While the rest of the world was sleeping Saturday morning we were groggily waking up and getting ready for our day of filming. I didn't have to get up and go, but I didn't want to miss anything. Besides, someone had to go document everything. It was 7 am when we put our pajama-clad wee one in her car seat and left for Lehi. J was feeling a little nervous and a little excited, but mostly a lot tired. The first place we filmed was at Porter's Place (perhaps you remember my post about the Destroying Angel burger?) Addie was up and ready to party, so we went outside to wander main street while the film crew was getting set up.
Addie spotted this "dog" a few stores down the street. I think I may have snapped this photo just as she was sneezing. She loves dogs and will point and making panting sounds when she sees one. Or when she sees something sort of dog-like, like a lion. Or a goat. Or a cat.
After walking up and down main street Addie got thirsty, so we stopped in at Porter's Place to have a drink at the bar. Its a real kid friendly place. They serve their drinks in sippy cups for little customers. By now, as you can see, Jason was in costume and had already been in make-up. In my opinion Jason was the most authentic looking guy there. Three other guys were in this bar scene with Jason.I guess I oughta tell you the part he played and how the scene went down: The story goes that some gamblers in California put up a bet for who could kill Porter Rockwell. The guy Jason played was one of these gamblers. He finds Rockwell on his horse in the middle of nowhere and says something like, "Porter, you're a dead man!" and raises his gun to shoot him. Rockwell, being the quick guy he was, said, "You can't kill a man without a cap on your gun." The would-be-asassin glanced at his gun and gave Porter just enough time to thrust his hand into his pocket and shoot the man through his coat. (Porter never wore holsters. He kept all his various guns in his coat and/or vest pockets.) SO, the scene filmed at Porter's Place was the scene where the California gamblers are placing their bets on the table. They filmed in a really small, dark room so I don't have any photos of it. One of the crew guys was taking stills throughout the whole thing so hopefully we'll get some photos from him.
They also filmed the part where Porter gets his hair cut. He was promised by the Joseph Smith that if he never cut his hair or beard and kept true to his covenants that "no bullet nor blade shall harm him." And he never did cut his hair save for one time: a woman that he knew contracted typhoid fever and lost all of her hair. Rockwell cut his hair to make a wig for her (who wouldn't want to wear Rockwell's hair as a wig? She was probably thinking, "Whoa, getting typhoid fever turned out to be pretty cool." Okay, probably not.) Anyway, I guess the reason was a good enough one that his promise still held true because he lived to the old age of 65 and died of a heart attack. Anyway, the man cast as Porter Rockwell couldn't come until later in the day but they wanted to film that scene at that location, so Jason played Rockwell just for that scene. They shadowed his face a lot and basically filmed his silhouette. I don't know what they'll end up using in the finished film, but you just might see Jason as Rockwell for that scene, which would be pretty rad.
While everyone was crammed in the back room filming, Addie and I hung out up front. She played on this little cement step by the bar for a long time. We were there from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. It was a long time but Addie was pretty good. I took her back to watch the filming for a little bit and she liked waving at everyone on set. I also took her for a long walk through a little neighborhood and a park. And, believe it or not, I took her to a museum that was right next to Porter's Place. It was free because it was FREE MUSEUM DAY!!! I got to take advantage of this day after all and it was super convenient because we needed something to do. Filming is a lot of standing around waiting for a few guys to set up the lighting and equipment.
We went to the Hutchin's Museum and saw really cool things, like: Davy Crockett's gun, some woolly mammoth hairs, poisonous rocks and Porter Rockwell's saddle. And it really is his saddle (I'll explain how I know that later) and it was so awesome to see. It was really worn and I could just imagine the places its been and the scrapes its been in.
Once Jason got a break we went back to the museum again to look around...another reason why I'm glad it was free. Addie played this Indian drum with her crazy looking daddy. He got a lot of weird looks. Which reminds me, when we were having lunch (at Porter's Place, complete with lots of Sasparilla) some kids came in and just stared at us as they walked by to another table. I thought, "Why are all these kids staring at us like we're crazy?" and then I turned and looked at Jason and remembered, "Oh, we ARE crazy."
Speaking of crazy, this is Jack Slade's chair. I had never heard of Jack Slade until I went to this museum, but I doubt I'll ever forget him. This chair used to be in a tavern he frequented back in the days of the Wild West. He carved a backwards "J" into the back of the chair to keep other people from sitting in it. He did not share well with others. Whether the "J" was backwards because he thought it seemed more intimidating or whether it was because he didn't know which way a"J" went is up for debate, it doesn't really matter because that's not the crazy thing about this guy. Click on the photo below and read about it for yourself. Its nuts.
I told you it was nuts. I know you just went, "EWWWW!! No way!" as you read it. I scared myself wondering if his wife ever pulled him out from under her bed to talk to him or brush his hair. I just scared myself again writing it. Creepy.
After we were done filming at Porter's Place we went up American Fork Canyon to film the next scene. This is the scene where Jason tries to shoot Rockwell (silly fool). The guns in Jason's holsters were on loan from John Rockwell, the great great grandson of Porter himself. It was a pair of Navy Colts or something (I'm no expert on guns, I just know one when I see one). I know Jason felt pretty cool wearing them around.
This is the guy who played Porter Rockwell. I have to agree with John that he was too tall, too skinny, and his hair was too short. (I watched them dye his hair black in the parking lot. Pretty cool, I know.) But hey, they did they best they could. The horse was amazingly gentle and stood still for a very long time.
Here's the film crew, just in case you started thinking, "Yeah right you guys were filming a documentary. You just dressed J up and hung out in Lehi all day." Everyone was really nice and I liked talking to them about how they got started and what other films they had done. Poor Jason was on the other side of the river by himself just waiting around. He said he saw me talking to everyone and wished he could have been in on the conversation, mostly when I talked with John Rockwell. I'm saving that conversation for the end.
"Porter Rockwell, you're a dead man!" There, you've pretty much seen the clip now. Actually, Jason fake-dies at the end. He had to do it six or seven times and actually injured his knee one of the times. He told me that when he fell he would try to keep the guns from getting in the dirt, so he would keep his hand raised just above the ground. I don't know if you'll be able to tell in the final film, but it might be worth looking for. "Hey, he's not dead!" I can see a sequel to this.
Okay, so while the crew was setting up stuff and Jason was still alone on the other side of the river (going on the third hour over there) he did a few poses for me to photograph. I think he was pretty bored.I, on the other hand, was having the time of my life talking to John Rockwell. My first impression of him started like this, "They called and asked if they could borrow my guns and I said, ' No, but I'll let you use them. Wherever my guns go, I go too.' You can borrow my lawn mower, but you can't borrow my guns. There's just some things I won't let anyone borrow. You can't borrow my guns, you can't borrow my horse, you can't borrow my truck, and you sure as hell can't borrow my wife!" And then he laughed a big belly-shaking laugh. When I first saw John I thought, "That guy looks about how I would imagine Porter looked like, only with short hair instead, " and as it turns out I was pretty much right. He's the same height and build as Porter (which is about 5' 6"and barrel-chested) and carries a bit of resemblance in the face. I felt like I was talking to Porter himself. He even has a spitfire personality like I imagine Rockwell did. He's got a great sense of humor but is stubborn and forward at the same time. He definitely has an opinion about the way things ought to be and is not easily moved. I asked him all sorts of questions about Porter Rockwell and the various legends about him. I learned a whole bunch of new things.
