The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Five

My gracious hosts, Mark and Sue, at Weston-Super-Mare.


Today was an earlier wake-up than what had been the norm for the week. Actually, it was a scheduled wake-up, whereas up to that point it had been a wake-up-whenever week. The reason for getting up early was our planned day-trip to Weston-Super-Mare in the southwestern coastal area. One reason Mark and Sue wanted to take me there was that it’s a place I want to visit on my dream journey, retracing my father’s wartime footsteps through Europe. His unit arrived first in England, and one of their training stops was Weston. And I learned why the moment I stepped out of Mark’s Defender: Weston’s seashore is a vast, wide, long, smooth beach, and it looked to me very similar to the coast in the photos I’ve seen of the Normandy beachhead. Mark said that, though it looks very sedate, it’s very treacherous out in the far reaches of the beach at low tide because of quicksand.


Low tide at Weston-Super-Mare. Photo: DarkFarmOwl

The downer for the day was the rain. Thus far in autumnal England, the weather had been superb, perhaps even flawless. But, of course, the one day we planned to go out sightseeing is the day England got her typical English autumn weather. It didn’t matter a great deal, as we still walked along the beach parkway, and to the end of the pier, where we had some salt & vinegar chips (which is what we call french fries in the States).


Taking the rain as the English do: in stride. With Sue, Tom,
and Mia. Photo: DarkFarmOwl


Chowing on chips at the end of the Grand Pier in Weston.
I appear to be totally absorbed in my food.
Photo: DarkFarmOwl

The sky fell on us in a steady, miserable drizzle, and we were all in varying degrees of soaked. The dogs even seemed less than enthused. We walked back along the pier, stopped for a spot of tea, which Mark bought for the three of us, only to bring back a somewhat discouraging, though hilarious, account of the “help” not being very helpful when Mark, who only has two hands, needed to carry three very hot take-away cups of tea.

I’m not sure if it was today or earlier that I amused and infused Mark with the concept of “number three,” in reference to the evacuation of body waste. Where “number one” is going pee, and “number two” is taking a dump, I created a third term, “number three” when you have to do both number one and number two. I mean, come on! It’s the kind of simple math that I can do!

Tom the greyhound once again proved, at Weston, that he is the king of number two. No fewer than three times in less than an hour did he grace the beachfront pavement with the remnants of his most recent meal. I however, claim the title of king of number one. The sudden reintroduction of copious amounts of caffeinated products to my diet brought ceaseless amazement to Mark, whom Sue has described as a “camel.” But it may have something to do with his two humps, so I’m not entirely sure.

We left Weston and headed for Glastonbury. To my recollection, it was only about a half-hour drive from Weston, but I could be mistaken. Glastonbury is the location of an annual music festival, cleverly called The Glastonbury Music Festival, which, to my understanding, very closely resembles Woodstock, to include the dancing naked in the mud; the free sharing of venereal diseases; and the three-day, mushroom-induced blackouts. However, as this year’s festival had long since ended, we contented ourselves to a stroll through the town’s high street, where Sue bought a box of incense while Mark and I stood on the walk and ogled wom... er, the really cool old building across the street from the incense shop.


A Glastonbury street scene.

We walked a few doors down and through a funky corridor into a small courtyard area where we stopped for lunch at The Blue Note Cafe, a cool little earthy kind of place that harks of the endangered Heartland Cafe in Chicago. Mark and Sue, dedicated omnivores, both recommended the veggie burger from this place, so we ordered a round with chips and tea, and we dined out in the rainy courtyard under an overhang while the dogs gazed longingly at us, and two young women — Blue Note employees — sat on the stoop for a ciggy and snuggles with the dogs.

