Mustache Shenanigans

by Jay Chandrasekhar

  I half-laughed and started half-running. “Okaaaaay!”

  But they caught up to me, surrounding me. “Fuck you, Muhammad! You fuckin’ suck!”

  I thought, God, I really wished I’d gone to that second karate class. They started pushing me back and forth. “Thanks fah 9/11, dick!” one yelled in a thick Boston accent. Years later, I’d hear the same exact line, in the same accent, said to an Indian in the movie Ted. It would be funnier then.

  I contemplated throwing the first punch. Maybe I could knock one out, kick one in the nuts, and elbow the third in the face. It worked for Steven Seagal in Under Siege, or at least it did for his stunt double. The skinheads continued to shove me until . . . something happened. The lead skinhead put up his hands, stopping the other two. “Wait a minute? Wait a minute.” He cocked his head and looked at me for a beat. Then, in his thick Boston accent, he said, “Supah Troopahs?”

  I exhaled and smiled. “Yeah!”

  The head skinhead smiled big. “Holy shit, dude! Ho-ly shit! That’s our favorite movie! We love that movie! All our friends love that movie!” I imagined an outdoor screening of Super Troopers, with all the skinheads gathered around a burning cross—where all the guys looked like Farva, with their bald heads and their shitty mustaches.

  Then, the leader got shy. “Dude, could we take a pic-cha wit you?”

  So, if you see a picture of me in a tuxedo with three Boston skinheads, you’ve got to understand that I had no choice.

  CHAPTER 13

  —

  The Macho Contest, aka Wild Times on Club Dread

  After Super Troopers, life in Hollywood changed for us. Instead of being filmmakers who go around begging the studios for money, we were now in the pool of people the studios offered money to. And when Fox Searchlight asked us what we wanted to do next, we told them that we wanted to make a horror-comedy along the lines of An American Werewolf in London or Scream. We pitched a film where we would play the staff at a snowed-in ski resort. And in the style of an Agatha Christie novel, one by one, we would be brutally murdered. Our Searchlight execs responded as they had to. “Yes, we love it!” It was either that or tell their boss why they’d let the Super Troopers guys walk out of their door—and in their competitor’s door. Searchlight did make one request, though. Did the film have to be set in winter? Shooting in snow was difficult and costly. Was there a more production-friendly season to shoot the story in? So we compromised: “How about a tropical island?” And Club Dread was born.

  When people ask me what my favorite Broken Lizard film is, I always say either Super Troopers or Beerfest. Beerfest probably has the best filmmaking. But when they ask which film was the most fun to make, it’s not even close. It’s Club Dread by a mile.

  Our initial location scout took place in Australia, in an area called Surfers Paradise. We’d come a long way from scouting Poughkeepsie. While we found some great locations, we got caught up on the issue of extras. The film’s story took place in Mexico, and there were no Mexican-looking extras in Australia. We debated flying in a hundred Indians and putting them in sombreros and such but eventually decided that it wasn’t worth the cost or the ridiculousness.

  So when we got back, Searchlight sent us to the west coast of Mexico, where we found a resort called El Tamarindo. Located two hours south of Puerto Vallarta, El Tamarindo was built by the former Mexican president Vicente Fox for his friends and family to use. It was Mexico’s only six-star resort and had thirty-six cabanas, each with its own plunge pool, a couple of private beaches, and a phenomenal oceanfront golf course. For security reasons, it was intentionally hard to get to. It was a thirty-minute drive from the main road, through dense jungle, to the resort.

  In addition to Broken Lizard, the cast included the great Bill Paxton, M. C. Gainey, Brittany Daniel, Jordan Ladd, Lindsay Price, Samm Levine, Nat Faxon, Mike Weaver, and Mike Yurchak. Paxton played the rock-star of the resort, Coconut Pete. Coco Pete, a fictional competitor to Jimmy Buffett, had built the resort as an ode to his island lifestyle. Paxton was fantastic. Not only was he enormously prepared and committed, but he was also damned funny. The same can be said of Brittany Daniel, Jordan Ladd, Lindsay Price, and the rest—all great actors who became great friends.

