Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [73]
It doesn't take much to picture the rulers of Dubai a long time ago traveling across this exact patch of desert, feeling thoroughly depressed at how desolate it all was, how empty, and thinking to themselves, “Let's face it, fellas, the tide's never coming back in again,” resolving there and then to put their crowned heads together and figure out something interesting and unique to do with their country.
Once I'm finished walking across the ridge, I stop to mop my reddening forehead and to check back with Kevin, who's some distance away, naked from the waist up, with a floppy hat on protecting his face, to see if my walking bit was okay.
It wasn't.
From behind his tripod, he shouts more orders: “Top … ridge … beat… curve!”
I cup my ear, but I still can't make out a word he's saying. The wind's against us. And his crazy arm gestures don't help. Nevertheless, I return to my starting point and try again, a little further to the left this time. Pure guesswork, and obviously nothing like what he had in mind, because moments later I see him throw a small fit—first time he's done that, ever—and come sprinting over.
“Jesus, Cash, are you deaf? Go behind the ridge!” he calls up to me. “Wait ten seconds, then start climbing. Walk over it toward me—okay?”
Aaaaaaahh! So that's it. “Sorry, Kevin.”
By now I have sand inside my shoes, my ears, my armpits, my foreskin, and crunching between my teeth. After a brief pause, I do as instructed and clamber up to the top of the ridge again. Taking no chances this time, I reach into my box of well-tried expressions and pull out the ultimate crowd-pleaser: my Mystified Look. I squint across the wide-open landscape as if to get my bearings, glance right, glance left, glance right again, then bumble out of shot with the brooding air of a man who, if he's asked to do this one more time, may fly off the handle and punch someone, even if it means risking a spot of jail time.
“And … cut. Great.”
Kevin's not the only one showing signs of cracking. Everyone's testy today.
I blame Dubai. Something about this corner of the world screws with your mind, I think. It's in the air. Even on a good day, you're on edge the whole time. You know that frazzled feeling you get when, halfway to work, you suddenly think to yourself, “Jesus! Did I turn the oven off?” Well, it's a bit like that. Nothing too major, nothing you can put your finger on exactly, but enough to cancel out most traces of good humor during your stay and make every molehill feel like an unassailable mountain.
Good example: this morning, first thing, the normally quite unflustered Kevin had a run-in with Jay over camera angles. And then Jay had a run-in with me in front of the whole crew about some continuity point or other. All very fleeting, and easily patched up, but unsettling at the same time. As it is, we're already making big allowances for Jay. Before we came on this trip, he blew out one of the discs in his back and is currently half-crippled with sciatica, poor guy. Though this is a mere blip on the sonar compared to the real firestorm we're facing right now.
Mike—Kevin's soundman—has lost his gear.
THE gear. The fifty-pound sound-mixer box of tricks he wears around his neck during filming, together with his microphones, cables, and whatever else he uses to record interviews. All of it failed to turn up on the carousel at the airport, which was a staggering blow to the production, because as wonderfully sumptuous as Kevin's pictures may be, they're not strictly television unless they make a noise. (These aren't my rules, it's just the way it is.) So until he finds it, he's forced to lease or borrow equipment in every location we visit.
Numerous calls