Wow, it has been almost three months since I have updated this thing. I guess You could say I have kinda fallen behind. Well, thanks to some motivation from Amanda, here’s an update:
( I should warn you though, three months is a long time… you are in for some reading.)
I got back from tour late on the 26th. I missed my plane out of Chicago because of the all the problems Brandon had with his flight there. He got pulled off of the plane by security because of some issue with his luggage. I guess he left it with the baggage check and then they forgot or something. They claimed that it was an “un-attended bag”. So, since he missed his flight he got there a whole lot later then he expected and I ended up having to program the show and leave it for him to run. When he finally got there we talked quickly about the show, pulled his luggage out of the car, and put mine in.
The driver was great. He really tried to get me there on time. He was taking all kinds of shortcuts and even driving in the emergency lane on the freeway while traffic was stopped. He was crazy! I think I could have just barely made it on the plane if I didn’t have a one way ticket. If you don’t know about the joys of flying one way, you automatically get flagged for a special security screening. So, basically it adds another 20 minutes to your check in time. All of your carry on baggage gets opened and gone through while they empty your pockets, take off your shoes and get searched yourself. It’s lots of fun… Almost as much fun as running through an airport with a couple heavy bags and your shoes not tied. Needless to say, I missed the flight. I watched them pulling the boarding bridge away from the plane and close the door.
Luckily the bad weather played to my advantage. There wasn’t actually supposed to be another flight to San Diego or Ontario untill the next day, but another flight got delayed. I ended up waiting at the airport for about an hour and then taking a direct flight to San Diego. Only now my luggage was all messed up. So, it wasn’t there when I got home.
The next morning I was back at it again. I had to be downtown to do a show for the American Hospital Association. It ended up that going out on tour was the beginning of probably the longest run of shows in a row I have ever worked. I worked from July 12th through August 21 and had only one single day off. Only it wasn’t really off, because I had so much backed up that I didn’t have time to rest. Also, that was the day of my cousin’s engagement party. It ended up being a busy day. So, basically it was 41 days without stopping. There were some long days too. Like for the show we did for Yo-Yo Ma. I think it was like three 20 hour days in a row. Looking back now, I am surprised I didn’t just drop dead. Too much work!
One of the shows I ended up doing during my long haul was for Sony Music again. This year was a bit different then last year, because of the big Sony / BMG merger. I still got hooked up with a crapload of free music again. I have another 50 or so CDs to import now. That should put my iTunes collection up to about 17,750 songs, maybe more. That’s alot of music! I think they were very pleased with me again this year, so with any luck they will ask for me back again next year. In Florida. I have to say, it is a pretty cool thing to know that the VP of Sony/BMG Music specifically asked to have me come back again this year.
Some of the other show’s I have done recently are:
- Chargers: Kick off Lunch:
- Chargers Games:
- Sycuan Pow-wow:
- La Jolla Music Society: Yo-Yo Ma, Lalo Schifrin:
- KGB Skyshow XXX:
- Chita Rivera:
- Barlow Girl:
Well, this year it was a dinner. We did it out on the practice field at the Charger’s facility. Boy, that show had it’s share of problems. Note to self: never hire NeoVision to set up a video wall for you. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I would have stuck to one crew. I could have packed up my camera at the end of the show and left. But, you know me… looking for more hours, and too nice to say no. I ended up working on every crew there. Sound, lighting, video, truss, stage, loading the truck, and then driving it back to the shop. I was beat at the end of that night. I think we pulled away from the shop at about 4am.
Speaking of the Chargers… I worked quite a few of the games already this season. Lane just keeps adding more and more stuff to set up though. There isn’t nearly as much down time to just sit and watch the game as there used to be. It’s still fun, but it just isn’t quite the same without all of the old crew. The parking lot was a mess this year. Chandler went out to set it up the first time, and everything was wrong pretty much I guess. Well, it got to stay up for a whole game when the decided that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING had to come down. Even the fence. General Motors rented out the parking lot for some big event there. What a waste of time and money though, setting it all up and taking it down after one game. Lane had me go out to supervise the load-in on the second go ’round. Then they decided to add lights to everything, so they could to a post game party. Lane talked about having a DJ come out to play at the after-party for the Monday Night Football game, so I called Christian (DJ Showtime) and talked to him about it. He was stoked. I hope everything worked out. I haven’t talked to either of them since the game happened. I know Christian was having some trouble trying to get a hold of Lane.
