Ragna-rock!

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

I knew this scruff on my chinny-chin-chin would pay off for me one day, and thanks to it, I got to play a Viking type in the forthcoming video for Malajube’s “Étienne d’Août,” alongside nine other fellow furry-faces.

After the other extras and I bonded over our shared facial hair, I learned that one is an experienced actor, one looks uncannily like Kevin Smith and is a member of an acting workshop looking to pad his resume (little did he know that he would be playing dead for most of his scenes), four people who regularly re-enact battles from medieval times and, it so happens, moonlight with Viking battles, an unemployable biker type who found out about the gig from a blurb on Craigslist, and a fair maiden who I guess was just into the idea of being in a rock video.

Along with these weirdos and wannabe actors were former Mandatory Moustache guy Matt Miller and myself. Miller, the Craigslist biker and I were all on board for the same reason: $200.

My acting ability is just slightly above that of noted thespian Keanu Reeves, so thankfully, the director quickly relegated me to playing one of the dead guys. In fact, my method-actor approach to playing a dead guy was so good, I actually fell asleep (it was an early-morning shoot), and the director had to come over to wake me up as I sawed logs long after he’d called cut and the rest of the “actors” had left the set.

Obviously, the highlight was working alongside medieval recreationists, who proved to be as serious as cancer throughout the shoot. As I recall, they never once volunteered for the relatively easy job of playing one of the dead Vikings, choosing to really exercise their roles as bloodthirsty barbarians. If playing Braveheart in some sort of remote wooded area every weekend curbs their antisocial tendencies, then bully for them, but I will say that watching them all drink out of juice boxes in full Viking regalia was truly priceless. I swear to Odin, I saw one of them pour Diet Coke into one of those horns they use to drink mead out of. Gold!

I’m hoping this may jumpstart my new career as a film extra, so if any directors out there are looking for a junkie nodding off, a sleeping homeless person, a dazed survivalist/Lynyrd Skynyrd fan or an experienced malnourished-and-dead Viking, please contact me through the e-mail address listed below.

Valhalla, I am coming…Jonathan.cummins@gmail.com