The First Time For Just About Everything

>>>>Edited to add a second photo at the end of the post.<<<<

Professor posted a meme over the weekend at Babble From Babbler, nudging her readers to reveal the many firsts in their lives. Now, for quite a while I had been batting around the idea to relate in my blog the first time I ever flew on a plane, seeing as how it's such a huge part of my life today, but when I think back to that day I remember so clearly, I'm drawn to the reason why I remember it so clearly. It was such a momentous day in my young life, filled with so many touches of comedy, that I can't brush the whole day away just to relate my first airplane ride!

I was nineteen years and three months old on December 7, 1983. Ten months earlier I had signed my name on several dotted lines and faced the biggest commitment I had ever faced, and the biggest I would face until my marriage — Uncle Sam had wooed me with promises to show me the world and to ease my financial burden through college, and I had accepted, as much for those reasons as it was an exciting way to get out of the crazy house where I had grown up and grown restless.

With my decision, I redefined the "bookends" tag my oldest brother and I had. He was the oldest sibling, I was the youngest — both boys. And now I was following in his footsteps into the Air Force 17 years later where none of our other siblings had. I didn't choose the Air Force because that's where my big brother went. No, I chose the Air Force because my big brother talked me out of joining the Army! In my case there was no angst surrounding my decision, as it was peacetime. My big brother joined up in 1968, right in the thick of the Vietnam War. I can't imagine the turns my mother's stomach made when he made that announcement! But having volunteered, he was able to choose his career field, and he chose wisely: he didn't go to Vietnam. Hell! He never even went overseas in his 21-year career!

My family threw a party. It wasn't a huge blowout, just all the siblings — except my big brother, who called that evening to wish me well — and a few of my aunts and uncles. I finally received the Sony Walkman I had wanted for about a year or so, which I later used (and still use!) as fodder for the joke that my family "gave it to me as a going away present. They said, 'We'll give you a Walkman if you'll go away!'"

Aside from the growing feeling of tremendous apprehension, the other noteworthy memory from that evening was when Uncle Chooch — who has dealt with a stutter all his life — reached out to shake my hand. I felt him press something into my palm as he pulled my ear close to his mouth and whispered, "G-Get a b-b-blowjob!"

Accustomed to this sort of comment from Uncle Chooch, I calmly looked at the ten-dollar bill in my hand, looked up at Chooch and said loudly, "That's all it costs?!" Few people in the room — namely my sisters — caught on, but Chooch was mortified until he realized again that he was Chooch, and Chooch often said that sort of thing.

Much of the night is a blur. Mom and/or Dad took me to the train station late that evening. Mom used her monthly commuter ticket to let me pass through the turnstile, and I rode the IC (Illinois Central) Electric Line up to downtown Chicago. Off the train at the Randolph Street station, I climbed the stairs to Michigan Avenue and walked alone for several blocks south to the Americana Congress hotel. I had done the same thing in February, when I went for the initial physical at the Military Enlistment Processing Station, or MEPS. The only difference now was that, unless the doctors found something terribly wrong in my physical condition, I wasn't going back home the next afternoon…or any time soon! Along the whole walk to the hotel, I had no offers for a ten-dollar blowjob.

My biggest immediate fear was that I would oversleep and be late for my first military assignment, which was Show Up On Time. I barely slept that night as I tried to imagine how The Rest Of My Life would be from that point forward.

The next morning, after a horrid breakfast, which was the strongest cause yet for serious doubt about my choice of future, I found myself walking in a gaggle of other young people toward the MEPS. Again, much of the day is a blur. I do remember that the doctors and the processing folks weren't as stern as I had expected them to be. They were as stern as they had to be in order to get several dozen young men and women through all the examinations they needed in that one brief day.

It seemed absurd: here we were, these gangly young men (we had been separated from the women almost from the moment we stepped into the clinic), all roughly the same age, all stripped to our underwear and walking in single file from one examination station to the next. At one point we were herded into a more private room where stood two men and one middle-aged Asian woman, all in medical scrubs and white coats. One of the men barked, "Turn around, face the wall, drop your shorts…"

Mildly panicked, I looked over at the Asian woman to make sure I had correctly assessed the gender. She was a woman, all right. WHY IS SHE IN HERE? I worried. Why are they subjecting her to this embarrassment?

The barking man finished barking: "…bend over and spread your cheeks!" This is one of life's absurd moments, where dozens of thoughts and images come rushing at you at once. I first stifled a laugh as the memory came to me of my best friend, Lu, who had processed into the Marine Corps one year earlier, and related to me his own MEPS experiences, and who had created laughs in this very same moment when, upon the order to "bend over and spread your cheeks," he bent over and grabbed his face and pulled the flesh there in opposing directions — on purpose. The guys on either side of him had cracked up, and they all got yelled at. Though choking back the laugh, I didn't have the balls to repeat Lu's actions.

The next thought that occurred to me was What must this look like? Did the doctors — or whatever those people behind us were — ever imagine in their wildest dreams that they'd be there in that room at that moment looking at a bunch of assholes?

Next thought: What could they possibly be looking for?

Next thought: Cripes! That poor woman! And where the hell is she? Whose ass is she looking at? MINE?

And then I felt fingers touch my butt cheek, way off to one side and, thankfully, up kinda high. "Okay, stand up," said the other man's voice quietly to me. Very soon we were ordered to pull up our shorts and file through the next door.

I am not a needle-phobe. I can withstand the thought of getting a shot or having blood taken with only a little bit of profuse sweating and brief threats of nausea. I am not a needle-phobe; I am a needle wimp. That's why, when we were told the next station was for blood samples, I squirmed my way to the back of the line. When you are facing the agony of confronting one of your least favorite things to do, any wait seems interminable. And so did mine. Finally I approached the phlebotomist. I was the absolute last person to be poked. She stuck me, drained what seemed an egregious amount of blood (or time, rather!) into the vial, placed a cotton ball over the catheter and removed it from my vein. She said, "Put your finger on this [the cotton ball], bend your arm and don't remove it until you're told."

She sent me into the next room where all the other guys were sitting, each with one arm bent and one finger from their other hand holding a cotton ball over the little hole made by the phlebotomists' catheters. There was one chair left to sit in. I stood in front of it, bent my knees and, no sooner had my ass had hit the chair than one of the barkier technicians came in and barked, "Stand up, file out this door and drop your cotton balls in this trash can on your way out!"

I did as I was told and stepped through the door, where we filed into another hallway and stood against a wall to wait to go into the next station. One of my fellow recruits looked at me and said, "Hey, man," and pointed at my arm.

I looked down to find a long stream of blood trickling down from the tiny needle hole in the crook of my arm and curling around my forearm, and threatening to drip on the floor. The barky tech stood near one of the other techs waiting for the next room to clear. I stepped out of the line and approached him. "Excuse me. Sir?"

"You got a problem, son?" he bellowed. I don't think he was used to people getting out of his line.

I presented my blood-streaked arm and looked down. "I'm not done bleeding."

"Oh, jeez," he griped. "Come on."

I followed him back into the blood-test after-poke waiting room. He got me a cotton ball and told me to put it on my hole, and to come through with the next group.

Later in the day we were filed into the hearing test. Six or eight at a time, we were placed in a soundproof booth and told to put on a pair of headphones. Then we were told to pick up the alarm button in front of us at each listening station. We were instructed to listen for the sound of aural tones in our headphones. As soon as we heard a tone, we were to press the button and hold it until the tone stopped. Simple enough.

I parked at a station, put on the headphones and grabbed the handle at the end of the cord with my thumb poised over the button. At the first tone I pressed the button and held it. The tone grew louder and louder right up to the point where it was almost painful to my ears. And then it stopped. I released the button. This went on for about five minutes, and I was getting a headache!

Finally the technician came into the booth, walked right up to me and shouted, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

I must have given her quite the look. "I can hear you fine!"

With quite a bit of agitation, she grabbed my alarm button to demonstrate, and shouted, "When you hear the tone, you push the button! You hold the button until you hear the tone go away! THEN you release the button!"

"Yeah, that's what I did! It just kept getting louder."

She looked at the button. She looked at me with that "It can't be my equipment that's faulty" look. Then she said, "Go out there and get in with the last group. You have to take the test again.

When I returned to the booth for my test, she told everyone not to use the station I had used. The test commenced, and this time when I heard the tone and pressed the button, the tone faded away until it was gone, and I released the button. Afterward the tech came out and told me I had the best score of the day! She was actually quite nice. I was so glad I hadn't asked her for a ten-dollar blowjob when she was being pissy.

The end of the day was all paperwork and then we had to sit and wait until our ride arrived to take us to the airport. It was during this time of the day that I first heard the term "hurry up and wait." It would define the entire bulk of my brief Air Force career.

After what seemed like forever, we were transported to the airport where we were simply travelers. We were booked on a Delta Airlines flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth, and from there on another plane to San Antonio.

This wasn't the first time I had flown. My friend Sam's father was a one-fourth owner of a Cessna single propeller engine, four-seater plane, and had his pilot's license. One day he asked me if I wanted to go for a fly. He took Sam and me up, allowing me to fly briefly, showing me how to operate the rudder and the ailerons together in order to execute a turn. It was fun, but it was very brief.

It was the first time I had flown commercially. As I and my fellow Air Force recruits boarded the Delta Airlines plane, I was pretty excited. At day's end I found myself with people who not only had the same service entry date, but who were headed to the same place I was.

I like to believe I'm a pretty funny guy. I usually try to make people around me laugh, and sometimes I succeed. There are times, however, when I hit a groove and I can't miss. On the plane to Dallas, in the minutes before takeoff, while the plane was still boarding, I was hitting home run after home run. I had my peers rolling, as they were spread around me. I even had some of the "normal" passengers going. I can't for the life of me remember most of what I said. All I know is that my excitement was at a fever pitch. I was trembling and sweating, but energized, and every funny thought that came to my head translated into funny words.

The only thing I remember saying was when the plane had taxied to the runway. We sat there for a few seconds, and then the pilot locked the brakes and revved the engines for take-off. The whole body of the plane rocked as if in eager anticipation of flexing its muscles and hurtling us down the runway. The roar of the engines got louder and more insistent as the brakes held us fast. Then, really loudly, I said, "He's gonna pop the clutch!" All the people in the seats around me — recruits and "normal" travelers alike — erupted in laughter!

All of that came to a screeching halt when we got to San Antonio, where the real consequence of signing our names on those dotted lines waited for us.

As I travel now, I often see young people in groups with manila envelopes in hand, staying together in a cluster. I know from my own experience that these young people are retracing my very own footsteps of two decades ago. It always strikes me that these kids all seem to know each other really well. It took this reminiscence for me to see it clearly: friends are made quickly in such a situation. At MEPS — or whatever it's called today — young men and women headed for all the branches of service are huddled together for their exams, but go their separate ways to their respective services when that first day is done. Those headed to the same branch of service, to the same basic training schools, are together embarking on an adventure from the same starting point. They are sharing an identical experience, but through wildly divergent perceptions, and they come quickly to rely upon each other for reassurance and leadership in a shared, frightening, exciting new experience. Little do they know that, once they get to their destination, they may never speak to each other or see each other again for the rest of their lives, even though in those first few weeks they're sometimes in as close proximity as a few yards from each other.

And then I see it in my memory: the fast, close friendships we formed from the hurry-up-and-wait of MEPS to the what-the-hell-have-I-gotten-myself-into of the first few hours of basic training. I still remember some of their names: Brendan Ryan, Dan Colwell, a young black guy named McFadden (I think), and a girl named Tanya. All the guys were in my same basic training flight, and throughout that class there was a tighter bond between us than we had with any of the other guys from all over the country. Tanya wound up stationed at the same base I was — Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana. We went on a date there, saw Ghostbusters and no sparks flew. With a few exceptions in passing, we never saw each other again.

There were a lot of firsts in that my first day as a member of the United States armed services. It is often said that you always remember your first time.

So true.

A Measure of a True Friend

It was Thursday, the day before our trip to Madrid. We had seven cases full of video production equipment that we needed to register with U.S. Customs in order that we would not be charged a duty on them when we brought them back into the country. Editor was slammed to the wall with another project he had to get done before the end of the day, and he had to get home to take care of some errands that afternoon, as well as some the next day, as he was not coming in to the office, but rather going straight to the airport to catch our 4:00 flight.

Editor is a year older than I am. He came on board here about three years ago after a long stint as a freelancer with us. He had been a co-owner of a video production business with two other guys until that business went tits up, and officially folded about a year ago. He’s had a rough go of it financially and is under a lot of pressure before he even gets to work each day. He and I had a rough start, he thinking I didn’t like him, but he’s a really funny guy who has a colorful past with rich stories that he tells with such comic flair that people listening to him are in stitches from laughing so hard. Over the years he’s been on staff, we’ve formed a decent relationship, and I’ve considered him a friend rather than just a co-worker.

I had originally intended to make the trip to the Customs office in the morning, but there were a few items still undetermined, and I was procrastinating a little bit. I had planned to pick up the matador costume on Thursday, as well, but the shop doesn’t open until 11:00. As most of the morning slipped out of my grasp, I decided that I would make the Customs run right after lunch. Editor was a little concerned with how much time it was going to take me because he had hoped to head home by 2:00, and I couldn’t tell him how long it was going to take me.

I left to go home for lunch. It’s a ten-minute drive for me to get to my apartment from the office. I’m then literally about three minutes from the Northwest Tollway, which is practically a direct shot, 20-minute drive to the airport and the area where the U.S. Customs office is located. On my way home, Producer called me and told me that Owner (of the company) insisted that we bring the bulky, heavy power transformer with us, which meant that we would have to cough up another case to put it in. So I hurried through my lunch and headed back to the office where I looked over the power transformer and determined that there was no serial number on it, so therefore no need to register it with Customs, and therefore my return to the office was a trip — and time — wasted.

Then I left the office around 1:30 with only a vague memory of how to get to the Customs office, though a very clear memory that around the same time last year I had one hell of a time finding it! After wasting about 15 minutes trying to jar my memory, I received a phone call from Editor asking me how it was going and how soon I would be back with his laptop and the cases he needed to carry to the airport the next day. I told him I was having trouble finding the Customs office and, depending on if the officer wanted to look at every last item, worst case was two hours.

Editor swore. Not necessarily at me, but at his dilemma. “I gotta get out of here. I got things I need to do!”

I said, “I know. There’s just no telling how long it’s going to take.”

“God! I wish you had left this morning, like you said!”

Editor was getting very agitated and impatient. I felt badly for him that the day hadn’t gone as I had hoped. I finally used directory assistance to call the Customs office and got directions on how to get there. Add to it all the rain from the tropical depression that had been Hurricane Gustav and the eighth straight hour of steady rain that had fallen on us, which made everything move at about 2/3 speed. I got to the service window at Customs and faced a very young, fairly timid-looking officer.