The pow-wow was a lot of fun this year. It was easier since I had a bit of a clue what was going on this time. I also took more speakers this year and better amps so I didn’t run out of juice. Although, one of the amps died on me mid-show. I had to have a replacement brought out to me. It kept overheating and going into protect mode. The head staff thought I did such a good job this year, they had me come out to the center on the last day and they gave me my own honoring song. I really was well… honored that they did that for me. It is quite a rare thing for them to call someone who isn’t a native out and give them an honoring song. Here’s a picture of me being honored:
I was the A2 for a couple of concerts for the La Jolla Music Society’s summer concert series. First we did an awesome show with Lalo Schifrin at Spreckles. I didn’t really know much about Lalo before the show. He is quite an accomplished composer and pianist. Probably his most notable work is his composition of the theme for Mission Impossible. Which, by the way, they played as an encore at the show. It was an amazing live piece. Especially the version they played. He also has many other noteable credits, some of them acadamy award nominees.
The second night was a private concert at the La Jolla Country Club with Yo-Yo Ma. It was a pretty cool concert. Especially in the intimate setting it was in. The following night we had a sold out concert with Yo-Yo Ma at the Civic downtown. That was quite a show. We had over 30 wired mics and 10 wireless on the stage. With four monitor mixes. It was quite the set up. We flew JBL Vertec 4888s and had some subs on the ground. We had a lot of changes during the show, so I had to be on top of things. I had a crew of about 4 union hands during the show to help with the changes, so that was good. The only problem is the speed of the changes. Most were done in under a minute, while Yo-Yo was talking. In addition to being a huge live show, NPR (National Public Radio) was there broadcasting the show live across the world. It was great to be a part of such a huge event. Yo-Yo is an amazing musician and a great person. He actually took the time to find me and introduce himself and thank me for my hard work. I have to say, I was quite nervous putting the wireless on his chello. The thing is worth like $50,000, and I didn’t want to throw it out of tune just before it had to go on stage. It was a good show overall. Some long hours, but a good show.
The 30th skyshow. What can I say…. it was awesome. They had the 30 foot flame thrower and the giant ball of fire again on the field. Those things are so cool. The pyro team did a great job as usual. I don’t think they even lit the hill on fire over by the freeway this year. I am so lucky to be able to be standing in the middle of the whole thing. What an amazing experience.
Some of you might not know who she is, but Chita is one of the biggest stars ever to be on Broadway. She played many leading roles in some of the biggest musicals ever. She is probably most known for her role as Velma Kelly in the original “Chicago”, but other roles include Rose Alverez (Rosie) in “Bye Bye Birdie”, Anita in “West Side Story”, and Reno Sweeny in “Anything Goes”. She just opened a new show here in San Diego that is headed to Broadway. While she was here she was asked to perform a benifit concert for the Salvation Army. I was asked to be the stage manager for the show. It was a good show, and a great opportunity to be able to see her perform some of the great broadway hits.
Well, the event at Raging Waters didn’t attract quite as many people as we hoped, but it was still a good show. The show back at the Bob was the really good one though. I had so much fun with it. We finally were able to do a real concert in the Bob. We rented most of the sound equipment from Power Plus, but this also gave us the opportunity to pick up some gear for ourselves. CBC now owns a good microphone package (minus 2 decent overhead mics), mic cables, and mic stands. We also borrowed George’s PRT and dimmer, so we could have some nice rock and roll lighting. We busted our ass’s most of the day to get it all set up, but it was worth it. I think the concert went off really well. The girls were good performers, the audience was responsive, and we had all of the right tools to make them look and sound good. They said that we were easily within the top 5 companies they had ever worked with. A nice compliment indeed. Amanda came down to watch the load in at the Bob because she didn’t think we actually did any work. While I will admit, we do our fair share of slacking off, most people have no idea how much work actually goes into putting a concert together. It was good to have her there. Now she doesn’t think we are slackers quite as much, but it was also nice to have a female around. Plus, she went to pick up Dominic’s for us. Mmmm…. Without her, we wouldn’t have had anything to eat, and we probably would have had a long grumpy strike. Thanks Amanda!