We returned to the car park at Glastonbury and, before we hit the road again, I had to make a “number 3” pit stop. There, in the car park, were several loos of the future. One walks in and shuts and locks the door; unbeknownst to the user, closing and locking the door starts a timer. Everything in the bathroom is automated. The toilet is a cold, one-piece, stainless steel cousin of your basic, standard prison cell toilet. There is a touch sensor on the wall beside the toilet for flushing...no moving parts. The wash basin is literally a hole in the wall, a stainless steel rectangular box into which you stick your hands. Supposedly soap dispenses onto your hands, after which a timer, which has been set for the average amount of time it takes for the average person to wash his average hands to average cleanliness, begins its timing sequence. After the average hand-washing time, the average hand-rinsing time commences, during which the average amount of water is dispensed. Next, the timer switches on the hand dryer, which blows warm air for the average amount of time it takes to dry the hands. All this takes place in the same little rectangle in the wall. No drippies on the floor. The drawback for me was that the soap never dispensed, so I had only rinsed hands. And dried. Fortunately, despite how slow I am, I was out of the restroom before the alarm sounded, a device designed to deter squatters from camping out in the bathrooms overnight.

Then we loaded up in the Defender again, and we headed to the town of Wells, the recent claim to fame of which is that the film Hot Fuzz — or at least parts of it — was shot there. The film history aside, Wells is an interesting little town. There’s a huge church there, which is apparently the home of a bishop, which, if I recall correctly, is very castle-like and surrounded by a real moat!

[It is my sincere hope that Mark will read these posts and provide the clarity that I lack.]


The (formerly Catholic) cathedral at Wells.


MOAT!

By this time in the day the rain had mostly stopped, though there were a few spots of fine mist in the air. We left Wells and rolled on to Cheddar Gorge, which is the birthplace of cheddar cheese. No, really. Being that it’s a gorge, it was nestled in a geographically interesting area, with what I would never have guessed, had I seen it in photos, would be found in England. The road wound back and forth through the gorge and climbed its way past craggy rock cliffs up to... a rather boring area up top, and pointing us in much the wrong direction. So we turned around and, my ears popping as we zig-zagged along our way, wound back down to the river and town.


Cheddar Gorge.


I would post more photos of me, but I have the same stupid
look on my face in all of them.
Photo: DarkFarmOwl


The dam at Cheddar.

But it was closed. Well, not the town, but everything in it...except the “licenced traditional” chippie...which didn’t give away free samples of cheddar cheese. As night fell, we decided against breaking and entering and theft, and we simply got back into the Defender, and we left. And I intentionally made that previous sentence rhyme.

Our day’s exploring done, we wound our way back through the countryside and, despite Mark’s valiant efforts to avoid it, through the city of Bristol.

Before we arrived home, we stopped once again at an “Off Licence” for some wine.

I can’t for the life of me remember what we did for dinner that evening. It was fairly late when we got in, though Mark’s estimate of our arrival around 8:15pm was spot on!

I’m pretty certain we watched some telly, and we might have even watched Children of Men this night instead of Monday night.


Tom


Mia


All photos by Tony Gasbarro, except where noted.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Four

Years ago — I was still living in Georgia — Mark and I traded attempts at explaining our respective national pastimes to each other...to equal failure. Mark already had a passing understanding of baseball, though there were a few things he couldn’t figure out on his own. I knew absolutely nothing about Cricket, though it looked like something baseball could have come from.

After breakfast, Mark pulled out, with some measure of glee, The Ashes – 2005, a DVD record of the 2005 Cricket match between England and Australia, a huge rivalry that has raged for years, and which England won, despite a late surge by Australia.

Where a particularly grueling duel between baseball teams can seem to go on for days, a typical Cricket match does go on for days! I don’t recall how it’s all broken down, but they will play all day until sundown, and then pick up again the next day and play just as long, and then go again the next day. I think they play until someone dies of boredom, and then they call it a match.

But, seriously, with the highlights of the match to use as a guide (all the slow, boring bits were edited out, and the video showed only the scoring and the outs), Mark’s explanations gave me a much clearer understanding of the game than I ever thought I would care to have! And, even though I knew England wins it, the late surge by Australia to within 12 runs (and, believe me, that is an extremely narrow margin!) was pretty exciting!

In order that I could return the favor, Mark perused the television schedule and found a baseball game (San Francisco Giants v. Texas Rangers... WORLD SERIES!) to record later.

Mark and I later hopped into the Defender and he conducted a motor tour of Birmingham, commencing first with a crawl through Small Heath, which could also be labeled “Little India,” according to his descriptions. We made a meandering circuit, taking in the Birmingham Football Stadium, where Mark’s beloved Birmingham City Football Club (the Blues) play; Edgbaston Cricket Grounds, site of the 2005 Ashes match; the former site of the Rover Cars factory, which has since been leveled and appears to be in development of some new housing site; and Lickey Hills, which was the source of the urge within me to titter, but I contained it for fear of offending Mark, a concern I learned, through the course of the week, was entirely unnecessary. There we took a brief walk to the top of Beacon Hill, overlooking the whole of the city of Birmingham. Throughout the entire trip Mark and I talked and talked, in topics ranging from American politics, to British politics, to race relations, to cars, to women, to personal experiences falling off rocks... my throat was already sore, and I’d only been there two days!


The view of Birmingham from atop Beacon Hill.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro

After the tour we headed back home...I think. We gathered up Sue, I think, and we headed out again to visit their daughter Gemma and grandson Hayes, I think. Their son-in-law, Dave, was away at work, definitely. Gemma is pregnant with her second child, due in about 8 weeks, so she looked at once happy and uncomfortable. Hayes’s birthday was approaching, so Mark and Sue, being the proud and doting grandparents, had brought along sacks of birthday gifts for him. The boy was pleased.

After about an hour or so at Gemma’s, we headed back home. I think. More chatting ensued.


The view down Mark's street in this middle-class Birmingham
suburb. Photo: Tony Gasbarro

As night fell, Mark, Sue, and I headed over to Mark’s folks’ again and gathered up his Mum, and then we drove about a half-hour to Earlswood, and to the Red Lion pub. Mum was fun, and full of questions for me! She’s very quick-witted with a great sense of humor, and she didn’t seem as old as I expected her to be.

Dinner at the Red Lion was wonderful. I had some sort of lamb (again) stew followed by, I’m not certain, though, a slice of apple pie on a sea of custard. The custard I’m sure of, but the pie I’m not. Whatever I had, it was good.

A quick drive back and Mum was tucked away, and we headed once again to the “Off Licence” for some wine, and back home for some chat and wine, and I believe we watched Up. Mark has, as he characterizes it, “acquired” some films, and he happened to have Up in his inventory. I had strongly recommended this movie to them, and upon my arrival, they had not yet watched it.

As the film started, I noticed that all the titling was in French, to include that in the “newsreel” footage which starts the film. Knowing that Mark “found” this copy, there was no telling what language the soundtrack was going to be. Fortunately, the characters were speaking English, though; also fortunately, there were no subtitles. Fortunately for Mark and Sue, I had already seen the film twice, so in moments crucial, apparently, to French-literate viewers where writing on screen was in French, I was able to translate, such as in Ellie’s scrapbook, titled, “My Adventure Book,” the page where she has scrawled, “Stuff I’m Going To Do,” and, later, when the old man discovers that she had added stuff there, her handwriting, “Thanks for the adventures. Now go make some of your own!”

As I had warned them, they did cry, and as I had assured them, they loved the film!

Afterward, we either chatted some more and watched some telly, or Sue went to bed, and Mark and I watched Children of Men. Or that might have been Wednesday night. Children of Men is an apocalyptic story that takes place approximately 18 years after the last baby in the world has been born. Humans since then have been inexplicably incapable of procreating, and the world is in chaos. The United Kingdom has become a fascist state, and is expelling all foreigners and other immigrants, herding them into ghettos against their will. Then a woman is found who is into her third term of pregnancy. She’s in the hands of a group of freedom fighters, but the fear within the less zealous among the group is that, once the baby is born, the mother will be cast aside while the baby is used as a bargaining chip for the assured humane treatment of the immigrants. Or something like that. It was disturbing, all the same, but still a good film.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Two

On the plane, after I had settled into my seat with my feet on the bag of pillow and blanket and covered myself up under my jacket, I was awoken I-don’t-know-how-much later by the woman in the seat next to mine when she needed to get up to use the bathroom. When she returned I thought I might have to use the facilities soon myself, but I sat back down and covered up under my jacket again.

The next time I awoke, sunlight streamed into the cabin, and the flight attendants were wheeling out the breakfast service. There was less than one hour left until landing at London/Heathrow. I had slept almost the entire flight!!

The cabin crew handed out the landing cards for UK immigration, and as I filled out mine I realized that I didn’t know Mark’s address. I entertained the thought of fudging it, but I figured I could just call him when I landed...until I remembered that my phone would be useless in the UK. If I pled my case to the immigration official, I would probably be allowed to call him...and then I realized that, despite all the times I wrote down his number for others, I had never written them down for myself. Okay, so I could call directory assistance and hope to reach Sue, who could then tell me their address. But then I thought that I would probably remember the address by the time it got to that point.

When it got to that point, I still had not recalled their address. And I fudged it for the immigration agent. While standing in the immigration line, I wrote “86 Sheldon Way, Sheldon, Birmingham” as Mark’s address on the immigration form; I was WAY off! The agent asked me what sort of place the address was where I was to stay, and I told him it was my friend’s house. He asked me who my friend was, and I told him. He asked me how I knew this friend, and I told him, realizing how absurd it actually sounded. He asked how long I had known this friend, and I told him, adding that I had visited him in 2005, hoping that would make our original acquaintance sound less absurd.

The immigration agent allowed me in, though I was technically entering the country illegally!

I was early, at least according to Mark’s calculations. He estimated that immigration and bag claim would have me out the doors between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. The flight had landed maybe only ten minutes early, but the immigration line for non-E.U. passport holders was short and quick-moving, and my bag came out quickly as well. I was standing on the curb by 10:30! I waited, wearing my agreed-upon, easily-spotted Cubs cap, until about 11:10, when I saw a black Land Rover Defender 110 enter the short-stay car park; it was the only Defender I saw in the entire time I stood out there, so I just knew it was Mark.
Or was it? I thought I recalled that he would come to the curb to look for me, so now I wasn’t sure it was him after all. There could be someone else with a Defender 110 coming to the airport, right? I didn’t want to head inside to try to find him and wind up actually missing him at the curb. What to do?

I caved to the fear and I headed inside. And I realized very quickly that I would never find him in that throng!

Meanwhile, as I found out later, Mark was himself embroiled in an ordeal. To keep it brief, he was misled by signage to a parking area for “high-sided” vehicles, only when he got to the barrier it wouldn’t let him in. He thought his Defender was over seven feet tall, but it isn’t, and the sensor that senses the height of vehicles didn’t sense his, so no entry was allowed. After dealing with a couple of parking attendants who couldn’t be bothered to actually help him, he went in search of the car park supervisor.

I left the madding crowd in the arrivals area and headed back outside. When I had earlier entered, I had noticed a door leading into a coffee shop in the arrivals area, though I walked past it. I saw it again from inside, and this time I decided to take it, as it would save me quite a few steps to get back to the curb. As I stepped outside from that doorway, I saw across the way from me, as well as across the way from where I had earlier been standing at the curb, a man who looked from a distance of about 100 yards a lot like Mark! He stepped briefly inside the valet booth there and came out again.

When I had decided to head inside to look for Mark, I had very dutifully walked to the crosswalks and made my meandering way in. Now, as this person who looked like Mark stood across from me, I made my way toward him across two lanes of traffic where there was no crosswalk. I was already criminally present in England; why fear crossing a roadway illegally?

As I crossed, the man who looked like Mark looked in my direction and set off determinedly toward me. It was Mark! We approached each other quickly, and as we closed the last few feet between us, I was without doubt he was Mark, but he glared past me as he trudged along.

“Mark?” I said as he went by.

The man turned to look at me. “OH! Christ! TONY! I’m sorry! I didn’t even see you!” He threw his arms out and hugged me. Then, as we walked back to his car, he told me about his ordeal, and why he didn’t see me from only feet away, and that, while he ventured off to find the car park supervisor, he had parked illegally. I felt right at home with a fellow criminal!

Very soon we were on the road north toward Birmingham, engaged in what would become the main activity during my visit — talking. About halfway to Birmingham we stopped for lunch at The Orange Tree, a nice pub in apparently a very posh area. The women there were very attractive and very attractively dressed. The Orange Tree became the frequent off-hand joke of where I wanted to go “tomorrow.”

When we arrived at Mark’s home, Sue came outside to greet me and welcome me inside. After a cup of tea and a brief chat, they suggested I take my things upstairs and have a quick nap, and I took them up on it.

Later, Mark knocked on the door to get me moving again, and when I got downstairs there was already-cold Domino’s pizza in the kitchen. Ordering pizza had been mentioned, and we had discussed a one-hour nap, but it would appear that Mark and Sue opted to let me sleep a little longer to catch up, and they went ahead and ate when they were ready. When I came down Sue heated up a couple slices for me, and I ate while watching some telly with them.

After dark, Mark and I headed over to his parents’ home where his brother, Colin, was visiting for the day. We went in, I was introduced to the parents, and we gathered up Colin to head over to The Griffin Inn for a couple of pints.

After only a brief stay — we were there maybe an hour — we brought Colin back to the folks’, headed to an “Off Licence” to pick up a couple bottles of wine, and then back to Mark’s where we sat to watch some telly and sip wine with Sue.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day One

To be fair and honest, I didn't journal every day. Hell, I didn't journal at all! But, as this series of posts is a relatively accurate account — written as much as nearly a month after the fact — of the daily doings during my recent trip to Birmingham, England, IT'S A FRIGGIN' JOURNAL!

22 October 2010, Friday
Things did not go as planned. I don’t know why I ever thought they would. I worked through the night in the taxi, and that was uneventful. I had a late airport run which sounded off right about the time I had planned to leave for the 303 Taxi office, scheduling me for a pickup in Arlington Heights 20 minutes later, and setting me back about a half-hour in my schedule, after going out of my way to the airport to drop off the customer, and after waiting extra time for the tardy customer to get his shit together.

At the office, I turned in the taxi and the spare key, all very quickly, and then I went outside and tried to ask the first taxi driver who came out of the office if he could drive me to the Rosemont Blue Line station. The first guy said, “Yes, of course...in five minutes...I have to find my phone.” He crawled around in his car for a few seconds.

“Dial me, please,” he asked in his heavily accented English (I think he’s Indian). I didn’t hear him at first. “Dial my phone please!”

He dictated his phone number and I dialed it. It took two tries for him to locate it at the bottom of a cloth shopping bag full of stuff as it rang, but he did find it. then he said, “I’ll be one minute,” and he went back inside the building.

Ten minutes later, and about 5 minutes too late for me to catch the 9:18 Metra train from Jefferson Park, which set my schedule back another hour, another taxi driver came out of the 303 office. He took me to the Rosemont Station for free, but asked me along the way how much I make. When I told him, he was shocked. Not in a good way. For me. I spent the rest of the day rather depressed about it.

I seized the opportunity of the nearly 90-minute wait (I missed the 9:18 by about ten minutes, exactly the amount of time that stupid “I’ll be one minute” idiot made me wait) to get breakfast at McDonald’s. Since I had the time to eat in, I got the steak, egg & cheese bagel with the round egg instead of the scrambled. Either they changed something in the ingredients, or I’m just jaded, because it has never tasted as good as it did in the first year they made them.

On the train I called 303 to order a taxi. About 20 minutes before I was due to arrive at Palatine, I got the notification text that a taxi — number 567 — had been dispatched. About five minutes before arrival, I got the callout phone call. While I was about to enter the amount of time I wanted him to wait, I received another callout phone call from 303. As it was a redundant call, I pressed “Ignore” on the phone’s screen, and finished the other call, requesting the taxi to wait five minutes.

The train arrived on time, and I walked out to taxi number 567. As I approached, the driver asked me if I was Tony. I answered him and got in. Then he told me that he waited, just in case, because he had gotten a cancellation notice! FUCK! What is it about me that, whenever I use 303 Taxi Service’s fantastic automated dispatch system, I always get fucked...or nearly so, in this particular case? So, after having a very calm, brief argument with the driver about the rate number (he was charging rate 2, I thought it was rate 1 from Palatine to Hoffman Estates; he changed it to the cheaper rate 1), he drove me home.

Being so far behind in my schedule, I began packing with the full resignation that, despite working through the night and having been thus far awake since, I would get no time to take a nap. I called Saad (303 Taxi number 530) and asked him if he could pick me up at 5:30 to take me to the airport. He said that it would be no problem.

It was a problem. At 5:30 he didn’t show. Patient as I am, I waited, and used the time to move myself outside to wait. As I got to the deck outside the “rear” door of the apartment building — at 5:40 — my phone rang; it was Saad.

He had taken a fare to the airport and was now stuck somewhere in traffic that was not moving. He said that he would make it, and that everything would be okay.

At 6:00 I called Saad back. He apologized and said that he had not moved at all from the place he was when he had called me 20 minutes earlier! AT ALL! I had thought in the earlier call that he was exaggerating when he said the traffic was “not moving,” but he wasn’t. I was a little pissed off that he had not called me again sooner when traffic still had not moved, so he said he would call one of his other friends; he said he would tell him not to charge me, and that he would pay him for my trip out of his own pocket. I was too pissed off to feel at that moment that his gesture was not necessary.

The friend he called was cab number 508, someone I’ve met before, but whose name I do not know. He showed up around 6:30, which was ten minutes past the time I was “supposed” to be at the airport (8:20pm flight). He said he would speed to the airport. And boy, did he!

Traffic was fairly light for a Friday evening, and he got me to O’Hare in about 20 minutes! I confirmed that Saad told him not to charge me for the trip, and I tried to give him a tip for taking the chances, but he refused, even telling me that I was making him feel guilty. I didn’t push it. I will insist to Saad that he let me repay him. It wasn’t his fault that he got stuck in traffic behind what was apparently a wreck involving an 18-wheeler.

Once at the airport, things finally started moving smoothly. The plane was on track to depart on time, a fact which I reported to Mark via text/e-mail.

Once in the air, and before we were even flying completely level, the flight attendants began the dinner service. I had already removed my shoes and set my feet on the bag of pillow and blanket (EXCELLENT idea!) Dinner was served and eaten, the tray was cleared, and after toying with the idea of watching a movie, I pulled my jacket over me and “reclined” my seat.

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!

Holiday Escape

UPDATE: Since the first publishing of this post, a photo of a Volkswagen has been added.

As 2007 drew to a close I looked back on the year and realized that, as far as I was concerned, it SUCKED!

My intent for this post is not to make it a retrospective of the past year. But just as a refresher…

--In March it was determined that my father had a series of mini strokes in the prior months, and it was just such a mini stroke that my sister was finally able to witness that motivated her to take him to the Emergency Room where, after he was admitted to the hospital, it was later discovered that he has lung cancer.

--In April I finally made the decision to have my precious, old, decrepit Angel euthanized. A week later my father's peke-a-poo, Rosie, who had survived since my mother passed away in 1993, became ill and had to be euthanized.

--In September Mrs. Farrago and I decided to separate.

--And in October I moved out of the home I’ve known for the past 9 years and into a two-bedroom apartment.

So, as the holiday break loomed on the horizon I felt the need to escape the boundaries of my life for a while. I had considered the “Big Island” of Hawaii, as I really like that place, but then I figured that Hawaii is where a lot of people escape to during the cold weather of the holidays, so it was likely to be a zoo.

