Monday, March 30, 2009

My night with Gob Bluth

If you don't know by now, I'm an Audio Video Technician. And if you don't know what that is picture a monkey in your mind. Shave that monkey and dress him in a suit, and that's me.



So tonight I'm helping out this Magician. All I am supposed to do is hook his little musical device into my sound system. No big deal right? Well his little box called an Mp3 Tech made by a company called Wireless Wizards, doesn't work.

It's a shame too because this device allows him to attach a little wireless remote control to his ankles and wrists, and they all control this little box that plays all of his sound effects across the room. It's a great idea too, because only the Magician can know for sure when to do the effect; so why shouldn't he be the one making it happen?

It's kaput. We call tech support, and everything but we can't get one in time for the show. So I ask him what the backup plan is. And he tells me, "Cash the check and run."

He thought about it for a moment, and decided against that plan. So what he made me do is watch his show three times in a row (three times too many), and learn all of the musical cues. Which was impossible! This mother shut your mouth had almost 100 musical cues for his act. There are entire productions of Cats, and The Producers that have less cues.

And as I'm watching his act I'm learning why. He needs the music to cover up all of the tricks that don't work. Nothing worked! It was like watching Gob Bluth do his "illusions Michael!"

So somehow we pulled this off. It reminded me of staying up all night to do a scene with some classmates for Michael Landman's Characterization class. Somehow this guy who I had thought was a total clown on the verge of collapse, is sawing women in half, and finding people's cards. And even more surprising throughout my scribbled notes, and his laptop I was able to play all of his cues for him. Did a few of them come early? Or late? You bet your ass they did. But we made it work, like a finely tuned Directing II final. I helped this entertainer get paid.

I know for a certainty that he made at least a thousand bucks for his two hour performance. He's a C-List name that I won't drop here, to save him some face, but let's just say this guy charges a bundle.

Now I wasn't expecting a tip, but I really was. A nice fat one, wrapped in money. I just saved this show, and his reputation. And for that he slipped me a twenty. I felt like a bottom ho getting an allowance from her pimp. I was all used and wet.

So you know what I did? I just stood there. But you know what I was doing in my mind? I was urinating. All over something of his something with intrinsic vale. Like his rabbit, or his wife.

Seriously though what a bastard. I had a better shot at being the magician than the sound guy based on the amount of prep time I had. And then I somehow pull it off, and this is the thanks I get?

I don't know what I really was expecting though. I think I would have settled on a Mercedes. Maybe a Lexus.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Cannonball House

Today I forged the sweltering heat of Macon Georgia to see a Confederate War museum. Before leaving we checked the website to make sure it was going to be an official place, and not some bumpkin's back 40 with a flag on it. It appeared real enough so off we went. My step father doing the driving as my DUI is still valid even in the deep south.

After parking and finding the house, we realized that we had ran out of camera battery power. So off we went in search of some double A's. Which were very hard to find, especially since we were not natives of Macon.

Over and across many hills did we trek, until providence itself guided us to a local camera shop. Seven dollars and thirty minutes later we arrived back at our original destination.

The Cannonball House is famous and aptly named because during the Civil War two cannon balls were shot into Macon Georgia. And one rolled up into and destroyed the front of Judge Polk's house. Apparently it was rebuilt by the Daughters of the Southern Confederacy. A group who goes around to minor historical sights and fixes them up out of boredom, and their plotted escape from it. With the eventual goal of over charging yanks and lookey lous admission to poke and trod through southern antiquity.

There was nobody else around. Aside from the tour guide and my traveling companion, we were we abandoned. That should have been a tip off to the "treasures" that lie within. Only in hindsight can such a poverty of foresight be seen!

Twelve dollars and some short introductions later we began the tour. The tour guide was appropriately named Mary-Lou "A fine southern name", she said. A 76 year old woman who has been giving the unfortunate tour for unfortunately too long.

Mary Lou did her best to keep our attention and spirits high as she peddled little tidbits of a remarkably unremarkable blip in the ides of history. The house in total had 9 rooms. And was a lovely house. A giant parlor and grotesquely over sized dining room were the key features.

She spent about twenty minutes rambling on about nothing much in every room. We had slated the entire afternoon to tour most of the town of Macon. Little did we know it would take almost all of the allotted time to get through Mary Lou's speech.

She was a pleasant enough old gal. At times a younger and more focused train of thought would peer through her cobwebbed spiel. Only to be derailed by a combination of old age, and what I detected hatred at the story. A story that she herself had told thousands of times, to thousands of people.

I felt like I had to pass out at least 4 times during the tour. I made myself remain stable for Mary Lou's sake though. I didn't want to ruin this poor old woman's day, even at the expense of my very own.