Last year, performing the same task before a trip, I had arrived at the same Customs office under the mistaken impression that I just needed the serial numbers of the items we were taking overseas, and not the items themselves. A youngish veteran officer had scolded me, saying that I had to show him I had the items, otherwise how would he know we didn’t have a nefarious plan where my henchmen overseas just told me the serial numbers of the items I was going to illegally import into the country? So I had to return to the office, get all the gear and bring it back to Customs where I returned to the window and faced a different, older, wizened officer who, while I waited to ask him where to bring all the gear, looked over the forms I had filled out in front of the other officer, and then he signed the forms, said, “Thank you!” and sent me on my way! He never even looked at the stuff! BOY! was I pissed off!

With the rain pouring down as it was, I was close to actual prayer that the young officer would just rubber stamp the forms and send me on my way. I could tell he wanted to. He didn’t want to make me go out in the rain to get all that stuff and, most of all, he didn’t want to stand there and check off every last item of stuff on my list! He looked out at the rain. He looked over his shoulder at his superiors. He looked at the list. He heaved a big sigh. “You have all the stuff here?”

“Yes,” said I.

He looked at his superiors again, who were otherwise oblivious to him. He heaved another sigh. “Okay. You’re gonna have to bring it all in here.”

Crap.

As I unloaded the gear onto a cart on the first trip out to the car, unsuccessfully trying to avoid getting soaked by Gustav, my phone rang. It was Editor asking me again how much longer I would be.

“They’re gonna look at everything,” I told him. I looked at my watch: 2:30. “My guess, it’s another twenty to thirty minutes before I’m headed back to the office.”

Meltdown.

“AAAAAAAAHHHGOD DAMN IT! I got SHIT to do! Jesus fucking CHRIST!” He ranted for several more seconds. “This is fucking up my whole day! You should’ve done this in the morning!”

He was my friend, but now I was pissed off. I didn’t have to take all the gear to Customs. The gear that he was waiting for I could have left for him to take to Customs on his own. I was the one standing in the rain. I was the one unloading and reloading the car for two trips into the Customs office. I was the one driving with the idiots on the road who acted as though they had never seen drops of water falling from the sky.

I bit my tongue and said none of that. I simply said, “I’m sorry.”

Silence.

“Well,” I said, “the longer you keep me on the phone, the longer it’s gonna take me to get back.”

>CLICK<

He hung up on me! One of my biggest pet peeves! You can get angry with me. You can say mean things to me. You can even accuse me of lying, incompetence or apathy, but hanging up on me signals your unwillingness to communicate, and is just plain fucking rude!

The Customs officer verified all the serial numbers with the items that bore them in the first batch of cases. I returned to the car, swapped the cleared cases with the uncleared and returned to the officer. He verified everything there, and I reloaded the car and headed back to the office. It was just after 3:00, and I was seething.

I worked my way to the Northwest Tollway and immediately found myself socked right in the middle of a huge, Gustav-coated traffic jam. As I crawled along in traffic I had several imaginary conversations with Editor, alternately speaking calmly or screaming at him while I glared out the windshield. I was gonna let him have it with both barrels when I got to the office: “Since when is it all about YOU? Who the fuck was traipsing around in the rain, dragging your shit all over the place, getting the gear cleared for YOU? I could’ve left this for you to do on your own, and THEN what would you do with your precious fucking time?!”

My windshield was practically dripping with saliva.

I got to the office and carried his laptop bag in and set it down inside the front door. I found him in an edit suite talking to one of the other editors. He saw me and rolled his eyes and raised his arms and slapped his thighs, wordlessly saying, “Finally! What the hell took you so long?!”

I thought the better of saying everything I had come up with on the drive from the Customs office, as there were co-workers all over the place. And it was probably best that I wait until I had calmed down or there might have been fists and a call to the police! So I said bluntly, “Your bag is up front,” and I headed back out to the car to pull it around back to unload the rest of the gear, forgetting that he was taking half the cases home with him.

He followed me out to the car and was being all nice and asking me calmly which cases I wanted him to take. I told him that it was whatever he could fit into his compact sedan. As it was still raining, he backed his car to within a few feet of mine. I opened the rear hatch of my car, an SUV, and the handtrucks that I had used to load the cases into and out of the Customs office, and which I had stowed on top of the cases in the car, slid out unexpectedly. I reached up reflexively with my left hand and tried to stop the handtrucks, but the bottom lift blade(?) caught my thumb and gouged a chunk of skin out of it, as well as crashing into my right thigh. My anger boiled over to rage and I grabbed the handtrucks and flung it across the parking lot with a roar.

He loaded his car with all he could take, and I put the (now slightly damaged) handtrucks back into mine and pulled around to the loading dock, where I unloaded the rest of the gear into our warehouse.

The next morning there was a mild panic as Owner called from San Diego telling me to bring yet more crap (the infamous disappearing teleprompter case!) with me to Madrid. As our client insisted on booking our tickets, we wound up flying on American Airlines, with which neither Editor nor I have any status. And, with all the new airline rules, we were limited to a maximum of five bags each. So now, with the power transformer and the teleprompter monitors added, I was maxed out at five bags. I wasn’t sure how many he had, so I called him.

I was still feeling a little pissed off at him, and I intended to confront him at the airport about the previous day’s incident, only calmly. I intended to tell him that I value our friendship, and I realize that he was acting out of frustration, but he can’t treat me that way and not expect me to be upset or angry with him. But at the moment, I was still ticked. He answered the phone and, trying only to sound matter-of-fact, I told him of the extra case we had to carry, anticipating him to groan and moan about it. Instead, he said, “Knock it off with the attitude! I got enough shit going on right now, and if you’re gonna give me attitude, I swear to god I’ll hang up the phone.”

I said, “What attitude? I’m just telling you about the new wrinkle. We have to carry more crap!”

That defused the bombs each of us was ready to lob at each other, and I strengthened my resolve to have it out with him at the airport as civilly as I could muster.

A quick check-in and $650 in excess baggage fees later, I waited for Editor to get to the airport to help him with bags if he needed it. He wound up checking in at a different counter than I had expected him to, and only realized he was already checked in when I saw a skycap wheel past me on a cart the gear Editor had checked.

I went through security and made my way to the gate. I saw Editor there and I took a huge breath and walked to him. I sat down.

And Editor said, “Hey, before I say anything else I just want to say that I’ve been under a ton of stress — and it’s no excuse, I know — but I let it get out of control yesterday, and I acted selfishly and said things I never should have said, and I held you responsible for things that were out of your control. So, I apologize for acting the way I did yesterday. There’s no excuse for the way I treated you, and I’m sorry.” It was heartfelt, it was sincere, and he looked in my eyes the entire time.

For a few seconds I just blinked at him and resisted the urge to say, “Wow!”

Then I said, “I’m really glad you said that.” I gave a version of my “I value our friendship” speech, and I told him that it really means a lot that he faced up and apologized.

And I don’t think I can emphasize enough how really much it means to me. It takes quite a lot of introspection of a person to take a step back from who one is or what one has been doing and acknowledge that one has acted selfishly or boorishly toward someone else. It certainly takes a lot more than most people, it seems, are willing to give. Too many of us think only of ourselves and say or do things that unnecessarily hurt others. We even sometimes know that what we’ve said or done has caused harm or pain to someone, and it even bothers us that we’ve done it, but we just don’t have the balls to admit it and own up to it and apologize. Editor is not an abusive person. He’s a great guy, fun to be around. Like anyone else, he has his weak moments, but like no one else — or few I’ve known — he has the presence of mind to know when his weaknesses affect those around him, and he has the self-respect to make amends to those he has let down.

At a point where I thought our friendship had been dealt a serious blow, I came away feeling instead that it had been greatly strengthened.

When I have my weak moments and I have let down those around me, may I have the ability to recognize those moments with the same fortitude and dignity.

D I V O R C E D

Actually.

Legally.

Finally.

I've Been to Spain, But I've Never Been to ME (Maine, That Is!)

This most recent trip was shaping up about a month ago to be a bad one. First off, it was an overseas show, which always increases the stress level. Second, our sister company, which handles all of the road gear, had neglected to notify us when the truck was leaving their warehouse for the freight forwarder's, and we were stuck with carrying absolutely everything we needed to take with us for the candids. And then we got word that the shipment of gear had been held up somewhere, either stuck on an ailing ship, or entangled in red tape in Spain Customs.

September 4, 2008 • Thursday
The storm that was once called Gustav oozed in over Chicago, dumping a steady downpour for the entire day. I had intended to head over to a costume shop to pick up a matador costume to use in a couple of gags we planned for the candids video, as well as to head to the US Customs office to register all the electronics gear we were taking. After frittering the morning away, I went to lunch, intending to head straight for the Customs office afterward. On my way to lunch I got a phone call by one of my coworkers telling me that the owner of the company (from this point referred to as "Owner") — who was on another show in San Diego — told him that we needed to definitely bring the bulky, heavy power transformer with us (Spain — and all of Europe — run on 220 volt, 50 Hertz power, whereas the US runs on 110V, 60Hz. Unless an electrical appliance is engineered to run on either system, you can't plug it in to the one it's not designed for without it running improperly or destroying it). I told that coworker to pull it out for me and I would stop back at the office and bring it with me to US Customs.

When I got to the office I saw that the transformer had no serial number, so there was no need to register it with US Customs. Trip wasted.

I headed to US Customs based on a spotty memory of the last time I was there…and I got lost. Not LOST; I knew exactly where I was, but I couldn't remember how to get to where I needed to go. Finally, after calling and getting directions, I arrived.

When you're leaving the country for any length of time it is advisable that you register with US Customs any item of value that you're taking with you and intending to bring back with you, such as laptops, cameras, iPods or other personal electronics. Should you be stopped upon re-entry to the USA and be unable to prove you carried such items out of the USA with you, you will be charged an import duty. Registering the items prior to the trip is your proof.

Last year the veteran Customs officer I spoke with pretty much rubber-stamped my papers without asking to see the half-ton of crap I had with me. This time, however, it was a very young officer who, though he seemed reluctant to tell me to bring everything in, kept looking at the veteran officers with apprehension (and fear of reprimand?), made me bring everything in. So, after two round trips out to my SUV in the pouring rain, hauling every heavy case out and onto a wheeled cart, pulling out every single electronic piece of equipment with a serial number and repacking it, and returning everything to the car, I was soaked and more than a little frustrated.

After a heated tangle with another coworker (heretofore referred to as "Editor") (more on that in a future post), we divided up the cases and left for the day. I called the costume shop, where I had one week earlier reserved the matador costume, and told them I would pick it up the next day.

September 5, 2008 • Friday
There I was, on my 44th birthday, preparing to leave to work for a week in Spain. The next crisis hit early: Owner now needed someone to locate and carry two teleprompter monitors to Spain. Our equipment guy was already in Spain, and I had no idea where to find any monitors even if we had them. We called to a local freelance prompter operator, but he was on a job and in session, so he was out of reach until at least noon. I had to leave for the airport at 1:00. I also had to pick up the matador costume at 11:00, when the costume place opened.

Stress was very high until Owner called back and said that he had gotten in touch with the equipment guy who told him that there was a case with three LCD flat-panel prompter monitors on the truck parked behind our building, waiting to go on to the next show the following week. We got the case off the truck, I picked up the costume and I headed to the airport. Owner told me that the LCDs were needed as a backup in case the shipment indeed failed to arrive in time

I normally fly United Airlines, where I have the vast majority of my air miles and, thus, Elite status. Where United allows me to check three bags at no extra charge, American Airlines, where I have no status, allows me one bag free, a second bag at $25, and then $100 for each additional bag, with a limit of five bags total. Then add a charge for three of the five bags being over 50 pounds, and my trip cost an additional $650!! And Editor, my travel partner, had four bags, setting us back another $550. Let's hear it for the company credit card! YEAH!

There was a minor delay in boarding the flight, and due to our lack of any status, Editor and I were among the last to board. Fortunately for me, it was not filled to capacity, so I had a vacant seat next to me.

September 6, 2008 • Saturday
We connected through London Heathrow airport to a British Airways flight to Madrid, landing sometime around 1:00 in the afternoon. Two of our 9 cases failed to make the trip with us: my tripod and the case with the three LCD flat-panel teleprompter monitors. I was given every assurance they would be delivered to my hotel.

We checked in to our rooms at the hotel, and then we hired a taxi to take the candids gear to the venue — the Teatro Circulo Bellas Artes — a mere five-minute walk from our hotel…and a six-minute cab ride. The Circulo Bellas Artes is apparently an old theater that is used by the president and the queen to hold official state functions. Judging by the condition and appearance of the place, you'd think raves were held there. It is grimy, run-down and underequipped for modern events. There's no loading dock — trucks load out through the main entrance on a side street, through the lobby and on elevators the size of a matchbox. Either the Spaniards have a much higher tolerance for heat and humidity than the rest of the humans on the planet, or the building's air conditioning is in need of serious repair. Other than that, everything is great.

We got our gear into the room set aside as our edit suite, and reported to the show crew in the auditorium. There we learned that the shipment had finally cleared whatever difficulty it had encountered, and would be arriving the next morning; my missing LCD monitors case was now, thankfully, redundant. We took a walk to scout the area around our hotel and discovered a large square filled with tables and people, surrounded by bars and restaurants. We grabbed an early dinner at what turned out to be a tapas bar, learning at that moment that 1) no one outside the hotel and the airport speaks English at all; 2) Spanish food is drastically different from food I've encountered anywhere else in Europe. Yeah, the language thing is my fault, I know. In the hours before I left I couldn't find the two Spanish phrase books I bought a couple years ago. The food? Wow! It's a good thing I'm culinarily (it's a word (really)) adventurous. Editor, unfortunately, foresaw a long week of fasting.

We returned to our rooms at the hotel and I fought off sleep as long as I could, finally succumbing to the jet lag at 8:00pm.

September 7, 2008 • Sunday
I awoke around 1:30am. Hearing voices outside in the street, and having learned that the Spanish are culturally night owls, I got dressed and headed out into the night. I returned to the large square I had seen at dinner time and found it to be humming with activity. People of all ages — even parents with four or five-year-old kids — were out in the crowd, talking, laughing, drinking. There were many young people in their 20s standing in groups and socializing. It seemed that I got out there just as the bars were preparing to close up: workers were stacking chairs and gathering tables, some were shuttering their windows and doors, but the crowd stayed put. After about an hour of walking around, my feet were getting sore, so I headed back to the hotel where I checked e-mail, flipped through the TV channels for a while and, around 5:00, went back to sleep.

I awoke again at 8:00 and prepared for the day. The bell desk called me and said that my luggage had arrived, however, when the bellman came to thedoor, he had only the tripod. The LCD monitor case had not been delivered. I spoke with the concierge, who then called British Airways baggage handling at the airport, and they said it would be delivered the next day. Hmmm.

Editor and I walked in a different direction from the hotel than we had done the previous afternoon, scouting now for locations to shoot for their scenic qualities. Around the corner from the hotel we found the Neptuno fountain, on the roundabout. Five minutes walking from there led us to another fountain on another roundabout right by the main train station. We grabbed breakfast at a café chain called Faborit, where the young man behind the desk spoke some English, saving me from ordering the bull penis sandwich, or something possibly as hideous. The sandwich was great (it looked and tasted like salami, so I'm assuming it was salami), the chocolate croissant was fab, and the café Americano was superb.

Next we boarded an open-top tour bus and shot as many sights as we could throughout the entire loop, scouting for other places we might want to shoot from ground level. For lunch we tried to find a place that appeared palatable to Editor, but defaulted to a McDonald's near the train station.

After exhausting ourselves on the scenic shooting, we refreshed in our rooms and then headed out for dinner, failing again to find a restaurant, instead winding up at a tapas place. The choricitos (think chorizo smoky links) casserole I ordered was okay, but the vegetable casserole Editor ordered was not very appetizing…even to me! Apparently, cazuela, the Spanish word for casserole, simply means "food served in a bowl," and does not involve noodles , cheeses or sauce. On the way back to the hotel we walked past an Italian restaurant that looked promising, and vowed we would go there Monday evening.

September 8, 2008 • Monday
By morning there was still no sign of the LCD monitors. I spoke again with the concierge, who promised me he would call British Airways. I had discovered a Faborit right across the street from the hotel, so I ate breakfast there. Editor told me that he had a rough night trying to sleep (I was able to sleep pretty much the whole night through, from about midnight until 6:00), and that he was going to try to sleep a little longer. He didn't have much to do that morning, so there was no problem with it.

I walked to Teatro Circulo Bellas Artes and right into a news event. I saw a throng of video cameramen rushing forward toward a person right at the main entrance to the theater. I noticed a man in front of me wearing a suit, with a clear plastic coiled cord snaking out of his collar at the back of his neck and running up to his ear. Security. I didn't recognize anyone as famous, but I did see a couple of female reporters with microphones. I walked around the throng of people and into the theater, expecting at any moment to be shouted at in a language I don't understand, and then shot in the back.

Once inside the theater lobby I headed for the woefully small elevators, only to be cut off by two men scrambling from the throng to secure the cars. Within seconds the throng was swarming to the elevators, so I gave up and headed for the stairs.

Did I mention that our edit room was on the fifth floor? And did you know that, in Europe, the ground floor is usually labeled as zero, making the fifth floor truly five floors above? And, did I mention that the floors of Teatro Circulo Bellas Artes are somewhere near double the height of normal floors? Somewhere between the third and fourth floors I was sucking wind like a fucking shop vac, my legs had gone numb and I thought I was certainly going to have a heart attack. I took a brief break to catch my breath, and then I labored my way up to the fifth floor. And you know what? I beat the reporters in the elevators!

I retrieved the betacam from the edit room and headed back to the hotel, where the arriving attendees would be registering for their week of meetings and food and fun.

One of the travel staff people told me that the Italian restaurant Editor and I had passed the night before had great food, and definitely recommended it. After I shot all I needed of registration and brought the tape to Editor at the theater, I had only little more than an hour before the Welcome Dinner started, where I had to shoot some more….but not eat…because the client doesn't feed us. I had hoped to hit the Italian restaurant, but Editor wasn't ready to eat at that time, preferring to get caught up on the candids video to the point that he had used everything he needed from my shot tapes.

So I went to the other restaurant the travel staff person had mentioned, a place called VIPS, just around the corner and actually in the same building as the hotel. She had said it was kind of like a Denny's. I went in and discovered a little convenience store at the front, with the restaurant seating wrapped around it. I had the breaded hake and a tasty greens salad. And no tapas.

September 9, 2008 • Tuesday
Jet lag, for anyone who's never experienced it, is an interesting affliction. It's the result of the sudden disruption to your sleep cycle caused by rapid travel to another time zone. The further removed from your home time zone, the wackier the disruption. You may feel during the day that you've finally adjusted — you're able to stay awake and not feel fatigued — but at night, no matter how tired you feel at bed-time, you wake again after only an hour or two, and sleep is hard to come by. Madrid is seven hours ahead of Chicago. Even putting off going to bed until midnight (damn blogs!), it was still only 5:00pm on my body's clock. That's nap time, at best. And a nap is what I got. I awoke at 1:00am and lay there for about an hour before feeling sleepy again.

One of the stresses added by an overseas show is the fact that I am always called upon to run camera during the show. We record all of the stage portions of our shows for whatever use the client may wish to make of it. It increases my stress level on site because it takes away or severely limits my ability to complete the other tasks I'm responsible for beyond shooting the candids. And, besides that, I hate it. The call Tuesday morning was 6:45am. Owner asked me about the LCD monitors and told me that it was crucial that they arrive today, and if we didn't have them by 2:00, it would be a "disaster." WTF?! Just yesterday they were redundant!!

I asked the concierge yet again to call about the LCDs case, and he told me once again that British Airways said the case was "on the truck." I told him that they had said that yesterday and the day before, and yet nothing was delivered. Then he told me that he would call again, but not until 8:00, when the baggage office opened.

Back at the theater I left a note for Editor (none of us has international calling on our cell-phones, so it was back to 20th Century communications) telling him of the now dire circumstances the missing LCDs posed, and asked him to go back to the hotel and make sure the concierge called about the LCD monitors.

Aside from the oppressive heat that the newly purchased fans placed all around the theater just blew around, the general session went without a hitch. Several locals were hired to act as ushers for the meeting. Two among them were stunning, attractive young women. I was stuck behind a camera, so all I could do was look at them. One of them made eye contact and smiled at me frequently enough to distract me from my work (okay, that doesn't take much)!

Immediately after the general session was over, I was ordered to strike the camera I had operated for the session in order for it to be used as the camera providing the big screen image at the awards dinner that evening. There ensued a great deal of confusion, as the other camera operator had to break away to assist with the technical aspects of some educational seminars — called breakouts — while Equipment Guy was already at the award dinner venue — La Quinta del Jarama — thirty miles away setting up there. Some of the breakout equipment was needed at La Quinta del Jarama, as well as some of the stage equipment, including those missing LCD monitors!

I ran upstairs to see what Editor found out, and he said that he had to get ugly in order for the concierge to call British Airways and investigate. It turns out that the baggage office's records showed that the case was on a truck, but it was actually still in their warehouse. They assured the concierge that it would be on the truck and delivered by noon.

I ran to the hotel around 1:00 and up to my room, as the case had my name on it, and that's where the hotel would deliver it. At last, the LCDs had arrived. I called a bellman to cart the case to the front entrance, where I got a taxi to take me and the case back to the theater. It started to rain.

By 4:00 all the gear that needed to go to La Quinta was ready to be loaded into two vans that would also carry nine of us. I brought my candids camera, as the awards dinner is one of the events we cover for the video. I had batteries, a camera light and one tape loaded in the camera. As the show camera and tripod were loaded into the van, I asked the technical director (TD) if he had loaded the control unit and control (power, video, data) cable for the camera. He looked at me like I was stupid and told me that we were using my camera's power supply with it. Well that was news to me! My power supply was still up in the edit room!

I ran back into the theater, rode the elevator up to the fifth floor and retrieved the power supply and cables for my camera. The catering crew that had served lunch to the attendees on the second floor of the theater building were clogging up the elevators, and where I had lucked out in catching one for the ride up, I could not afford the time it was taking for a car to reach the fifth floor for the ride down. I decided to take the steps. I was headed down after all. No fatigue to worry about.

I zipped down past the fourth floor. Somewhere between floors four and three, two cleaning ladies were busy at work, mopping the stairs! I hit the landing between four and three, and my left foot went wiggy on the wet marble floor. After a brief struggle to stay upright, I felt it better to just drop onto my ass. It would take less time than the Stay On My Feet dance, and I was less likely to get hurt. So down I plopped, and immediately from the stairs below I heard a woman gasping, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" She had heard me fall and came running up the stairs, horrified that I had fallen. I got up and assured her in a language she doesn't understand that I was unhurt. Meanwhile, the lady wielding the mop looked up at me in frozen bewilderment. I continued down the stairs, much more gingerly now, and climbed into the van.

I prepped the camera at La Quinta, and then was told that we would run two cameras for the program, which meant that Owner would call the other camera guy, who thought he had the evening free, to grab the other tripod from the auditorium and hop on the attendees bus to get to La Quinta.

It was at this point that I wondered why this was all so incredibly unorganized. We've done this sort of thing for years, and never has it been such a clusterfuck. I still don't know the answer.

We managed to pull off the recording of the dinner program without it looking like we were as disorganized as we were. And then, only a couple hours after we set it up, we tore it all down and left.

September 10, 2008 • Wednesday
It had rained most of the day Tuesday, so to awake around 1:30 Wednesday morning to what sounded like pouring rain was somewhat of a surprise. I feel that, had the noise not woken me, I would have been able to sleep through the night. But then it sounded like someone knocked on my window. Not an insistent rapping, but one loud knock. And then another, followed sporadically by others of varying intensity. Then, as I became more awake and curious, I thought, "Is that hail?"

I rose and opened the curtains. Sure enough, golf ball-sized stones were falling amid the raindrops! The hail dissipated after a few minutes, but the rain continued.

After another hour, I was able to sleep again.

It was another early call, but the morning session was only an hour before the attendees went off to breakouts the rest of the morning. I did call over to me one of the gorgeous women with whom I had made eye contact the day before. Her name was Angela. Now I had always thought Spanish to be kind of a sexy language, but when she told me her name, her pronunciation kinda ruined it for me. Mexican Spanish pronounces the 'G' in her name as English pronounces the 'H.' "AN-hel-ah." But Spanish Spanish, at least in the Madrid region, pronounces the 'G' much more harshly, and when Angela told me her name, she sounded like she was hacking up a loogie. But she understood little more English than "What's your name?" and spoke even less, so I was relegated to just looking at her, smiling and, no doubt, creeping her out.

While the breakouts were in session, Producer, who had arrived from San Diego Tuesday morning and was a zombie all day, worked with me to shoot some "funny" gags and skits. We finally put the matador costume to use.

After the breakouts, the attendees returned to the auditorium. I saw the other gorgeous usherette and called her over. She spoke just a bit more English and told me her name is Eva, which, in Spanish, sounds like "EH-fa." At least I didn't worry about getting phlegm on my shirt. Eva was actually damn funny, because, when the man speaking on stage put up a photo of one of his colleagues, his mentor and hero, she came up to me and whispered into my ear "Michael Douglas!" And that's exactly who the man in the photo resembled! I laughed silently behind the camera, nodded to her my concurrence, and fell madly in love with her.

After the session I bolted for the hotel with the betacam in hand. I went to my room and changed into a pair of shorts and headed down to shoot more gags for the video. Then I embarked on the walking tour of medieval Madrid. It was a fairly excruciating walk, considering I had to carry a 20 pound camera for three hours and an untold number of miles. It was a fascinating tour, however, and Yolanda, our tour guide had a really nice ass.

Toward the end of the walk, the attendees started breaking off, some to eat an early dinner, some to go shopping, some to explore a little more on their own. Before long, the only people left were Yolanda and me! We still had about a half-mile to go to get back to the hotel, and we talked most of the way. Earlier in the tour Yolanda had asked me how much the camera weighed, and I guessed at the conversion to kilograms to be around seven or eight. She asked to hold it to see, at which point I jokingly said, "See ya later!" and walked off like I was abandoning her with it. She guessed it to be about 9 kilograms, which, upon checking it accurately, is correct.

Anyhoo, on our walk alone back to the hotel, she asked me, "So what do you do now? Go have a beer?"

And I said, "Wow! A beer would be great right now. You wanna go have a beer with me?"

HOLY SHIT! I asked her out without even thinking about it!

She laughed out loud…really loud… I don't know if that's a good thing or not… and she declined, saying she had stuff to do at the hotel.

I said goodbye to her at the intersection I needed to cross in order to get to the theater, and headed up to the edit suite. Neither Editor nor Producer were there, as they were still out on the activities they had to shoot. I returned to the hotel and chilled in my room for a while, as I had the evening free.
I had hoped my coworkers would call me or come to the hotel to get me for dinner, but by 8:00 I started to doubt they would do that. I headed back to the theater and discovered that they had gone to Burger King and were chowing down in the edit suite. That's okay…they had work to do. I headed straight for the Italian restaurant I had waited two days to get to. I was seated near an attendee couple who, within a few minutes, asked if I was part of their group. I told them I was on the video crew, and that started a conversation. Then they suggested I pull my table up against theirs, and we had dinner together.

September 11, 2008 • Thursday
It was another one-hour session, then off to breakouts, and back for another hour, ending the final session around 1:30pm. The candids shooting was finished on Wednesday, after the activities, so I was free to be used to help strike the stage. The general session was over, now, and all that was left was the final night dinner party, this time at yet another venue, the Florida Park restaurant in the Parque de Retiro.

I broke for a quick lunch and changed into the pair of shorts I had brought with me to the theater. I wore the white t-shirt I had worn under my dress shirt.

I was on hand along with about six local hands and a couple of our guys (TD and the other camera op) to dismantle the cameras and the large center screen above the stage. It took about three and a half hours to complete, and as soon as that was done, I had to pack my camera and the tripod to take over to Parque Retiro in order to record the presentation they had planned over there. It was another bit of a clusterfuck as our hands and the loaders were trying to get all our gear down through the teensy elevators while the rest of the theater's employees tried to do their usual things while using the elevators. While they were loading the truck to take our gear to the freight forwarder's, we, the candids crew were packing our gear to take to our hotel (and I, of course, to go to the evening venue).

When all of the candids gear was packed, Editor and Producer and I hailed a cab with three large cases with my gear in them, and a small DVCAM VCR to head over to La Florida at Parque de Retiro. The taxi dropped us off and we were flummoxed. Parque de Retiro is a huge park! No signs, no arrow, no guide pointed toward the restaurant. We were essentially lost. Producer pointed off in the direction to our left and said, we should go that way. Editor and I said that we're not traipsing all over the park on a wild goose chase while carrying these heavy cases (Editor was dragging one wheeled case, I was dragging the other wheeled case and carrying the the 40-pound tripod case while Producer was carrying the eight-pound DVCAM VCR and a couple of tapes. He bitched that we didn't have time to scout for the restaurant and then come back for the cases. I said, "There is NO FUCKING WAY I'm carrying these goddamn cases all over the fucking park looking for the restaurant!" Producer said he certainly wasn't going to walk all over the park just to come back here for the cases (at this point in the story I must reveal to the one reader left that Producer is a fat, lazy-ass.) So I said, "Fine! I'll go!" I dropped my cases — literally — and ventured off in the direction he wanted us to go in the first place. It only took me about five minutes to discover the restaurant — embarrassingly — about 100 yards down the main walkway from where we were standing at the entrance to the park.

No sooner had we arrived to the restaurant than Owner told me we were desperately in need of plug adapters, things that receive the flat-pronged American plugs and allow them to receive power through the round-pronged European plugs. He told me he needed a half dozen of them and left it to me to find out where to get them. I turned to one of the local hands who was helping set up at La Florida. He spoke a smattering of English, so I asked him "¿Dónde por la…?" and held out one of the plug adapters we had. He told me a store name, and I asked him to write it down. "El Corte Ingles on Goya Street."

I ran out to the street and hailed a taxi. I said the name of the store, and the driver took me there. "Aquí," he said, pointing at a massive building. "El Corte Ingles." Holy Crap! The store covered the whole block! I ran in and found myself in the middle of the ladies department! I found an escalator and went up. FOUR FREAKING FLOORS of ladies department! and then, above that, another three floors of men's clothing, with another floor or two above those! I ran back down to the ground floor and found another escalator down into a grocery store section. I looked for household goods, but found no plug adapters.

I saw a woman in a type of uniform. I assumed she was security. I asked her if she understood English, which she did not. It was around this time that I realized I should have told Owner to send a local with a wad of Euros to do this. He'd know where to go and who to ask...or I should've taken a local with me. I said "Electricos," which, to my utter surprise, was the right word. She pointed toward an exit and made it clear to me that I had to go outside, cross Goya Street, cross another street, and there was another "El Corte Ingles" department there. WTF?! So I went out the doors and, sure enough, in an entirely different building, there was another storefront beneath an "El Corte Ingles sign. It was an electronics department. I asked the people there, and the woman wrote on a piece of paper, "S. 1. Ferretéria." And then she spoke and waved her arm in the general direction of the street. Seeing obvious confusion on my face, the man standing with her kept saying what sounded like "Flock. Flock," only with the phlegmy 'G' sound that Angela had used in her name. "Flocchhh! Flocchh!"

Then he led me outside to the sidewalk and pointed right from the door. "Flocchhh! Bandera!" HOLY SHIT! The guy was trying to speak English! "Flocchh" was FLAG! It wasn't until I heard the freakin word "bandera" — a SPANISH word — that I realized he meant FLAG! There, about 50 yards away, was indeed a flag, and yet another "El Corte Ingles" storefront.

Thanking the man, I headed for the next puzzle. I had already burned so much time I was getting frantic. I looked around and saw nothing that looked like "electricos," so I headed up an escalator. After being deflected by an employee who must've been going on break, who told me when I called to him to go to the information desk…at least I think that's what he told me, I sought help from a woman, pantomiming with my hands — in what could possibly have been misconstrued as a proposition for sex — the description of what I needed. She tried to speak to me, but I was understanding nothing. Then she led me to a store directory map. She pointed to the floors below street level. To S1. To "Ferretéria." Fuck. That's what the note meant.

All the way at the bottom of a rack I finally found the items I needed, and five minutes, six plug adapters and $70 later, I was in another taxi and headed back to Parque de Retiro. When I arrived the attendees were already filing in to the restaurant. I was still in my shorts and t-shirt, sweating profusely and probably not smelling too fresh, and I needed to find Owner to give him the plug adapters. I saw him just as he saw me, and he freaked a little because of my attire. I gave him the adapters and he hustled me out of the room and out into an anteroom and bar area (not stocked, unfortunately). He pulled the cases out from where they had been hidden, and I began to set everything up to record the presentation. With a few minutes left to kill, I grabbed my clothes, ducked into the men's room and quickly changed into the shirt and slacks I had brought with me from the theater.

After the presentation was over and the attendees were snarfing down their food, we struck the gear and blew out of there. After putting the three cases I had into bell staff storage, I walked over to VIPS and had a steak dinner with a beer, and then I walked in the direction of the square we had found on the first night until I found what I had seen Wednesday night on the way back to the hotel from the Italian restaurant. I snapped the photo of the penguin holding a keg under one wing and a stein of beer with the other and thought, "Scarletvirago will love this."

September 12, 2008 • Friday
Producer, Editor and I headed for VIPS around 8:00am, but they were not yet open, so we headed to Faborit and had breakfast there.

Afterward I finished the last bits of packing I had to do in my room and then dragged my bags down to the lobby. We three retrieved the rest of the gear from bell storage and accounted for everything. The client had arranged a private van (more like a small bus) for us and our gear, which we loaded up and boarded for the airport. Producer had come in on an entirely different itinerary and airline, so Editor and I left him on the bus after we unloaded the gear and headed for the Iberia Airlines desk. We missed twice before finding the right ticket counter. We each had to pay €300 for the extra and overweight baggage, but were on our way soon enough.

We grabbed a quick bite at a McDonald's right there in the airport before I had to board my plane. Thanks to a booking oversight, Editor and I were scheduled on different flights from Madrid to London, mine leaving a half-hour before his. Editor wandered off to find some Tums, or their Spanish equivalent, and left me in the line to board the plane.

We met up again at Heathrow in the American Airlines departure lounge and boarded the plane together.

Nine hours later, as we rolled our seven cases (we were able to send two cases of gear back on an air cargo shipment with other show gear) past the customs agents, one of them stopped me and wanted to know what all the gear was. I told him it's video production gear. He asked me what we do. I told him. He became suspicious about the amount and told me we should think about getting a carnet next time. I told him about the registration form I had filled out prior to the trip, and he asked to see it. He looked at the two small pieces of paper and seemed satisfied that I was telling the truth.

With the way the rest of the trip had gone, I fully expected him to make us open every case and check every serial number.

This ranks up there among the top five worst show experiences I've encountered. This particular client's shows are usually fairly well organized, on their part and on ours. This one, however was a waking nightmare. I am tremendously happy to be home!

What I Do

The amount of travel that I do is frequently cause for people to ask what I do. I know I’ve mentioned it in this blog in the past, and I’ve vaguely described it, but the vagueness has been intentional for reasons I’m sure most readers would understand.

The company I work for is an audio-visual staging company. We facilitate the production of business meetings and conventions for our corporate clients. If you’ve ever been to a national meeting for your company, or to a convention within your industry, you may have attended a general session where there was a large stage and huge projection screens blasted with the video images of the people speaking onstage. That is what my company does, in large scale and small. We erect the screens and all the video projection equipment, video cameras, stage lighting, sound system and teleprompter equipment. And for most of our clients, we also create the graphic elements that are displayed on the screens for continuity.


The view from the 'tech table' at a show in San Francisco.


The video switch Technical Director waiting to push our buttons.

In addition, we also provide coaching and training for those invited to speak who have no experience doing such a thing before a group of their peers ranging from several dozens to a couple thousands. We stage meetings anywhere our clients hold them, which has sent me as far south as Costa Rica, as far east as St. Petersburg, Russia, as far north as…well, St. Petersburg, Russia, and as far west as Hawaii, with certainly now hundreds of points in between — most recently, Madrid, Spain.