Then I thought to seek isolation, someplace where I could be totally alone. But since I had no interest in being dropped in the middle of the Sierra Nevada, I considered isolation in the figurative sense. To me that meant a foreign country where I would be culturally and linguistically isolated. I really enjoyed Paris, but going there at this point in my life would bring back too many memories of my times there with Mrs. Farrago. England, though I love that place, was out of the question because I couldn’t isolate myself from the language…and because remaining isolated meant choosing not to visit my good friend in Birmingham, which would have only brought me guilt.

So I thought of a place that I had been to that I really wished to revisit, and that place is Germany. I lived there for two years when I was stationed at a base there in 1986 and ’87, and I’ve hoped my frequent work travels would send me there. I came close in 2006 when I spent three days in Berlin, but there was no free time to explore, so it was a mere tease.

So, Germany it was! In the weeks prior I booked my flight, booked a rental car and booked hotel rooms across the country. I left Chicago on December 25th, hoping that travelers would be at an all-time low on THE holiday, but the opposite was the case!

I paid my airfare with my frequent flyer miles, and my frequent flyer status earned me a seat in what United Airlines calls “Economy Plus,” which means I got to sit in the section that gives an extra five inches or so of legroom to everyone. I did ask about the possibility of upgrading to Business Class, but I was told that it wasn’t allowed on fares purchased with frequent flyer miles. Oh, well. No biggie.

When I booked the ticket online I was allowed to choose my own seat, and the one I chose happened – without my knowledge – to be directly behind the “Crew Rest” seats, where some of the flight attendants are allowed to sleep during the middle of the flight when passenger needs are at their lowest. Instead of an extra five inches of legroom, I had about an extra three feet of legroom, which is about two feet more than I would have had in Business Class!

I was seated next to a German man who now lives in Chicago. As I told him of my itinerary, and of my plans to drive everywhere, he asked me what kind of car I had booked. I repeated to him what I had read on the economycarrentals-dot-com website: “Volkswagen Lupo or similar.” The friendly smile on his face morphed into a polite grimace, and the color in his face paled slightly. Then he said, “You might want to ask for an upgrade.”


The besmirched Volkswagen Lupo.

Upon arrival in Frankfurt and the subsequent shuttle ride to the Thrifty/Dollar car rental office, I was asked by the rental agent if I wanted winter tires. Germans are a little different from us when it comes to equipping their cars with tires. Where we generally choose all-weather tires for our cars and forget about them until they’re bald, Germans generally purchase two sets of tires. The expensive set is for the warm months and the higher demand for performance the Germans exact from their cars. The other set is designed to have a little bit more contact with the road and better handling on snow and ice. And in a rental situation, the choice for winter tires means an extra charge. I was going to forego the winter tires and take my chances until I saw the little notice, printed in English, that basically read, “Though it is not required by law to have winter tires on the car, should you have an accident without winter tires, your insurance will be null and void.” With my luck, I’d kiss the gate with the car as I left the rental lot, so I chickened out and said, “Yes” when the rental dude told me that the winter tires would cost me an extra 100 Euros for the duration of the rental.

When he heard my answer, he said, “Good. That will get you a nice upgrade.”

I was relieved to hear this because my flight seatmate’s warning had caused me a good deal of stress, as I had no clue what a Volkswagen Lupo was, or why it should cause such concern. With the rental dude’s words I was encouraged and hopeful that maybe I would step up to a VW Golf or something similar. Then the dude asked me if I was traveling alone, which I was, and then if I had a lot of luggage, which I did not. Satisfied with my answers, he stepped out to get my car. When I saw it, my jaw dropped, and I gasped, “No fucking way!”


Der Vheels! (Click on any photo for a full-size view!)

It also had GPS, which the rental dude “threw in for free,” despite the fact that it’s built in!

From this point I will spare my reader the typical travelogue I have crafted(?) in the past. This trip was for relaxation and decompressing. I didn’t plan out my days with things to see or do, and the ensuing avalanche of photos such an itinerary causes. I slept in most days, allowing just enough time to catch breakfast before it was collected, and, since I started each day fairly late, and daylight disappeared by 4:30 each day, I took relatively few photos.

I stayed fairly centered in the country, driving first from Frankfurt to Berlin, then from Berlin to Düsseldorf, each leg thereof about a five-hour drive. From Düsseldorf I was able to take in Köln (Cologne). From Köln I drove to the state of Rheinland-Pfalz, and the region called Hunsrück, or “Hound’s Back,” where the base was when I was stationed there. And from the Hunsrück I returned to Frankfurt.


In case you ever wondered what the autobahn looks like...


Berlin


The pension-hotel Berolina, which
was more like a flop-house than a hotel.
My room reeked so badly of cigarette smoke
that... yup... all my stuff still smells
like smoke!



Your typical city scene: The Kurfürstendamm, Berlin's
Magnificent Mile, so to speak.



House of 100 Beers! I had a mind to try every last one,
but I had the rest of the country to see before I went home....



Germans go a little crazy with holiday lights, too, just
in case you were feeling a little self-conscious over your
decorative holiday excess.


Köln



The Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) is the city's main attraction. I figured that, it being the Sunday before the New Year holiday (or Silvester in Germany), no one would be out in the city, and I would have the place to myself. Of course, that Sunday happened to be the day Turkish citizens from all over Germany chose to protest some television show they found offensive. So I found myself in a swarm of Turks! They called it quits by dark, so I was able to get a few neat shots.






Hunsrück



Many towns that crop up near each other have adopted a hyphenated double name. Such is the case with towns that face each other across a river. The town(s) of Traben-Trarbach, on the Mosel river is a place I visited many times while I was stationed in the area. Above is a view of Traben, across the river from Trarbach. Any lover of white wine, especially German Rieslings, will be delighted to know that Traben-Trarbach sits right in the middle of Moselle wine country.


The restaurant Brücken-Schenke, which, loosely trans-
lated, means "bridge access," sits on the Trarbach side of
the Mosel and "guards" the bridge that crosses it.


A view from the vineyards above the town of Dhron
(Neumagen-Dhron). The entire Mosel valley
-- on both sides of the river -- is covered from
top to bottom in grape vines like these.



"Church For One?" I just can't figure this one out. On the
road between the Mosel river town of Treis-Karden
and Kastellaun.


Nine days after I left Chicago I returned to the airport in Frankfurt. Though I had flown non-stop from Chicago, I had booked myself back to Chicago with a layover in Washington, D.C. so that I could spend much of that last day in Germany. When I checked in I was of a mind to ask to be moved into the same seat I had when I flew from Chicago so I could have all that legroom again, but then I thought that was just selfish of me, so I didn’t. I received boarding passes for both legs of the trip home, but I never even looked at them.

At the boarding gate, as I waited with the rest of the USA-bound throng, a gate agent called my name out over the PA system. There is a desk outside the waiting area, and since I had my boarding passes I figured I had no need to stop there. A gate agent at the door had let me pass without question, so I thought nothing of it. Now, as I walked up to the counter to respond to being called out, I wondered if I had missed an important step.

The agent who had called my name saw me approaching, and said, “Mr. [Farrago]?”

“That’s me.”

She held up what looked like a boarding pass. “We have an upgrade for you.”

WOW! I had been upgraded to Business Class unsolicited! For a Trans-Atlantic flight! WOO HOO! It pays to accrue all your travel miles on one airline! I enjoyed the extra legroom, the slightly wider seat, the nicer meal and the free alcohol (one glass of wine with dinner) and finished Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Supremacy on the way to D.C.

After landing at Dulles International Airport I went through Customs and Immigration, collected my luggage, returned it to the airline to go back on the plane, and I headed to my gate. On the way there I purchased The Bourne Ultimatum, almost as much to see how far off the movies carried themselves from the actual stories as to follow the character to the end of his arc.

Before long, the gate agent there announced that boarding would commence in about five minutes, and I realized I didn’t even know where my seat on the plane was. I pulled out my boarding pass and was surprised as hell to see that I had been seated in First Class! All the way back in Frankfurt! WOW! A double upgrade! What a perfect ending to a wonderful trip!

Now I just want to go back.