I never asked my Step Father if he wanted to leave as badly as I did. But I'm sure while he was standing there next to me the same thoughts were going through his mind. Trying to figure out some polite way to leave, or hoping that one of those over-sized chandeliers would fall on her. Not that I wanted her to die, or give witness to that event. I just wanted some reason, any reason deservedly so to leave.

There was a moment a slight lapse of constitution where I caught myself day dreaming of shoving her into a small out of the way closet and running toward what was left of my day. All I could do was remain attentive and polite however. After all I have the rest of my life ahead of me. How many tours could Mary Lou really have left in her? I was supportive and attentive for her sake. Even asking questions about what she had just been saying. A technique I have picked up at work which makes people actually believe you're listening.

Finally at the end of the tour we got to the advertised War Museum room. Which was the entire reason we went all that way. It was an 8x8 foot room full of not one but two Confederate Uniforms, and three bullets. What a disappointment! What a disaster! What an afternoon!

On the way toward sunset and the car, I remarked to my traveling companion. "At least we got to meet Mary Lou." Who is by far the treasure of the Cannon Ball house. An idiosyncratic lady, on the obscure road of life.

Friday, March 13, 2009

One blog for the road...

It's been a busy week. I managed to bang my head(for details read the blog after this one), and bust my knee up pretty good. Two Guys and a Truck got pulled off without a hitch, and I was able to unify the belts once again in Fight Night Round 3 as "Smoking" Joe Frazier. I retired after going 60-0.



I know that's not Joe Frazier, but I didn't want to spend the time searching for a picture of him. Fight Night has got to be my favorite video game. I think I like it so much, because the games are short, and the blood and violence levels are high. Just when you think there's no way you could possibly injure the computer player's face anymore than you have already done, it happens. Seriously they need to show the guy hosing the ring off after Smoking Joe Frazier is done with them. The only negative thing about that game is, I'm done with it. I've cranked the difficultly level all the way up, and tried it from every different angle it could possibly be played. So come on already EA Sports where's Fight Night Round 4 when you need it? I'm going to feel jipped if it's already out and I don't know about it.

I don't know why I feel compelled to write a last blog before I leave. It's not like my parents don't have the Internet. I'm not going to be spending every second of every day with them. There will be time to blog in Georgia.

I got to work on this sick ass show this week. I'm usually not that stoked about the things we do at my hotel. We do some pretty good shows, but they never look fantastic or anything. We convinced the client to fork over fifty thousand dollars so we finally got a chance/budget to do something crazy. And it took a lot of fucking work. But here's a picture of the finished product.




I built that. I built all of that. Did people help me? Yes they did, but I built it all. You may not be able to really see what's going on in that picture so I'll tell you. It's a 27x22 foot box truss standing upright on 14 foot legs. With one extension wing to support a rear projected screen. There are 5 Mac 550 moving lights on the rig, 30 Led up-lights, and 20 ACL back lights(There are some sprinkled in ellipsoidal too). It's also got over 100 feet of diamond shaped spandex. It looked awesome, with the spandex coming alive when all the movers were working together. I don't usually get to work with the project manager I was working with this week. But I'm sure after this show I'll be working with him more. It's nice sometimes to put out a good product and feel like you're making a difference every once in a while.

So yea I've officially been on vacation all day I suppose. I didn't get done breaking that damn set down until 5am last night, so I slept the first day of vacation, but I've got 7 more in a row.

I guess this is supposed to be the part where I tell you all if I die in a fiery plane crash that I love you all. I am that easy! If you read my blog you have my undying love. And if you're pretty! No fattys!

There should be a service that goes around and deletes your myspace/facebook account if you die. I was just thinking about that. How horrible it will be to still be able to go to my friend's pages after they are gone. I have seen a few, and I suppose they turn into a sort of tribute site. But I don't want whatever was on my mind last to be the first thing everyone sees for the rest of eternity.

I need to give someone my password so if I perish they can maintain my account for me. I know that's a pretty heavy question to ask someone though. And I should probably have a back up too, in case they die before I die. Like an alternate. I don't like thinking about this stuff, my stomach kind of hurts now.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

A Gonzo

When I hurt myself people like to hear about it. I have never been one for collecting the acceptance of others, but until I overcome my self inflicting accident proneness problem I might just have to put up with it. Let's not kid ourselves either, if I didn't enjoy telling a double whopper with sound effects and the like would I be sitting here in my undergarments at 2am scribbling away, and hating every paragraph until I write the next?

So people like people when they hurt themselves. And people know about this. So other people tell people about it. So that somebody else might feel comfortable enough talking about a time they hurt themselves. Unless they lack the skills necessary of captivating their audience with the best material money can't buy. Then even if they did hurt themselves in the story, you can't enjoy it because you've fallen asleep.

