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10/20/2004: ""

We had just wrapped the scene when about 10 minutes later 2 undercover cops come strolling up to the door. Usually this is no big deal, the locals stop by all the time to peek in on the action. But these 2 two were here for a different reason, they had been sent here based on a complaint that someone had called in. A complaint? C'mon, we are in downtown LA, on one side of us is the construction where they are building the building next door and across the street is the cold storage shipping place. The officers were pretty cool and just warned me to keep it inside from now on, that the complaint had been about the naked girl outside. Out of the construction guys, the cold storge dudes and the truckers who the hell would have complained?

Anyways, after a lecture about the nudity and the fact that I didn't have a permit, I promised to be good and keep it inside and since I wasn't permitted they asked me to shut the set down. The deal with that is that the city wants a piece of the action. If you are shooting anywhere, still photography, video or film, you have to have a permit. Even though I explained that we really were just doing an internet content trade and no one was getting paid, they still said that in the long run, the stuff would be posted and money would be made so we needed to pull a permit. So the cops left, on the way out the door one of them commenting "I guess we missed the good stuff, huh?" Uh, yeah.

We shut down and were in the process of trying to figure out what to do when they returned to tell us that they had called back in downtown and they were informed that since we had recieved a formal complaint that I was going to recieve a citation. Sigh. I asked them who in the world could have possibly complained and they told me that one of their officers was at the cold storage place buying some fish (which is odd, since they don't sell to the public...hmmmm?) and noticed the naked girl and called it in. I guess I should count my lucky stars, since both Roxanne and I could have landed our butts in jail. Man, that would have sucked.

I have to go to court on November 5th. The fine for shooting without a permit is between $100 and $1000. A permit costs about $450 a day. They will now be keeping an eye on our place, if I was to get busted again they could just ticket me or, the worst case scenario if they felt like it, they could confiscate the film and if they were really cranky that day, our equipment. Most of the big companies that shoot here, like Vivid, Wicked, etc always pull permits so we don't need to worry about that, besides, it is the company shooting who gets the ticket, not the location. Just for the record, other than the big companies, virtually no one shooting, especially gonzo companies, usually ever bother with a permit. Honestly, it never even crossed my mind.

So when calling Kurt Lockwood, who was scheduled in the next scene, to tell him not to bother coming to downtown (the two girls were already here) he suggested we come to his place to shoot the scene. After a quick conference, we packed everyone and everything up and headed to Kurt's apartment in Hollywood. Story continued in next entry...(Taste Her Ass; final scene)