Here is my one and only pic of the set from a week ago, he first day's shooting. In it you'll see Betty (at right), the Olds 98 that was seen in the pic from their camera test day, and farther up is a '73 or '74 Caddie that seconds as Gotti's car. The house that's the beehive of activity is supposedly almost a carbon copy of the one Gotti grew up in in New York.

Long story short, the day went...extremely poorly. Long story short, I was misled by the casting director (a local but who's working for the Beverly Hills-based production company) into believing I had a bigger role to play in this shoot than I actually did, and as a result I lost hours out of my work, gallons of gasoline, broke one of my cardinal rules about baking Betty in the extreme summer sun, spent most of the day outside in a sweltering, 95-100 degree heat index...and all for absolutely, utterly nothing as I neither got a cent for my efforts nor had Betty anywhere in the entire day's filming. Needless to say, coming home late that night we were more than a little upset.

The next morning, I wrote my casting director and told her what happened. Basically, I told her, "Look, I'd LOVE to help you out with this project, but I simply can't take these last-minute leaves from my job, and I'm not going to involve a car that gets 10 MPG and requires premium fuel to run." As of this writing, I have yet to hear back from her. And I, for my part, haven't felt any desire to follow up. So, looks like we're done with this movie.

Then, over the weekend, Michi gets curious and does some research. Apparently, we could have seen trouble coming as this movie has been plagued with problems since its announcement in 2011. In those five years, they've gone through four directors, and have had many prominent stars sign and then later walk on the project, including - but not limited - to Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Sir Anthony Hopkins. Pesci himself is actually suing the production company for misrepresentation (sounds familiar), and families of Gotti's victims are openly denouncing him being glorified in a movie.

Michi accompanied me on this shoot, and one of the things that became clear to us is just how poorly-run and poorly-organized this filming company was. We got lucky for Miles Ahead. Every member of the crew of that production company were professional, knew their job, and everyone worked together like a well-oiled machine. More than that, I got paid for the time I spent on-set, regardless of whether I did anything or not. With this company, it was the polar opposite. If I was getting annoyed by the way the production company was running things, I wasn't the only one. John Travolta himself actually took over filming at one point late in Monday's filming after becoming annoyed with the way they were doing things!

So, seeing how Pacino, Pesci and Hopkins have all walked away from this movie, Betty and I feel good about walking, too; they need us a hell of a lot more than we need them. We'll always Miles Ahead, and no one can ever take that away. :)