ROADIE

Here comes the cold...

2011-12-09T02:00:00.001-08:00

Our stay in London is over. In 45 minutes our bus is picking us up, carting us to the airport and we are off to Sweden. Land of Ikea, the Globe Arena and the beginning of our chilly leg of the tour, highlighted by Moscow in a few days.

London proved to be a good time. I went to Harrod's, as I do whenever I'm in London, to get my mother more of their bears (it's become a tradition of sorts); I visited a few friends, took some pictures around the city, some of which turned quite well at night thanks to the still incredible D3s; went to the National History Museum to see a wildlife photography exhibit; and lastly went to see Matthew Bourne's "Nutcracker!" at the Sadler's Wells theatre. So all in all its been a good few days. I did spend all of yesterday asleep so I've eventually screwed my sleeping pattern. Oh well.

I should finish packing....

Alright...rant

2011-12-04T06:44:00.001-08:00

Listen here, Bjarke Ingels, I don't care how much you want to pretend like you're an avant garde artiste but the whole Audi deal was a big screen with some clever programming.

I know 99% of being an artist is your own ability to make yourself look good, eccentric and interesting; but lately these morons that create "art" by using things we do on a day to day basis is irritating. 2000 LEDs? Hell we have probably 30 times that on this tour, maybe even more.

Go back to painting, or make something different, don't use our tools and call yourself an artist because common people dont' know what it is.

Le Tour

2011-12-02T13:43:00.001-08:00

Well the tour is well underway. Its a bit of a mad dash. Some days off and them some spectacularly long days. We usually start our days at around 5:30am and aren't done till 2 or 3am the next morning.

We've done some Italy: Bolgona, home of the pain in the ass rigging which we played in with Dinosaurs and spent a full day pre-rigging. Case and point, the cranes are still there:

But hey we put on a good show:

Then we moved on to Milan where we woke up in our buses surrounded by some quite incredible thick fog. Cold and wet on a 7am in Milan, at one of the worst arenas in Europe.

Followed by Paris. Again we stayed at the Pullman Bercy and played the Bercy Arena. I love showing up and knowing exactly where I am and where everything is. This is load in done at Paris:

And finally Cologne and a trip to London, where we are now hanging out till our show at the O2 on Monday. The cold part of the tour is yet to come.

Chicago

2011-11-17T20:55:00.001-08:00

Well, Abu Dhabi is done, a 15 hour flight back for which I slept 80% of it and I am back in the Windy City. At least till next week when we start the European run.

So far I've spent a night at the Millenium Nickerbocker hotel where I got too loaded on BSN's Endorush and NO-Xplode and had to work out like a maniac. I do not reccomend it. I was quite afraid of having a heart attack or passing out because my blood pressure was all over the place. Regardless I think the most important thing I have done is go check out my future apartment in Sycamore. Yes, Sycamore is a bit of a sleepy town and not somewhere I would like to make my home, but the offices are right there and its relatively cheap.

This is a good thing, I know one of the long tours has fallen through so I won't be doing a huge long tour for a while. Given the options I have sort of been given for next year it means a bit more time in the US and I want a place thats my own, not a room in someone else's house. Plus I like setting up places. Buying stuff like beds and routers and printing my pictures to hang on the wall is awesome.

Next step is my driver's license but right now I don't even have enough time to do the written test. I've had to do some work on the Show Files for the tour and get a bit of organizing done for the move in December. But eventually. I have a feeling late December and most of January will be quite busy.

Abu Dhabi

2011-11-12T03:06:00.001-08:00

OK so I am officially on tour with Paul McCartney (officially being I'm actually out of the country about to load in our first show). This time I made it to Abu Dhabi, this is the third time I've been close to coming but its always fallen through. Unfortunately I'm sorry to say I am not liking it.

I'm not sure where it all went pear shaped. First our flight was quite disturbing. I'm sure Eithad's first class is unbelievable and comfortable. Economy is not. Its OK, don't get me wrong, but it does not reflect the quality they boast of. The screaming children (and I mean screaming, I've never heard a child yell that much and that loud, you would've think he was getting killed) are not the airline's fault, neither was Dennis the Menace sitting on my row, but it added to the atmosphere, and I'll come back to this later. Our flight was delayed for an hour because we had no food, we had to wait for them to cook it and bring it on board. That is a major faux pas on someone's logistics. The crew seemed somewhat distracted at all times, like they had too much to do internally to deal with the passengers. Asking for water was a chore; I haven't been that dehydrated in a flight, ever. The best part was getting the menus while we were still on the ground...waiting for the food. Also, I think they make the seats smaller and more cramped, but they put more stuff on them for you to juggle. You get to your tiny seat and there's a pair of big headphones, a blanket and a pillow, and nowhere to put any of it.

Anyways, it was a flight, it happened, I slept till the banshee woke me up. Big bonus was the power plug built into my seat to charge my iPhone as we flew. Then, I had immigration. I'm not sure why Argentina of all places seems to not have a deal with the UAE, but boy they are serious about it. Not mean at all, they were very courteous, but they definitely want to keep track of us. I had to get a copy of my original visa and then (and this is a new one for me) get my retinas scanned. I kinda dug that for some reason, probably the high tech aspect of it. My bags took forever to come out, I thought I had lost my Think Tank Airport International with ALL my camera gear, but it eventually came out. Then customs kept asking me if I was a journalist coming to photograph the races.

The city is nice, very white and bright (I live in the dark, all that sunshine takes some getting used to!). Regardless, I can't shake that feeling of (for lack of a better word) oppression. Maybe its the male dominated society. I think (and this is me completely assuming, I know pretty much nothing of the day-to-day of this culture) that that is what happened with the kids in the plane. I realized all the loud, troublemakers were male, and the mothers did nothing to subdue them. The one sitting on my row (luckily "Mom" was between us) was a psychopath, at one point brutally elbowing his mother in the arm and kicking the seats, completely out of control...and yet, nothing. No discipline, just a very passive thing. Most she did was pull his arms back when he wandered into my space, probably because I looked like I was going to beat him with my shoes. So, I don't know, its the impression I have. All the women walking around covered from head to toes, its just such a massive departure from what I am used to, that it makes me very uncomfortable. Mind you I don't criticize it: its their rules, formalities and customs and I will respect them, but I feel like a massive outsider here. I thought about visiting the mosque but I am terrified of screwing up and end up insulting them or arrested.

In any case we load in tonight at midnight for a very long (26/27hrs) day. As a random bonus I had a workout session with Brandon Boyd (vocalist for Incubus) at the hotel gym.

Goodbye Gear

2011-10-25T20:08:00.001-07:00

We loaded 2 of the 3 containers headed to Europe this morning (the third one hadn't shown up and its reserved for video). In the afternoon we loaded the truck headed to the airport. Mike will load the air freight pallets (frustrating gig if there ever was one) and stick 'em on the plane to Dubai. So just like that, the tour is underway. Even if we aren't.

Now we wait for plane tickets for us fleshies.

Don Quixote

2011-10-22T17:02:00.001-07:00

I'm getting ready to go see The Joffrey Ballet's performance of Don Quixote. I've never gone to a ballet performance before so this should be a good experience. I did Man Of La Mancha back in high school, which is a rather good and interesting musical, so now yet another take on the story.

Prep is finished, a whole bunch of gear going to Dubai and Europe, and this is only half the rig! I think all the work we did will make things easier out there. Mike, our crew chief on this tour, is incredibly good at what he does (to the point where he IS the main crew chief in the company) and I've never toured with him. Should be a good time and a learning experience. I just hope not to learn from my mistakes. The smoother this goes the better.

Prep

2011-10-19T20:15:00.001-07:00

Well here we are, busy with prep for my next tour. Off to a slowish start; the shop is very busy and other shows have priority over ours. Regardless, we completed a large section of it today, even after my mis-cabling and labeling (my bad, sorry!).

Part 2 coming tomorrow even though I don't think we'll get lights for a while. We do what we can with what we got. After all, its not the problem thats important, but how you tackle it.

Ranges.

2011-10-17T19:41:00.001-07:00

The best tidbit I got today about the upcoming tour is that we'll go from 120 to -15 degrees in a bit over a months. From Yas Island in Abu Dhabi to Moscow in Russia.

Packing for all seasons again. Geez.

Memory

2011-10-16T12:50:00.001-07:00

Im sitting at a Thai restaurant in DeKalb, IL staring at the menu. Of all things to take me back it was seeing the Larb on the menu that really reminded me of Bangkok.

I have to go back soon, Thailand is not a place I want relegated to a memory. In the meantime I'll remember the training sessions, the people at Baan Chang Thai, the never-ending traffic and of course: the Larb at the Holiday Inn in Bangkok.

iPhone

2011-10-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

After many years of being a faithful BlackBerry fan, I've given way to the iPhone. Actually, I am writing this from said device, the new iPhone 4s.

Sorry RIM, but the camera and processor on this thing sold me.

Catching Up

2011-10-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks were really uncertain for me. I got so used to being on the road ALL the time than not being on it took me out of my comfort zone. I finished the NACS show, went to the shop to catch up a bit, and that's pretty much it. I've had a good week of sorting a ton of backlogged projects and really gearing up for a pretty hardcore photo/video tour in the next few months.

I've been following Vincent Laforet's and Chase Jarvis' blogs and been getting interested in doing some video work. I've always been a fan of time lapses and I'm very interested in putting cameras in odd places (I live a rather odd life after all) so I bought a GoPro HD camera, and because I can never leave well enough alone I've retrofitted it with a wide angle, low distortion, IR blocked lens. I'm not big on the fisheye look all the time and this gives me a rather nice wide angle view. Granted this approach requires one to open the GoPro up and do some tinkering extremely close to the sensor so its not for everyone.

The bad part of all this buying is that now I have way more stuff than I can possibly carry on my Think Tank Shapeshifter, so I'm eyeing an Airport International for my next tour to Europe. With some rather nice locations on that tour I think it will be a nice time to start playing. Granted it will be November/December so it will be a good time to freeze as well.

The last part is the new iPhone. I just upgraded my BlackBerry to the new Bold 9930. Yes, I own and love Apple gear, but the BlackBerry does what I need, and I absolutely love the keyboard, especially the one on the new Bold. But I cant deny that the 4s looks awesome. The camera is great (sorry RIM) and that Siri stuff is mind-blowing. So even though I just got a new BlackBerry and I will loose my unlimited data plan...I may have to migrate to the iPhone. I feel like I'm betraying RIM, but its the first time since the iPhone came out that i'm really interested in it. I read Verizon will unlock my SIM card for international trips. I just wish they had an unlimited plan...argh.

