On the other side of the pastel green planet...

It sure has been a busy season of late.  Not that I have regular followers, but I'm sure that my lack of posting has all but eliminated the rest.  That's quite all right. The holidays are busy for pretty much everyone, though I'm sure just which holidays differ on where you live.  Needless to say, in the United States, we go crazy from October until the beginning of January every year.  This year was no exception.  Maybe even a little more than the past couple of years when more people were suffering because of the economic downturn.  We had a very special project at work which has received some attention in the news lately.  Yes, we are making a new 3D movie with some very creative talent producing and directing it.  In addition we found out that the house that I'm renting is being foreclosed on, though that might not matter as we may be moving out of state in the early part of next year.  So, since I am who I am, I figure that I should tie in the holidays to produ

I grew up on the idea that a handshake meant something.  A man is as good as his word.  So, I was told that if a man told me something and then shook on it, I could believe him and that was as good as a contract.  If that man could not fulfill his obligation, he would not cowardly shy away from it, but step up and tell me to my face that he was unable to hold his end of the bargain.  He would then deal with any ramifications that might come of it.  After all, things don't always go as planned.  Working in the live performing arts makes you come to realize this in a very short order. Now, I understand that this isn't the old west, but I do know that there are still others out there who are raised with the same values.  If a man (or woman) comes up to me with that approach, not knowing that I was raised with the same values, we can usually figure that out.  Believe me, I have been fooled before and have been once again.  Fortunately for me, since I was not the one going back on

Another Labor Day is upon us here in the United States.  I happen to be off, but currently I am always off on Mondays.  For those of you who may not know some of the history of the holiday, you might want to check a couple of other pages: http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/laborday/faqs.cfm or http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm I am proud to be an American, even if I often disagree with the policies of our politicians and some of the laws that we have on our books.  I proudly display my flag on holidays such as this to show my pride in my country.  My family is probably as middle class as you can get.  We aren't necessarily close to the well off or the down trodden, but end up riding the waves as the country changes.  As often as possible, I make my voice heard through voting or direct correspondence with my elected officials.  However, my moderate viewpoints rarely seem to be the popular opinion.  Oh well.  I can also claim to be proud to have been a union member.  Yes,

Tonight, a famous person came to see my (yeah like I own it) show.  As I look down from the booth, I see her surrounded by her entourage and I thought to myself, I am so glad that I'm on this end of show biz.  I knew she was coming tonight because the house manager was working with some of her "people" in figuring out all the logistics of her arrival.  Admittedly, she was one of the rare ones who decided to go to her seats before the lights were out.  However, this added some degree of difficulty to her body guards who had to shoo away the few audience members who recognized her and requested a picture (or autograph or whatever).  That right there is one of the things that would bug me.  I would want to be friendly to my fans, but I understand that sometimes they can't be because then other people notice and start the mob mentality.  On the other hand, she did walk out on the show, with her entire entourage, which must have been a bit of a disruption to all those ar

My philosophy is that modern educational systems are flawed.  Back in the "good ol' days", not everyone went to college.  Someone who had a college education was considered quite special.  In my opinion, these days, college, even public ones, are less about education and more about profit.  Consider this quote from Aristotle - "All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth." So what do we do, we standardize tests so that we can make sure that our children can pass the same Jeopardy challenges, but what does that really get them?  How far in your career has trivia taken you?  Probably not far.  But as Stobaeus says: "What use is knowledge if there is no understanding?" Honestly not much.  Where we fail our children most often is not teaching them how to use the knowledge at their fingertips.  So, why the quotes?  I hope for you to understand that education has been

Hey, we all mess around, right?  I mean, come on, admit it.  You can't?  That just makes it worse.  So, when we were kids (oh look, I turned into my dad), we were told to tell the truth. We would be advised that if we told the truth that we wouldn't get into as much trouble as if we didn't fess up and were caught.  Heck, our legal system ended up being built on this principle.  Unfortunately, we learn that as long as we don't get caught, then it's alright.  OK, I'm not going to really argue with that.  I mean, I've done it.  I know that when I get caught, my gut reaction is to lie.  Heck, who wants to get busted?  Do we really believe what our parents said?  Since there's the possibility that you won't get in trouble when something goes wrong, why confess, right?  How are you to know if the punishment might really be more lenient.  It's not like you can see the future and know both possible outcomes.  There's the moral dilemma we all face

When you are at work, do you bother to find out what OSHA regulations you might need to follow?  While there are many regulations that are the responsibility of the employer, the employee also has certain things to do.  Unfortunately, ignorance is no excuse.  The information is widely available, as long as you know where to look (start at http://www.osha.gov/ ).  Let's start with the little things.  Power strips are common place in our homes and at work.  Do you use them?  I'm sure that you have them at your computer station, and probably in your break room.  Did you know that there are limitations as to what you can plug in?  Does yours have a long enough cord to get to your work station without an extension cord?  Here's a nice primer for you: http://www.oshazone.com/downloads/RPTmonograph_11_08.pdf How serious is this?  That's not for me to say, I'm not an inspector.  I can't even say what kind of fines that you might incur.  However, if an improperly used

One of the joys of doing live theater is that you get one chance to get it right, over and over again.  Over in Hollywood, they get one chance (generally speaking) to get a final product right (ahem, Mr. Lucas, it was better if you'd have left it alone).  So, when I was in school or was working  a roadhouse, it was considerably different for me, since the length of a production was quite shorter than what I work now.  If something were to go wrong, we would figure out what was wrong and there was little in the way of a contingent plan.  Now, working in corporate theater, there is a plan for most anything that could disrupt the flow of the show.  Often times, we can have a malfunction and keep the show going without the audience suspecting that there was a problem unless they had seen the show previously.  This gets me to thinking, what would I have done different in the past?  Most likely a failure would stop the show and a lot of mahem would ensue while everyone figured out what

It's sad to say that shortly after I was posting about another blog regarding safety procedures, that I am now sharing a costly mishap.  According to the Oakland Press ( http://theoaklandpress.com/articles/2010/06/22/news/local_news/doc4c1fd417969fc357332898.txt ), "The local stagehands were [setting up] for the Jai Ho concert featuring A.R. Rahman," when the stage collapsed.  Fortunately no one was killed during this accident, but there have been reports of some fairly serious injuries including broken bones.  So, what are we as a community to do about this kind of incident?  First thing that I suggest is not being afraid to share our experiences with younger technicians.  I think that some of the problem lies with the "old dogs" being concerned that the young ones learning the trade and taking away jobs.  Frankly, I would ask that everyone help each other out.  Why, well we don't heal as fast when we get older and so if the younger tech doesn't do th

Recently I received in the mail some DVDs containing dance concerts that I was in while in college (thanks to my wonderful dance instructor).  I popped in the first one to watch with my daughter who had expressed interest in dance and was the reason that I requested the DVDs.  The video was raw footage since it was taken as archival footage.  So, anyhow, we watched the first piece and when it was done we sat and watched a blank screen for a couple of minutes before the next piece came on.  When she asked why it was taking so long, it brought back the memories of how we had to do things back then.  Since I went to a smaller state college, the funding for technical theater was quite limited (though considerably more than my high school's budget of $0) and so we had to get creative in making each piece more individualized.  Some of the dances had more than basic costumes, and a couple even had props or set pieces, but the lighting was always a challenge.  Though we had a finite amoun

Here's a useful blog highlighting many safety concerns in the theater. I recommend adding this blog to your regular feed. Theatre Safety