Ghostly Adventures of Ivan E. Rection
November 19, 2003

Today started off as a usual shoot ... gathering of "girlie things", equipment, releases, lube etc. But that quickly changed. Our location was deep in the heart of the beautiful downtown Los Angeles. Well, beautiful if you love the smell of freshly ripe hobo woken from his morning slumber by a passing Ambulance. Or a nice salty flavor of urine on the tip of your tongue as you try to breath through your month because it hurts too much to use the nose. After stepping out of my car and a quick glance around ... I was relieved that my car alarm remote had a fresh battery. Many memories were jarred from my early childhood. Those gang fights in Junior High, those fans throwing rocks at our High School football team, school shooting, and muggings on the RTD buses ... it was like "Wonder Years" but with the ghettoish flavor ... well, maybe stench is a better word. I reminisced the good days until we entered the location. The building was tall, the walls were dirty, and the bathrooms hardly flushed. We were going to the third floor of this abandoned building were the auditorium was. The caretaker, yes ... the care-taker, took us on the tour of this roach infested behemoth. The air was stale, as there was little to no ventilation. People might say that this air was thick enough to cut with a knife, in this case I think a switch blade would be the proper term.

This auditorium was on the top floor, of course the only HAUNTED one in the building. At least according to the taker. I was a bit apprehensive about going inside but the negatives outside out-weighed the negatives on the inside ... there were no positives in this case, just less negatives. Besides, as the caretaker said, "only the living can kill you." Yeah, but the dead can scare the shit out of you.

As we set-up I made constant journeys up and down the elevator. On one occasion the doors opened as my fingers were inches away from the button. Coincidence? Sure, I made myself believe that. Shortly after the talent arrived for the scene. This day the participants were Jaime and Benjamin Brat.

The entire cast and crew felt weird vibes from this place. Walking through the hallways was like a scene out of some low-budget horror film. Most rooms were missing light bulbs, while others had flickering flourescents. We played security when escorting the cast to the restroom for them to get ready.

With one such trip, we were thrown into what seemed to be an episode of Scooby Doo. Sure we had no dog and a silly side kick but the eerie resemblance to the show was unquestionable. We had this abandoned - "haunted" building with a somewhat scary and unclean caretaker. Who at any chance would remind us of the super-natural inhabitants of the third floor. And let's not forget his constant snooping around, especially during the sex scene. At one point (during the sex) all I saw was a silhouette of a man's head peeping around the corner above our set.

Back to that infamous moment at hand. As Ben Brat and I wondered the halls and the staircase, we came upon on a slightly ajar door leading to a dimly lit room. At this point Ben played the brave leader, "Fred" while I was simply a silly harry sidekick, "Shaggy". Ben made his way to the door and slowly opened it. My imagination ran wild as I heard someone mutter out, "hello." I quickly informed Ben about what I heard but he was not on the same page, letting me know that he didn't hear anything. We continued on our way only to be back by the same room a few minutes later. We were not walking around in circles like some lost souls in films. This room was simply between us and our location. Once again our curious minds led us towards the room, this time inside. The room had one working fluorescent while the other two banks somehow were shattered on the floor. The wall to the left us had a weird scratch with a deep hole at the end. The floor was covered with broken drywall and trash. Before leaving the room I decided to make a joke about this door slamming, locking us in. That didn't happen but as we were on our way up the staircase the door slowly shut behind us. I haven't moved so fast since, wait ... I have never moved so fast. Up the steps and around the corner, I was light on my feet and heavy in my shorts. On the outside I was very composed but on the inside I was screaming like a little boy. From that point on I was to make sure to be in a room with at least one other person.

Luckily for me, we were shooting stills in a loft type room with large open windows creating a beautifully lit area. Lit for only one important reason, to keep the Creepies away. As we shot stills, Ben briskly walked into the room and asked if we heard a harmonic sound. One of the photographers did but others were busy at work. I wasn't working just trying to keep sane. As we continued working this harmonica sound became clear to us ... almost too clear. At one point the melody came from an adjacent hallway leading to our auditorium. Then is seemed to surround us in this loft. It was overwhelmingly loud, enough for us to stop shooting the tease. Guy Capo was on the set on this particular day, he grabbed his behind the scenes camera and made his way to the adjacent hallway to the right of us. The sounds were disturbingly soothing but in many respects frightful as I was waiting for this harmonica carrying apparition to make itself visible to us. This would create a very uncomfortable and a first time situation for me, because I have never worked with a load in my pants.

This was no longer my imagination led by my weird childhood experiences with ghosts. We were all in it now: Fred, Daphne, Velma, Scooby, and me ... Shaggy. My truck was outside and I was ready to run like the wind away from this haunted theater and it's creepy caretaker. The only thing that kept me going was the braveness of one Guy Capo, who without a second thought ran into the ghastly hallway to capture the ghost on tape. With digital camera in hand I vowed to so the same; for mankind, for science, for all those non-believers, and especially for pride. I had to push my testicles out of my stomach and act my age. As the harmonica waled in the dark hall, I stuck my shaking hand around the corner and snapped a shot. Nervousness turned to excitement as I prepared to see the fruits of my courage. My mind ran with images of press clippings and marquees reading, "Ivan E. Rection: ghost hunter/captureror!" I was going to sit in with Regis ... discuss my non-sex life with Howard ... date Pamela ... and party with Paris. Life was going to be good for this brave Mr. Rection. Yes it was.

This was literally like a movie. My fingers moved in slow-motion as I switched the camera from stills to playback. And there it was ... the PICTURE. I got it! It wasn't clear as day but enough to see the culprit. A silhouette of the mischievous ghost playing tricks on us. But was it? Could it have been the caretaker trying to scare away the immoral porn mongers? Or was it someone ELSE!? I had to sit down and evaluate. It was definitely a silhouette of a man but there was also something else in the image. A clue! A reflection of the camera flash in a circular shape ... on the man's wrist, a watch!. The caretaker looked as though a luxury of a watch was definitely not in his cards at that moment in his life. The wrest of the crew was here, so was Jaime.

With sudden white flashes, the pieces began to fall into place. The watch, the "hello", the closing door, the harmonica. I never saw Ben's mouth by that dimly lit room ... Ben was behind me as we exited the same room later on ... he was never around during the harmonica play ... and the loft was the echoing center between the two hallways, creating an echo from other areas of the floor. We didn't have to unmask the ghost like Scooby would but we did match the watch in the photo to the watch on Ben's wrist. AND while Ben was busy during the sex, a harmonica was found in his pants.

He duped us all, especially this gullible P.A. One for the porn star but it's not over. (Cue: Evil Laugh)