I have an incredible tour coming up, one that is very important to me for various reasons, so as soon as I have news I'll post them up.

NACS

2011-10-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

Time off was nice, but me being a bit of a workaholic, I welcomed the new gigs. I spent all of last week lighting the BlackHawk Network booth at NACS. NACS, for those now in the know (like me a few weeks ago) is the National Association of Convenience Stores. That's right people, a whole convention about stuff you buy at 7/11. There was more crappy food than you could shake a stick at!

Its remarkable though to see what falls under the umbrella of NACS: candy, energy drinks and cigarettes are a given, but also there are LED lighting solutions, walk in coolers, name badges, fuel pumps, signage and, yes, condoms. I tried some Jamba Juice trail mix (meh), some blk black water (interesting) and pre-made NOXplode (couldn't feel my fingertips, awesome!).

Oh, yeah...I ran into Snookie and 50 Cent. I know, so classy.

Time Off

2011-09-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

I've been off since the tour ended, a bit for lack of touring work and a bit self-imposed. I stopped by Minnesota to visit my brother and his family, so I was an uncle for a week which is a huge departure from my usual "Hello and goodbye" approach to life. It was good, but living around 3 kids and trying to not speak like a roadie (we have the modern-day equivalent vocabulary of pirates) was hard!

So I flew to Chicago yesterday, I'm going to stay downtown for a few days, get some things sorted, hope there's some local work going on down here and if not I'll head up to the shop and work there. The hardest part of that was finding where to live, since I have no desire of getting an apartment, a lease, having to find furniture, etc etc etc. But I've sorted that all out and hopefully I wont be there for very long.

There's been some overcast days here, so I may or may not venture out to do photos, I have no desire of getting my camera gear wet, as "weather sealed" as it may be.

And just like that...

2011-08-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

...the tour is almost over. We're in Hollywood, CA getting ready for the last show in this leg of the Janet Jackson tour. There was a 17 hour drive from Portland to LA but a few of us bailed and bought plane tickets. Sure, I'm completely over airports after 2 years of crisscrossing the globe but it was worth it, I did the 2 day trip to Vancouver and that was enough for now.

So one show here, and a few days off, and then we'll see what the future brings!

Oops

2011-08-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

Ok I've let us al down: its been ages since my last post on this thing. Sorry, been busy. The tour is going well, I'm actually enjoying myself more on this tour than I have in the last few ones. Its smaller, there's little drama, its a quick in and out, and my tour bus is pretty awesome. This is important; for you out there that will ever tour: if your bus' people suck, you're in for a horrible tour.

I guess the major update since last time is that, obviously, we didn't play the Indy State Fair. The collapse hit close to home for a few reasons:

As an industry, 3 collapses in a month and a half is horrible, let me re-state that: any collapse is horrible, 3 in a month and a half is embarrassing and atrocious. The debates online (excluding the "civvies" who pretend to know about ground support structures and what we do for a living) are pretty fierce and include survivors as well as outsiders. Personally I played at the Indy stage a few years ago with Kid Rock and I can state that was a really solid stage, whether this changed in the last few years or not I can't say, but back then that was a really good structure.

As a tour, we were meant to play there 2 days after the collapse. Had our tour been routed slightly different (we were in Milwaukee at the time) that could have been us on stage that day. Needless to say it hit a few nerves and we consider ourselves slightly lucky to have escaped that fate.

As the days went by and the Pukkelpop collapse happened, we got nearer and nearer to play at the Iowa State Fair and we got a bit nervous. Then we got there. The good news was the stage was freaking SOLID. I mean, welded steel solid. The bad news: it was on railroad tracks and after we loaded in a massive tractor was going to pull it onto place. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, after a whole morning of tractor pulls (I'm not kidding, that's why the stage was off to a side), we had our own tractor pull stage. Unreal. State fairs are a different animal. They're dirty, there's dust everywhere, the stagehands are volunteers in many occasions and really, who the hell needs deep fried butter?

But we did it, the show went on, load out happened a lot better than we expected and we were off. I'm really happy with this crew, we all seem to work along very well even when things get awkward and hard we pull together pretty well. I wish I was going with them to Australia because it'd be a good group to hang out with.

Anyways, we just finished our 32 hour/2-day bus ride from Kansas City, MO to Vancouver, BC and its chilling time.

See yous laters.

Here we go again

2011-08-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

The tour is now officially going full force, at least for us. Most of the tour has been at it since January but a bunch of us are newcomers to this leg. We've been slowly getting up to speed building the show, we haven't had any major incidents (knock on wood) and other than the stupid truck packs we're doing well on load outs.

Its really quite good having a tour full of people you like. Everyone is really great here, there's no dramas, no pressure, we all help each other as much as we can. There have been no fights, no egos. I get along with the video crew as well as Janet's personal crew. Its really enjoyable.

Harrison Funk is on board as the tour photographer and its been great to share the bus with him and have the insight of a pro photographer right here. Plus he occasionally starts talking in Spanish which is really odd and funny as hell. He's been the last drop of people that have eventually convinced me to switch from Aperture to Lightroom and now I'm very slowly doing all the necessary metadata adjustments to migrate my library. It is a bit of a pain in the ass but I gotta do it.

I decided to spice up the bus today and proceeded to buy some Don Julio Añejo and Karlsson's Gold, along with a bottle of unknown absinthe that I'll have to try out and see. It is a French absinthe which is my favorite kind, but a brand I've never heard of and it comes with a lot of "marketing" which is usually a bad sign.

Janet Jackson Day 1

2011-07-31T14:41:00.000-07:00

Last time I was in the Bell Centre in Montreal it was, ironically, with Janet during her Rock Witchu Tour. It was also the show we had to cancel when she fell ill which led to other complications. How ironic I'm back in Montreal for my first show after bouncing around the world with her again to start the second leg of the "Up Close and Personal" tour?

So tomorrow we meet up at 5:30am (!!!!) in the hotel lobby to start to cram all this gear into a functional show. I have a feeling it will be a good tour, its small, relatively easy and this is a camp that treats its crew very well. As long as we all get along it should be just fine.

Back in the USSR...er...USA

2011-07-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

So yes, after 2 years of bobbing around the world I'm back touring in the US. A few changes have happened since I left, for example: 90% of the people in the shop are new and they have no idea who I am. Its given way to some interesting conversations and that general look of intimidation they give me. I guess (and know) some touring guys are a bit tough to deal with but I couldn't care less, anything can be fixed, that's why we're in the shop.

But here we are, prepping Janet Jackson's small tour. Its fun to be in such a small tour now, none of this 5 and 3/4 semis of lighting, 2 dimmer beaches and who knows how many thousands and thousands of feet of cabling. 2 trusses, a bunch of MAC 700, some PixelLines, some floor lights and more computers than I can shake a stick at. Between the 2 Catalyst racks, the massive data rack and my stuff dimmer beach looks like freaking Houston. It should be easy.

Now we have to wait my last 2 years of US work visa and then, who knows? Maybe Europe or somewhere else. But its nice to come back and realize not everyone hates you! At least they're not telling =)

What the hell Argentina?

2011-07-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

OK so I finally got my passport. It took some detective work to figure wether it was done or not because a whole bunch of government websites don't work, and then the courier's website kind of doesn't work either. But, I have to admit, I'm disappointed. This is THE shittiest passport I've ever seen: its frail, boring, the pages are so thin they're almost translucent. Is this really what I waited for? I feel robbed!!

Don't Make Me Cry Argentina

2011-07-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

Part of the manic run post WWD included me catching one my (now routine) marathon flights to Buenos Aires. If you really want to know (and if you don't I'll tell you anyways) it was Auckland to LA, LA to Chicago, overnight in Chicago in the great Sutton Place Hotel, Chicago to Atlanta and Atlanta to Buenos Aires.

Unfortunately there was a delay between Chicago and Atlanta and I missed the flight to BA by about 20 seconds. The plane was still there! But the doors had been locked so there wan't much I could do. Regardless I made the next day's flight and got to BA a few hours late because we had to change the plane to a smaller...ehm...shittier one as there weren't many passengers. Not great at all really: 1980's 767 kind of blow today. Luckily my iPad had some charge and I just bought some new Beats Duo headphones (I trashed my Sony active ones, as I do with headphones) so I saw some movies and read some books and kind of put up with the teenage girls behind me that kept kicking me. Anyways, I landed, rushed to downtown to get to my passport renewal appointment, and things kind of fell apart.

In the very best of Argentine work ethic, nobody quite wants to help. The government which is supposed to be in your service becomes something you're at the mercy of. Completely ignoring the fact I had just flown 10 straight hours to come and do this 1 paper (in the only country in the world that doesn't give out passports in consulates and forces you to fly back) they wouldn't rush my passport, wouldn't take my US work visa as a proof I live there and then proceeded to stop working and talk to themselves, ignoring me and the girl next to me doing her passport. So now I'm waiting for my stupid passport whilst freezing in Buenos Aires, they sent me my National ID (which incidentally was meant to take way longer than the passport) that I find completely useless and was kind of forced to renew it and no news of the document I actually asked for. I'm flying on Saturday on my almost-expired passport and unless the new one gets here before I fly I'll have my mother FedEx the new one as fast as humanly possible (NextDay Air's a gazillion dollar service but it has to get done) to the US.

So all in all I've spent about U$S 2500 in flights for a U$S 55 passport, that I dont have; and dont know when I will have. Glorious. This makes a lot of sense.

The End

2011-07-10T02:49:00.000-07:00

The best part of Walking With Dinosaurs was, no doubt, the end of it. The last load out to be precise, and no, I'm not being some negative bastard. Read on:

We've had parties thrown for us, we've gotten posters, gifts and been mentioned in trade magazines and newspapers, but no doubt about it, bar none, the best thing that was ever done for us was tonight, by the Maori people in the Kiwi Krew stagehand company who threw a Haka for us. These guys loaded in and out with us twice, some of them worked the shows with us. They all knew it was the end of a grueling 2 years of touring and a record breaking show, above all in New Zealand. This show was incredibly successful in Auckland, we've done over 90,000 tickets and it was the best way to end a tour. But its still the end of a unique experience and a big part of our lives, and these guys decided to give us that's reserved for incredibly special occasions, and very particular and private in their culture.

I am (and I think all of us were) incredibly honored to have been offered this. We've heard a million speeches and reached a million milestones; seen countless performers and techs do their last shows, but nobody in this tour has ever applauded and cheered so loudly as we did this afternoon.

Now, the Haka:

Kia ora

Epilogue

2011-07-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

Its Sunday June 10th, 2 years and 1 day have passed since we all met at the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena in the UK for rehearsals. We had some trying first few weeks, getting to get into a rhythm that usually takes a week of load ins and outs but in this tour took over a month. We had a lot of broken gear and misconceptions; and a lot of nationalities, names and faces to get to know and remember. Throughout the way we lost some people and we gained some others

We are definitely one of the most bizarre, hodgepodge crews out there, we have all sorts of cultures and backgrounds, from rock and roll roadies to car mechanics, and then a collection of cast members from Shakespearian method actors to parkour athletes. It definitely took a while, but we got that rhythm going, we had the team happening. Sure we've had some fits, I've yelled at and been yelled at...there's been friendships made and broken, backstabbings and whispers in the dark. But what else is to be expected out of a crew of 70+ people living together for 2 years around the world, in some very demanding situations?

All of that aside, we kept the tour going, the shows happened and we kept them happening at a great level. We never cancelled a performance and quite a few have done very late nights and very early mornings to fix things and get things happening. We've had fires, melted transformers, broken dinosaur tails and who knows what else, but everyone pulled together to get it all done.

But this is it, one more show, another 30+ containers and flights home. All these people -for better or worse- have been my family for the last 2 years. Brothers, sisters, father figures (and the occasional estranged cousin), they have all been there doing the gig alongside each other, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So here's to the guys that got up before me, and went to bed after me, the ones that asked for my help and gave me help when I needed it, the ones that learned from me and taught me a lot; those that entertained us and those that watched in awe how we loaded this beast of a show in and out. I'll cross paths with you all again I hope.

Fighting in Auckland

2011-07-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

So last night I went to get some water and snack at a convenience store a few blocks from the hotel. As I got near I saw a group of kids come out of one store and move to the one I was headed to; they all stayed outside and one walked into the store. By the time I made it into the store I heard the kid slapping his hand on the counter saying "Put it right here so I can see it" and I realized he was trying to hold the damn place up! He noticed I walked into the store, panicked and tried to run past me at which point I grabbed him by the neck and asked him what the f@ck he thought he was doing.

Next thing I know 2 of his friends jumped me from behind, and in what has since become the first fight I've had in probably 15 years I proceeded to beat the crap out of them. Its the first time I've ever used my martial arts training on anyone other than a sparring partner. I was trying very hard to have these guys submit but they kept trying to hit me, and because Muay Chaiya doesn't have much in terms of lock and holds, I had to hit them back. One ended up with a gash on his eyebrow and the other one had his arm pretty much turned the wrong way around, I didn't break anything but I'm sure he'll have a sore or torn shoulder. The Chinese guy behind the counter was nice enough to let me buy what I had to buy and not charge me, and he said not to worry he'd call "his people" so I didn't have to deal with giving a police report in the middle of the night.

I think it was just a case of stupid teenage kids (bunch of white 17 year olds dressed like hip-hop gangstas) with island syndrome trying to intimidate a poor Chinese guy into giving them money. There's quite a bit of racism in Australia and New Zealand, a lot more in Australia though.

Oh well...one for the books.

You gotta be f@#ing kidding me!

2011-06-24T01:04:00.001-07:00

The damn volcanoes again. This tour has been cursed with these mountainous vomit machines. Last year we got screwed thanks to Eyjafjallajökull (look, it even vomited a name!) which made us take some interesting detours.

So now here I am, a year later stuck in Singapore this time because a volcano in Chile (Chile!) is sending their little packet of ash fairies everywhere. Except, of course, for Chile. Luckily Singapore Airlines is pretty damn good and they've put us up on the Pan Pacific Singapore where I have the luxury of an incredible view of the Sands Casino and the Singapore Flyer. You doubt it? Look:

So not all is lost, I have 3 days to get to Auckland and in the meantime 3 of my friends from school are in Singapore, and we're all meeting up at the top of the aforementioned Sands to celebrate one of their birthdays. What are the chances?

On Nutrition and Culture

2011-06-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

Interestingly, a whole group of people in Dinos is or has become vegetarian. Now, I'm a strict meat eater (I am from Argentina after all), but I've been obsessed about nutrition for the last 7 or 8 years so I decided to give it a try. I was especially inclined to give it a try after reading The Meatless Machine in Tim Ferris' "The 4 Hour Body" and then seeing this video:

I've resisted this for very long also because I have friends that work for PETA and their militant approach to it really pissed me off. Declaring that everything sucks and everything is poison and attacking anyone's point of view doesn't do much for their image. But that's another post in another time. I sort of appreciate what they are trying to do, but definitely not how they do it.

Back to the point, I've also realized that its very hard to be vegetarian in Japan; at least in the way I want to be. The problem I have with vegetarian food is that most places have to find a way to make it tasty or interesting and that usually ends up with it being covered in cheese, cream and butter; or being totally pasta-based. I try to not eat much pasta or rice, especially (and ironically) in Japan, because they won't let me into the gyms because of my tattoos. So loading up on a whole bunch of simple carbs and sitting on my ass don't help.

I've been eating a lot of Indian food which I used to hate, but they have a lot of good vegetarian stuff with lentils and chickpeas, and as long as their curries aren't super oily and avoid the naan, they're great options. So is Thai, and even Mexican. Except, of course, in Japan. So I went about asking and clearly, vegetarians just don't really exist in Japan. There may be a few, but I guess they are happy eating rice and soba every day. I found it really strange that Japan of all places doesn't have a huge amount of vegetarians, and that even cuisines that are known for it (Thai especially) don't even print out a vegetarian option for their meals.

We'll see how long I can keep this up. I'll be in Argentina mid-July, so I'm sure that will put an end to it!

Tokyo

2011-06-18T06:32:00.000-07:00

I was going to put a small counter on the title, but I've lost track of how many times I've been in Tokyo in the last year. Its beginning to get quite warm here, not as stifling hot as it will be in the dead of summer, but its inching there. I have to admit if I ever buy an A/C unit, it will be a Japanese one: these things deal from freezing winters to baking summers and they just perform day in and day out. I have a few more days in Tokyo and then off to Kamakura for a new Japanese experience...whilst staying at the Yokohama Intercontinental (toughing it out here).

In the meantime I've been trying either a) find an XAircraft T650 in New Zealand, or still attempt to buy my own frame and make a very delicate RC machine that I've never built or flown before. What could possibly go wrong??

Goodbye Oz

2011-06-16T15:46:00.000-07:00

We're done with Australia. Now its painfully clear the end of the tour is near; 2 more weeks in Auckland and that will be the end of 2 years of hopping around the world. We're all scrambling trying to figure out how to take all the stuff we've accumulated home, the freelancers are trying to figure out where to send their workboxes.

I have 2 weeks of labeling broken stuff to get repaired or checked at the shop, and then that massive load out where we have to separate al our gear to their respective company's container. Last load out is always a tough one.

Regardless, that's still 3 weeks away. Right now I am, once again, in the Hong Kong airport, waiting for my Cathay Pacific flight to Haneda. I've had some cool last few days in Brisbane: we went to the Australia zoo where I fed an elephant and a bunch of kangaroos, I saw the new X-Men (really good actually), saw Stomp at the Gold Coast, and rode that train line all over the place. All in all, a good way to end the week there. So one week in Japan including 3 days in Kamakura is very welcome!

I've been offered the Janet Jackson tour again, so hopefully my trip to Argentina will get me a new passport rather fast, because I only get 13 days of nothing. Also, I have to figure out what the hell I'm going to do at the end of Janet because I no longer have an apartment or place to live in the US. If I do How To Train Your Dragon that only puts me in the US for a couple of months and nobody will rent me an apartment for that time. I'll figure it out, plenty of choices...if all fails I'll sleep in the shop with the cats!!

GAUI

2011-06-11T01:09:00.000-07:00

So I've decided I will spend some more money on it and buy myself a GAUI 330X-S with a camera adaptor, the footage I've seen of this thing with a GoPro is incredible. I hope I can take this thing to Argentina and shoot some footage around the farm. Should be pretty fun!!

Brisbane

2011-06-06T03:41:00.000-07:00

Well this is it, the last week in Australia, and almost the end of the tour. We're in lovely Brisbane (aka Brisvegas), in yet another Ibis hotel. Its a pretty cool city I think, hilly, with a good combination of old buildings and modern constructions, a pretty decent pedestrian shopping street and a Jaycar store.

Jaycar is Australia's version of what RadioShack used to be. Not quite top notch gear in it, but there are tons of things and in a pickle it will save you. I found some heatshrink, zip tie gun and soem other odds and ends in it. Lance bought half the store but he has more faith in their components than I do. My favorite purchase was 4 locks for toggle switches we're going to put on our motor PDs, effectively making them more "fighter jet"-like, which is just cool besides functional.

On the other hand we also have a toy store that sells Parrot AR Drones. They are expensive but I really want one. A quadcopter that I can control with my iPod and has 2 cameras?! Please!! I actually want an X4 but at $9000 I'll keep to the AR Drone for now.

I've been going semi vegetarian for 2 days now, its been hard finding stuff I really want to eat...most vegetarian meals at catering are worse than eating anything else! We'll see..it'd be an interesting change for a little while.

Load in tomorrow. Should head to bed now!

The Other Side Of The Page

2011-05-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

We just had our "farewell" party (even though we have 5 weeks left) at Ivy in Sydney. First, you have to check this place out if you ever come to Sydney. Personally its one of the coolest lounges I've been in, a poolside terrace with great music and great funky bands. Second, I met a man called Mark Carter, who does leadership speaking, etc for companies.

Mark and I had a great talk about the way we think, and its been the first time I've had to express how I think to someone else. It was actually quite a big thing for me, because I think the only reason I'm so successful at what I do is completely due to how I think and process things and I've never had to explain it to someone.

In a way, and I know this will sound very "kitch" nowadays, I think in 3D. Not quite like Avatar; I process problems and solutions not as a linear state but as a matrix: I don't always follow a line of progress but I like to think of alternative solutions. I think this is also what has taught me to accept everyone as a teacher. My school and most of the usual education teaches that higher degrees or more experienced people are the only ones we should take our ways from, but I've found anyone can be a teacher. Even as a negative influence, i.e. "I don't want to be like that", we can learn and adapt based on everyone's experiences.

At the same time, I'm a firm believer we should never stop learning. That's why I'm 28 and teaching myself Japanese amongst other things. Everything is welcome in my mind.

Mark had a great point. He said that if we write a problem on one side of a sheet of paper and a solution on the other, we can only see one at a time: as long as you look at the problem that is all you see. I think the way my brain works lets me expand to alternative ways of finding solutions, if you ever see me try and solve a very complicated problem with a light you'd think I have no idea what I'm doing. Its this combination of highly technical, number-crunching and totally instinctual thinking that gets me through most problems.

Sometimes, you have to fold the page over and see both sides.

Bridge!

2011-05-26T02:14:00.001-07:00

We climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Monday:

That is, left to right: Head Of Creatures Mikey, Head Rigger Mark, Resident Director Alli and myself; and some little opera house in the background.

Great climb, if anyone does it I recommend the Express one, it only takes 2 hours, its a bit cheaper and it takes you through the inside of the bridge which is a bit cooler I think.

Now I'm back in our Lighting Hospital with a VL 3000 spinning around next to me.

New favorite blog

2011-05-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

Not sure how I found it but My Modern Met is now one of my top blogs out there (along with Gizmodo, Unplggd and NOTCOT). The have a great section on photography by different bloggers and it takes a really wide swath of styles. They have this interview up there from a contest winner which is great for any amateur photographers like myself.

You really should read the whole thing, but the best part is the final question:

"Q: Finally, any last words?
A: Life affects my photography. A photo is special because it is a working time machine. What happens when I look at an old photo? I feel the nostalgia, I smell the smells, remember the feelings I had at that exact moment. A photo is one moment frozen in time, or several moments captured into one image, but ultimately a moment that will continue to live, even when humans no longer inhabit this place. A photograph brings me back to the places where I wish to be: my utopia. Photographs allow me to realize that I have reached ultimate happiness at a point in my life, because I am too busy living in the moment to realize it."

Bonus

2011-05-20T06:12:00.001-07:00

Going all Gallagher on a MAC 2000:

(For the record, this was a joke we had running today at work, I don't actually take 14lb sledgehammers to lights...but I still carry it with me!)

I Suck At Games

2011-05-20T05:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, there it is, officially out for the world to see: I suck at games. I've known this for quite a while...I was always terrible at video games, and now I haven't improved much. Last night we were at our "local" in Sydney playing pool (and getting intensely blitzed on vodka, lime and sodas) and man, I was abismal.

This morning though it hit me that the reason I give up and never win (you know: repetition is the mother of all skill) is because my brain just can't consider this a useful waste of time. In the same way I can't go see a "serious" movie at the theater, games are a form of entertainment and distraction. If I'm going to have to concentrate and practice then a) it's not doing what its supposed to be doing and b) I'd rather concentrate on something useful. That's why I have no problem splitting my days around all the things I try to learn (Japanese, music, electronics, martial arts, whatever-software-Im-infatuated-with, fitness) but at the same time I completely cannot play more than 1 ball in pool.

At the same time I've found it really hard in the last few weeks to apply myself to all these things. Mostly because I keep getting movies and TV shows and I suck at scheduling my own time. I mean, hitting "Next" on iTunes is a lot easier than concentrating on Japanese phrases or relationship graphs on FileMaker. It's a work in progress, I'm trying to find how to best block my time off and sticking to it.

Anyways, bedtime, おやすみ！！

Sydney

2011-05-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

My flu and general miserable sense is gone as well as 2 small cavities I had (first time I've ever gotten any cavitiy work done, pretty good for 28 years!). I try to not take a lot of medication (some aspirin now and then if I have a headache, but those are rare in me) but those antibiotics were very welcome.

In the meantime Melbourne came and went and now we're in Sydney: home to the Harbour Bridge, the opera House and CPC's offices. It's also very clear now that the tour is coming to an end soon, we have been asked to redirect our mail back to our homes, and after Sydney there's 2 more cities in Australia and 1 in New Zealand and that is IT. For now. We think.

Other than that...messy load in, and a couple of show days. No much going on. Planning another trip to Japan.

Fluff

2011-05-06T05:35:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that's all this post is, just fluff. I felt like I had to post something, but I really have no idea what I should talk about.

Honestly nothing new has happened. Our load in at the Hisense Arena in Melbourne was a tough one, my Dimmers truck was late and both dimmer beaches are on some raised platforms on the side of the stage. So I spent all day jumping up and down these concrete balconies. That and adapting to a bit of a different load in. Luckily we're here for 2 weeks.

Otherwise...not much else; got some antibiotics, an iodine-based gargle for my sore throat (you know it's bad when the doc looks into your throat and goes "oh!") and a couple of dark days coming up.

I bought a new tripod from a brand called Induro which I had never heard of, but its really nice. A lot bigger than I wanted to, but its carbon fiber, comes with a carrying case, a set of steel spikes and tools to adjust it and maintain it. It's super smooth and low profile, and I bought a very small Manfrotto ball head. I may eventually upgrade it to a Rally Right Stuff BH-30 but for now I think this is great!

Well, I'm off to sleep, got a couple of shows tomorrow, and more Cyberlights to fix.

4th Time's The Charm?

2011-05-02T00:09:00.001-07:00

I'm back in Melbourne. For the 4th time. In 2 months. Incredibly I've barely scratched the surface of this city, I spent most time working so I still have quite a ways to go exploring.

We did our first load out in the Australian leg last night out of Adelaide. Pretty good, even more so considering Ed was in the hotel with a pretty screwed up back so we had to cover ourselves more. We made in the same amount of time so I guess we did a good ob of it. Its awesome to be able to tell stagehands directly and not through a bunch of translators.

Well, off to Doherty's for a little training and then bed!

Woes

2011-04-26T01:38:00.000-07:00

As much sunshine and happiness there is in Australia, I'm doing like hell. I've been sick since the end of last week, and its just not going anywhere. I have this nasty cold, and my throat is really sore.

I'm a bit worried, I haven't been sick in a long time, and this year so far this is the second time, in about 3 months. I've been really tired and lethargic lately. I'm going to see the doc tomorrow and see if they can run a whole batten of tests and determine what the hell is going on. Maybe some antibiotics will do me good. Who knows.

I'm gonna crawl back into bed now. Yuck.

Dense

2011-04-22T01:28:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to learn FileMaker for the last couple of days. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out software or reading a couple of page in the manual and getting it done. Its how I got Arduino programming skills and its how I learn to use all of our lighting boards. FileMaker, on the other hand, is the densest, most boring piece of software that I've ran into. I even bought the Missing Manual book, and that is slightly less dense.

This is gonna take a while. Why do I get myself into these stupid projects?!

G'day mate(s)!!

2011-04-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

And....I'm back in Australia. We're in Melbourne doing maintenance for the Walking With Dinosaurs rig. Our last push for the time being, Australia and New Zealand and then we are done. Its incredible to think it's been 2 years with these guys (and beasts) and its almost over.

But here we are, cleaning my racks and consoles; they were filthy, its incredible how much gunk you collect after 18 months on the road. I'm sure the smoggy atmosphere of China didn't help at all. Painting truss, fixing lights, re-labeling things and organizing spare parts. I spent a while cleaning the outside of my racks, they smell delicious, like oranges.

I could take a million pictures, but we are in the Creatures' workshop as they work on the How To Train Your Dragon live show and its very very top secret. I can say though, the dragons look incredible so far. Its going to be a spectacular show. The stuff these guys make is unbelievable. Hopefully this will all kick off next year!

On Friday we get to go and have a class. We need to be EWPA certified to drive the boom lift around and this is a serious full-day class. I figured if we didn't kill ourselves this far, considering some of the dodgy lifts we got (I'm looking at you Russia) and the fact we're self-taught, we should be just fine!

Right now its dinner time. Its also raining.

Flying the plane

2011-04-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

"Fuck you JetStar, if i wanted to do this much work to fly somewhere I'd just pilot the damn plane myself!"

This is my latest status update in facebook. I mean, look I'm sorry, I fly for a living; I recognize shitty airlines, and I recognize this one. JetStar, you're nominated!

So, they moved my flight that was direct from Narita to Cairns so that now (and I mean NOW, the second I checked in, no previous warning) I have to fly from Narita to Kansai, change airplanes, and continue to Cairns....3 hours later. So now I have 1 hour between connections, and their answer? "You have to try and make it, sorry." Really? So besides the nonchalant we-are-screwing-you-but-cant-help-you attitude, you're still going to charge me the overweight luggage fees, no mercy? Not even a bit?

Fine, 1 hour, I can make it...except they forgot to mention that I have to collect my luggage and check-in again in Cairns. Its a domestic flight so they cannot POSSIBLY give me 2 boarding tickets.

This is stupid. I get some mischef in small domestic mom-and-pop airlines, but not on an international flight. This isn't the train I took from Croatia to Venice, this is a serious airline. Or so I thought.

JetStar is broken...I hope they fix it. But I'm going to try my hardest to never ever have to use them again.

Upgrades

2011-04-13T23:04:00.000-07:00

Well, the D300 is officially out of the picture (get it? get it? picture...because its a camera?) and the D3S is ricking out my new rig. because of the DX lenses I had for the D300 I had to really upgrade the system, which was just such a shame, you really have to twist my arm to buy new gadgets...ehem. Right.

So, new gig pack:

Based on a Think Tank Shape Shifter backpack because my Lowepro just couldn't even fit the D3S body let alone al the new glass. Inside there is:

Nikon D3S
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8
Leica Summicron-R 35mm f/2
Leica Summilux-R 80mm f/1.4
Leica Elmarit-R 28mm f/2.8

I also carry a Cokin P-size holder, a Cokin ND2 and soon to come a set of Singh-Ray Grad NDs and CPLs.

I did a few shots around Naka-Meguro the other day, and this one seems to be the most popular so far:

So, new toys! Now I have to get back to Oz this weekend and start checking out more photo shoots.

Kyoto

2011-04-08T05:40:00.001-07:00

I decided to take a small trip to Kyoto for just 2 days to watch the sakura blooming over there. I also spent about 2 hours trying to get a Japanese cell phone, but that's another story.

Kyoto is a strange city, somewhat like a mini-Tokyo but stuck in time. Not a good time either, but like in the 70s. There's something very odd about its architecture that makes it look very dated. At the same time, they have kept some incredible Edo period buildings alive, and getting lost in these old gigantic shrines in unreal, especially at night. Lounging on top of the Kiyomizu-dera (which is Heian, not Edo) on a cold night with all the sakura lit up is pretty spectacular. Even more when you realize it all got built by hand, and how solid it is.

But enough words...more pictures:

Prayers:

More prayers!:

And, finally...some sakura:

There's a lot of pics from that trip, I'm still sorting and editing them, and then off to flickr they go.

I've officially upgraded today, I bought a D3S, and along the way I also picked up 2 Leica "R" lenses to adapt to Nikon. Now I have a D300 and some DX lenses I need to figure out what to do with!!

There's some more news as to what happens after Walking With Dinosaurs is over...but its hush hush for now!

Jet lagged debit card

2011-04-01T01:17:00.000-07:00

So I went over to ヨドバシカメラ (Yodobashi Camera) very excited to buy a Nikon D3S, except my card wouldn't work. It happens, although I just went all the way to Shinjuku to get this. But the biggest problem is my freaking bank card center is closed. Meh.

I hope I can get in touch with them tonight and go buy this tomorrow, I have a lunch meeting there anyways.

Break time is over

2011-03-30T16:47:00.000-07:00

I'm done with the Neil Diamond tour. The "resident" guys are off to South Africa while all the Australian crew, Will and Myself have moved on to other things. I have 2 and a half weeks off and then I'm back in Melbourne to do some WWD maintenance and then that tour again for the last 3 months.

I'm going to try and do some footage of the maintenance week, it'd be interesting to have all of the show laid out in bits, consoles open, racks taken apart, all that jazz. Plus I need some more pics of myself working, you know...proof.

I've been seriously considering getting a full frame camera for a couple of months now. I almost went and bought a Leica M9 in New York, but the problem with that the turnover would end up costing me around $14,000 with Leica lenses. I've read reviews and they are a bit on and off about it. I may end up going down the line and getting a Nikon D3S: I can use the Leica R lenses with the Leitax bayonets and also some of my current Nikon non-DX lenses (my favorite 50mm f/1.8 being one of those).

I'm ready for this little "vacation". It's been a bit non-stop in the last few months and a change of pace I think is welcome.

Midnight Train From Perth

2011-03-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

For those that haven't seen the Neil Diamond tour (pretty much 100% of the people reading this blog!) the title of this entry is based on "Midnight Train To Georgia" which Neil recorded in his last album and one of my favorite songs of the show. But this is it, Pert, last city in the tour for me, the rest of the guys are off to South Africa and Europe while I'm having a 2 and a half week break and then coming back to Australia for more Walking With Dinosaurs.

It's been an odd tour, on one hand I loved Australia and I'm very proud of working for an artist like Neil Diamond (even if it is as #5 in the lighting crew), on the other I've managed to once again become the angry, lonely, cast away guy. I find it extremely frustrating that the fact I don't follow the same plans as the other people in the crew instantly puts me in a giant disadvantage socially. Because I dont' want to hang out in a hotel drinking beer, or go out with them drinking in the middle of the day I get increasingly cast away. It's not the industry I thought I was in, and I know different crews have different dynamics, but its becoming a vicious circle, where isolating myself is an increasing method of self-protection. At the same time the more I isolate myself, the more I get put aside and the more angry I get at myself at them for it. Something has to change, and I'm not sure what it is. I'm not giving up my plans, I have to much stuff going on at once to start going out drinking at 10am.

I'm thinking there is a serious mental problem here, where my obsession over learning things and living this life of eating well and working out and reading and learning is ruining my social/work life. I had a very depressed last couple of weeks. Added to the problem of my own isolation I also have a problem I've very adept at attaching myself to the vibes around me (without the hippie vibe, not from me!) so that when I detect malice around me - and especially towards me - I get very closed up and upset, and it happens a lot in this tour, at least directed towards me. It's gotten to the point in my life whee being the angry grumpy guy just is easier, and I'm not that guy, its just an easy image to put up.

Well...I have a small break coming up. We'll see what happens next.

Earth Hour

2011-03-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

I find it ironic that during Earth Hour I was actually consuming a ridiculous amount of electricity at our show. Sorry Earth!

Shake it!

2011-03-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

What a tour! We got slammed by an earthquake right next door when we were in New Zealand, and now there's one in Japan while we're in Australia. This sucks. I sincerely hope things in Japan don't escalate, I have to be there at the end of the month! I don't do well with radiation, I can't work backstage if I glow in the dark...

But well, everyone I care about in Japan seems to be fine and they all have offers to help them get out of there, hopefully before its too late.

Geez...

Pete Eckert

2011-02-12T20:49:00.000-08:00

This guy has a great story to tell. Visit his website and watch this movie:

| Artists Wanted | In Focus : Pete Eckert from Artists Wanted on Vimeo.

Irony

2011-02-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

You know what's ironic? That of all the songs Neil Diamond has, the one I have stuck in my head is "Coming To America". Its ironic because I did come to America and I just got offered to start my Green Card paperwork. Also of all the instruments, its a xylophone line that is looping in my head.

But today was load out. Stuff was brought down, taken apart, packed up and put in a truck (or plane).

So far so good. On Friday I fly to New Zealand and we start this little shindig.

LAX

2011-02-06T13:38:00.001-08:00

Alright! Hello LA, hello...warm weather? I'm freezing myself here this sucks. Really I was very excited about warm weather and shorts and pool and sunglasses and, no, it hasn't happened. I mean we're still better off than the folks up in Chicago.

But, regardless, we're still rehearsing at Culver Studios, which is incredibly iconic. They are shooting what they promise us is the next X-Men right down the lot from us and Cougar Town is literally next door. Not to mention we're rehearsing at the studios that once used to be I Love Lucy and they Gone With The Wind house is their main office building.

I have some cool shots of the lighting, but I'm not allowed to put them up yet so in the meantime, we can check out Venice Beach:

Super Bowl party today. I think I have to attend even though I know nothing of the sport and have no clue who is playing. Meh.

Back in the US

2011-01-24T11:19:00.000-08:00

While I'm clearly not a patriot of any country, I've never quite gotten the extreme pro-country behaviour. The first thing that comes to mind is how many times I've scoffed at "God bless America" but the reality is that right now, as I hang out in the San Francisco airport, I'm extremely happy to be back, if only for the sole reason that people understand what I'm saying.

I'm headed to New York for 4 days, and then to Los Angeles. While the Dinos take a break and a swim over to the land down under, I'll be doing rehearsals and then a short New Zealand / Australia tour with Neil Diamond. I'm excited to have a change of pace and people, to load in an end-stage show and to have musicians. I know...I'm actually excited to have musos! Its incredible.

I'm also equally excited to have left China. To be honest I found the country a bit backwards, which is sad because I had really high expectations. The reality is that even if I understand and always tolerate (and welcome) cultural differences, China's proved too many and too different. The constant spitting, coughing without covering one's mouth and general level of hygiene were incredible. I'm lucky to not get sick often and be very health-conscious, but the rest of the troupe weren't as lucky. The lack of attention and education, the poor level of English from our translators even. I mean, I usually try to pick up some of the local language to be nice, but in China it was almost a necessity.

I'm starting Wing Chun classes tomorrow in New York, and the whole China experience has left me very disheartened. Unlike Muay Chaiya where being in Thailand with the Baan Chang Thai crew left me wanting to come back all the time, China really made me stop wanting to learn any of their stuff.

But being back in the US this time has become something different. I'm actually looking forward to walking into a Walgreens and pickup up something without it including a careful examination of the label and maybe 3 or 4 people. I want to be able to tell a taxi driver where to go and he can understand my words (most of the time), and really I want to visit friends I haven't seen in a long time.

Well, its a bit of Americana for me (I just steak and eggs, which is the first time I've ever had that but I felt it was a good welcome) while I prepare truck packs for Australia and New Zealand. Here we go again.

Chineseries

2011-01-22T01:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Shanghai...don't mind us if we break one of our stagehand's legs 5 minutes into load-in. This is rapidly becoming the most dangerous tour ever. These people just refuse to pay attention.

Anyways, I've been snapping some pics of some rather unusual things here in China:

I assume this is how Soylent Green starts.

Paper for each of you.

And....just plain odd and disgusting:

Nanjing

2011-01-15T05:05:00.000-08:00

Honestly, as our first taste of China, Nanjing has left us with a very sour aftertaste in our mouth. It really has been one of the most grueling, frustrating and sometimes backwards weeks I've ever had. Its incredible to see how their culture completely invalidates all of what we're used to, and I'm sorry to say its usually in the wrong way.

For example: our hotel is still being built. I mean it, the gym won't be open for another 2 months, there are empty rooms and the restaurants only work half the time. Unfortunately their service and construction quality are...well...shit. This is reflected everywhere else in the city. Nanjing is literally getting built around us as we are here: monstrous towers and parks, business centers, stadiums and arenas. But they're all empty, the arena has no hot water and just 1 elevator and everything feels like its just for show. Like if you give that main door a tug, it will come off (and it probably will).

The level of English is extremely poor, and scarce. Some people try very hard to help us out, others stare at us in a way that would never happen in the West. They smoke everywhere, and what is worse they spit everywhere. They're always sick and wondering why. We almost came to blows during load-in because they kept spitting on our work areas and million-dollar floor.

And then, then there was load-out. To begin the tale of why it was a complete disaster (other than we actually all pulled together and for the most part helped each other) I have to mention our first show of the 3-show day was at 10am, unlike our usual 11. Our last show was at 19:30, unlike the usual 19. So the're a 1:30hrs gap of people getting more tired. Then we got announced we had to stop for a 30 minute dinner break at midnight.

In the end, we had less people than we were supposed to have, a lot of which had another gig in Shanghai, to which they went to during the dinner break (without telling anyone). We had 3 of our crew members in the hospital, 1 injured stagehand and we're all exhausted, bruised and battered.

Yeah we're not doing that great here. Whatever, 6 days left in China.

Ying & Yang

2011-01-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

The two sides of things, traditional in Chinese culture, seem really fitting to my last few hours.

I spent one more week in Bangkok while our gear got road-trashed (read: driven) to Nanjing. Bangkok was a bit better than last time. I knew where I was going, I knew where my hotel was, where Ekamai was and how close to Baan Chang Thai. I knew how not to get scammed by cabbies and tuk-tuk drivers.

