South Beach Diaries - Paradise Lost

On November 3rd, 1999, “the movie” came to an end. The following is an account of the last days and the wrap of the film. Although the incidents are true, the names are once again changed in order to protect the reputations of people involved.

Dear Joe,

I find myself approaching the last day of shooting, and some of the same craziness continues. I am sitting at my desk when I hear a conversation that started about travel arrangements turn into a name-game worthy of a comedy routine. As full names are required for travel and hotel identification, a few morsels of information came to the fore. The following is a snippet from the conversation between my production coordinator and her assistant.

“What room is Lion in?” “He’s in a townhouse, at the same rate as the other rooms.” “Same rate? I thought Lion was in the suite?” “No. That’s not Lion. That’s Breeze.” “Breeze is in a townhouse, too?” “No, just Lion. Breeze is in a lobby suite.” “Which one is Lion?” “David” “No. That’s Breeze. Lion is Michael.” “I thought Michael was Tornado’s name?” “Listen. Tornado is Mark’s name, Lion is David, and Breeze is John. There.”

At this point, I asked about the names of our pimps. The girls threw some nasty looks.

We’re coming up on the last day. Should be interesting.”

Jb

Dear Joe,

Last day of filming – we wrapped at 5:55 AM. Cardinal and the boys prepared for their final scene with their signature Moet and enough reefer to create a contact high. In addition, myself and my co-producer were pressuring the director to get the final shot, or we were going into an additional meal, and there was no place open at that hour, and the crew wanted to home. My location manager is once again calling the rental place to get the tow one of our trucks out of the sand. Why the driver, who had gotten stuck in that area, made the same mistake again I cannot tell. One of the rappers drunkenly told us about his next movie while he was supposed to be preparing for one of our scenes. Me? I sat on an apple box (my astute Pas had struck all of the director’s charis), a Cohiba in my mouth, happy that it was over. Jb

Dear Joe,

Soon, we will be heading home. Not a moment too soon. If I hear “a little bit of Monica in my life” one more time I am going to scream. They play it in bars, in Duane Reades, bodegas, hallways – you get the point!

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