about 80 feet tall and sounds like a 747 taking off. It sounds like two 747’s taking off simultaneously and then crashing into each other. I still have some lingering tinnitus from this scene. Dan and I were positioned fairly close to the actors and I got another boneheaded idea: as we’re running alongside the actors, I’m gonna fall down and Dan will stop to help me up….so when we see it in the theater….I’ll be the kid who falls down for no good reason! If you’re reading this and considering hiring me as an extra…maybe don’t. We do about five takes. The wind machine goes up…the director calls action…and we run alongside a group of anonymous faces who will eventually belong to Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O’Donnell, Randall Batinkoff, Ben Affleck, and Anthony Rapp. Insanity.
Dan and I decided to skip hot dog alley and try our luck at the cafeteria…where luck would have it…we were in luck! No one was checking SAG cards and we were waved into the warm confines of the dining hall where we feasted on prime rib sliced mid rare from the carving station, mashed potatoes, and seasonal brussels sprouts and carrots. We raised our Shirley Temples and toasted to the beginning of what was sure to be a long and beautiful career in the film industry. I would never set foot on another movie set again.
The Aftermath:
As 8th grade year went on I resumed my regularly scheduled program of getting donkey punched, depantsed, and stuffed in the shoproom garbage wastebasket. School Ties faded from memory and I held onto my belief that it was gonna show up as an After School Special…or go straight to video. That all changed with the May 1992 release of the Pauly Shore vehicle Encino Man, starring our man Brendan Fraser. Encino Man was/is, of course, shit terrible…but all of the trades were raving about how Fraser was a hot new face who was gonna light it up in School Ties…COMING TO THEATERS IN SEPTEMBER!!! Holy christ on a cracker!? Brendan Fraser…he’s a buddy! I ran next to that dude for at least 30 seconds. Suddenly having ‘acted” in School Ties was solid gold! Bragging rights for days, dudes. I spent the summer of 1992 scouring newspapers and movie magazines for any and all mentions of the flick. I’d clip them out and store them in a manilla folder…which I still have. Opening day fell on the Friday of the third week of Freshman year…and the school was ABUZZ! Grafton High was gonna be strongly represented. Six heads total! We were going to the Friday night premiere and we were rolling DEEP! I made sure to dispatch my mother to buy as many tickets as she possibly could afford for the 7:30 showing at the Lincoln Plaza triplex in Worcester while we were all still at school. I don’t know that I’ve been that excited for something before…or since, really. We arrived an hour early to make sure all of the “actors” could sit together…and I tell you…the room was HOT! Unbeknownst to me, they had also shot scenes right in my damn backyard at Worcester Academy…so the locals were representing hard. The rows were packed with kids bursting with anticipation…waiting for a chance to see themselves on the silver screen. I feel truly terrible for folks who thought they were gonna have a quiet night out with a racist sports movie…cuz this crowd came to smash!
The movie opens in Scranton, PA–where we meet all-star Jewish quarterback David Greene, played by goy actor Brendan Fraser. Fraser is being shipped up to a bougie New England prep school as a senior year ringer to help the football team win a championship. Only problem–this place is restricted, Wang, so don’t tell ‘em your Jewish! Everyone in the movie is mad racist but dude is cool so long as he plays good ball and doesn’t steal Matt Damon’s girlfriend (two-time vehicular manslaughterer and current prison inmate Amy Locane). As soon as Fraser arrives on campus, pockets of kids start spotting themselves and flinging themselves from their seats. “OH! OH! OH!...That’s me! HOLY SHIT!!!” This happens every 5 minutes for the film’s entire 110 minute running time. The MacDonald twins see themselves right away…as does Brendan. About 15 minutes in we arrive at the “running into the church scene.” Dan and I leap to our feet all OH OH OH OH MY GOD!!!! And then….and then…we don’t see ourselves. At all. I want to ask the projectionist if he’d rewind the scene and play it again in slow motion (Note: having watched this scene some 500 times in 30 years I’m 99.9% positive I can identify Dan and I…but we are fuzzy dots). There’s still the football scenes though, right? I think half of the theater must’ve been in these scenes because everyone was on their feet shouting at the screen. It’s here that I realize that I ducked out on a lot of these football scenes to wander around and eat apples. I’m nowhere to be found. I feel very dumb (but hey…$150 richer!). Fraser’s faith is eventually revealed and he and Matt Damon get naked and fight each other in the shower. To have been an extra during that scene, right? I coulda played the soap! Things go sideways for him but our crowd remains boisterous. When the bespectacled Anthony Rapp calls Fraser a dirty jew or whatever someone in the crowd screams “fuck you, FOUR EYES!!!!” Eventually Fraser overcomes a cheating scandal and gets Damon thrown out of school and everything is great except everyone is still super racist. I will see School Ties two more times that weekend…once with my mother and again with my father…who both have the same reaction: we don’t see you anywhere. Sadly, neither did I, folks.
One More Thing:
Ok…so now it’s early November of 1992 and the phone rings again. I answer.
Me: Hello?
Caller: Dan? This is Steve Martin!
I’m fucking with you.
Caller: Yes…is this Dan Tebo who was an extra in School Ties?
Me:.....YES! Who is this??
Caller: This is so and so from the movie. I just wanted to invite you to a movie premiere I’m hosting in Framingham this coming Saturday
OK…so the movie has already come and gone at this point…not a hit but not a disaster either. I’m immediately confused. Don’t they typically hold premieres BEFORE a movie opens in theaters? Is this guy trolling me??
Me: A Premiere of School Ties??
Caller: Yup! And also a premiere of a little “making of” featurette that I shot. Should I put you on the guest list?
Me: Ahh….sure?
Caller: Great! Be at the Framingham National Amusements at 8:30 this Saturday morning.
Me:.......
I call up Dan right away…who has zero interest. “Was this guy calling you from his white van parked outside?” I don’t have much luck with any of the other guys either. My mom was equally skeptical. “Who the hell has a movie premiere at 8:30 in the goddamn morning?? Plus you’ve already seen the movie five fuckin’ times.” She wasn’t wrong! To my surprise, it was Brendan who agreed to have his mom drive us…so we let sleeping dogs lie and hung out for the first…and last time. I feel like I got dressed up for the event: maybe put on a nice set of slacks and a polo shirt under my San Jose Sharks Starter jacket. I’m not sure what I was picturing but…uhh…but this “premiere” wasn’t it. No red carpet and no limousines. I don’t even think they had a guest list. What happened was–some dude…we’ll call him Peter…had shot a bunch of footage while on set and edited it together into something called “School Ties: A Day in the Life of an Extra.” It was about an hour’s worth of behind the scenes footage from the Middlesex School and (drum roll) I wasn’t in ANY of it! It was still a fun watch, for sure. And once it ended? I got to sit through School Ties…AGAIN! And I still didn’t see myself.
After the movie(s) we went out to the lobby, where they were passing out free School Ties swag, including key chains and door-sized posters of Brendan Fraser looking extra hunky…which leads me to believe that this event was at least semi-sanctioned by Paramount. I mean–they wouldn’t have just let some rando bring his camcorder onto the set without permission, right? Peter was selling copies of his little expose on VHS for $20 a throw…which was $10 dollars more than my weekly allowance at the time (you can bet I took a stack of Fraser posters and hung them on my door until I moved in 1995!). But boy howdy do I wish I had one of those VHS tapes, man! Imagine all of that crazy footage of young Damon and Affleck doing their thing!? I bet those dudes sued this video out of existence as soon as they became super famous. For sure.
Epilogue:
–It took a few years but Matt Damon and Ben Affleck eventually became two of the most famous actors in the entire world. After they hit it big and won Oscars for writing Good Will Hunting, Paramount decided to re-release School Ties on DVD with new artwork….featuring Ben Aflleck on the cover! Affleck…who plays “Chesty”...has about 5 lines in the movie. I’m barely in it and I want to say Affleck and I have equal screen time.
–In 2009 Ben Affleck walked into my former place of business (Neptune Oyster) and asked if he could take a few pictures as he was scouting locations for his upcoming directorial feature, The Town. I let him do his thing…and again noted how extraordinarily tall he is. Before he left I approached him and said “you know what’s funny? I was actually an extra in School Ties.” He said “no kidding! Good to see ya!” I was not asked to be an extra in The Town.
–On September 1st, 2007, Clay Buchholz threw a no hitter for the Boston Red Sox. After the game, I traveled to Boston’s South End to meet some friends at the Beehive, the sort of exclusive, upscale restaurant/nightclub I’ve spent my entire adult life successfully avoiding. I arrived to find a line stretching around the block and protested strenuously. The line snaked past the now-defunct Hammersley’s Bistro, a place that helped elevate Boston’s status as a dining city when it opened back in the 90’s. As I stood there pissing and moaning about the line, I looked up at Hammersley’s. There, seated in the restaurant’s prime window table, was Steve Martin. The actual Steve Martin!! Wearing his Inspector Clousseau mustache, no less! (I guess he was in town shooting a Pink Panther movie…which I have yet to watch). I thought back to the fall of 1991 and how the thought, however ultimately misguided, of actually meeting him kept me up at night. I also thought of how disastrous that would have been for all involved. Over the last 30 years, through time spent living in LA and NYC and time spent working at a trendy restaurant haunted by celebrities, I’ve been extremely fortunate to have met swaths of famous people. I’ve also learned when it’s appropriate to approach and when it’s best to admire from afar. 1991 me, though, would NOT have been able to contain himself. If they’d let me on the set of Housesitter I would have jumped in that motherfucker’s lap all “Hiiiiiii Steve Martin!!!! How did they do your nose in Roxanne!? Was it real!? Are you nice!? Can someone tell me if Steve Martin is NICE!???” I started up at the window of Hammersley’s, starstruck but respectful. Steve Martin looked up from his plate of Hammersley’s roast chicken with garlic, lemon, and parsley. We made eye contact for about five seconds. Steve Martin nodded and I nodded back and we both went on with our lives. Oh by the way…Housesitter fucking sucks.
The end.