So I am out here in the dirty smelly town of Los Angeles, missing my wife and my little boy and at the same time feeling guilty because hanging out on the Team America set is so amazing and fun I almost forgot about the missing of my wife and little boy. The only way the Team America set would have been any cooler than it was, was if my wife and little boy could have been there with me. But even with out them it was probably one of the greatest and coolest things I have ever seen in my life. Except for maybe the first time I saw my wife's boobs. HOT!

Tuesday morning Orgazmo, Cannibal Producer and President of CRAPtv, Jason McHugh slowly got his fat ass out of bed. I was still not sure if Kevin Smith was going to make it to the set or not because he called me the night before telling me he was completely slammed that day. He had a pitch meeting at Sci-Fi with Brian Lynch and then he had to record an Audio Commentary for the Directors Cut of Donnie Darko. Then he was flying out to Las Vegas to work on a new script. So I begged and pleaded for him to some how make some time for a set visit. But since he was going out of town that night, he was more interested in hooking up with me at his house and going over a documentary I had cut for him. I told him that me introducing him to Trey Parker would be as epic as if I introduced Chris Rock to Eddie Murphy… Well cut to Jason and I driving to the set, I reached in my pocket to call Kevin and I noticed I had forgotten my cell phone. This led to many ribbings and jokes from Jason all day as he told me I was “J.V. Hollywood” for being so stupid in forgetting my cell phone. There was no turning around as I did not know how to get to set and we were caravanning, so I could not even call Jason and tell him I forgot my cell phone we need to turn back! So I fucked the pooch and the pooches grandma and grandpa on that one. You got to understand though. I am not Hollywood. I don't carry my cell phone with me everywhere I go. I live in my hobbit hole in Seattle and edit shit. When I do go out it's to the store or something, not to some hip Hollywood set or meeting where it is necessary for me to make a dozen phone calls on the way there and back. I conduct all business calls on my landline and I like it that way.

We go pick up Lloyd Kaufman, the President of Troma Films and the director of the Toxic Avenger! He is one of my all time heroes, and a really really nice guy. It was honestly the highlight of my trip. As any time hanging with Lloyd Kaufman is a real treat for me. We took him to the set and I sat down in the dinner tent with Mr. and Mrs. Stone. I had never met Matt's parents before and I was really excited to chat with them. It's kind of a lame guilty pleasure of mine. I really enjoy talking to my friend's parents, because it has always fascinated me on where people come from. I tried to explain this to Kevin Smith the night before and he asked me when I was also planning on asking Matt for his hand in marriage, because I was so stoked to meet his folks. Matt's parents were really cool and what I especially liked about them was how much they would laugh when I made fun of Jason. It is always a treat to find an audience that appreciates the “ripping of Jason McHugh” brand comedy.

I walked to the set with Mr. and Mrs. Stone. His folks were leaving and wanted to tell their son goodbye. We walked in and that was my first time getting a look at these amazing sets and models. Meticulous detail was put into every car, tree, bench, house- you fucking name it! You could just stare at things and see all kinds of crazy intricate detail. We saw one take and they called for a half hour lunch. I bumped into Matt and we talked about the band “Ween” for a few seconds. (It's our ritual conversation, since we both love that band more than anyone else on the planet.) He had to bust out of there pretty quick because the New York Times was there and they needed to do an interview with them. I decided to head out and get some eats. On the way out I bumped into Trey and he looked pretty stressed so I kept greetings to a minimum.