The hotel this time was a lot better than the rather shady one from last time. Clean, giant rooms, big HD TV, 2 really good air conditioners. The bathroom was a bit dark, and I would have loved to have at least 1 range on my “kitchen”, but otherwise it was great. The pool/bar area was pretty chilled out with a pool table nearby. What I have noticed, like most “boutique” hotels in Thailand, is that service is where the frayed ends are at. Not that it was bad, it just seems that that is the part they leave for last. Computers aren’t on in the front desk when you want to pay, they have to radio or run to the kitchen to give in a breakfast order, etc etc. But hey, they’re nice and they try.

It was also, and probably most important: warm. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Above all it was nice to be surrounded by good friends. The people at BCT treat me like one of their own. I did manage to really hurt my back on Saturday during training doing a Heurn Wiang Kaeng (Jumping Turning Shin Kick) so I’m a bit out of commission right now.

That would be the Ying, the Yang is flying to China. It started off with someone in my aisle seat, refusing to move while he yelled at me to take his seat in the middle. I refused and eventually he caved to the angry Quailo covered in tattoos. As we landed everyone just ignored (they’re good at ignoring stuff) the announcement, and got up and started getting ready to leave a plane that was still taxiing. While we waited the guy behind me proceeded to cough in my direction without covering his mouth.

And now…the weather. It is insanely cold in the Guangzhou airport, and only bound to get colder in Nanjing. Why they have such a massive A/C system that they won’t use is beyond me. I think my fingers are numb.

Oh, we’re boarding. I’m one of 2 foreigners on the plane. This should be incredible.

MMXI

2010-12-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011!!!

I actually just took that photo from my room window at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. I have a lucky life sometimes.

Life in the Lighting Hospital

2010-12-30T04:21:00.000-08:00

Its been.

A busy.

Pair of.

Weeks.

Even after all of this:

Approach, and landing

2010-12-28T22:14:00.000-08:00

Well its official, the tour is dwindling down: we have 3 more weeks in Asia left, and then we take a giant break until April when we hit Australia and New Zealand. As Jake Berry very eloquently put it: "The Comet has landed". But we're not quite extinct yet. There are other things in the horizon which I'm hoping I can be a part of, but that's a story for next year!

In the meantime we are chugging along in Hong Kong. I'm headed back to Bangkok after this to do some more training, then off to freeze my ass off in Nanjing and Shanghai. I considered heading to Nanjing early and learning some Wing Chun there, but I couldn't find many English lessons in that city. A bit disappointed, but hey I get to visit my Baan Chang Thai friends once again, and stay at yet another boutique hotel in Bangkok with mixed reviews. Hopefully it's a better fit than my last one; in any case its closer to BCT, the supermarket and 7/11. Oh and the pharmacy, which I may need after a month of not doing Muay Chaiya!

I leave you all with this:

Honk Kong Phooey

2010-12-26T04:12:00.000-08:00

Well, its been a week in Hong Kong and its great. The city is great, the show has been...convalescing. Our lighting rig came out the rucks looking like a sad excuse of itself. Another 5 ridiculous days to get it up to par. I know, everyone complains how their work days are hard; try 6am wake up calls and 11pm bedtimes every single day, 9 shows in 3 days and about 50 broken moving lights to fix.

The other problem is priorities, I can't just pick the easiest fixes first, because some lights are more important than others. So VL1000s are first, they are also the hardest, by far, to fix. And of course we had about 5 of them down, with only 2 functioning spares I had to work my ass off the first day to get all 12 lights running for the first show. Then I tackled everything else. Meanwhile the never ending supply chain of broken MACs, Cyberlights and VL3000 just kept running wild. We took apart a 208V rack because we thought it had problems, a $5000 fiber optic router quit on us and I spent about an hour climbing to try and fix a DMX issue the first day. When it rains, its a fucking typhoon.

But hey, shit's working again, I have a new (handmade!!) passport, and went to see the Symphony Of Lights. It was not very symphonic, maybe a chamber quartet? It doesn't matter the city is incredible, even more at night.

I need to finish off this post, I'm starving and will start hallucinating soon if I don't eat. New nutritional plan is incredible, but its making me fucking hungry!

PS: Just to show off, this is the view from my room:

Passport rant

2010-12-18T23:34:00.000-08:00

I know, I rant a lot. I'm opinionated about things, and the lack of advancement in some fields that could make life easier while we advance in others that are wasteful (war being #1 in my list) pisses me off. It's actually not an angry rant, I just had an epiphany of how inefficient we are.

I have to renew my passport, because, of all things, its ran out of pages. This happens when you travel so much, but why, in the year 2010, do I have to carry a little book with me?! I can text my heating system at home and tell it to turn on and off; I can book and check in a flight from my cell phone; but some dude has to physically stamp a little book made of expensive paper that runs out? Why because it helps you control what?

Why dont' we have an RFID card, or a USB stick? My looks change? Upload a new picture! Need to track me? It's online! Run out of pages? There are none!

But that's fine, because we have planes that fly themselves and can drop a nuke on some poor village in Iran, that's worth 20,000,000 dollars. Good going Buster.

Hong Kong

2010-12-18T23:14:00.000-08:00

I have to say that while I was a bit disappointed not to have flown into Hong Kong at night (as my mother continuously advised me to), it was stil pretty impressive to just get here. I wasn't sure what to expect since some countries and cities are a bit overhyped, but this one was absolutely incredible.

I've yet to do much, I walked around the Hong Kong Park, checked out their aviary and Tai Chi garden, and got turned away from the tram tot he Peak because I hate standing in line. I hate standing in line with tourists even more.

I will try and catch the Symphony Of Lights tonight, because...well its a giant light show what else do you want? As a bonus, its been designed by John Rayment, who also happens to be the lighting designer for a little show called Walking With Dinosaurs :P

Singapore

2010-12-15T01:32:00.000-08:00

Singapore was a bit of an odd experience. For starters after all the noise and huff I hear about the place I expected to see policemen everywhere monitoring what we were doing and fining people. The closest thing we found to this was in our landing card:

Welcome!

Other than that it was a bit like anywhere else, except stuff is pretty damn clean. Our gear was pretty shaken up driving and cross-loading to Singapore through Malaysia and Bangkok, so we had 2 ridiculously hard weeks. I mean 7am-till-10pm hard. Maybe it doesn't sound that bad, but when its for 2 straight weeks and a non-stop line of problems each one worse than the last one..it gets a bit old.

But in the end, even though we barely made it stuff looked pretty decent. All the Cyberlights lit up, all the smoke machines smoked (in the right way..not the "caught-on-fire" way), and all the racks...racked. We did have a snazzy hospital area:

My desk. Beats a cubicle.

And as always lots of cables:

But the coolest thing by far was visiting the Raffles hotel, which my brother once managed. After so many years of seeing their pics of the hotel and hearing about it, being there was really surreal. But there I was!!!!

สวัสดี

2010-11-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

Well, its almost the end of Thailand. I should say the end of bangkok because that is all I've seen. Some of the other people in the tour have gone to other cities and islands for this week off but I've stayed in a half-assed attempt at training some more.

Thailand is pretty unique really. The people are incredibly nice, and its strange to still see a country this day with such devotion to their King. To the point where before every movie (and indeed our show also) the King's Anthem is played, as a patriarch to the arts and culture. It's refreshing though, it makes you feel like there's something more than just politics. Combine this with their devotion to monks and buddhism and its just a great culture to be around for a change. It's also cheap and the food is insanely good.

So I spent the first 2 weeks training in Baan Chang Thai, doing the mostly unknown martial art Muay Chaiya. It really is a great martial art, very well designed and clearly incorporates techniques from other styles, even if it did destroy my feet (we practice on a concrete floor)! Me and Tey (Prawit Kittichanthira) - who is both our star fighter and one of the leads in the movie Muay Thai Chaiya - had a little "fake sparring" photoshoot to freak out my mom:

The shows went really well, the Thai people were a great audience. It was a hard week, with all of us having to get used to working again (I know...tough life), and with all our gear being sitting there for 9 weeks; although, it was all in pretty spectacular shape, we have a great freight agent. But hey, we're done, loaded out and ready for Singapore.

I wil have to come back here though, there's more to see. And I need to get my sparring up to spec!

Break time is over!

2010-10-26T04:58:00.000-07:00

Alright, I spent 5 weeks off, I'm done with waiting. I'm currently in the Washington DC airport (2nd home lately) waiting for my connecting flight to Tokyo, and then to Bangkok. I have 2 more weeks off there doing Muay Thai Chaiya at Baan Chang Thai, and then we start working again.

I really had nothing to do. I had the option of coming back to the US and going on tour, but I had to get my H1B visa renewed and I couldn't do any plans until that was sorted. I did get tattooed also; in the process I also managed to bust my forehead open, get stitches and finish the tattoo. Then I went to Tokyo for 2 weeks, stitches and all, made for a fun time.

I think I'm going to wander around the terminal again, maybe I can find the United Red Carpet Club that I'm now allowed entry to. Free olives, come on!!!

Up up and away

2010-09-12T00:55:00.000-07:00

So the tour has suddenly (de?) evolved. We've postponed the Beijing dates which, with the weeks off between that and Thailand, puts us at 9 weeks off in total. Of course this has caused some minor panic in the tour with people (such as me) that have given up apartments and rented houses and have nowhere to go. I have to return to Argentina anyways and renew my US work visa (probably why I haven't slept a wink these last 2 weeks), so no biggie.

So tonight, being the last day in a while, we have 3 shows (including a 19:30 late start one), load out which puts me at the hotel around 2/3am, 6am bus, 10am flight and then I catch a series of flights for 35 hours to Buenos Aires. You might as well sandpaper my brain and blow battery acid into my eyes to make it an even 10.

Last time I attempted this retarded stunt was after Brussels at the end of the European leg and I hated it. With all my passion. I was surrounded by rude Argentinians that wouldn't sleep or keep the windows shut, and kept having these meetings around me. I was also sitting on the bulkhead of Lufthansa's oldest 747, which meant the seats were like rocks and every time the drinks cart came out of the kitchen it would unequivocally ram into the side of my seat, waking me up. This time I go with a nearly cancelled visa, and in United which proved rather...crap, on the way here. Woo.

I do have 7 hours in Washington, if I make it through immigration because the last officer scribbled on my visa when he read the wrong date. I shit you not. This could be epic. Apparently there's a few things to do in that terminal, all of them which I missed last time and was convinced all we had was a crappy Starbucks.