  Making a horror movie was fun because it required exercising a different set of mental muscles. Unlike a typical comedy, much of the film took place at night, so we had to work “vampire hours”—shooting all night and sleeping all day.

  ¿QUIÉN ES MÁS MACHO? MEXICO ES MÁS MACHO.

  Some people say that the American male has gone soft, with our Little League participation awards, our desperation for “likes” on Facebook, our hairless bodies, and our male skinny jeans. (Okay, it’s me. I said it.) Are we destined to become eighteenth-century France, where men wore white makeup, wigs, and high heels? If we are, the country directly south of us is not. Mexico is wild, relaxed, and unregulated, as proven by the fact that they still have diving boards at their pools. Mexico feels fearless, macho, dangerous. We frequently quoted Bill Murray from the SNL sketch: “¿Quién es más macho? ¿Fernando Lamas o Ricardo Montalbán? ¿Quién es más macho?” In many ways that macho spirit defined our time down there.

  On our first weekend off, we rolled into the closest town, Barra de Navidad, which we nicknamed “Christmas Sandbar.” We were looking for a dive bar but could find only discos. Finally, we pulled up outside a place called Piper’s Lover. It sounded like a strip bar. Not what we were looking for. When I ran in to check, I found a dive bar that opened onto a lagoon. It had a sand floor and a thatch roof, and it was exactly what we were looking for. Then I heard a voice: “Welcome to Mexico! I am Piper.” (It’s pronounced Peeper, so I’m going to spell it that way if you don’t mind.)

  I looked over to see a smiling, bearded bartender.

  “Is this your bar?” I asked.

  Peeper bowed. “No, this is your bar.”

  We were hooked. We spent a lot of our off time there, including one night during a massive thunderstorm. Rain was pouring in through the tin and thatch roof, and everyone in the bar was drenched but having a ball. Lightning bolts were slamming into town, causing the lights to flicker and sometimes go out for up to a minute. When I went to the bathroom, I reached for the light switch and saw a blue electrical current running from my hand to the switch. So, I pissed in the dark. There was so much water gushing in through the roof that it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see the toilet.

  Back at the resort, we started having underwater breath-holding contests in the pool. Every day a new record would be set, until Steve Lemme put it out of reach with his three-and-a-half-minute dead float. I almost pulled him up because I thought he might actually be dead. The macho contest had been rekindled, and there would be more to come.

  Erik Stolhanske and I rekindled our macho contest at a party, when we reached into a garbage can full of beer and ice. “That’s cold,” I said.

  Erik looked up. “Maybe if you’re a wussy from Chicago.” This fuckin’ guy.

  I shoved my arm back in up to the biceps and said, “Let’s go, Purple Rain.”

  So Erik did the same. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, our director of photography, Larry Sher, and our cameraman, Rob Barocci, also shoved their arms in. It was brutally, painfully cold. Since Rob and I had done the Polar Bear Club on a twelve-degree New Year’s morning in Coney Island, we were talking the most trash. This was easy compared to swimming in the frigid Atlantic. Secretly, though, it wasn’t. It hurt like hell . . . until it didn’t. Soon, the pain was replaced by numbness. That couldn’t be good. In time, the trash talking switched to who could most afford to live without his arm.

  I posited that being a one-armed film director might actually be good for my career. Did you hear how he lost it? The dude is committed. Erik countered that he was already living with one leg, so he was more psychologically prepared to lose an arm. Erik and I both mocked the ca
meramen, asking how they were going to do handheld shots with one arm. I quietly realized that I had made a huge mistake by putting my left arm in because, though I’m righty for everything, I pleasure myself with my feminine hand. Would I have to retrain myself?

  After ten minutes, real worry started to set in. We’d run out of trash talk, yet it was clear no one was giving up, because now no one was in pain. It was a game where there would be no loser, just four one-armed winners. So when Rob proposed pulling our hands out together, Erik, Larry, and I quickly agreed. Once out, our arms hung dead for a full three minutes. It was scary since we were ten hours from Mexico City, where the best cold-arm specialist must live. When the feeling finally came back, there was much relief all around.

  I had a small flirtation going with a Brazilian actress, though it wasn’t progressing because she seemed more interested in our stunt coordinator, Fernando. In his sixties, Fernando was a charismatic old-school stuntman and a total badass (think Dos Equis—The Most Interesting Man in the World). When a large poisonous spider was found in our lunch tent, Fernando plucked it from its web and crushed it in his bare hands.

  Fernando carried pictures of wild stunts he had done in days past, including a series of photos where a dashing thirty-five-year-old Fernando is seen leaping from one galloping bareback horse to another. In another, Fernando bear-hugs a full-grown leopard, leaps out of a helicopter, and free-falls into a river below. When they hit the water, the enraged leopard swam at him, hell-bent on murder.

  Fernando and I were dueling it out for the affection of the actress, and I was losing. And then, suddenly, as it goes with these things, I wasn’t. After our final day of shooting, we all went into town to drink one last time at Peeper’s. Afterward, at the disco, the actress stuck to me, holding my hand; we even stole a few kisses. At the end of the night, around three A.M., she and I hopped into a cab to head back to the resort. On the way, we stopped in for a late-night snack at a Mexican restaurant or, as they call it down there, “a restaurant.”

  When we walked in, I saw Erik Stolhanske eating alone at a table. The actress and I got our food and sat down with Erik, who had the Devil in his eyes. Erik got up to pay his bill and returned with a large jar of habanero peppers.

  “Pepper-eating contest?”

  I eyed the cock-blocking prick, determined not to take the bait. “No, thanks.”

  “Bok, bok, bok!” Erik clucked.

  I held firm. “Nuh-uh.”

  Erik muttered, “Pollo” (Spanish for “chicken”), and then chewed a pepper down to its stalk, staring at me through quickly watery eyes.

  “Not gonna do it,” I said, imitating Dana Carvey imitating George Bush Sr.

  Then Erik stuck the knife in. “Fernando would eat the peppers.”

  The actress burst into laughter, agreeing, “Fernando would do it!” And then she joined Stolhanske in clucking.

  My first pepper was the hottest thing I’d ever eaten, and it caused my lips to burn and my eyes to water.

  Erik ate his second. So I did too. We were both sweating, as the actress egged us on. I told him my Indian tongue was far more suited to this than his Swedish tongue, but he just ate a third pepper. So I did too.

  We ate our fourth, and then our fifth peppers. We were drenched in sweat, with our mouths on fire. My stomach hurt, and the actress was now trying to get me to stop. Too late now—I didn’t fly down to Mexico to lose a pepper-eating contest. There were only two peppers left. We each ate one, which left us at an unsatisfying draw—a result that Erik found hilarious.

  As I paid the bill, Erik reappeared with another pepper jar he’d borrowed from the kitchen.

  “Should we continue?”

  “Go to hell,” I sneered. Erik ate a pepper and then one more to rub it in.

  Then he winked. “Hey, can I get a lift back to the hotel?”

  Back at the hotel, the actress and I went to my cabana. My stomach was churning and I was sweating, so I threw on my suit and jumped into the plunge pool to try to reset. Trying to get back into the mood, we opened up a couple of beers. Then, Erik showed up, holding a Ping-Pong paddle.

  “Care for a little Pong, guy?”

  When someone cock blocks you for a little while, it’s funny. After college, Steve Lemme and I used to do it to each other so routinely that we’d both always end up alone at the end of the night. Eventually we called a truce. But Erik was not part of that truce, and he was going too far. I stepped out of the plunge pool, grabbed my Ping-Pong paddle, and whipped him like the one-legged bastard he is. As I shook his hand, I whispered, “Now, get the fuck out.”

  He smiled, but his eyes were focused behind me. I turned to see five more “friends” arriving. They had been up partying when Erik came in and told them that I was having an early morning Ping-Pong party.

  I played them all and beat them all, while the actress drank beer and hung around. Finally, at eight A.M., I beat the last cock blocker and sent everyone on their way. And the actress and I finally went to bed. At around two P.M., we awoke and she went back to her room. When she was safely gone, I sprinted for the bathroom, where Satan came screaming out of my anus. As anyone who has been in a pepper-eating contest can tell you, it hurts more leaving than it does coming. Fuckin’ Stolhanske.