My contribution to the effort, aside from the occasional assist in setting up the staging, is in video preparation for a meeting, or “show.” Most of our clients utilize video elements as part of their presentations, elements which may range from a simple shot of an award trophy to a 10-minute “film” with actors shot at various locations, edited several days to several weeks before the show starts. I am a videographer — the only videographer on staff. I shoot most of the elements we create, also requiring frequent travel.


Capturing "B-roll" near Granby, Missouri.


On location near Honolulu, Hawaii. You can tell it's Hawaii by
the fact that I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

On the road I mainly set up a betacam and lights for interview-driven videos — colloquially called “talking head” pieces — which require little creativity except in cases where the room we’re given in which to shoot is so small as to create a challenge. Occasionally we are called upon to create dramatic scenes, which depict scenarios the viewers may find themselves in with their clients.


Killing lights that couldn't be shut off, in Greenville, South Carolina.


Setting up for yet more interviews, Greenville, South Carolina.


Live, in (their) living room!

When I’m present at a show, it is usually for the purposes of creating a highlights video, which we call a “candids” video — a truly misleading term, as these videos are rarely candid. Our brand of candids involves a heavy dose of staged silliness, interspersed with atmosphere shots (the truly candid stuff) and excerpts from important speakers on the bill. All of the elements gathered are assembled on-site into a glitzy, hopefully entertaining, 5-10 minute video, which is played before the attendees in the last meeting or the last dinner of their show.

A typical show for me usually starts with my arrival the day before the attendees are scheduled to arrive. I’ll scout locations around the hotel for beautiful scenic shots (or as beautiful as the venue can muster), and for places to shoot any gags or skits we have planned. Then I’ll take the camera to shoot the scenic shots either that first afternoon or in the morning of attendee arrivals day, before the stream of arriving attendees gets thick.

Then I usually shoot the attendees at the registration tables, sometimes seeing inspiration for funny (or so I think at the time) sight gags and skits to shoot. The attendees on arrival day, after interstate, transcontinental or trans-Atlantic travel, are usually not in much of a mood to be captured on camera, so anything other than candid shots is difficult to acquire. Most clients throw a “Welcome Dinner” in the evening of arrival day, and the abundance of free liquor usually changes most minds — often quite dramatically — about being captured on camera!

The next few days are spent chasing the attendees around during their breaks and free time, trying to capture as much atmosphere and skits and gags as we can, or as are appropriate for the show. I accompany them on their organized activities, and when there are many different activities, the other candids team members get involved, carrying smaller, “pro-sumer” cameras on the other activities, usually leaving me to shoot golf.

During the whole show, while I am shooting, the editor is usually hard at it, putting the video together. Once I turn in a tape, he starts, and then there is a fairly constant flow — shoot, turn in tape, editor digitizes, assembles, shapes, I turn in tape, editor digitizes…. When the video is finished and the client has approved it — usually after requesting a few changes — we, the candids team, will lurk in the shadows of the ballroom to witness the presentation of our video, one part narcissistic indulgence, and the other part to gauge what “funny” gags or skits were actually funny to the crowd, and which ones tanked (most of them tank).

By the end of a show, usually 4 or 5 days after I arrive, I am exhausted. I work some days up to 16 hours, with most of that time on my feet. If ever I find myself with some free time, I usually wind up sleeping, whether intentionally or sitting upright in a chair and drooling on my shirt.

Any glamour one may fantasize to be found in a job that requires frequent travel is undone by the reality that, on a typical shoot trip I carry three large cases, two of which always threaten to go over the airlines’ maximum weight for my mileage status, and which I believe cause taxi drivers nightmares.

My view of most of the sights of the world has been through a taxi, hotel or airplane window, or through the black and white viewfinder of a video camera. I don’t wish to be misunderstood; I like my job. It’s tough at times. It’s frequently a huge pain and too many decisions that affect me are made by the seat of the pants. But I like what I do most of the time, and the travel accumulates airline miles for me at a rapid pace, which makes for a fair amount of practically free flights when I want to go somewhere for myself.

The giddy joy I used to get when learning of an impending trip to an exotic locale or faraway place is long gone, now, and my job certainly feels like a job, despite the creative exercise it affords me. But that’s okay. I’ll continue to let those who know me or who know of my job think it’s a fascinating job to have. Their imagination is tremendously more glamorous than the reality. I have very little to be envied, so I’ll take what I can get!

...and Boy, Are My Arms Tired!

Still too tired to post anything real, but wanted to pass along a gift to scarletvirago.



scarletvirago, I think they may be in Madrid.


Now don't all the rest of you get all pissy because I didn't get you anything. It doesn't mean I don't love you; it just means that Madrid didn't inspire within me thoughtful gift ideas with which to honor you. And, besides... the photo dint cost me nothin.

La Lluvia Aquí Cae Principalmente en el Llano.

AM ALIVE STOP AM ON THE ROAD WORKING STOP AM READING BLOGS STOP CAN'T POST STOP WAITING FOR TIME TO BREATHE STOP WORK JUST WON'T STOP STOP STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE STOP

The Wordsmiths September Challenge

The new pic is up at Wordsmiths Unlimited. Below is my crack at it. If you want to play, too, go there for the rules.

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Big Joe sat at the table on the patio, eating his submarine sandwich. It was a cool night for summer in southern Alabama: it took only ten minutes for the sweat to soak through his shirt and stain the areas where he creased.

The pretty blonde woman walked up and toward the corner, and as she rounded it, she cast him a furtive glance over her shoulder. He could see in that brief flash of her eyes her whole life on one plane. A look is all it ever took for Joe. Black Men Are Dangerous. That's what her eyes said, what a lifetime of looking furtively over her shoulder told her and what she believed with the ferocity of truth.

She disappeared around the corner as Joe looked down at the sandwich and took another bite. And then he heard it. He almost expected it, as though he felt it coming. A short, shrill shriek, almost a gasp. It rarely happened this close to home.

Big Joe heaved a big sigh as he chewed, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and looked at the entry door to his business enterprise. He thought about calling out to his number one man, Rodney Ricks, the one everybody called "Steel." The papers used to call him "Steel Rod," but the kids heard innuendo in it, and the teasing was ceaseless until he appealed to the media to stop using nicknames for him. They met him half way and satisfied themselves with "Steel," and Rodney was placated.

No. Big Joe Sadlack decided to take this one himself. Besides, he could use a little practice.

The big man rose effortlessly and seemed to float to the corner of the building. There, just beyond the alley he saw them, the pretty blonde lying on the concrete and pinned beneath the scrawny blonde white kid who held his knife in one hand and his weapon in the other. He had just forced her knees apart when a huge brown hand grabbed the collar of his shirt and hoisted him high into the air.

Big Joe felt a smile break across his face as the kid scrambled to pull his pants up, offering no resistance to Joe's assault. Joe released at the top of the arc, and the kid flew through the air, crashing with a sick thud high against the brick wall of his building, and with a sicker thud when he landed on the sidewalk, a puddle of urine spreading out beneath his unconscious body.

Joe helped the woman to her feet and turned his back while she composed herself.

"Thank you," she stammered, but Joe simply held up his hand. That look he had seen in her eyes was gone now, replaced with confusion.

Joe walked in the front door of his business and saw the other folks on his payroll. Sadlack's Heroes. Like Joe, trouble always seemed to find them, and they always knew how to make it go away.