I hope I make it...Jazz (stewardess supreme) may be at my DC-Argentina flight, which could have its bonuses!

Planes Planes Planes

2010-08-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

I've flown around 56 hours in the last week alone. From Fukuoka to Buenos Aires (via Tokyo and Dallas) and 5 days later from Buenos Aires to Taipei (via Washington and Tokyo, where I'm writing this from). I'm getting great miles though, at the downside of my muscles getting atrophied.

This last flight was crazy. As we got into Washington immigration they kept shutting down lane after lane until there was only 2 open for a huge line. I've never spent so long in immigration, especially being so close to the front. A bunch of us started talking and this girl and I that both had long connections ended up at the same gate area. We figured out her boss went to school and graduated with me and is a good friend. The world is small.

Afterwards, on my flight to Tokyo, while talking to the stewardess (fighting nerve damage on my legs from not standing up) we figured she's on my flight to Argentina in 2 weeks. Weird. But good news, I have an inside friend now =D

By the way, since this section is all done in United, those planes are horrible. Tiny...I'm not that tall and had a tough time fitting in the seat..it was ridiculous. One more 3:35 hour flight to go!

The sticks

2010-08-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

We've been going around Japan quite a lot. Osaka was pretty nice, if not stupidly busy (but that seems to be the default schedule for this leg of the tour), with a gorgeous view of the impressive Osaka Castle from the top of the hotel.

After that bustling city we went to...Kakegawa. Also know as the sticks. The arena was isolated on a mountain side in Shizuoka, but we stayed in Kakegawa in what is, no doubt about it, the smallest room I have EVER stayed in. It also had the weirdest bathroom and hardest bed. A whole lot of firsts there. Not a damn thing to do, not a single word of English anywhere (except the train station) and a lot of stares. They seem to be in partial shock about tattoos, especially mine since it's half covered in Japanese characters.

The venue was quite a ways away, next to a massive stadium built for the Korea/Japan World Cup on a mountainside. Nice venue, pretty new, and really really isolated. There was next to nothing to do asides from sitting in the little terrace for about 5 minutes before the heat and humidity left you a sopping mess.

But as always we took off, made it to Saitama. Finally, we thought, a real hotel again. At least the area had a ton of stuff to do, and we were only 30 minutes away from Tokyo. The hotel was nicer, but the room was small again, and the pillows were made of concrete or steel, or both. I did finally buy a new camera, a lovely Olympus Tough since I cracked my last camera's screen in half. I really wanted a Lumix tough one, but the ones they carry here don't have English as an option.

The venue...oh the venue. Saitama Super Arena. It's deffinitely big, and with potential to be Super. The whole arena can expand sideways, the 30 tons roof goes up and down, and the hydraulic floor also raises and lowers. Sadly...we had less room and more restrictions than anywhere else. Dimmer beach was on a raised platform barely big enough to fit it, the floor took about 4 hours to move since they don't have enough hydraulic power to do the whole thing at once, and I was kept wondering why we didn't push the structure sideways and give me another say...10 meters to work with.

In any case, we're almost done in Nagoya. Today is our last day here, one more show to go and then load out and head to Fukuoka for our last week in Japan.

Sayonara!

Hiroshima

2010-07-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are, in Hiroshima. We survived one of the busiest weeks in the tour in Yokohama, did a daytime load out and took a 4 hour bullet train ride and made it to the rainiest place we've been to. Seriously, it's been raining non-stop for 3 days.

I had plans to go to Miyajima, which is a gorgeous island with shrines and pagodas and rice spatulas, but instead I've settled for the 7-11 around the corner. It's disappointing, but if the weather doesn't improve tomorrow I'm scratching the island off the plans and hitting the museums.

Strangely enough its 11am and I stil haven't gone to load in, which is very strange. We'll need to get used to this stuff in Japan, but its really strange and unsettling. I had a system going, and it did not involve being awake for 4 hours before I went to work.

Argentina

2010-07-02T06:21:00.001-07:00

I have been in and out of Argentina. 5 weeks there have been more than I've spent in years, and I'm happy to have moved on. I'm at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport right now, waiting for my connecting flight to Tokyo and hopefully meeting our new 2nd rigger, Lance.

Buenos Aires was pretty much the same as it has been the last times I've gone. Slightly dodgy at times; with a very close, informal neighbourhood feel, and some great nightlife. I met with friends, took camp at the great Jack Flash Bar in Martinez and then kind of fell into some nightclub or another. It's one of the few times I've been home without DJing or doing lighting anywhere.

As a plus, Cirque Du Soleil's Quidam was in town. It's the first Cirque show I ever saw on DVD back in Full Sail about 6 years ago, and to have the chance to go see it in person was incredible. I even got kidnapped and dragged on stage, quite literally. I met some of the guys there, got a backstage tour and then got invited to the closing show. There's some really nice people in the cast and crew there.

I had a 3 day trip to the farm, stayed in our recently refurbished house out in the middle of nowhere, played uncle for a few days...installed some lights, cleaned up some trash and patted some horses.

In the meantime I took up Muay Thai, and got my ass kicked several times. But now I can throw a punch and land a pretty good kick. I can also take several of both unfortunately.

Anyways, I should head to my gate.

Chau!

Career Counseling

2010-05-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

Right around the time I was finishing High School, amongst IB and IGCSE finals, and the general chaos that school is, a career counselor showed up. Lovely big old Scot, of a very affable nature, but a bit detached with what I think was the reality of modern careers. I think a lot like my school, he was deeply rooted in traditional degrees, things you found in the first pages of any career book.

When it was time for my "interview" I clearly remember telling him I wanted to do something that merged physics and art. Of course by this point in my life I already knew what I was going to do, there was no other way…I was a lampie, not yet quite a roadie. But his reaction to the whole merging of paths that are so different that they almost fall on opposite ends of the spectrum was amazing. I think it went something like this: "Oh…er…my niece does graphic design, they use computers to design prints and magazines, maybe that would interest you?"

Really?

The reason this all came up is because I was walking down Münich I saw this really amazing sunset at the end of the street, framed by 2 buildings and a park. Now, this was very pretty, one of those sunsets I'm very good at taking pictures of and have people say its gorgeous and the colors and then shading…all pretty art. But, deep down, what we (or I) consider breathtaking is the result of a giant ball of fire, constantly in nuclear fusion and held in place by incredibly complex magnetic structures. The recent video of a solar flare is a notable example: each one of those flares can hold 50 Earths inside of it. The colors that all that nuclear hell produces on our sky can be boiled down to light scattering through various gases in our atmosphere and the angle of incidence to them. The way light travels to our eyes, reflecting and refracting on other surfaces, and passes through the relatively simple iris of our eyes, all of that in the end can be boiled down to an incredible collection of physical phenomena. But its also art.

Graphic design, I don't think quite catches what I meant back then. Being open to different mergers between fields is, I think, one of the biggest advantages any career counselor can have. The days of spitting out doctors, lawyers and managers should be over. My life is happy because I do what I do, and what I do isn't easy...its insane hours, specific knowledge, dangerous and emotional work, but it successfully merges physics and art and it does it in a way I love. In the same way I think Stephen Wolfram has the right idea also:

I'm a slacker

2010-05-15T04:03:00.000-07:00

Yeah it's been 3 weeks since I've updated this thing. I knew eventually I'd forget about it.

So lets see. We made it to Madrid, had a few days off there, and then a week of shows. Other than seeing my brother and his family, nothing eventful happened. Load-in, shows, load-out.

Then we went to Barcelona, where we did a pretty good load-in and a few weeks of shows. I think around this time I started really pushing myself in the gym and ended up waking up a week later with a fucked up shoulder. It happens, I'm great at hurting myself, but I heal fast. Anyways, back to Barça: I met up with yet another friend I hadn't seen in 10 years, got accosted by her awesome dog and (apparently) coke-addicted cat. I did also manage to do the touristy thing a bit and went to the Sagrada Familia, which is remarkable, took a few hundred pics and I'm actually very proud of some. I'm really becoming very good at taking pictures with my fisheye lens:

So we did shows, and ended the week by doing the fastest load-out so far, 3.5hrs, and then we promptly tried to get the hell outta dodge.

That, on the other hand, backfired massively. The lovely Eyjafjallajokull bastard screwed us up again and we spent 6 hours at the Barcelona airport trying to catch our flight to Portugal. It is a great airport, but I don't want to spend 6 hours in ANY airport, no matter how many retail shops it has.

We did make it to Lisbon, and here I am, listening to the beginning of Act 2 going on. I could talk about the load-in here but is was SO bad, I'd rather pretend it didn't happen.

Fuck you Volcano!

2010-04-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

I take a break every year and a half, maybe 2 years. I just need one week and that's it. It's rare since I'm pretty much obsessed about my job. This would have been that week. Except some stupid mountain in Iceland decided to blow up and paralyze all of Europe, and a large part of the rest of the world. The best part of it is the people in Iceland are totally fine, just sitting in their sun porches watching the cloud of ash wafting away from them onto Europe.

I had a week in Crete planned, which as of Friday was officially canceled due to all my airports and flights being shut down. So I made a rather bizarre travel trip to Madrid. It involved a train to Venice, then another train to Rome, and a small urban one to Civitavecchia. From there I'd catch a ferry/cruise to Barcelona and then a train to Madrid. 2 days, and a shitload of miles later I'd be in Madrid 5 days earlier than I wanted to.

I boarded the delayed train in Zagreb into my luckily single berth cabin (ok, no luck there I actually paid for it) which reminded me of an Agatha Christie novel. There's a certain je ne sais quoi that comes when the coach attendant reminds to lock your door before you go to sleep. I had about 4 passport controls all through the night so sleeping was a bit strange, plus the constant starting and stopping in different exchanges/cities. I woke up feeling like I was wearing the train...I need a shower desperately. Two really strange things did happen:

1) In whats possibly a chance in a million, I'm in a train from Slovenia boarded in Croatia and going to Venice. And in the cabin next to me there are 2 Argentine guys. What the...?
2) I clearly remember waking up and stepping out of my cabin to see a fully grown man wearing a jean mini-skirt. Bizarre.

I made it to Venice and my train to Rome. I'm currently at a very trendy Radisson Blu for a few hours to shower and shave and recover before I find Will and Maria and board the train to Civitavecchia.