Lunch is Mashed Potatoes, Mac and Cheese for me as I don't dig on swine or much of any meat product rather. It was pretty damn tasty too. Matt and Trey later reveal to me that, the food is the only thing that gives them joy anymore on this set. Jason, Lloyd and myself sit down with South Park and Team America Executive Producer Anne Garefino. I had met her once before at South Park but never really got the chance to sit down and talk with her. She was really sweet and I am glad I got the opportunity this time to talk with her for a bit. Trey and Matt sat at the table in front of us with the New York Times and watched everyone else eat as they sat there and miserably answered questions. Lloyd was slowly getting more and more bummed as he was told he was going to be able to conduct HIS interview with Matt and Trey during this time and New York times was taking all of his time times the times tables. Lloyd never being an unvocal person voiced his distress and bummed out feelings more and more as time went on. He kept a running commentary about the whole thing into his camera and it was just becoming more and more apparent that the elder statesman of independent cinema was not going to get his interview at least on this 30-minute lunch break. Lloyd slipped off into the ladies room for a quick squirt and while he was gone the interview with New York Times ended and Matt and Trey went back to set. Lloyd then spent the next 15 mins or so talking into his camera about how stupid it is to go to the bathroom when waiting for an important interview.

We went onto the set and got the nickel tour from Jason McHugh. Actually it was more like the penny tour, really nasty gas station penny that has all sorts of green crud on it. But I was okay with it, because I knew I was coming back tomorrow for the million dollar tour. I was really getting stoked about that. We watched a few more takes before we went back outside. Lloyd was bumming hard, but it was one of those cases of, "what are you going to do?" Outside we bumped into Kurt Nickels who is Trey's new roommate and both Matt and Trey's assistant on the Team America set. You would all know him from Cannibal the Musical. He is the guy that plays Matt's brother in the opening of the film. Kurt penciled in Lloyd for an interview the next day and while doing that, Trey popped outside to say good-bye. Jason, Lloyd, Trey, and myself all huddled up together for a quick picture, which will be on the Troma site sometime soon.

I got a hold of Kevin later that night and explained to him about me leaving my cell phone and Jason told me how J.V. Hollywood I was all day for forgetting my cell phone and Kevin told me "not to sweat it, and let's try and hook up tomorrow." The great thing about Jason ribbing me about my cell phone all day that day was that he wound up losing his phone that night. Which had all of his "important folk" numbers in it. He had to make some pressing calls that night too, but could not because the Karma police came by and fucked him in the ass good. We went down to this really dirty dirty store in Topanga to look for it, as we had stopped there earlier for some chow and supplies. On the way I said "Jason if you apologize to me and I feel that you really mean it. Karma will let us find your phone. But if the apology is not heart felt we are not going to find it." Jason then proceeded to do a bunch of lame ass apologies and I told him that they were all pretty fucking weak. He agreed, and we did not find his phone.

I woke up around 8:00 and took a shower. Jason was still deep in a "fat coma" That is when fat folks sleep in. I woke his ass up and tried to talk him into coming down to the set with me. Kevin had pretty much not gotten back to me on hooking up again this morning which was probably a good thing, since I had been booked to do the internet webmasters tour on the Team America set. I had tried one last time to get Kevin Smith to come to set, but it just did not work out. Jason was way too lazy to wake up and come to set so I had to find it and deal with it by myself. I hooked up with the PR lady and asked where the tour was. She knew exactly who I was, what my name was and that I spelled my name with 3 T's. That kind of freaked me out, because I had never met her before. I guess it was her job to know who is on the set. I got hooked up with the rest of the "Webmasters" It was weird because they all looked like a bunch of dorks trying to dress nice. I was a dork wearing dork gear. Crazy Long Shorts, A "Ghostbusters" T-shirt and my trademark "Ween Hat" I stuck out like a guy wearing a Ghostbusters t-shirt, ween hat and long shorts in a group of webmasters trying to dress nice. I even heard one of the Webmaster guys go "Who the fuck is Ghostbusters over there?" Because the paramount vice president of interactive Marketing "Amy Powell" came up to me and introduced her self. She gave me her card so that we could keep in contact about all the Team America going's on's. She made me feel like I was some important web dude. Which we all know I am not. I mean freaking AOL was there. For all I know it was AOL who said "Who the fuck is Ghostbusters over there?" WEAK! But I tried to extinguish quickly on the fact that I was somebody of significance. I told her that Trey and Matt just kind of snuck me in here last minute, that I was no one important. And she was like "I know they did, that's why I want to give you my card." So I kind of bombed at what I was trying to do, which was to tell her that I was a waste of time. And because of what I said, it made AOL nickname me "Ghostbusters".

