chuckography: 1,000 th Posting!

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

1,000 th Posting!

In honor of reaching this goal of one thousand blog posting, I pondered what I should re-cap or to stress.

For the last several years I have been selected as an Extra or BG (Background actor) in 5 or 6 tv shows filming here in Charleston and three movies down in Savannah.

This scene was from the Adam Sandler Netflix 2017 movie called THE DO-OVER.

We were told to walk straight toward the camera and an injured man stumbled past us. My "wife" was listed in the credits as "Hospital Screamer." I got a pat on the back and a well-done by Adam.

I have talked about growing up on the peninsula in Ansonborough when the area had bottomed out during the 1940-1950s. Few owned and most rented. on Society Street.

Remembering my 4-room schoolhouse on Anson Street at St. Joseph's K-6, then the walk down to Cathedral Grammar school for 7th & 8th grades before braving the steady - and constant - wind when you turned the corner and started up Calhoun Street to Bishop England high school.

At graduation in 1957, I had no interest in college and no financial means to do so.

The Marines gave me a military education during a rare - and, for me - excellent peacetime with nobody shooting at us.

That was very important to a Combat Still Photographer.

That led to a visit to MCRD San Diego when I traveled with the Camp Lejeune "varsity" football team for a game on the West Coast.

While there I was offered a photo scholarship to the very young University of San Diego when I finished my USMC tour of duty.

This I accepted!

While living in Southern California I met my wife, we had two children and I even photographed Senator John F. Kennedy when he was campaigning for President against Richard Nixon.

I continued posting stories and pictures when I later re-married and had a red-headed daughter who showed up in my blogs too.

Photography has been an important part of my life, as a Staff photographer for the San Diego Union-Tribune newspapers and most recently, founding a local photography group here in my hometown 10 years ago.

Right now we are migrating the members, meetings, photos and all talks from an old site to our newly- named Charleston SC 21st Century Photography Group, on our new Facebook site.

We have several hundred members, ranging from professionals to wannabes and everything in between.

Wander back through my 12 years of posting my thoughts and photos.

I truly can say the beard I grew about 2 years ago has landed me quite a few roles.

My first was the movie LIZZIE about the young lady with an ax who gave her father 40 whacks.

Her trial was set in 1893 Ohio and wardrobe furnished me period-clothing.

I played the assistant prosecutor but had no lines or credit.

It comes out to theaters this year and I hope to see if I had a lot of "face time."

We shot all day at the historic Effingham courthouse in Springfield, near Savannah. Wardrobe would change our ties to show it was the next day of the trial. My last "day" I wore a bow tie.

I seem to play a lot of hospital patients. Especially on Season 1 and 2 of the just-wrapped MR. MERCEDES series, by Stephen King.

First time I was in a hospital gown was in a CBS pilot called "IDENTITY" that was shot at the old Naval Hospital in North Charleston.

It was not picked up by the network so I never saw myself on screen.

My latest pilot is SALVAGE, a tv show/series that stars Jim Belushi in a small Florida town (filmed here on Sullivan's Island.)

I was put in a choir gown and became a "prop" at the front of the church. We 12 did not sing but avoided being mixed in with 130 other extras who were the congregation.

Sometimes the director uses you in several different places as they shoot many different angles or an extreme close-up of the star.

Then you are merely one of the blurred, out-of-focus people walking around in the background.

So, this is my posting to mark a special milestone in my blogging.

I am glad I started to blog and I even found a company called Blog2Print which did as expected and produced five (so far) bound hard-cover volumes of my writings and photos. These I will pass along to my children to remember me.

(Click on the photos and links for more information.)

A "thousand thanks" for stopping by. Here are some more random shots from my blogs: