You are Reading the Out of Town Category
This Hard Land
August 11, 2008 | permalink
I took the bus to Bear Mountain this weekend, hiking around for the day. Nothing strenuous; more of a walking than a hiking. The places I was (the path around Lake Hessian, and the trail through the zoo up to the ruins of Fort Montgomery) are wilder than, say, Central Park, but really not by much. Which is not to say it wasn't fun, or that I was disappointed. It was exactly what I wanted. A day outdoors, out of the city, that wasn't going to kick my ass.
I hadn't been there in something like ten years, and I forgotten about a lot of things that are there, most notably the zoo. Which is probably the saddest zoo I have ever seen in my entire life. I say this as someone ambivalent about zoos in general. On the one hand, I very much think that animals ought to be free and wild. On the other, I think it is important for people, especially children, to see them in person; their majesty does not come through in video, and the vast majority people do not have the means to see large and exotic animals in their natural habitat. So a zoo can be a place of great wonder and inspiration, if it is done right.
The zoo at Bear Mountain is not. It is full of cramped cages and depressed animals.
To be fair, all the animals have either been rescued from injury or were born in captivity, and are incapable of living in a wild environment; without their caretakers, these animals would perish in short order. But still, it is pretty miserable. The worst, to me, were the birds with damaged or missing wings, hobbling around in their cages looking just so broken. Followed very closely (I know you will be shocked by this, Gentle Readers) by the bears, who, while not damaged, were so obviously miserable that it was heartbreaking. And yet, most of the other people there seemed not to notice how sad they were. They didn't seem to notice how much the bears would have liked to get out and chase them around a little, either; but I could tell.
Or maybe I was just projecting...
Posted in Bears & Out of Town(0) Comments
Hellbound Train
July 24, 2008 | permalink
I was in the great city of Chicago all last week (as was A Lover and a Fighter, though our paths did not manage to cross, sadly) attending a rigging seminar taught by none other than Harry Donovan. Which doesn't mean much to most of you, I am sure, but trust me- as far as my industry goes, he is pretty much the bee's knees. It was pretty damn awesome.
I have been doing what I would describe as medium-ish level rigging (at best) for many years, and a lot of my knowledge is that imperfect kind you get by doing things without having too much in the way of actual theory or fact to back it up. That is, 'I know that works, I have seen it done and done it myself many times, and since this is sort of like that, it ought to work to. Probably. Let's try it and see!' Which is fun and exciting and all, but not necessarily the best way to hang a bunch of stuff over people's heads. Now I have a bunch of math and theory that I can apply. Which I like.
I even got a little time to see Chicago. I saw my dear and long-moved friend the Gemological Goddess, which was quite lovely- it had been well over a year. I ate at a couple of pretty good places, went to Navy Pier and Millennium Park. It was quite a good visit.
Posted in Out of Town & Working(1) Comments
Sundialing
May 15, 2008 | permalink
I have been in Miami all week, installing the lighting for a poolside fashion show. Being as it is out of town, I have been working with a crew made up of locals that we hired through a Miami based lighting company (save The Director, who came down with me to help me run things). There are a lot of differences between my crew and this crew, some of them very frustrating.
A lot of it, of course, is that most of the people that I work with in New York are people that I have known for a long time. We have a common vocabulary and experience working together; I knew that this would not be the case here. Indeed, I have gotten a lot of blank looks this week for the simple reason that Miami and New York are far enough apart that things are referred to with different words.
Another source of frustration (and I don't want to sound snobbish; it's just the truth) is that the base standards here are just not what they are in New York, in terms of neatness or consistency in work. And I knew that this was the case going in, but I hoped that with a little guidance they would do things my way. I am not saying that my way of doing things is the best way, mind you; but it's a pretty good way, and it works for me, so...
Sadly (and frustratingly) for me, most of the crew, when presented with the option of doing something the way they were instructed to or the easy way, they chose the easy way. Every time.
As far as I am concerned, it's not about the easy way. It's about making it look good and be right. I cannot tell you how many times I have uttered the phrase, 'I know this is going to be a pain in the ass, but I need it done like this...' My regular crew trusts me, and knows that I am not making it difficult for no reason. And I trust them not to take shortcuts for their own convenience. It was all very irritating. But it happened nonetheless, Gentle Readers, and is going off without a hitch as I type.
Next time, though. I think I will bring a few more of my own people, to help steer the work in the right direction...
Posted in Musings & Out of Town & Working(1) Comments
How Did We Get This Far?
May 9, 2008 | permalink
Hello, Gentle Readers. Remember me?
You may recall, many moons ago, that I wrote about how this blog had served its original purpose, and that I needed to strike out in a new direction. I realized that I no longer needed to exorcise the darkness so much, because there was much less of it in me. And this left me a little short on inspiration. I had been writing with that purpose for so long, I wasn't sure how to proceed in a more positive light. Kind of funny, eh?
Of course, like most things we (or at least I) look for too hard, it was right in front of my face the whole time. I have spent the last several months consumed by baking, brewing, herb growing, and cheesemaking. I have awakened to how much happier and more satisfied I am when I am consuming things that I have made with my own two hands. I realized how very badly I want to eventually raise everything I eat. I have a real life goal, which is something I have been operating without for a long, long time. It's a nice feeling.
That is not to say that I am going to become a one story pony; I still have plenty of really fucked up stuff going on with The Old Man, and there will still be my random observations about whatever strikes my fancy. Just in case you were worried.
See you soon, Gentle Readers....
Posted in Blogging & Musings & Out of Town(2) Comments
Laughing Cavalier
December 14, 2007 | permalink
I had quite an adventure last week.
I was in Miami on a job, and I went out to a late dinner with The Boss (who is the very model of a charming Englishman), The Cylon (one of the designers I work with, whom, as you may guess from my nickname, is literal-minded, has a big brain, and over-analyzes things), and Uncle Mike (a boisterous and gruff ex-roadie who now runs one of the companies that we often deal with). We were perusing the menu of a place with a bunch of outdoor tables (actually, it's Miami Beach... they all have outdoor tables), and a couple of women went by and made some comment to the effect that we should pass that place by. Uncle Mike goes after them and strikes up a conversation, in the hopes of securing a good recommendation for dinner from a couple of what he assumed were locals- both he and The Boss have a pretty discerning palette.
In his absence the rest of us decided that we were too hungry to go on looking, and got a table. Uncle Mike came back in a few minutes with the women in tow. They were, it turns out, not locals at all, they were just giving us a hard time. They were also completely trashed, really loud, and had invited themselves to dinner.
Gentle Readers, they spent the next two hours mercilessly hitting on me, much to the amusement of not only my dinner companions, but (as we later learned) of the people at the tables around us as well. I will not repeat the innuendo and double entendre that I was subjected to- but I am sure you can imagine the kind of things that a couple of drunk, trashy, 48ish year old women, one of whose husband was wandering the area in a rage looking for her, might say. Suffice it to say, it was more attention than I am used to getting. I am not exaggerating to say that if I wished (and believe me, I did not!), I could have taken at least one of them, if not both of them, back to my room for the remainder of the evening.
The Boss was so amused that he lost no opportunity to relate the story to the other people that we knew working on this gig. For days I was getting good natured teasing from even the producers, including the woman who is the top dog and, quite frankly, someone who I doubted had a sense of humor in the first place. And I have to admit that I do think the whole thing is funny, and I am getting a good smile out of it even now. Not to mention the amusement I feel to learn that I am, apparently, a cougar magnet.
Posted in Out of Town & Random & Social Life & Working(1) Comments
Something in the Air
May 22, 2007 | permalink
I'm back, Gentle Readers. And I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. I had a lot to say about my experience working on the West Coast, but after writing it all out and re-reading it, I realized that most of it was unflattering, at best, to the people I was working with, and out of context it came off as decidedly bitchy (especially, I think, to those of you not 'in the business'), so I decided to forget all that and not say anything at all. Instead, I have an embarrassing story to share with you.
I'm on the plane on the way back to the East Coast. It was getting to be around lunch time, but I refused to pay five dollars for the questionable food items the airline was selling (because you aren't paying enough to be crammed in with your fellow travelers already). But I was hungry, so as a compromise I got a bag of M&Ms to snack on. Not nutritious, and overpriced to be sure, but at least I was sure of what I would be getting.
So there I am, gingerly trying to open the bag so as not to tear it completely apart, when I misjudge. The packaging fails catastrophically, and M&Ms go flying everywhere. I see them arc, in slow motion, and come cascading back down all over me. Oh, and all over the guy next to me. And off of the head of the gentleman in front of me. Yes, Gentle Readers, I was That Guy.
Embarrassed, I try to apologize to them for having bombarded them with candy. The guy in front of me just sort of glares and goes back to his paper. The guy next to me is a lot nicer about it, and good natured-ly helps me pick up the M&Ms from the floor and from in between the seats and (without my help) out of his lap.
Then, still smiling and truly trying to be helpful, he reaches over and drops the candies he has just picked up from the floor and the seats and his lap and drops them in with the few pristine M&Ms that I have left in the remains of the bag. As if it didn't occur to him at all that I might not want to eat the candy he just fished out of his crotch. As if it were the most normal thing in the world.
*sigh*
Needless to say, I didn't eat my M&Ms after all.
Posted in Out of Town(1) Comments
Top of the World
May 9, 2007 | permalink
As promised, Gentle Readers, I report to you from beachier climes. It is gorgeous here!
I don't drive (and please let me clarify: I can drive, I just hate it and whole-heartedly believe that it will be my downfall, so I just don't do it), so I rented a bicycle to get back and forth to the venue and to tool around town with, and to generally be mostly self sufficient, because there is nothing that irks me more than not being self sufficient (I'm sure that is not a revelation to anyone who has read more than ten sentences here). But that's neither here nor there, really. This is about the bike.
I haven't been on a bicycle in over a decade. You see, I had this accident. With the crashing. Into a mail truck. Hard. I hit it square on, from behind, and launched myself over the handlebars, cutting up my thighs in the process, and gave myself a nice concussion (not the first or last, I am sad to say) when my head, with a resounding thump, smacked into the back doors of the truck. My bike was wrecked, of course, and I was a bit shaken up. (But there was some humor in the situation- the woman driving the truck jumped out, and upon seeing me and my mangled bike exclaimed, 'That was you?!? I thought a car hit me!' I guess that's one point for the thick skulled.)
Actually, it shook me up so much, and I waited so long to get back on a bike (mostly since mine was, as I said, wrecked), that I never really got my nerve back for bicycling in traffic. Until today. I had completely forgotten how much I enjoyed riding a bike.
I did about ten miles today. Five on the bike path by the beach, and five in a round-trip dry run to the venue so that I could time it out and not get lost in the morning when I have to go for real. My legs are tired and my ass is sore, but I am so excited it hardly matters.
Posted in Out of TownCalifornia Stars
May 6, 2007 | permalink
Well Gentle Readers, I'm off.
Not right this moment; I leave on Tuesday, but between now and then I highly doubt that I will have any real free time. So I am taking this opportunity to bid you adieu, for the moment. My next dispatch will be from decidedly beachier climes.
As I have mentioned, I will be in Santa Monica for just shy of two weeks. Working, for sure; we do have a big show to put on, after all. But there seems to be some real potential for some leisure time as well, and I plan to take full advantage of every moment.
Posted in Out of Town & WorkingGood Thing
April 12, 2007 | permalink
I met my niece (pictured here with my Mother) for the first time over the Easter Weekend. Isn't she cute?
While she is not my first niece (I have several on The Old Man's side, the progeny of my older half-sister, his daughter from a previous marriage), she is the first child born to any of my siblings on my Mother's side, and as such is also Mom and Red's first Granddaughter. You can imagine, then, how she was doted on while she was here for the holiday.
The night before Easter, after dinner, we colored the eggs. It's something we do every year, whether there are going to be kids around or not. The idea is that everyone in the family ends up with an egg just for them, made by someone else (obviously, you can't make your own egg!), which we then eat as part of breakfast the next morning. It's a lot of fun- of course we all try to get artsy and out-do one another, and of course our ambitions usually exceed our talent. Most of them come out fine, but there are a couple of sad looking Easter Eggs, most years.
This year, since The Little One was here, we 'hid' some eggs for her to find. The first few she didn't get it, which is not surprising. But after a bit she got really into it, not least because of all the attention and applause she got whenever she found one. We tried to get her to put them into the basket after she found them, but of course they went right into her mouth, every time... She has a few teeth in, and by the end she was succeeding in gnawing her way past the shell, if we didn't relieve her of the egg fast enough.
Like I said, cute...
Posted in Family Matters & Holidays & Out of TownWherever I May Roam
March 28, 2007 | permalink
I went to Los Angeles yesterday. And when I say yesterday, I mean that literally; I arrived at LAX at 1am Tuesday morning, and was on my way back to New York by 10pm Tuesday night. Not the most relaxing day I have ever had, with a day-long string of meetings and site surveys sandwiched between the flights, but it was productive, which was the point, after all.
I've never been to LA before, and I was struck most by the vast amount of open space. There was so much open air! I'll be honest, it made me a little uncomfortable, though I'm not sure why... I spent most of my youth in more or less rural areas, and love being outside; hiking, camping, campfire cooking- these are some of my all time favorite things. I have never felt the way LA and it's environs made me feel.
It might have been that so much is hidden. What I mean is, there are millions of people there, and yet there seemed to be nothing besides eight lane highways and open sky. There didn't seem to be nearly enough structures to support all the people that I know must be there. I guess I just wanted to know where everyone was. I know enough about myself and the paranoid way I was raised to know that I like to know what is going on around me- I guess all that open space combined with all those unseen people made me a little edgy. At least, that's the theory I'm going with at the moment, though I will happily entertain other ideas, if you have any. I will get another chance to figure it out, though; I will be back for a week when in May when it comes time to put the show on...
Posted in Out of Town & WorkingCheap Motels
December 31, 2006 | permalink
A week ago Friday I went with my sisters up to The Old Man's place for his Solstice Feast. The Old Man, you see, has long since decided that he cannot countenance the commercialized, christian-centric, consumer Christmas of modern times, and so celebrates the solstice instead, preferring to focus on the company of family and friends and good food and drink rather than material things. There are gifts given, of course; I suspect it sounds much more radical here in words than it actually is in practice, and is not much different than Christmas at any of your houses. The Old Man always was a little bit of a pagan at heart.
The trip upstate was a little bit of an adventure. Not so much for me as for my sisters; they were returning from our brother's in California that day. On Thursday they left Fresno and drove the 220 miles to Los Angeles. Friday, the day we traveled, they got up at 6, went to the airport, caught their flight to Phoenix, waited for and caught their connection to JFK. They landed at JFK at 10:15, got their luggage, took a cab to Manhattan, picked up the rental car, went home, re-packed, and picked me up.
Now it's just about 1 am. The Palisades was wet and foggy, and we spent a good deal of time moving less than 20 mph with the hazards flashing because we couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of us. (Meanwhile people with apparently much better fog-vision than any of us had kept blowing past us at at least 40 mph. I am amazed that we didn't pass any of them wrecked further down the road). The upshot is that a trip that usually takes about an hour and fifteen minutes, give or take, took about two and a half. We were feeling bad, expecting to wake up half the house as we stumbled in and tried to sort out sleeping arrangements for ourselves, but half the house was up anyway, hanging out on the porch smoking and drinking (classy, right?). So that was kinda fun. When's the last time your folks were trying to entice you to throw back a couple of drinks and and all you wanted to do was go to bed?
The next day was the big feast. nothing organized, mind you- people cooked and brought and set out food all day long, and everyone just grazes as they feel the need. While my sisters were making their cross country trek, I was baking cookies for the masses; Oatmeal Chocolate Espresso, Sugar, and Old Fashioned Peanut Butter cookies (all of them very well received, thank you). It was quite a spread, all told, and in addition to the nine extra people staying at the house, another dozen came through at one point or another over the course of the day.
That night, those of us that were still at the house (that is, The Old Man and Step-Mother, me and my sisters, and Step-Mother's sister and her husband and children) hung around on the porch, played darts and drank and (well, the 'adults', anyway) smoked. It was a lot of fun. I felt closer to and more comfortable with The Old Man than I had in a very, very long time.
Posted in Family Matters & Holidays & Out of Town(0) Comments
Vegas, Baby!
October 19, 2006 | permalink
Gentle Readers, I'm in Las Vegas. For work, even. And not putting-in-a-show work- I got sent here to attend the big lighting industry convention, LDI. I've never been sent on a true business trip before- all my other work travels have been to put in or take down a show or event. It's kind of cool... like a paid vacation. I mean, I'm out of the office, getting put up at the Luxor, and my only out of pocket expense is roulette (I'm currently up $120!). On top of that, Friday and Saturday I get to wander around the convention center and check out all the cool new toys and gadgets that people are making for lighting shows, and, since the industry is relatively small and I have been doing this for more than a decade, there are a
ton of people here that I never get to see (due to geographic differences)- people I used to tour with, or who I worked with in some other city, or who used to live in New York but have since gone elsewhere. The only thing that is actually like work that I have to do is take an exam tomorrow, which will make me a certified entertainment electrician, instead of just a hack with a wrench...
Wish me luck!
Posted in Out of Town & Working(3) Comments
...Cake
October 12, 2006 | permalink
Well, the wedding was great. The bride was radiant, the groom beaming, and their respective parents, family, and friends overjoyed to see them so happy. On top of everyone's happiness, it was a damn near perfect autumn day, and later the full moon rose over the water for a perfect evening.
Besides the wedding, it was nice to get out of the city and be upstate. The leaves are turning, and you can smell the woodsmoke on the air. I spent a little time up at my Mother's place, and did a little manual labor for her and Red. They're in the middle of raising the level of the backyard, because they are sick the stream that runs at the edge of their property flooding the yard every thaw. So I wheelbarrowed some dirt for them (they're on their 6th truckload) and stacked a bunch of wood up on the porch for the fireplace.
I wish I had a fireplace...
Posted in Out of Town & Social Life(2) Comments
Let Them Eat...
October 6, 2006 | permalink
Gentle Readers, I'm off for the hinterlands of Upstate New York, for the wedding of my sister The Star's very best friend, The Giggler, of the Wurts clan. It's bound to be a bit bittersweet, with the death of her brother The Writer just nine months past, but that aside it should be a blast. The Giggler is good people, and I'm thrilled to see her so happy.
Posted in Family Matters & Out of Town & Social Life(2) Comments
This Music is Wasted if We Don't Dance
August 28, 2006 | permalink
I love the rain- always have. I like the way it smells, I like the way it sounds, and I especially like the way the rain can transform a place, making it linto something new.
The most extreme example of this that I have ever seen personally is the city of Aberdeen, in Scotland. Like most medieval towns, it is built out of the most readily available material. In Aberdeen, this means slate. The whole old section of the city is built from
the same grey slate, from the streets (crushed slate mixed with tar) to the sidewalks (huge slabs of slate) to the buildings (blocks or bricks of slate) to the rooftops (shingles of slate). Its kind of oppressive and dreary after a couple of days.
But after it rains, and the sun comes back out... Gentle Readers, it's breathtaking. The sunlight shines on the wet slate, and the shole city looks like it was fashioned from silver, like it's from some fairy tale or Arthurian legend. It's magnificent.
Posted in Around New York & Out of Town & Random & The Past(1) Comments
Off the Train, Illuminated
March 25, 2006 | permalink
Gentle Readers, I finished my Vantage training, and let me tell you, it was awesome. The three days of training were fairly intense- I must have taken close to fifty pages of notes during class time, and there was homework (hours of it!) and even an exam at the end. There were a lot of hands on practical sections, too, wherein we go to play with the hardware of the system, learning how it all went together. But it is the programming software that really has me excited.
The hardware is fairly straightforward; at its simplest, a dimming module is installed in a house, and all of the lights are connected to individual dimmers instead of breakers. The dimming module is connected to a control module, and the control module is connected to keypads which replace the standard light switches. Then someone like me writes the programming for your system, telling which button to do what, and uploads it to the control module.
It's at this point that you may be thinking, 'Well, that sounds like all I did was buy a bunch of expensive light switches.' And you couldn't be more wrong.
The programming can be incredibly sophisticated. And with the integration of sensors, relays, and IR emitters, the system can be made to control almost anything in your house that runs on electricity. For real. Here are some scenarios:
- One button press changes the lighting in your dining room from brightly lit, so that you can see to set up, to the mood lighting for your party.
- You get up in the middle of the night. The pressure switch built into the floor next to your bed is tripped, and all the lights between you and the bathroom fade up to a nice, non-jarring, level. When you get back into bed, the swich is tripped again and they all go out.
- The same switch, when you get up for the first time after 6am, brings up the lighting in your room and in the bathroom, and starts your shower. It is then disabled until after midnight, when it goes back to the mode described above.
- Your outdoor lighting is timed by the system, and comes on a little after sunset and turns off at midnight. The system knows, based on your lattitude and longitude, what time sunset is each day, so you never have to update the timing. It also takes into account daylight savings. But, should you trip the driveway sensor between, say, midnight and sunrise, the system can bring the outdoor lighting up for enough time for you to park and go inside.
- You could have a 'Deck Party' button, which would, with one press, turn on the deck lighting, the outdoor audio system, and the hot tub.
The possibilites are truly endless. I can't wait to program my first gig.
Posted in Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
On the Train, In the Dark
March 21, 2006 | permalink
I traveled out to central Long Island this evening, in order to attend a three day training seminar for the Vantage lighting control system. It's part of what I have to know for my new job. I'm of two minds about it. the training seminar, that is...
On the one hand, I love to learn new things, especially things that smack of geekdom like low-voltage computer programmed touchscreen controlled dimming systems. On the other hand, I'm a little fearful over the fact that this is spread out over three full days. Either it's really complicated, (that would be awesome... see the first hand), which I doubt; or else the presentation has been dumbed down for even the biggest idiot, and is going to bore. me. to. tears. I'm not saying I'm a super genius or anything, but figuring out how things work is one of the things I am really good at. Honestly, I'd lay even money that I could figure out how the Vantage system worked on my own in three days. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it goes...
Other that that, what? I don't know. I'm bitchy, Gentle Readers, and I have been for a couple of days now. Well, bitchy's not quite the right word. Agitated, maybe. I've been having nightmares. I feel like something is close to the surface that I have been avoiding, and I'm not going to like it when it comes out.
I hate that feeling.
Posted in Musings & Out of Town & Working(2) Comments
Back in the Big Apple
March 8, 2006 | permalink
Well Gentle Readers, I'm back. Our trip to Chapel Hill was awesome. It was so great to get out of the city for a few days and spend the weekend with Surfer Grrl and Mountain Man. I saw them on Thanksgiving, but only for a few hours; before that, I hadn't seen them since they moved down there in May.
The trip down last Friday was pretty uneventful. Laughing Girl and The Director rented a car for all of us the day before, and we ('we' being Smacktalk and myself) met at their place at 9 and hit the road. Traffic was light and we made good time, listening to the iPods and chatting about whatever. I was a little nervous about Laughing Girl and Smacktalk rubbing each other the wrong way while we were cooped up in the car for 10 hours, but there was none of that. The one blight on the way down was our poor choice of lunch. We stopped just south of DC at the something or other Grill... it was one of those places where it's all the meat you can eat, brought to your table on a spit by a bored waitress. It didn't sit well with anyone.
The first night we were there, we went out to eat at a place in Brightleaf Square, which is an old tobacco mill and warehouses that have been renovated into an urban park. I would tell you which place, except that I cannot remember and didn't write it down... oops! After dinner, we headed back to the house for beer and hot toddies.
Saturday, after breakfast, we went for a hike in the woods around the Duke campus. I tried out the new wide angle lens on my camera, taking some big wide vistas as well as some extremely close up shots of moss and leaves. It took me a while to get the hang of it for the close up stuff, but I think by the end they were coming out pretty well. We had lunch at Foster's Market in Durham, which was so delicious that I bought one of their cookbooks. Sara Foster even autographed it for me! (I'm a geek, I know...) Dinner was at a pub in Durham, where we met up with Scully (another New York technician turned grad student) and fought rabid basketball fans for posession of our table. When they got too rowdy for our taste, we decided to continue the beer drinking back at the house. Which pretty much wrapped up the evening. Oh, except that I made bread for Sunday's breakfast.
Sunday I took the bread I made the night before and cooked up some French Toast for everyone. It was quite delicious, if I do say so myself. We had decided to spend the day getting some culture, so after breakfast we went to check out the Nasher Museum of Art, which had just opened on the Duke Campus. It was small; it only took us about an hour to see it all. But the collection was top notch, and quite varied. I think Side Steppin', the living sculpture outside, was my favorite. We whiled away the afternoon at the independent movie house in Chapel Hill watching Nightwatch. (Yes, again... Smacktalk and I had talked it up so much that everyone wanted to see it for themselves.) Surfer Grrl and I cooked dinner for everyone that night- baked catfish with mashed potatoes and broiled asparagus, and molten chocolate volcano cake for dessert. While we ate all that good food, we watched the Academy Awards and pretty much heckled everyone.
We spent the first part of Monday, our last day, wandering around Chapel Hill. It's a cute little college town; lots of little shops and pubs and public art. There was an awesome rare and used bookshop... I spent a lot of money there. Then we hit the Chapel Hill Botanical Gardens, which was pretty cool even though it was way too early in the season. I got to play some more with my wide angle lens, and there was an awesome oversized chess board upon which The Director and Smacktalk faced off. The last half of the day, we earned our keep by helping our hosts install a drainage system in their backyard. That's right- digging ditches, lining them with gravel, laying pipe- the whole shebang. Dinner was out, at Mama Dip's Country Kitchen. Truly delicious. After that, we spent the evening drinking beer and playing Scattergories, which if you don't know it is one of the finest games ever made for playing while you are drinking beer.
Monday we came back. The trip up was mostly uneventful, though tensions were running a little higher and there were a couple of dicey moments. And now I'm back.
Posted in Artistic Endeavors & Out of Town & Social Life(3) Comments
Home?
June 25, 2005 | permalink
Do you think that you are tied to the geographic area of your birth in some indelible way? I have noticed that even though I still feel a bit uprooted and am definitely longing for my apartment in the city, I feel comforted in some way by the familiar geography. I know the names of these trees, and I recognize the scents in the air; I hiked and camped in these hills and valleys when I was a boy, and I know the birds, bugs, and animals that live here. Yet I have spent far more time in Charleston in the last ten years than I have in Upstate New York- I know more people in Charleston, and know my way around there better. And yet... this place comforts me, and Charleston does not. Strange, no?
Posted in Musings & Out of Town & Random(0) Comments
Life in a Box
June 22, 2005 | permalink
Sadly, my brief sojourn in NYC is nearly at an end... I depart tomorrow for the Great Upstate and the Summerscape Festival. In preparation, I swung by my place today to drop off a couple of things that I no longer needed and to pick up a couple things (mostly movies that I haven't seen 400 times), and it was a little surreal. Other people's things all over, even a different smell in the air. Very bizarre. I feel very uprooted. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating- I don't think that I will leave home like this again.
Posted in Musings & Out of Town & The Home Front(0) Comments
Talk About a Load Off!
June 18, 2005 | permalink
I made it out alive! Woo hoo!
The Festival is over, and I am back (briefly) in NYC. I didn't realize, until I got away, how unhappy I was while I was there. It wasn't the work, or the long hours (we ended up with an average of 76.5 per week, for seven weeks); those things are really not a problem for me. Well, I suppose it's more accurate to say that they are not a problem for me in and of themselves- though it probably didn't help me any that I was working so much either. The real issues were that I have been doing a lot of work re-connecting with the people in my life and building this support network for myself, and then all of a sudden I was cut off from all of that, isolated partly by the distance, but mostly by the schedule we were keeping. And I was in charge, so I felt like at work, I had to be 'on' all the time- for the most part, my crew were not peers, like they are here in the city. They're kids- and it's not appropriate or productive to lay any of my personal stuff on them, or even around them. At least, that's what I think.
So, by they end, I was a mess. Working with the same group of people for 12-15 hours a day, the last thing I wanted to do when work was done was hang out with them more... So I spent most of my off-time alone, which probably didn't help me either, but at the time it seemed very necessary. When I got back to the city yesterday, and had some time to let my guard down and decompress, I had myself a little, um, episode, if you will. But god damn I felt so much better... so much lighter. It's very nice to be home. Even if it is my sister's couch.
Okay, enough about the Festival. It's over, and I'm done. What else have we got going on here?
I had dinner at Soba Nippon on 52nd and 5th last night- if you haven't been, I highly recommend it. They own their own wheat fields in Canada, and make their own noodles from it. Very tasty. It's also the only Japanese place I have ever been that has cheese in some of the dishes.
I had breakfast with my sisters today. It was great to have the three of us together. We ate and bullshitted and caught each other up on everything that was going on. I love those classy broads.
My goals for the rest of the time I am here include going to my apartment to do a little stuff swap; seeing Smacktalk and the rest of the gang; NOT working. I think all of that is definitely do-able.
Posted in Out of Town & The Home Front & Working(0) Comments
I Know It's Really Geeky...
June 11, 2005 | permalink
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I'm happy to say that this last week has been more satisfying than weeks past. I spent the whole week out at the Festival's scene shop, including the two days that we had off, working on various projects; some were for the Festival, and one was for me.
For the Festival, Crabman (my boss, the technical director of my theatre) and I spent a day building a workbox for one of other the lighting crews. They'd been promised one for something like three seasons; more pressing matters always seemed to come up for the regular shop crew. You know, things like sets for the shows and the like. So since we had a break in our show schedule at the theatre, they asked us to do it. No problem. It was actually a nice warm up for the rest of the week's work.
Crabman and I had already been talking quite a bit about building new workboxes for our own, personal use; I have one, but its jam-packed full and oh-so-very ghetto, being nothing more than a modified roadbox for lighting instruments. It wasn't really deep enough; it had some shelves that were tacked into it but no drawers; generally, it was inefficient and hard to keep organized. Don't get me wrong- I loved my ghetto work box. It is my home away from home (so to speak) for more weeks out of the year than I really care to think about, and is covered with photos of family and friends and all kinds of stickers and signs I picked up in this place or that.
I've been thinking for a long time about what I might want a new workbox to be like. I decided that it needed to have a bunch of drawers, including a wide one for lighting gels (the ghetto one was to shallow to store gels flat- they had to be rolled, and were a pain in the ass- always either in the way or falling out); it had to have an open shelf at a decent height and large enough to use as a workspace (again, not so much with the ghetto box); and finally, I wanted it to have a place where I could hang a change of clothes- I often do corporate gigs, and it gets really boring to find that someone has stolen the chair you draped your suit over and left it crumpled up on the floor. I spent about three days building it, and I think I met all of my design goals- I am very pleased with the end result, especially since I designed it myself and built it with my own two hands.
I will transfer everything over from the Ghetto Box over the course of the week. The tools and hardware will be easy, once I figure out how I want it all organized. The photos and stickers will be a little harder- I'm sure there are a few things that won't survive the transfer. But it's going to be great. I can't wait to get to the next job and break it out. And I really can't wait to show it off to Smacktalk, who has, of course, derided my Ghetto Box for years.
By the way, I do indeed realize what a huge geek I am, just in case you were wondering.
Posted in Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
I am a Rock. No, Really...
June 6, 2005 | permalink
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Due to excessive whining, this post was edited on 6-6-05 at 12:41 am
Things have slowed down here quite a bit over the last week- our big changeovers are done, our surprise stint as the rain-site for the outdoor jazz concert is over; even when we are doing our show, it has become routine, and the crazed aspect that has sort of defined the job has departed. This has left me with time to think, and that hasn't been going too well.
Or maybe it's been going too well... the more mental work I do, and the more aware I become of my own self, the less I feel like I have in common with those around me. I feel invisible... only half here. I feel separated from other people in a hundred different ways. And I don't feel like I know how to bridge the gap any more. And I guess to be honest, I've stopped trying- I don't go out any more, not to the bar or the Festival parties; being around all those people that I can't seem to find any kind of connection with makes me feel far lonlier than just hanging out by myself. I don't know. I just don't know any more. I feel more lost than I ever did before.
The truth is that I am depressed and lonely. I am at war with myself- I want to be close to people, but I don't want to be vulnerable. Same old shit. I'm frustrated that even with all the work I have done in the last year, and the progress that I think I have made, I still can't escape this maze I have made for myself- And I did it to myself; I have no illusions about that. Years of habit, of carefully avoiding ties to people, have gone into my present situation. Grrrr....
I have done practically nothing since I have been here but work and sleep. I'm tired, and homesick. The time runs away from me- I have barely spoken to anyone that I'm not working with, but I can't see where the time goes. May feels like a big, monotonous blur.
Blah.... I'm going back to bed.
Posted in Musings & Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
Okay, Two Things...
May 31, 2005 | permalink
Two things happened today that made me feel lonely and old. Well, to be accurate, one made me feel lonely and the other made me feel old. I had some free time today, and so I went and got a hair cut. (Actually, I got them all cut! Ha ha ha!) I enjoyed my haircut immensely. So much so that I started to wonder why I was enjoying it so much- I mean, it's just a haircut. Then I realized that it was the most physical contact I have had with another person since I came to Charleston. And that really bummed me out. I hate to admit it, because I am a stubborn bastard who really wants to believe (or at least pretend) that I don't need anything from anyone, but I really crave intimacy and contact. Obviously I am not getting any of either here, if a trip to the barber is making my day.
Later, when I went to pick up my dinner from the take out place across the way, I ran into my very first apprentice from my very first Festival, nine years ago. She had just moved back to Charleston, having spent most of the intervening time on the road as a touring lighting designer and/or lighting director. When she was working for me, she had never touched a light before- now she was routinely in a position where she tells people like me what to do. I don't begrudge her success; I'm very happy for her. But I do wonder if I've been using my time wisely.
I have got to get the hell out of here. This place is killing me.
Posted in Musings & Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
Who Says a Leopard Can't Change Its Spots?
May 29, 2005 | permalink
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Well, our big changeover happened. It went more smoothly than was expected, which is awesome- the potential for doom was high. We had twenty-five people from other venues in addition to our in-house crew of twelve. It took us six hours to clear the stage of the opera's set, and another ten to do the rigging and hanging of lights and scenery for the dance company and get it all trimmed and focused. This picture and the one from the previous post show the relative states of the stage for each show, and represent a twenty-four hour time difference. Staggering, no? I was there, and I'm blown away.
Needless to say, we are dog tired. The dance company sits here for four whole days, during which we have it pretty easy. I think we will be able to rotate shifts and get everyone an evening off. Even me! I don't know what I will do with myself. Maybe I'll sleep. Or see Star Wars. Or, more likely, fall asleep in the theatre while watching Star Wars. It's a brief respite, though. Wednesday night after the final performance of the dance, we get to turn it back around from dance to opera- and we have half as much time to do it in! I'm going to see if I can't set my camera to take a picture every fifteen minutes... I think that would be really entertaining to look at later.