Rome on the other hand, is absolutely amazing today:

So what to do but:

Ode to hotels

2010-03-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

I don't really rant here, because I'm pretty good at doing it publicly. But you know, I've just flooded my hotel bathroom...again, and I'm sick of it. So here's a few pointers I've picked up during the pretty much full year I've been living in hotels around the world:

1) DO NOT, under any circumstances, touch my &%$#* toothbrush. You've just cleaned mine and 20 other people's room and bathrooms, don't put your fingers on my toothbrush. I leave it in a cup, don't rest it against the wall, don't move it. I like it where it is, under my supervision and control. Thanks.

2) I know power costs money and all, but your rooms aren't perfect and we're not all built the same: please let me control the temperature. Thanks Budapest, the sun is on my window about 80% of the day and my AC is off. Cheers.

3) If you have a buffet breakfast (and this point is even more so if you will charge me for it), have options. And I mean, something else than white bread, white bread rolls and a white bread loaf. Have skim milk, and soy milk because some of us don't like to be fat, and there's an ever increasing number of vegetarians, so seem to only get cheese, eggs and (white) bread. I'm not even asking for an incredibly diverse number of breads and cereals and meats that cater to many people (kudos German hotels, you guys know how to do a buffet breakfast, hands down amazing), just a bit oh market research on the people that stay in your hotel and their lifestyles.

4) Speak English. I mean I can do with Spanish as well, but...you know, English seems to be the universal language and you cater to pretty much an universal audience. When the barman doesn't understand "Can I get the check?" you may wanna hire someone else. Or give him some flash cards.

5) Teach the housekeeping crew to knock, say housekeeping (and here's the twist:) wait for an answer, and then open the door. It's always funny when they pretty much knock and say housekeeping at the same time, once the door is almost fully open. it goes something like this: "Housekeepingohmygodimsorrygobacktosleepsir"

6) Related to point 1: dont' move my stuff. I mean, yes you have to clean and that is fine, it's the job. Move the crap I've thrown al over the floor and stuff on the desk. But there's no need to drop the shower head to its lowest position and make it face the bathroom when I left it perfectly aimed for me the night before. Like I said, I just flooded my bathroom again. Why on earth do you even need to touch the shower head?

All right, going to bed. Jó éjszakát

Auf Wiedersehen

2010-03-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well with this week in Munich we are officially done with Germany. We will be headed to Austria next week and then back to some of the more exotic locales like Belgrade, Budapest and Zagreb.

What can I say about Munich? It was warmer which instantly makes it a new favorite, and it had some good nightlife. I met a rather random Colombian girl (I have a knack to meet people that don't actually live in the country I'm in), and ended up hanging out with our venue electrician who was a really cool girl.

I finally "somewhat" got our iPod Touch remote to work, even if it disconnects a lot, but its getting there, slowly. There's much about networking administration I don't know and understand that would make it work a lot better.

We've had soem power problems in the past, with different sources across Europe and dealing with the giant transformers we carry (and were rather unceremoniously dumped on my lap on day 1). I've been trying to find a remote power metering solution, but so far it's been a pretty sad search. Fluke has a pretty decent solution but at over $2500 a box, plus expensive software it seemed a bit excessive. It would have cost over $20,000 to get the kind of monitoring I need, and that would come with a million features I wasn't looking for. So, I decided to invent my own. I've had to learn the Processing language to program the micro controllers, and now HTML and PHP to make the we-based part that lets me read the values. I've scourged the web looking for an adequate sensing device, and I've had to learn some more about Ethernet and web servers.

I've gotten a prototype to work, and as soon as I get my voltage transducers from the US and get this blasted website going I'll be set. And all this will set me back under $1000 for the whole system, and I can re-program it and expand on it whenever I see fit.

Pretty good for someone that never actually learn electronics I think. I hope it will be up and running in a few weeks.

Korean Design

2010-03-04T01:33:00.000-08:00

I just discovered a great online design magazine called Core77. Browsing through its articles I came across this one: "Amidst the crisis, Korean automakers doing well--and they seem to "get" design".

The article is very good, but I was a bit confused about this whole "getting" design. Why wouldn't they? I think the fact that they are mostly a nation that builds low-cost items for other nations and their own in-house design is very different to our shouldn't mean they can't design things the rest of the world finds attractive. Good design is, after all, just a matter of education. What Western societies consider nice and pretty and elegant is just that because we've taught ourselves to consider it that way. It find it a bit ironic also since back in the day we started praising Asian forms and shapes and implementing them into our world. How many people tell me Nokia is a Japanese company simply because they have adopted their structure in building phones and evolved from them? What's the story behind Japanese vs American vs German cars in the US?

I still think there's a bit of a skewed view to this, but I'm glad Korea and other countries have started to put a new spin on our markets. After all they have an intensely different way of seeing life and products which is occasionally superior to the Western way.

PS: Another greata rticle seeing how I take $10,000 moving lights apart for a living these days is this: Afterlife: An Essential Guide To Design For Disassembly, by Alex Diener

Italia!

2010-03-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

We're done with Germany, and now we hit Italy. Milan was incredibly disappointing in a way. You'd think the fashion and elegance capital of the world would have a beautiful, grand, exquisitely designed arena. Instead all we got was a gigantic block of concrete, dirty as it could be. There were 2 ramps in which to load in 26 trucks, and it was pretty damn cold. All in all, it was awful. It's now #1 in the world's most horrible arena I've played in. Load out took a whopping hour and a half longer than usual. Ugh...

The hotel was close by, both in proximity and in awfulness. A giant green and yellow building from the 80s, with green marble and brass accents, full of fixtures and switches that didn't work, and elevators that occasionally stopped working. Charming. Oh yeah, my room was green too!

I did meet with my friend Mayra that I hadn't seen in 10 years since we finished school, that was a pretty strange feeling, it made me feel old, and at the same time realize how fast 10 years have gone by. It's pretty insane. On the same afternoon my uncle passed, so I was in the middle of this pretty cool reunion in Milan, and trying to catch up with my mother and grandmother in Argentina.

We're in Bologna now, our horrible load out was at least vindicated with a first class train ticket to pre-rig here. Unfortunately for our rigger the plots of the venue don't really match the venue's roof, so all the hard work and pre-planning for it were out the window. The poor man was in here until 7am.

Oh and just out of coincidence I met yet another school-mate. Apparently Italy is the place to go! Good times.

It's a wonderful world

2010-02-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

Yeah I've been all over the place lately. It's been kinda crazy and busy.

We went to Nüremberg, I figured out last week reading a book about Nazi doctors that the hotel we were staying is the same hotel Hitler used to stay in and later on all the court reporters and judges for the Nüremberg Trials. I wish I had know when I was there.

I went to Madrid for my week off, got to hang out with my brother I hadn't seen in 5 years, meet my 3 year old nephew and hang out with my friend Lela that was visiting also. So good times, it was strange to speak Spanish again really.

We went to this lovely little town called Werne to do some maintenance to our rig. It was pretty good: we got a lot done, terrorized the town and took over an Italian restaurant! I'm convinced we were the only people in the whole town that spoke English it was pretty strange.

And now, Hamburg. With its creepy, creepy Reeperbahn and 3 inches of ice on the sidewalks. I've spent a TON of money, bought an iPod Touch, some drop line rope, and more tea and stuff for it. I need to start working before I end up with a car or a house.

Le week off..and payback!

2010-01-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

Holy crap this was a hell of a way to start the new year's work! Not the relaxed casual way I thought it was going to be. Because of the horrendous weather in the UK, so many flights were delayed and cancelled a lot of our crew and cast were delayed. Unfortunately that included some vital personnel for load in: our 2 riggers, our production coordinator and our tour manager. We had a nice little mad dash trying to help the local German riggers sort the points and 3 different kinds of motors we have. We made it back around 3 hours later than usual which is actually not bad considering the situation!

But, in all honesty I did come back from a week of lounging around Paris. My days consisted of waking up at 9am, getting breakfast, and then heading back into bed till about 1pm. The late days it was 2pm. Head out for sushi or thai or a kebab, and walk around Paris the rest of the day. Or watch movies, or read. I took some really cool photos of the landmarks. For example:

Notre Dame

Moulin Rouge

Arc D'Triomphe

I've also bought a new bottle of Jade Edouard absinthe, a new spoon and glass and a funky see-saw brouilleur.

Ok back to the gym and get some food in lovely Cologne, Germany!

Oui Oui

2009-12-27T06:14:00.000-08:00

Almost there. One more show to go, one load out, and a week off.

I'm planning on sleeping most of Monday, followed by going to the gym and sleeping some more. I have a LOT of time to go sightseeing. Actually I may have too much time, I need some other things to do. I have been playing with Ableton Intro lately, so maybe I'll sit down and write some music.

Oh, I need to find a new CPA. Mine has vanished into thin air.

Au revoir!

Ça va!

2009-12-23T07:36:00.000-08:00

Bonjour a Paris! I made it to France. Not that (once again) I've seen much of it, just some of the Bercy village last night. This time I'll get my way though since we also have the (much deserved and expected) week off where I'll get to actually be a tourist. I'll have to force myself to be a good tourist this week though, I'm usually too lazy.

I have a secret weapon, my new Leica lens is now fully adapted to work with my Nikon thanks to some cool parts from the guys at Leitax. So at the very least I have to go take photographs. I have New years here, so I hope I get some cool fireworks to see, and some absinthe to drink!

Bonjour!

Roadies

2009-12-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

So every now and then I get asked why I do this and not something more traditional. Clearly I'm good at fixing things and why don't a work in a theater or a design firm or a consultant? Well, today would be the day I get to answer that.

We got forgotten this morning, and that set off a chain of events that eventually shows why I love this gig. The details of why the runner wasn't there at 7:30am are unknown, he just...wasn't there. But in the end after many phone calls, waking people up and getting calls back from all over Germany, we went to load in. We got there over an hour late and once our gear was dumped off the trucks and spread all over the place. To top off the pressure we needed the stage right side of the grid to go up by 1pm because the dinosaurs needed that path to get unloaded and taken backstage (backwards venue, its a stupid design), and Jake Berry, our Production Coordinator (and Production Manager of U2 and many other big-hitters) was there to see how the tour was progressing.

Eventually we all went into hyper-drive, we didn't eat lunch till 3pm and we still got the rig up and working before 4pm, which is about an hour less than we used to. So, 8 hours for a grid that in the US takes about 11? Being an hour late? Yeah, I like this stuff, we won't eat or sleep, but we'll get the gig done. That's why I do this!

Berlin!

2009-12-11T05:59:00.000-08:00

Goodbye Eastern Block...hello Germany. