long overdue
It's been five days since my last update. I really need to keep up with this. I'm letting myself down.
Let's go back to Phoenix. I'm pretty sure that this place had the worst stagehands so far. Lots of meth-heads and stoners, completely clueless most of the time, wandering off in several directions. It definitely seems like we get the dregs of local help. Always the weak, drug-addled bottom-of-the-barrel stagehands. Oh well. Occasionally, a good apple or two will show his/her face in the barrel and I can rely on them to get the job done.
Once we hit the arena, I really don't see any more of the city we're in. I feel as if I'm falling into a routine, which makes writing about it a little harder. If every day seems the same to me, then why do I need to talk about it? This is not a good attitude, though, as every single day I have something interesting happen.
After the Phoenix show, we drove all the way back to northern California, to Sacramento. Not the cool, downtown Sacramento, though. The powers-that-be decided we should be on the outskirts. So, we arrived at the Garden Inn hotel sometime around 10 in the morning. I woke up, grabbed my stuff and made it to my room with blurry eyes and plenty of stumbles. I swear I was still asleep when I got to the door. Five minutes in my room and Steve calls. They're heading down to find some food. Nick, Steve, Kevin and I all started the long walk to find something to eat. Imagine if you were in Nashville for a day, without a car, and you were staying in a hotel out in the Metrocenter area. That's the best description of where we were stationed for our day off. Up the street a little, I found a Baja Fresh and a small grocery store. The little grocery store had some travel-size laundry detergent and softener sheets, meaning I was in business for some laundry action later in the day. Stopped at Baja on the way back and sat inside to eat. While I was eating, I read through the local entertainment paper (kinda like the Scene) and found something to do for the night. The Blood Brothers and ...Trail of Dead were playing somewhere in town at a place called the Library. Whoo! After I got back to the hotel, I washed some clothes. Kevin called right as I was about to put my second and last load into the dryer. He was going to see a movie downtown. So, I threw my wet clothes into my laundry bag, not really trusting them to sit in the dryer for a few hours. Kevin, Nick and I set off for a theater downtown in a mall-like setting and watched the new Bond movie, Casino Royale. I thought it was pretty good. I'm not much of an action movie fan most of the time. Some of the stunts are way too unbelievable to be cool... but it's a Bond movie after all. We returned to the hotel around 5:30 or 6. The show started at 7:30. What I learned on the way to the theater and back, however, is how much a taxi costs in Sacramento. The starting point is $2.80 and then $2.80 for every mile thereafter. UGH! I checked on distance to the show... ten miles there... ten miles back. Twenty dollar ticket. Meaning my evening would cost at least eighty bucks, right off the bat. Unfortunately (or quite the opposite if you ask my wallet), I decided to stay in for the night. I had my sights set on a sushi place down the street. Around 8:30, Steve sent me a text, with details on a mission to Outback. He had seen a commercial on tv advertising Outback shrimp and was determined to have a ton of them before the night was over. He said he would even pay for the cab ride out there. So, $25 cab ride later, we arrived at Outback. As we walked towards the door, an employee came out, apologizing and explaining that they were closed an hour early for an employee holiday party. Steve was a little miffed. Lucky for all of us, a Red Lobster was right next door. Steve, Nick and I sat in for a feast. I had the crab alfredo linguini and steak. Delicious. I think I could be just as satisfied with a plate full of those cheddar biscuits. I'm not the most reliable judge of culinary art.
The show in Sacramento was a lot of fun. Kevin's much more relaxed now (we all are) and he kept me laughing for most of the concert. The stagehands in Sacramento were pretty good. We had two younger girls, an older lady, a ghetto-thug who never spoke, Dennis with long hair and another who apparently wasn't unique enough for me to remember what he/she even looked like. Sacramento and Stockton (our next stop) share a lot of the same union work, so we saw most of these hands again the next day. Which was pretty awesome, as they already knew how to do a lot of what we were doing and could teach any new additions to the crew. I think it was the Sacramento show where I spotted one of those painter's masks fall from the rafters in the middle of the third or fourth song. It just kinda floated down, trailing those bands that keep it on your face.
An hour drive to Stockton, a few hours of sleep on the bus and we did it all again the next day. Stockton was a small arena, with a huge flat area, one floor up, behind the stage. That's where catering was and also where we set our projectors. 'Twas an easy load-in and fairly easy load-out. Catering was kind of funny in Stocton. They ran out of Sloppy Joe meat and several people waited thirty minutes or so for more. For dinner that night, black cloths were over the tables, wine glasses were out and the dimmest of lights covered the area. Dessert was the highlight, disappearing fast: a caramel/cheesecake/apple/something/burrito-looking fried pie. I had a couple beers on the bus later on, a reward for a couple days of hard work, and we were off to Bakersfield. I'm trying to watch my alcohol intake. I want to be at 100% for the shows. I also don't want to come home with a beer belly. "Surprise! I'm fatter!" Not happening.
Reno, our bus driver, is a pretty cool guy. Apparently, he's written a couple of dance hits (techno, I believe) and still works on a lot of his own music for soundtracks, walk-in music and such. He doesn't mind laying down the bus rules and I respect that. He hauled a little booty and got us here pretty early this morning. I remember the bus stopping. I definitely remember going back to sleep. I woke up around 10 and took my stuff to my room at the DoubleTree here in lovely Bakersfield. I called Kayla when I got to the room. She said I sounded a little sick. I felt a little sick. I spent the rest of the day in bed, sleeping and recovering. When I finally got up and going around 5 this afternoon, I felt a lot better. I've been pounding Emergen-Cs and an Airborne each day, fighting the inevitable sickness of over-exertion and life on a bus with 9 other people.
We walked over to Black Angus to eat and celebrate Jody's birthday. Jody, if I haven't mentioned him yet, is our engineer and an all-around good guy. He's been stopping to explain a few different things production-wise that I wouldn't have learned without him. Lots of general knowledge concerning engineering, lighting and all. Shoot! I forgot to take a picture of the Black Angus. If Chris Ward is reading this, he'll be a bit disappointed that I visited the home of "you'll each get your own" and didn't document. Arg.
I returned to the room, talked to Kayla for an hour or more and hit the street looking for something to do. Some sort of entertainment place called Incredible Pizza was right across the road. I looked them up online, where they advertised a gameroom that stayed open 'til 10. Wrong. Closed at 9 and I was back to my room. Jacuzzi time! It was a bit chilly and the hot water felt great. I stated in until I could hardly stand it. Got out and walked around the pool a bit. No one but me around. Toed the water. Polar bear time as I dove into the icy pool. Straight out of the pool and into the jacuzzi. I love that feeling. I stayed in and around the jacuzzi for around 45 minutes. So relaxing...
So here I am. In the room again, writing. I will, I WILL continue to update.
Oh! I just thought of something great that happened last night.
At load-out, we were designated our stagehands, most of which I had already worked with the night before. One of the newer guys was a late-thirties asian guy who worked his tail off. When we were wrapping cables, I took him to the access hole between the stage and our area and showed him where the cable to my handheld camera passed through. Lo and behold, he gets down and climbs through the hole. It was probably no more than eight inches high and two feet across. It was the craziest thing I've seen yet. Oh man. No one else saw it. I was laughing all night about that one. Just the image of this guy, crawling and inching his way through this hole... and me behind him, yelling "No! You don't have to go through that!" to no avail. It's not like I could grab his legs and pull him back. He just... went.
Hah...
I also got this awesome blood blister on my finger in Sacramento. I went to help work out the focus on the jib during an emergency in the middle of the show and clamped my Leatherman down right on the tip of my index finger. For the past couple of days, it's looked like a little mohawk on the tip there. I left my camera in the workbox, though, so you'll have to wait on pictures.
Tomorrow, Bakersfield. Portland on Sunday. Seattle on Monday. Home on Tuesday!
Let's go back to Phoenix. I'm pretty sure that this place had the worst stagehands so far. Lots of meth-heads and stoners, completely clueless most of the time, wandering off in several directions. It definitely seems like we get the dregs of local help. Always the weak, drug-addled bottom-of-the-barrel stagehands. Oh well. Occasionally, a good apple or two will show his/her face in the barrel and I can rely on them to get the job done.
Once we hit the arena, I really don't see any more of the city we're in. I feel as if I'm falling into a routine, which makes writing about it a little harder. If every day seems the same to me, then why do I need to talk about it? This is not a good attitude, though, as every single day I have something interesting happen.
After the Phoenix show, we drove all the way back to northern California, to Sacramento. Not the cool, downtown Sacramento, though. The powers-that-be decided we should be on the outskirts. So, we arrived at the Garden Inn hotel sometime around 10 in the morning. I woke up, grabbed my stuff and made it to my room with blurry eyes and plenty of stumbles. I swear I was still asleep when I got to the door. Five minutes in my room and Steve calls. They're heading down to find some food. Nick, Steve, Kevin and I all started the long walk to find something to eat. Imagine if you were in Nashville for a day, without a car, and you were staying in a hotel out in the Metrocenter area. That's the best description of where we were stationed for our day off. Up the street a little, I found a Baja Fresh and a small grocery store. The little grocery store had some travel-size laundry detergent and softener sheets, meaning I was in business for some laundry action later in the day. Stopped at Baja on the way back and sat inside to eat. While I was eating, I read through the local entertainment paper (kinda like the Scene) and found something to do for the night. The Blood Brothers and ...Trail of Dead were playing somewhere in town at a place called the Library. Whoo! After I got back to the hotel, I washed some clothes. Kevin called right as I was about to put my second and last load into the dryer. He was going to see a movie downtown. So, I threw my wet clothes into my laundry bag, not really trusting them to sit in the dryer for a few hours. Kevin, Nick and I set off for a theater downtown in a mall-like setting and watched the new Bond movie, Casino Royale. I thought it was pretty good. I'm not much of an action movie fan most of the time. Some of the stunts are way too unbelievable to be cool... but it's a Bond movie after all. We returned to the hotel around 5:30 or 6. The show started at 7:30. What I learned on the way to the theater and back, however, is how much a taxi costs in Sacramento. The starting point is $2.80 and then $2.80 for every mile thereafter. UGH! I checked on distance to the show... ten miles there... ten miles back. Twenty dollar ticket. Meaning my evening would cost at least eighty bucks, right off the bat. Unfortunately (or quite the opposite if you ask my wallet), I decided to stay in for the night. I had my sights set on a sushi place down the street. Around 8:30, Steve sent me a text, with details on a mission to Outback. He had seen a commercial on tv advertising Outback shrimp and was determined to have a ton of them before the night was over. He said he would even pay for the cab ride out there. So, $25 cab ride later, we arrived at Outback. As we walked towards the door, an employee came out, apologizing and explaining that they were closed an hour early for an employee holiday party. Steve was a little miffed. Lucky for all of us, a Red Lobster was right next door. Steve, Nick and I sat in for a feast. I had the crab alfredo linguini and steak. Delicious. I think I could be just as satisfied with a plate full of those cheddar biscuits. I'm not the most reliable judge of culinary art.
The show in Sacramento was a lot of fun. Kevin's much more relaxed now (we all are) and he kept me laughing for most of the concert. The stagehands in Sacramento were pretty good. We had two younger girls, an older lady, a ghetto-thug who never spoke, Dennis with long hair and another who apparently wasn't unique enough for me to remember what he/she even looked like. Sacramento and Stockton (our next stop) share a lot of the same union work, so we saw most of these hands again the next day. Which was pretty awesome, as they already knew how to do a lot of what we were doing and could teach any new additions to the crew. I think it was the Sacramento show where I spotted one of those painter's masks fall from the rafters in the middle of the third or fourth song. It just kinda floated down, trailing those bands that keep it on your face.
An hour drive to Stockton, a few hours of sleep on the bus and we did it all again the next day. Stockton was a small arena, with a huge flat area, one floor up, behind the stage. That's where catering was and also where we set our projectors. 'Twas an easy load-in and fairly easy load-out. Catering was kind of funny in Stocton. They ran out of Sloppy Joe meat and several people waited thirty minutes or so for more. For dinner that night, black cloths were over the tables, wine glasses were out and the dimmest of lights covered the area. Dessert was the highlight, disappearing fast: a caramel/cheesecake/apple/something/burrito-looking fried pie. I had a couple beers on the bus later on, a reward for a couple days of hard work, and we were off to Bakersfield. I'm trying to watch my alcohol intake. I want to be at 100% for the shows. I also don't want to come home with a beer belly. "Surprise! I'm fatter!" Not happening.
Reno, our bus driver, is a pretty cool guy. Apparently, he's written a couple of dance hits (techno, I believe) and still works on a lot of his own music for soundtracks, walk-in music and such. He doesn't mind laying down the bus rules and I respect that. He hauled a little booty and got us here pretty early this morning. I remember the bus stopping. I definitely remember going back to sleep. I woke up around 10 and took my stuff to my room at the DoubleTree here in lovely Bakersfield. I called Kayla when I got to the room. She said I sounded a little sick. I felt a little sick. I spent the rest of the day in bed, sleeping and recovering. When I finally got up and going around 5 this afternoon, I felt a lot better. I've been pounding Emergen-Cs and an Airborne each day, fighting the inevitable sickness of over-exertion and life on a bus with 9 other people.
We walked over to Black Angus to eat and celebrate Jody's birthday. Jody, if I haven't mentioned him yet, is our engineer and an all-around good guy. He's been stopping to explain a few different things production-wise that I wouldn't have learned without him. Lots of general knowledge concerning engineering, lighting and all. Shoot! I forgot to take a picture of the Black Angus. If Chris Ward is reading this, he'll be a bit disappointed that I visited the home of "you'll each get your own" and didn't document. Arg.
I returned to the room, talked to Kayla for an hour or more and hit the street looking for something to do. Some sort of entertainment place called Incredible Pizza was right across the road. I looked them up online, where they advertised a gameroom that stayed open 'til 10. Wrong. Closed at 9 and I was back to my room. Jacuzzi time! It was a bit chilly and the hot water felt great. I stated in until I could hardly stand it. Got out and walked around the pool a bit. No one but me around. Toed the water. Polar bear time as I dove into the icy pool. Straight out of the pool and into the jacuzzi. I love that feeling. I stayed in and around the jacuzzi for around 45 minutes. So relaxing...
So here I am. In the room again, writing. I will, I WILL continue to update.
Oh! I just thought of something great that happened last night.
At load-out, we were designated our stagehands, most of which I had already worked with the night before. One of the newer guys was a late-thirties asian guy who worked his tail off. When we were wrapping cables, I took him to the access hole between the stage and our area and showed him where the cable to my handheld camera passed through. Lo and behold, he gets down and climbs through the hole. It was probably no more than eight inches high and two feet across. It was the craziest thing I've seen yet. Oh man. No one else saw it. I was laughing all night about that one. Just the image of this guy, crawling and inching his way through this hole... and me behind him, yelling "No! You don't have to go through that!" to no avail. It's not like I could grab his legs and pull him back. He just... went.
Hah...
I also got this awesome blood blister on my finger in Sacramento. I went to help work out the focus on the jib during an emergency in the middle of the show and clamped my Leatherman down right on the tip of my index finger. For the past couple of days, it's looked like a little mohawk on the tip there. I left my camera in the workbox, though, so you'll have to wait on pictures.
Tomorrow, Bakersfield. Portland on Sunday. Seattle on Monday. Home on Tuesday!
posted by Josh at 10:50 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks. My day will be better. I love you.
You actually went to a Black Angus? Did you have the bacon potato bombs? Were the doors locked from the outside? Did they call you Peaches? You'll each get your own!
Ward
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