MIAMI ONTHE ROOF 7-31-03
Woke up and wandered over to this little Cuban diner a few blocks away. I
like the little ethnic greasy spoons and a majority of the time prefer them
to the tourist trap cookie-cutter bullshit food chains that pop-up in
vacation spots. I had a Cuban style hamburger, and some epinalias.
Met up with the crew and we wandered around some streets that sort of work
out like an outdoor mall. I needed a shirt, but the best I could find was a
New York Yankees t-shirt. Not that I'm a big fan of the Yankees, but it
said New York across the front, and I felt like representing NY, rather than
some touristy "I went to Miami" type shirt like the crap I picked up in
MAUI a few years back because I thought it would be funny. I bought this
shirt out of necessity.
At least I'd have a shirt I could wear to the clubs that hadn't already been
through days of drinking, sweat, and debauchery. We got back to the hotel and the
guys were all psyched to do the show. We cleaned up, I went to the
barbershop down the block and got my head shaped up. This barber had a
stack of Maxim a mile high, and if I were to go through them, I could have
assembled a portfolio of my work from his pile alone.
After the trim, we loaded into the truck and started heading down to the
Television Studio, being that they pretape these things and air them at
night it was still early in the afternoon. As we drove Tony popped a CD of
just the beat for Petrified into the CD player as Shice and Misery sang
along to it in prep for singing it live in just a few short hours.
We got to the lot, parked, entered the building and were cleared by
Security. Everyone was speaking Spanish so Tony and I were walking around
basically like confused children following Shice and Misery down corridors of
walls lined with posters of all the many shows on Mun2 and Telemundo.
Apparently, both networks are located in this building. We went wherever
Shice and Misery went (being that they can speak Spanish enough to get by)
and we knew Jack Shit of Spanish. We were led to the green room where we
were given free range of the mini fridge full of soda, and iced tea cans, so
we all indulged.
Shice and Misery were now both suited up to perform. Misery was wearing his
shirt Gawsie Athletek had given him for the performance, and Shice was
wearing the Ecko Gear Ecko gave him for his performance. The musicians who
were on the show prior to The Roof came in and shook Shice's hand and they
all talked in fast Spanish. Shice and Misery were ushered out to get
make-up and were back in less than five minutes. I snapped some pictures
when they got back. They were more excited than nervous I think, but they
were both on the edge of their seat with anticipation. They were getting
bombarded by phone calls from their friends and families and eventually had
to turn off their cells cause it was making them more nervous than they
needed to be.
A woman who was one of the VJ's on one of the other shows on Mun2 came in
and introduced herself to us and wanted to meet Shice.
They chatted a bit
and she left. We sat in this little room watching the a little TV as the
show began to start. It seemed to go on and on forever as time seems to do
when you are anticipating something. Stagehands stopped in the room
periodically to let us know that the guys would be going on in a few
minutes, they did this about 5 times. Finally about 45 minutes into the
show they came back into the green room and said "this is it, you're going
on in two" and led them out.
Tony and I were brought into the set through the back doors to stand and
watch from off camera. Now, if you haven't seen "The Roof" it's a show
that's supposed to take place on a Roof of a building, in what I assume is
Manhattan. The set looks like a rooftop I guess, and when they welcome a
performer to the roof, they first show footage of the performer coming up
the stairs to the roof. This is what they were prefilming now, although
Shice and Misery were actually walking up a set of stairs that led to the
floor above the floor we were actually on and it would be spliced together
later to make it look like they were actually coming up the stairs and
arriving on "The Roof."
A lot of other station employees also wanted to watch so Tony and I made
room as the entire area behind the cameras filled up with spectators. The
performance started with a close up of the Vinyl Album cover I drew and
pulled back to show Shice and Misery, the song started and before you know
it they were laying down the lines into the mics and tearing the place up.
There were crazy lighting effects and some of the show's dancers (Reminiscent
of the In Living Color fly girls) were doing their thing in the background
while the guys spit. When the song ended the host of the show came on set
and did a little post performance interview with Shice. The segment ended
and the guys came off stage. I filmed most of it from behind the cameras
with my own Sony Minicam until my film ran out just at the beginning of the
post performance interview. That's when I just stood there and watched from
the sidelines.
We exited the set and then the building. The guys were on a total high, and as we did we ran into Julissa Bermudez (The host of The Roof) in the lot. We asked her if she wanted to chill and hit the clubs with us, but she turned out to only be 19!
We shot home and went straight to Shice's hotel room to watch the show as it
aired on TV a few hours later. We watched the show in real time, and the
guys were overwhelmed with pride. Whooping, hoots, hollers, cheers and high
fives all around. We decided to head back over to Wet Willie's to celebrate,
where we were also set to meet up with my boy BUGALOO. We pounded a few of
the frozen drinks and got many recurrences of brain freeze in the doing.
When it got late enough Buga pulled up in his sweet little black
convertible.
Just another day in the life of an Art Juggernaut.
-Cojo