  September 16 is Mexico’s Independence Day, and it was a day off for us so we headed into Barra de Navidad. People were eating, drinking, and playing carnival games, including one of genius simplicity. There were two shelves of lined-up empty beer bottles. For 25 pesos, you were given three rocks to throw at the bottles. If you broke a bottle, the man handed you a cold, full bottle of beer. When you finished that beer you handed him the bottle, and he put it on the shelf for you to break again. It was hard to find a reason to stop playing; then Peeper walked up.

  “Are you ready for the firecracker bull?”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Peeper smiled big. “It’s why we’re here, bro!”

  “Is it like running with the bulls?”

  “Yeah, man! But with firecrackers!”

  You know, I’d always wanted to run with the bulls in Pamplona. It figures Mexico would up the ante by shooting off firecrackers behind the bulls.

  “I’m in,” I said.

  “Hell yes! I’ll get you close!” Peeper pumped his fist.

  “Are you going to run too?” I asked.

  Peeper shook his head. “Me? No, hell no.”

  Hmmm. Whatever. This sounded like the beginning of a good story. And what was I going to do? Go back to America with the tale of how I didn’t run with the “firecracker bulls”?

  As the sun disappeared, hundreds of people started to filter out of the restaurants and into the town square. Noticing the crowd, I asked Peeper where the bulls were going to run.

  “It’s just one bull,” he said. “And right here in the square.”

  One bull? Hmm, kind of disappointing, but okay.

  A Mexican fireworks show started. It felt unsafe, nothing like a show in the United States. Huge rockets exploded really low in the sky, their percussive sound shaking our bodies, and the crowd loved it. When are they gonna release the bull? I wondered. This felt disorganized. Wasn’t it dangerous in the dark? Eh, who was I to push our lawyered-up ways on these freedom-loving people?

  Then a huge rocket exploded, low in the air, near some power lines. That planned explosion was followed by a much louder unplanned explosion, which immediately blacked out the entire city. After some investigation, Peeper informed us that a transformer had blown, which meant that the fireworks and cigarette lighters now furnished the only light in town.

  I was getting worried. “Peeper, are they going to cancel the bull?”

  “Hell no! Nothing cancels the bull!” I told Peeper I wasn’t so sure I wanted to run anymore. In the dark, someone could get trampled or gored. But Peeper wouldn’t have it.
“Gored? What’re you talkin’ about? Come on, man, I’ll show you the bull.” He led us through the crowd to an area where a bunch of men were gathered around . . . something. Peeper pointed.

  “There she is!”

  I looked for a snorting animal with horns, but all I saw was a wire sculpture—of a bull. It was about five feet long, two feet wide, and three feet high and had six wooden handles sticking out of it.

  “Oh, I thought it was a real bull,” I said.

  He looked at me cockeyed. “A real bull in this crowd? What do you think we are, crazy?”

  “But what’s the firecracker part?” I asked.

  Peeper brought me closer. Strung into the frame of the “bull” were literally a thousand bottle rockets, pointing every which way. Peeper explained that when they lit the fuse, six kids would run the bull through town until every rocket had fired.

  “Do you want to hold a handle? It’s a very auspicious honor.”

  “Fuck no, Peeper. I don’t want to hold the handle!”

  Peeper laughed. “Good choice.”

  Lit only by flashlights, the mayor of the town gave a speech. As it was in Spanish, I have no idea what he said, but the crowd roared loudest when he lit his cigarette.

  It was time. Six ten-year-olds ran up, each grabbing a handle of the firecracker bull. The mayor took a big drag off his cigarette, which he then used to light the fuse. Quickly, he scampered off into the dark. And the ten-year-olds started running through the crowd, yelling effectively what sounded like, “Arrriiiiibaaaa!”

  Seconds later, bottle rockets started exploding—shooting off in every direction. Weeeeeeee, kaboom! Weeeeeeee, kaboom! Twenty to thirty bottle rockets were shooting and exploding every second. We were close, running, hiding behind cars, as rockets slammed into walls and blew up over our heads. Rockets slammed into random crowd members, over and over. One blew up in a woman’s face. The kids who were holding the bull got the worst of it. Rockets blew up against their ribs. When a kid would fall away, another would replace him. Happy Independence Day!