Posted in Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
Unbelievable
May 24, 2005 | permalink
So, we've been busting our asses to get the opera up and running. We're almost there; all of our work is about to pay off. The show looks and sounds beautiful, and all of us are very proud of what we're done. We have dress rehearsals tonight and tomorrow, and Friday is opening night. We still have a lot of little details to take care of- probably we'll be working right up until the house opens for the performance on Friday.
Then, as soon as the performance comes down, we get to tear it down. [hooray!]
As I mentioned, we have the Emio Greco|PC dance company coming into the theatre for four nights in between performances of the opera. We have 46 hours from curtain down on the opera to curtain up on the dance; going back to the opera is even scarier- just 22 hours from curtain to curtain. How will such a thing be accomplished, you ask? With forty extra people, lots of sugar and caffeine, and no sleep. A lot of people think that theatre is all magic and glamour, but I assure you it's really blood, sweat, and hard work.
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Clang Clang Clang Goes the Trolley
May 19, 2005 | permalink
I miss the subway. You see, here in Charleston, the Festival has put me up in a little efficiency apartment two and a half blocks away from the theatre. It takes me about five minutes to walk to work; in theory, I could get up fifteen minutes before my call time and still have time to get a cup of coffee. Sounds great, I know. But I miss the subway.
I miss the forty minutes of solitude the subway gives me every morning, surrounded by a hundred other people enjoying their solitude. I had time to read, or mull over what has to happen for the day, or just sit there with my coffee. But whatever I did with that time, it was there for me every day. I could count on it, count on being left alone to do my thing. Because that's how it works in a big city- you would go insane, living in such close proximity to so many people, if you didn't learn to leave each other alone and respect each other's solitude. Especially in the morning.
Such in NOT the case here in Charleston. To get breakfast at Jack's I have to have a chat with the waitress. To get coffee at the Port City Java I have to have a chat with the barrista. To get the paper (at least I can get the NY Times) at King Street Station I have to have a chat with the surly neo-hippie-punk girl who works in the mornings. I don't want to chat, people! I just want my damn coffee! I know you're just being friendly, but all I want is breakfast.
Posted in Musings & Out of Town(0) Comments
Now, Really, Who Else Plays With Stuff Like This?
May 10, 2005 | permalink
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Sometimes, I really love my job. I get to play with equipment and materials that are mildly to moderately dangerous on a regular basis, and to use said equipment and materials for applications that they were never intended for. A tube of flammable paste!? How can you not be a little envious?
Posted in Out of Town & Random & Working(0) Comments
It's What We Do
May 8, 2005 | permalink
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I have two main events, as it were, in my theatre this summer. The first is a new production of Walter Braunfels' Die V�gel (The Birds). It is technically a very elaborate production, the centerpiece of which is a 3,500 lb steel framed, rotating, climbable tree that spews fire. The turntable that holds the tree is set in the center of a raked deck, and there is a 34' tall curved wall complete with ladders and ledges for singers to stand on. All together, we estimate that the set weighs about four and a half tons. Lighting wise, we have about 300 lights in the air for this show, which is on the high end of medium-sized.
Now, the real kicker here is that the run of our other show, Emio Greco|PC, a collaboration between choreographer Emio Greco and Dutch theater director Pieter C. Scholten, takes place in between performances of Die V�gel. Being a dance piece, it of course takes place on a flat and empty stage, and has its own, very specific, lighting. And when I say 'in between,' I mean that we have a performance of Die V�gel on the night of the 27th, and Emio Greco|PC opens on the 29th. In that span of 48 hours, we completely remove the four and a half tons of Die V�gel's scenery from the theatre (I think it is three semis worth), bring in the marley dance floor, and hang the legs and borders for masking. We fly the lighting rig for Die V�gel out as high as it will go, and fly the Emio Greco lighting rig (about 100 lights- its on the large side of small) down from the grid where it has been hiding to the proper height for the show. Then we focus all the lights, input the lighting cues into the control console, and BAM! Opening night. Then four days later we do the whole affair in reverse.
Sounds like fun, right?
Posted in Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
Riiiight... I Remember This Now.
May 6, 2005 | permalink
Last year, we busted our butts to leave the theatre in a better state than we found it. All of the electronics and cables that we could repair, we did, and anything that we couldn't was at least labled with its' problems. We cleaned, organized, and inventoried. We re-ran cables that were sloppy, and got rid of literally hundreds of pounds of useless crap.
It hadn't really surprised us to find the place in such a state- the Festival hadn't been using the theatre for several years, and since it belongs to the school, it had been quite a while since there was a professional staff in house. We attacked the mess with gusto, knowing that in all likelihood we would be back the next year. All the extra work we put in was kind of like an investment.
It didn't pay off.
We came back to find it in much the same state as the beginning of the last festival; unkempt and un-maintained. Very frustrating. Especially when you are trying to make everything work, only to discover that the particular piece of equipment that is vexing you hasn't worked for months, only no one bothered to label it as broken or (heaven forfend!) have it repaired.
This is why troubleshooting three electrics, which should have taken an hour, tops, took five. Grrrrr.....
Posted in Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
Now You See Me...
May 4, 2005 | permalink
As I mentioned, I lost my glasses on the subway the other day. My eyesight really isn't that bad- I only really need the glasses because my eyes get tired if I spend a while on the computer, or in dim lighting, or looking at things up close. Which, being a master electrician for theatre, is practically all the time. So I wanted to get it taken care of as soon as possible. So Monday I went to the local equivalent of LensCrafters and had an exam and got them replaced.
The exam was one of the quickest I have ever had, and after I got the glasses I could see why. I don't know what went wrong or why, but it went really wrong. When I wear them, my depth perception is shot, and whatever is right in front of me looks foreshortened, like it was twisted away from me toward the right. And flat surfaces, like the floor or a table, appeared to curve up towards me and to the right. It kind of looked like this.
Needless to say, they make me feel kind of dizzy and sick, and I made an appointment to go back to the optometrist to get them to fix whatever it was that got screwy. Hopefully we will have a little more success this time around.
Posted in Out of Town & Random(0) Comments
Number Nine... Number Nine... Number Nine...
May 1, 2005 | permalink
I arrived in Charleston today for the Spoleto Festival. This is the ninth time I have come down here to work the Festival in the last ten years, and today I am definitely feeling every one of them. Someday I'll have to do a post detailing all of the chronic injuries, aches, and pains that I have acquired on the job. Man, do I need to find another line of work.
Anyway, enough whining! I've had a very eventful few days, full of goodbyes, bad luck, and utter stupidity. The bad luck and the stupidity go hand in hand, so I will lay that on you first. Some of it is mine- I lost my glasses on the subway last night. I'm so mad at myself. I had to wipe them off, and I got distracted and set them down, and then my stop came... you see where this is going, right? I also discovered that while trying to stop one automatic payment in my online banking set up, I turned them all off. I did not realize this until I started getting disconnect notices... I did it maybe two months ago... ooops! What can I say? I'm a dumbass...
Of course, I also encountered some stupidity that was not mine; on Friday evening, when I should have been on the last bus back to the city, I was unloading a semi, looking for a set of keys that might have been dropped while we were loading it up. They weren't in there. Which was, um, irritating, to say the least. The worst part, though, was that the jackass who lost his keys kept trying to make it so that the rest of us wouldn't be angry- you know, little jokes and sheepish grins, stuff like that. All that we wanted was for him to shut the fuck up and accept our ire. He just couldn't take the hint. Grrr...
On the goodbyes front, Surfer Grrl's going away party was last night. It was a smashing success. Laughter, tears, drunken mayhem... all the things a going away party should be. It gave me a chance to see everyone before I came here as well, which was nice, because I think that left to my own devices I might have procrastinated myself out of seeing a lot of those people.
And now I'm here. Expect reports of much stupidity to follow.
Posted in Out of Town & Working(0) Comments
I Should Be Sleeping...
April 27, 2005 | permalink
...but instead I will regale you with tales of my whirlwind weekend of travel. Another one of my eleven siblings got married last weekend, so I journeyed to exotic Fresno, CA to take part in the festivities. And let me tell you, there were festivities.
The flight out was pretty uneventful, except that I left JFK before the sun came up. That hurt. By the time I got to Fresno I was feeling dehydrated, jet-lagged, and generally bad. And it was only 12:30 in the afternoon, local time. My brother The Wrestler picked me up and took me back to his place- they had just bought their first house, and let me tell you, I was blown away. It was nice and spacious inside, as you might expect for a small city in California, but the yard was something else. Orange trees and a little fountain, a nice little flagstone patio- I tell you, I don't think I'd ever go inside. I confess to being a little jealous. But who wouldn't be?
Anyway, that night all of the people in from out of town came over for dinner and drinks. I had never met the bride's parents before, or most of the wedding party for that matter- what a great group. Everybody was happy and smiling and just having a ball. I lost ten bucks at poker to one of the groomsmen after the party mostly broke up. I was promised a chance to win it back, but that never seemed to happen. Hmmmm....
The day of the wedding I stayed around the house and helped out where I could, though The Wrestler had so many groomsmen who were so on top of everything that there really wasn't much for me to do, except take pictures of the boys getting ready. They were wearing kilts, so this was a lot more amusing than you might think. Lucky for them, the Scottish Uncles were there to help. Otherwise I'm not sure they would have gotten together in time.
The ceremony was beautiful; also, it was long enough to feel like the momentous occasion that it was, and yet short enough to not feel like you were never getting out of church. The reception followed right after, at the DD Ranch. This place was awesome! It's themed like an old western town- saloons, a general store, a sheriff's office, even a jail. The DJ was set up in a barn, and most of the buildings were open and had displays and memorabilia inside to look at.
The DJ got going and the we all got our drink on and hit the dance floor. He started us off with 'Footloose' and took us through all of the great dancing favorites... Michael Jackson, Kool and the Gang, Madonna- you know what I'm talkin' about. We had a shuttle bus, so there were no designated drivers... even my mom got wasted. What a riot!
Posted in Family Matters & Out of TownCan I Just Whine for a Minute?
April 13, 2005 | permalink
And I do mean whine- this is all my own doing, so I have no real right to complain. But I'm going to anyway, so y'all will just have to deal.
As you know if you've been reading, I have been very serious about treating my depression over the last six months. This, of course, has been a problem for a long time- I am not anywhere near done, but I am making some pretty solid progress. One of the things that I find myself dealing with now is the conflict between old patterns, behaviors, and events that I set in motion in the past, and the newer, better patterns and behaviors that I am trying to implement. Talk about banging your head against a wall...
I'm leaving for Charleston in two weeks. I'll be there for two months, working at the Spoleto Festival. This will be the eighth time in nine years. I agreed to go months ago- the contract is signed, the plane tickets bought, all that jazz. The problem is that I no longer have any interest in going.
When I first started going to the Festival, it was fun and exciting; I was at the top of my game and kicking ass. The money was better than I could get here during the summer, and the people I was working with were fantastic. Over time, though, most of that slowly stopped being true. I moved up in my field- the money is no longer better, and for the most part the job is no longer challenging, and so not nearly as fun. The people are still great, but now that I have been doing it for almost a decade I have very few peers there. And so it turned out that a lot of the reason I continued to go is that it provided me an escape from my 'regular' life, in which I was deeply unhappy. But now...
That's no longer the case. I have spent these last many months making my apartment my home, instead of just the place I slept in. I have made a lot of progress re-connecting with my family and friends, and even formed some new friendships that I am really excited about. I've been taking photographs and being more disciplined about my finances and my music. Things with The Girl are going well- so far it's the healthiest romantic relationship with a woman that I have ever had- and I'm afraid that leaving at this point for the length of time that I'll be gone is going to be the end of that.
I just feel like I am starting to actually live my life again, as opposed to just existing; and I have to leave it right when things are getting interesting.
I told you I was going to whine.
Posted in Out of Town & Working
(Standing on the Shoulders of Giants)
(Standing on the Shoulders of Giants)
(April 2005)
(April 2005)
(Hellbound Train)
(Bear's Eggplant Parmesan)