Panama, new movie & TTWB
PANAMA: ok, it’s even weirder. so now I’m downstairs in the hotel restaurant, and the staff doesn’t want to serve me because…actually let me start at the beginning.
First of all, I wanted to create a vehicle The Trouble with Billy TV series as a vehicle for something that would be shot locally, in LA with my dog Boo Boo, BUT, she’s passed on, but I also wanted to take all the bizarre things that happened to me and turn it into a fictional comedy, loosely based on my life.
So, I get this movie offer, shoots in Panama. I have to leave early Thursday morning, flight leaves at 5AM. Usually in the morning I like to get up and have coffee, etc and have a leisurely bowel movement. But because this flight was so early- I stayed up, didn’t go to sleep, just stayed up and went to the airport. It’s a long flight and I had a window seat-there was a large person sitting next to me in the aisle seat and it was an early AM flight so this large person fell asleep. I couldn’t sleep, so I watched a couple of movies(btw, The Butler was FANTASTIC). Then the stewardess came around and served breakfast-the big person woke up for that. I ate some food, and had a few cups of coffee. Breakfast was over everyone went back to sleep. I watched movies and for whatever reason I had a case of gastritis and felt like I might have a bowel movement. But 2 things, one when I fly my colon usually gets dehydrated and I get some constipation but it really doesn’t bother me because I have a germ phobia so I don’t use public restrooms for No. 2. I did have some unusual flatulent activity- I’ve dealt with this before on an airplane and from experience I know that if you press your buttocks into the seat you create a seal and the unwelcome gas goes into the cushion and it’s trapped. I did have an urge to make a bowel but this is where my advanced training in Kundalini Yoga kicks in-in Kundalini we learn how to really control our sphincter muscles and coordinate our sphincter with our breath. I was able to maintain control for the whole 6 hour flight and I repeated a mantra( it was in Sanskrit & Gurmukhi), basic translation was something to the effect that if I waited I would have a nice private bathroom at 5 Star hotel in Panama. I don’t want to belabor the point but when I arrived in Panama there is immigration, customs, etc. And the production was late in picking me up( I’m not even going to get into that) Suffice to say by the time I got to my hotel I really had to go to the bathroom. I had exhausted my sphincter muscles and was actually cramping. Check in was a nightmare because they had my reservation under “Billy” McNamara and my passport in “William” McNamara and they didn’t understand that “Billy” is a nickname. Finally I’m in the elevator with the bellboy and all I can think about is the nice private clean toilet in this 5 Star hotel and evacuating. The bellboy takes me and my baggage to the room and he comes in and starts showing me how things work, the TV, the stereo, the electroni curtains, etc. I throw a 5 dollar bill at him and beg him to leave-The room is super big and luxurious-the big down comforter, the big screen TVs in both the bedroom and the living room, the air conditioning felt fabulous and there was thye door to the giant bathroom-it was closed-seemed odd but whatever- I knew that when I opened the door I would see glass and marble maybe even a bidet…so I launched at the door and began the process of fully relaxing my sphincter knowing that I could let it go because I was with 5 feet of toilet-as I was moving I tore my clothes off-it felt fantastic! I opened the bathroom door and inside the bathroom was a separate door to the toilet, even MORE private-which is wonderful. I swung the toilet door open and there was a rotund body slumped on the toilet with his pants down on the floor-something was wrong and I was TERRIFIED. I screamed and immediately tightened my sphincter just stopping short of a real disaster-this guy looked like a maintenance guy but he was DEAD…on the toilet but dead.
I immediately call downstairs and tell them that there’s a dead person on my toilet. A bunch of people come upstairs, looks like front desk staff, security and maintenance workers. And maintenance guys were wearing the same uniform as the dead guy(his little name tag said, “Jesus”). Everyone is in a panic and within ten minutes the police have arrived. They ask me to come downstairs to an office. I said that I had no problem but I would like to get another room and freshen up but they said that wouldn’t be possible. Make a long story short, the police wanted to verify I had just arrived in Panama and make sure I didn’t murder the maintenance man. Once they verified this they advised mt be careful because the dead guys family might try and hold me liable-he died of natural causes-a heart attack-but the family “could” say that I scared the maintenance man causing a heart attack then they could sue me or something….now this all pretty strange but tonight, in the hotel dining room the staff didn’t want to serve me because they were mad at me for leaving the body as I found it before I called the front desk-they think that this not only humiliated the dead mans’ family but because he was going to the bathroom and not “working” the hotel might not support the family financially. Apparently, what I should have done before I called downstairs to report the dead body is , pulled up his pants and moved the body over to the refrigerator or TV set and made it look like he was in the middle of a repair when he died! BTW, I found out it’s not uncommon for the hotel staff to use the bathrooms of vacant hotel rooms(among other things)- This piece of info was given to me by one of the detectives. (if I had moved the body, I’d be in the jail cell next to Noriega) But no matter, somehow I’m the bad guy in this whole thing. That’s the trouble with Billy: www.facebook.com/thetroublewithbilly and new short sizzle reel: http://vimeo.com/84192957