The sets were just as cool as they were yesterday. This time around we actually got to hear Trey do some live dialogue with the puppets, which was pretty sweet. You could tell that he was stoked to do the live dialogue. Matt's mom was telling me the day before that when Trey was doing dialogue seemed to be the only time he was having any fun in the time they had been there. This project has been going on now for two years and they are just pretty bummed about it at this point. They want it to be over. But at the moment, Trey was having a blast and laughing at his own voice over jokes. They were shooting a chase scene that was near the Egyptian sphinx. The set was beautiful and incredibly detailed. One of the lines Trey kept saying over and over again was..."Pull over or we will be forced to use force." which I thought was a pretty sweet line. The tour included introducing us to puppet designer Norman Tempia he explained to us how the puppets were a combination of ROD puppets and Marionettes. The faces of the puppets were animatronic on some of the key puppets. It was really crazy how much work had been put into the whole damn thing. Plus just all the amazing people that put all the details into this whole thing.

We were escorted through all the amazing sets, giant canyons, tons of desert sets, The Team America HQ Set, A miniature of Paris, The Egyptian sphinx set and a bunch of other things. It was like hanging out at some dream kids action figure play world. Everything was so tiny and detailed down to the PR ladies favorite set piece a miniature post card rack with tiny post cards intact. The thing even swiveled! The most interesting thing about the tour was just watching all the AOL and other dot-com-er's jaws hanging down to the floor as they marveled over the sets. It just made me feel so proud of Matt and Trey for putting it all together. I was like yep that's right you guys, you fucking go!

The tour moved into the costume room where there were just tons and tons of tiny costumes, shoes, tiny little props and three women that looked very very proud of all the stuff in this room that they built from scratch. The room was very small and they packed us in there like sardines. All those bodies in that small room made it extremely hot and I started getting dizzy. This girl kept asking all these questions about, fashion and design and if they purposely did any “wink and a nod” fashion jokes about Gucci and boring crap like that. I nearly threw up on her I was feeling so sick from the heat and the smell that was starting to generate in the room. I admit it was cool and interesting at first, but this girl just kept going on and on. Finally I could not take it anymore and just bolted through the crowd of smelly dot-com-er's and ran out the door. The PR lady stopped and told me that Anne wanted to see me. I was cool with that because I did not even want to be with in the vicinity of that sweat-room any longer.

I went over to Anne and she was sitting at the monitors with Matt and Trey. I talked to those guys a bit and found out that Lloyd was scheduled to come earlier than I was originally told. I wanted to hang out with Lloyd again so I waited outside for him as I was told he would be here any minute. Sure enough while waiting for Lloyd he called me on my cell and told me he was having problems finding a place to park. I told him I was waiting for him out in the set lot and as soon as he found a place to come over. He showed up a few minutes later and I took him on the set. The second A.D. approached us and asked Lloyd if he was Lloyd Kaufman. Lloyd introduced himself as being so and the 2nd A.D. got all excited. He told him that his first film was a Troma film called “Monster in the Closet”. He was just an extra, but it was what got him started in the business and now he was the second A.D. on Team America! Pretty sweet. Troma does it again! Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Matt Stone, Trey Parker and now this dude. Lloyd is always happy to see stuff like that. I was happy for him.

We watched a few takes. Then Trey took his head phones off and they called lunch. Trey came up to us and asked if we wanted to get something to eat. I was starving and all about it. So Lloyd and I followed Trey out to the Lunch Tent. Trey and I talked a bit about his new loft he bought out in Seattle. As we were slopping our food down on our plates I asked Trey if he was still on Atkins, because he is skinny as fuck. But he told me he was done with it for the most part. Good for him. He had lost a ton of weight and kept if off. Trey, Lloyd and I sat down and began eating. We kind of just sat and chatted about this and that. I asked about people that were not around. A few minutes later Matt joined us and I was joking around with him about his parents because I had hung out with them the night before. I basically just laid down the conversations I had with his folks. I can't say it enough, Matt's parents were really nice and super funny.

