I Get Hot When You Speak French At Me.

Because they spend so much time around vain, self-absorbed, appearance-fixated people, film crews and stage crews tend to be intentionally scruffy. They lean to beards, t-shirts and gimme caps. Even successful behind the camera people dress down.

Jim E. comes to mind. A excellent cinematographer, he has been the Director of Photography on several movies you'd recognize, and countless TV shows and commercials. I had the joy of working with him on TV spots. When not on location, Jim lived in Dallas. Dallas, with the Studios at Las Colinas, and other facilities, has a thriving film community. A while back, one of the big service companies supplying camera, grip truck, lighting, and other rentals to production companies, was a firm named Victor Duncan. Victor Duncan supplied many of the gimme caps worn by Dallas film crews, because all they had on them was a large, bold-faced, “V-D.” Grips, Gaffers, DP s, and other Craft crews live IN YOUR FACE.

During pre-production meetings for a commercial shoot in Dallas, Jim and I went to lunch at a small “French-influenced” restaurant in the Quadrangle. No group is quite so full of itself as the staff of a “French” restaurant in North Dallas. Jim was dressed in his usual Crew Casual, complete with VD cap. Snooty waiters in Dallas seemed to often misjudge Jim. He was well off, and and worked/traveled all over the world. Don't judge a customer by his cover.

As we looked at the menu, and got the stinkeye for the hat, Jim commented to me that he wasn't very hungry, and might just have soup.

When the waiter, from the height of his minimum-wage haughty, finally deigned to come to our table, Jim looked up and asked, “What's the Soup Du Jour?”

With all of his North Dallas dismay at having to actually serve the “Unwashed Masses,” the waiter sneered, “It's the “soup of the day.....(pause)...sir.”

Jim, with his gruff, growling voice, missed not a beat. “I KNOW that,” he rumbled. “But the last time I was in here and had the Soup Du Jour, the chef was using frozen Du Jours. That is not acceptable. You maybe can't, but I can taste the difference between frozen and fresh Du Jours. So, Sonny, what I want to know is, are the Du Jours in the soup fresh or frozen?”

Waiter stammered, “But, but, the words mean.......”

Jim jumped on it. “Don't you 'but, but” at me. Do I look like you could fool me with frozen Du Jours? Well, do I look like that kind of fool to you?”

“Sir, I'm sorry, but...”

“Yes, passing off frozen Du Jours is sorry. Here's what you do. You march your tight little waiter pants, and your silly gold neck chain, back to the kitchen. You get the chef. You tell him Jim is here, and he's on to the game. You bring that chef out so he can look me in the eye and assure me that his Soup Du Jour today is packed full of the freshest Du Jours he could find at the market.”

If you have a choice, go to lunch with the Crew, not with the actors. It's more fun.