I learned that half of the items in the Hutchin's Museum that claimed to be Porter's weren't, but that the rocking chair and saddle were. Apparently there's "bad blood" between the Rockwells and the Hutchin's over a pair of cuff links that belonged to Porter Rockwell. I also learned that he never lived in the house in Eureka (the one we visited and posted about on this blog) but it was on his property (dirty liars that painted the sign out front of that house!). I learned that he never learned to read or write but that despite that he built up a fortune worth $40,000 by the time he died. That's equivalent to a couple million dollars today. I learned that he dictated his entire life story to a lady just before he died but no one knows what happened to her writings. John is still looking for them himself and tracking down the descendants of that lady. I mentioned that I am a descendant of Judson Lyman Stoddard (he was a good buddy of Rockwell's) and I was pleased that he knew who I was talking about and was interested about it. I learned that no homes of Rockwell's are still standing. Apparently his home in New York was still there up to ten years ago but the NY fire department used it for their practice. Needless to say, John was fired up about it. I could spend another hour writing down everything. If you are curious about what else I talked with him about I'll tell you in person. Anyway, I was so excited to have the chance to talk to him and I just ate up everything he was telling me about Porter Rockwell. It was an absolute pleasure and a truly awesome experience. I only wish that Jason could have been standing there with us instead of across the river by himself. The film comes out in April, so look for it at your local Seagull Book, Deseret Book, or Walmart.
BEGINNING OF WAY CRAPPY ROTTEN LARD EVENING
I know, you thought the story was over. Its not. So after filming everything (it was about 7:30 pm) we decided to stop off at Cabela's since we were nearby. We wandered around the store admiring guns and looking at mounts. They started closing at 9 pm so we headed home. We pulled into our driveway and started unloading our car and that's when I realized I didn't have my diaper bag. Jason had changed Addie's diaper when we first got to Cabela's and had just been carrying the bag around while we looked at stuff. We decided he must have set it down somewhere and then, not being used to carrying a bag around, left it. He wasn't sure if he set it down in the store or in the parking lot while he loaded the stroller in the trunk. Extremely tired and stressed-out, we headed back to Cabela's hoping it was either sitting in the parking lot or that someone was still closing the store and would let us in. Our gas tank was empty so we had to stop and refuel on the way. We arrived at 10pm. It wasn't in the parking lot and no one was in the store. We went around to the employees entrance and found someone stocking the back room. He said he didn't have access to the front of the store, which may have been true or it may have been a lie to get us to leave. Either way, we were annoyed. Cabela's happens to have a fishing pond at the end of their parking lot and Jason went to ask any of them if they were employees. One of them happened to be and so she tried using her badge to get in, but I guess it programmed to not work after a certain hour. We thanked her anyway and then, admitting defeat, headed home. On the way home we remembered we were out of milk and bread, so we stopped at the grocery store. It was midnight. We bought a few groceries and then finally went home. I was frantic wondering if my bag was in the store or if someone had swiped it and was now buying hundreds of pez dispensers online with my card to complete their personal collection. I know, weird that pez dispensers were the worst thing I could think of. I was tired. At about 1 am we finished eating dinner (yeah, we were too busy driving around to have eaten dinner yet. Poor Addie was getting sick of all the animal crackers I was passing back to her as a substitute for real food.) We got in our pjs and then Jason began working on his lesson for Elders Quorum. (They called him about it Thursday night and he had just been too busy to work on it, in his defense). We went to bed at 2 am.
Jason got up at 8 and got ready for church. I felt too bad waking Addie up just yet (You've slept for six hours already, now get up!) so I just let her sleep. Jason taught his lesson, which pretty much ended up being him just talking about our day yesterday and the bag fiasco, but I guess it all worked out. Addie and I were just about to head out the door to church at 10 when my mom called on Jason's phone to tell me Cabela's had just called her. They had my bag and I could go pick it up at the Customer Service desk. Yipee! After church and after a hardcore nap, we drove back to Cabela's for the third time and picked up my bag. Happy day! Everything was in it, including my credit cards, and I didn't have to worry about crazy charges, buying a new phone, or getting a new driver's license and set of keys. Happy, blissful ending! Was our Saturday fun? Mostly, until it really sucked. Would we do it again? Sure, up until the part it started really sucking. And there you have it, our Saturday of Adventure.