This October 13th, 2005 would have marked the 60th wedding anniversary for my grandma and grampa. Before he died, my grandpa used to surprise my grandma by randomly deciding to take her to Las Vegas. They both loved to go and gamble. So we decided that we wanted to do the same thing. We called her up and told her to pack a bag, we were coming to get her. She was excited, but when we got there she wasn’t feeling well. She had an upset stomach. So we waited around for a couple of hours and luckily she decided she felt better. So, my mom, grandma, sister, and I headed out to go for a night to Buffalo Bill’s. We all had a lot of fun. It was great to see my grandma so happy.
While we were waiting for her to feel better, I kinda started to get sad. She is taking so many pills now, and she is just so thin compared to how she used to be. I cant help but think about the fact that I might not have too much time left with her. Then I start to think about how lonely she must be sitting at home all the time. I wonder if something would happen to her, would I regret not getting to know her better, or not spending more time with her. The thought of getting old is so depressing. I start to think about my life and how far behind I am from where I should be. When I get old, I don’t want to have to worry about if I have enough money in my savings or social security to pay for my bills. I miss my grandpa, and I hate to think about loosing my grandma. Well, enough talk about that.
I went to Knott’s Scary Farm on Saturday with Amanda, Aimee, and Logan. It was so much fun. I had never been before, but had heard a lot about it. We went a bit early and ate at the Fridays they just put in there. That place was packed! Especially with all of the games going on that day. We finished eating just in time to go in to the park. The line to get in really wasn’t that bad at all. We went on a few rides to start things off. Luckily the lines weren’t too long. Well, at least in the beginning. By the end of the night though, the lines were just plain rediculous. One of the funniest things that night was in a maze they had that was themed like a high school. They had this hallway where there were doors with class and teacher names on them. One of the doors read like this:
SEX ED
K. BRYANT
Hilarous. We got our picture taken as we came in, and it turned out really well. So, we bought it. I need to take the pics and scan/copy them though. The prices were outrageous. Not unexpected, however. For example, a 20oz. bottle of soda or water was $3. That’s just stupid. Oh well. We had lots of fun, and that is what is important.
So, I started a new job. I accepted a part time position with the City of Escondido. I am one of the persons in charge of management and operations of the community television channel on ch 19 Cox Escondido. In addition to that we also provide audio visual support for meetings and events for the city. It should be a decent job, and it will look really good on my resume. The most important thing however, is the fact that it is going to allow me to go back to school. I have been away for far too long. I really have to get back and finish my schooling so I can get on with the rest of my life. Surprisingly I am actually really excited about going back. I want to get in there and get it done. I work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the city, but not till late in the afternoon on Wednesday. So, I will probably be taking classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings. There is a couple of bad things about the job though. One, they are going to give me another cell phone! I don’t know what the full situation is yet, but hopefully I only have to wear it when I am at work. I don’t want to be carrying around two phones all the time. The other thing I have to sort out is that I am supposed to go back out on tour with Static-X here in November. I don’t know if I am going to be able to make the two schedules mesh. Hopefully I can talk to Brandon and the City on Tuesday and sort out some plan. I hate to leave Brandon out in the cold when I told him I would do it. But, at the same time he was supposed to get me dates like a month ago. I honestly thought it wasn’t going to happen since I hadn’t heard anything since early September.
Well, your eyes are probably getting sore after reading all of that. I congratulate you if you actually read the whole thing. So, I think that brings things pretty well up to date. Hopefully I will do a better job at updating this in the future.
TTFN,
~PYRO