I know one girl who loves it when you fall. And because of this she is almost certain to become a tripper. That's why I always walk down the stairs behind her, not because she has a great caboose, that's just the icing. She loves it when you fall because she's just like everyone else. The pleasure in someone Else's pain must be the sixth sense of the human being.

And if you cannot see someone fall down or take an arrow of fire to their crotch. Then hearing about it, is the next best thing. But if the person who lit the arrow on fire and then shot it at their own crotch, lives to tell you about it it is like a little slice of Heaven. Or some secular equivalent. Like pie. A little slice of Cherry pie. With a small side of vanilla ice-cream.

So here's the latest incarnation to fuel the sixth sense of my fellow man. Sometimes I wonder if I do these things to myself knowingly. But if it were planned I doubt I would walk away as unbroken as I always do. Luck plays an important part in living to tell the tale. He's perhaps the most important attribute of every accidental circumstance.

I'm driving a lift today, and everything is going smooth. My operation was running like a hard knife cutting through a soft cube of butter. I have taken this vessel many times on a very similar journey like today's.

I maneuver through elevators, crowded hallways and tight loading docks. Full of passerby fuck nuts who think because they're in your way already they might as well stay there. And who could blame them? They walk as if moving a singular muscle at a time, never quite grasping that the hip bone is connected to the foot bone. Their pace makes all of us older, and then quite younger again as they slither on by.

It is at this time when I ask two of my fellow men, to help me watch the wheels as I have to make a 19 point turn down a skinny concrete walkway. Whomever designed the loading dock at the Sheraton Hotel in Sacramento should be shot in the nuts with a device of electrocution. Or buried alive in the ocean with concrete stockings holding giant bags of shark bait.

As I'm making part 18 of the 19 point turn to back down the ramp, I turn to my right to check my back wheels. When all of a sudden I'm hit with what feels like a Louisville slugger on the right side of my cranium. The gentleman who are supposed to be looking out for my safety during the time, both see this happen, and at the top of their lungs "OH!?!?" "Watch out!."

Let me recreate that turn of events for you. In case you weren't paying attention. The corner of a giant wooden awning doing exactly what it is supposed to do, staying inanimate and where it was put in the year 2003 gets attacked with the full force of my cranium smashing into the corner of it, and then......my "spotters" tell me to watch out. That is some excellent spotting.

So I'm probably the only person who has ever slammed his head into such a structure and not immediately passed out. I had to put off passing out until I was done driving the lift. I didn't cry or flinch or swear. It didn't even effect me.

However my spotter extraordinaire told me that I had a second head growing out of my first one. And because I didn't want to have to start buying shirts with two holes for my heads I put some ice on it. And that's when the pain really started. Whomever invented ice should be forced to do body shots off of Roseanne Barr's hairy stomach.

I felt like I needed to vomit. That's how hard I hit my head. I didn't hear the loud noise that the impact made, because I was in some sort of acoustic shadow. I only got to hear about how loud of a noise that the others heard. I was too busy making it. Silly me.

And everyone was laughing it up and it was great. Aside from that giant knot on my head. And that lingering thought in the back of my other one; the part that had not succumbed to a concussion that I could have been very less lucky. For if I was to take that same blow to the head one inch lower and one inch to the left give or take, that I would be blogging from the hospital right now. Just thinking about that is making my right temple hurt at this very moment.

In the great battle of cranium versus awning we learned that no matter how hard you may try, you will never be able to break a giant piece of wood with your head. Especially at the corner where it is attached to another giant piece of wood. That's perhaps the strongest part of the structure. I would recommend for anyone trying this in the future to attack it from the side. You might just have a break through.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Has Collective Soul always been this hardcore?

If there was one album that I owned as many as 4 times while growing up it was Collective Soul. The blue one the self titled one. Everyone owned it. If you look through your old cds it will be in there. And if you can't or won't admit that to yourself that's fine. But you're a dirty liar.

I'll give you a hint, turn it up!


SeeqPod - Playable Search

Isn't that some of the most hardcore shit ever? I'm bringing back 1995 one band at a time. And it all starts with Collective Soul.

Why we lie...

I found this in a book I'm reading. It doesn't tell you who or where it's from. I found it to be pretty inspiring. A little poke in the head, if you will?





Why We Lie

Everyone lies a little bit, and that’s no lie.

It may be a little white lie told to spare someone’s feelings, but everyone
does it. We are all guilty. We start lying at a young age (around four or five)
to finagle something we want or to get out of trouble.

We lie both to please people and to appease them. We lie to strengthen
relationships and to maintain them. We lie to make ourselves feel better
about lying to someone else.

However, oftentimes the best lies (meaning the ones that are most believable
to other people) are the lies we tell ourselves.

If we can hide the truth from ourselves, it’s so much easier to cloak it
from others. Why do we lie? Generally speaking, because we can get away
with it.