How I Spent My Last Day As A 42-Year Old Man On Planet Earth & Became 43 In The Process Between December 21-22, 2004

What came down in the forest outside the small town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania on December 9, 1965? Some residents claimed to see an acorn-shaped metal object with strange, hieroglyphic writing on the side half-buried on the forest floor. Further proof that something came down, they say, was the presence of local police and National Guard officials who took the object away for study. Others in the sleepy hamlet in southeastern Pennsylvania say the reported sightings are no more than the fanciful musings of wishful thinkers. A UFO isn't the only possibility for the Kecksburg object-astronomer Von del Chamberlain has written that if it was anything at all, it was a meteorite. NASA consultant James Oberg has theorized in the past that the object may have been a failed Russian probe, but now believes, too, that it was most like a meteorite that witnesses in Kecksburg saw that night. For nearly forty years, the debate has raged both locally and in the national press-often referred to in UFO circles as the "Pennsylvania Roswell," the Kecksburg story has enjoyed treatments by "Unsolved Mysteries" in the early 1990s and was the subject of a two hour program hosted by Bryant Gumbel on the Sci Fi Network in October of 2003. The Sci Fi Network took the additional step of joining local UFO researchers in pressing NASA and the Air Force for the release under the Freedom of Information Act of any documents related to the case. In late December 2003, NASA released thirty-nine pages of material, followed by the Air Force, which released 2,800 pages on the case from its files. The only thing that seems to have been conclusively proven with the release of the government documents to date is that the object over Kecksburg was not a Russian probe. But for UFO enthusiasts, researchers, and the residents Kecksburg there are still many questions that remain to be answered: What, if anything, came down in Kecksburg? Did the government cover it up then and does the cover-up continue to this day?”---The History Channel CONSPIRACY! Series Kecksburg Program Notes…

There are only a few times during the course of the year that I stay up longer than 24 hours and that’s mostly when it’s a Friday through Sunday situation, but never did I expect to last year to be pulling an a 39-hour stint for being an extra in a national cable series that when eventually filmed and broadcast, made everything seem a whole lot better, but then I’m getting ahead of myself.

It was back in mid-November, 2004, when I was trolling around the website called www.craigslist.org and just happened to look in the “Talent” section of the site, when I first came upon the posting looking for extras in a cable program to play either soldiers or townspeople AKA UFO eyewitnesses.

I had just finished my first film “Tough Times,” in which I had played “Rabbi Sterling,” which was a tiny role in an independent film, but it was still a role and I was elated nonetheless. So to me, seeing that role available, appealed to me, even though I had a feeling they weren’t going to pay at all, but I knew there were other perks.

Two other friends of mine were in on the deal too, but the trouble with the production company (Tower Productions) filming it, was that they kept on switching dates, mostly weekend days in early December (2004), which those two guys couldn’t do, so, finally I thought, “well, hell’s bells, it’d do or die time,” and there I was, ready and poised to do whatever they asked me to do.

The plot was simple; it was one of those UFO sighting programs and whether or not it was a real UFO that had landed in a small town in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania or not in December, 1965. One of the assistant producers who kept in touch with me, told me that since it had a 1960s feel to the program, they wanted us to dress in that fashion.

Well, seemingly, since the 1960s never seem to go out of style, I felt I was pretty lucky, since half the clothes in my closets are from the 1960s and beyond! I went through my closet and picked out a bunch of clothes that I felt I needed, threw them into a couple of duffel bags and I was set to go! The next order of business I had to complete was trying to get to the site on a midweek shoot.

Luckily, I scored a half-day of work and left early at noon, flew out of there like a bat out of hell, drove my car down to the Howard Street garage and took a Red Line El train down to the production office, where I needed to hitch a ride to. The walk to the production office was two and a half blocks away from the El stop, yet with the two duffel bags I was carrying, plus my backpack upon my back and it being an extremely cold day, it was in the teens temperature-wise, that two and a half blocks made it seem like eternity before I finally reached my destination.

When I arrived at the building, I took the elevator up to the office and went to the front desk. Originally I was told to be there at 1pm and I did worry about not making it there on time, but I did. When I went to the front desk to check in, the male receptionist never bothered to look up from the computer and asked me who I was there to see. When I told him, he just nodded and told me, he’d be out in a little while.

Well sir, let me tell you, that little while lasted nearly an hour, before someone cam over to me and asked me who I was there to see. When I told her again, she told me the assistant producer and one of the script writers were running a few errands and would be back within 10 minutes. She then offered me a cup of tea. She was to say the least, the most polite in that office and perhaps the only one who was polite, but again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

By the time the assistant producer got back it was well past an hour. We eventually left at 2pm, but of course we got stuck in traffic on the Eisenhower expressway and didn’t arrive to our destination in Sandwich, Illinois (the set) until 3:30pm, just an hour and a half late.

There wasn’t much I learned from talking to the assistant producer, other than what I what I gathered from him, that he was an arrogant and rude upstart who just graduated from college nearly a year ago, interned at this production company and got lucky when an opening became available. The script-writer seemed more congenial, as she explained the plot to me in more detail.

By the time we got there, it was late and the sun was beginning to set. It was cold and I was told to go into a little shack where the rest of the actors and extras were situated. This was it, I thought, but of course, we waited for two more hours until we were told anything more.

So I sat and talked with others, traded stories and listened to wild and daring acting tales from the more professional actors, the boys and girls that do it for a semi-living, while holding down jobs like insurance agents, students or landscapers, you know the hardcore stuff that makes America strong!

At last 6pm had arrived and the first scene I shot involved yelling at Army soldiers who wouldn’t let the UFO eyewitnesses go beyond the wooden horse that were set-up to make it look as if the forest had been cordoned off, due to the supposed UFO that had landed in the woods.

It was cold out there and they gave us little heat packets to stuff in our pockets and boots, so we wouldn’t feel so cold. For that scene and the rest of the night and into the morning, I wore the same two recognizable items; my dirty trench coat and my gray pull-over winter cap with two circles around it that I had found at Union Station in downtown Chicago while waiting for my date to show up, but that’s another story for another time.

We must have shot that scene 15 times until they got exactly what they wanted. That’s the trouble with being an extra; you don’t exactly know what they want out of a person and sometimes neither do they, when they ask you for certain emotions, which on top of it being all foreign, it was mighty cold, which tends to put a damper on anything when it comes to thinking with a clear conscious.

But when production companies aren’t paying anyone to be there, they couldn’t expect much, now could they? So, the next best thing to do is to try and act the best way possible.

For that scene, they wanted us to be natural, but not totally aggressive with the soldiers, but when you’re trying to get across wooden horses to see a supposed foreign object, you can totally lose sight of what you’re doing. There must have been 10 or 15 of us out there, all play-acting and “struggling” with the soldiers. We had to shout at them, get in their faces, which I have had previous experience with cops and others as a young reporter fresh out of college, so that was no problem for me.

By the time we finished shooting that scene, it was 8pm and time to take a break, go back inside the warm wooden shack and have dinner. I sat by myself for the most part and spoke to a few folks here and there, but for the most part I kept to myself, just soaking in the sounds and the aura of the entire scene.

Between breaks and shots, I wandered around outside, cutting through the forest and I phoned my parents and a few friends just to say hello. It does get boring and repetitive if you don’t have anything to amuse yourself with, other than other people and I didn’t exactly find them amusing either; maybe if the producers had introduced us to each other, I might not have felt so odd about things, but anyway…

At 9pm, we had to re-shoot the first scene I was in. by the time 10pm had rolled around, some of the cast and extras were dismissed as their scenes were over. Hoping to catch a ride with one of them whom I had befriended, a man from Evanston, Illinois, I asked him to wait to see if I was done. “No,” quipped the assistant producer I had hitched a ride with, we still need you.”

So, I sat around and waited for another three hours until close to 1am, when I was called out to do another scene. This time, I had to act “surprised,” as the “object” (UFO) was being towed away by a flatbed U.S. Army truck. That scene took nearly an hour to shoot and then I was done. By the time I was finished however, I had to stick around until 4am, in order to catch a ride home with another extra actor, who was a stockbroker by day, but played an FBI agent for the show.

I tried to catch some sleep, but even at 2am, that was nearly impossible being inside an unheated shack, along with film crew members, a skeleton crew of producers & a few actors left. I felt a little frustrated as well, because I was never informed of anything and they just expected us to act on impact, which is not always a good thing to do.

By the time 4am showed up, I was glad to see my ride and off we rode to a local gas station, bought a couple of bottles of soda pop and away we sailed home. I don’t remember much during that time, as I drifted in and out of sleep. We talked a little and I thanked him for the lift home, as he dropped me off at the Howard Street Station garage.

It took me about 20 minutes to get home, considering traffic was light that morning. I schlepped upstairs to my apartment with my costume clothes in tow, unlocked the door, grabbed some fresh clothes for work and hopped into the shower, did the usual “morning routine,” left my apartment, seminally awake in a zombie state of mind, got to my car and flew down the street and drove in to work.

Thankfully, I got through work in one piece, went to the library to check my email early grabbed a pint of beef chopped suey at a local Chinese restaurant, drove home, sat up in bed, took two swallows, put down the cardboard box and slept solidly for the next 10 hours! The next day I felt a little better, but it was a birthday to remember for sure!

The show itself ran on The History Channel as scheduled on Sunday, March 6 (2005). Selected friends and family members, including Louie, The Arizona Babe, Rex Pâtér Homo, Benjy and Botox Frankenstein, plus many others around the United States were able to see the program that night and subsequent nights that the program ran in reruns.

I believe they are planning on running the program on the United Kingdom version of The History Channel, on Sunday, January 1, 2006 at 8pm, but you might want to check your local listings for those of you who read my blog and live in England and other parts of Europe.

This year, my birthday will be a quiet one; most of the celebrations will take place this weekend with friends, family and close loved ones; that’s the way it should be spent.

Ah, to been seen on English television again after a five-year absence! God Save the Queen! God help you all!!!