After we were done eating. We moved to the editing room. Where South Park editor Tom Vogt was hard at working cutting this bad boy of a picture together. It was funny too because I saw the dot comers being escorted off the set and they were all staring at me. I am sure AOL was like…DAMN IT! WHO THE FUCK IS THAT GHOSTBUSTERS GUY! Because not only was I staying I was walking off with Matt, Trey and the famous Lloyd Kaufman. Who you gonna call asshole! I'll tell you who your gonna call, you gonna call me MR. GHOSTBUSTERS damn it! Cock.

Trey showed us the teaser that you guys have all seen by now and I nearly threw up from laughing so hard. One of the funniest things in the world is watching Trey watch his own shit. He laughs as if it was the first time he had ever seen such brilliance and it just makes what is already funny, fucking hilarious. He showed us a bunch of clips too and played us the new D.V.D.A. song. Which was like hanging out with an old friend. It had been way too long since I had heard some new D.V.D.A. Let me tell you guys it is worth the wait! This song kicks butthole.

We sat and talked for a good while after that. That is when Trey dropped a huge bomb and said that he wants to re-do Cannibal the Musical but he wants to do it with a huge budget, a kind of go back to his roots sort of thing and make it the way he wanted. Ala Lucas putting in Jabba. But Trey wants to just do it all over again, re-write it, re-shoot it and make it much much bigger. He also said he wanted to use the exact same cast. Which was just like a wet dream come true for me. Let me warn you guys, Trey says a lot of things and this may or may not happen. The one thing its got going for it more than anything else is that it is such a crazy ass idea. Those are the ideas Trey and Matt like to do the most. They also talked about a few other things on the “to do list” including a Baseketball Actor's Cut. Which I think would be the first time anyone has ever done such a thing. I have heard of Producers and Directors Cuts. But never an actors cut. Which again, they like do the things that are not the norm. Some interesting Orgazmo stuff came up too, but I am afraid I can not share that with you now.

We left the editing room and I walked back with Matt. He told me he was bummed that Kevin Smith did not make it to set and asked me to give him his number and he would really like to hang out with him sometime. I told him that I would and I thanked him for letting me crash at his place again. I also talked to him a bit about the documentary I was cutting together for Kevin and he told he wanted to see it. I was so stoked that I got to see all the footage that they showed me. Lloyd was stoked that he got a great interview out of them for his Make Your own Damn movie DVD. I was thinking that this day could not get any cooler when Matt's phone rang and we found out that Dian Bachar was on set. Those guys had to jump and get back to work. So I went to the food tent and found Dian and Marcus Vaughn. (Whom you all should know as the Stunt Cock from Orgazmo.) Lloyd proceeded to interview Dian as well for his documentary and then shortly after that Lloyd had to take off. I was going to jet too, as I wanted to go help Beth and Jason paint Matt's Palisades house. But I just got into this huge conversation with Marcus and Dian about websites and some short film ideas they had. Some of there were the funniest things I have heard in a long time. So I wound up hanging out on set till about 4:00. I finally told those guys I had to go and on my way to my car I bumped into Matt again. He was on his way out too. I told him I was on my way back to his house and he apologized for not really getting to hang out at all this week. That he was just too slammed. I told him that I totally understood.

It's funny because one of things that Matt and Trey told Lloyd in his interview to young aspiring filmmakers was basically don't ever get famous. They said that they couldn't even remember the days where they went out to make films for fun. Now that they are successful all what filmmaking is, is a series of compromises and lameness. You could tell that they just wanted this thing to be over. Trey was like, I am here so much that I can't even go out for a drink.” He continued “It's really hard to be an alcoholic and make a film like this at the same time!” October is just around the corner though guys. I'll hopefully be up there for the premiere and have that drink with you and be happy in the fact that I am not a successful filmmaker and can continue to go out and make movies just for fun.

Mattt

[ source: CRAPtv ]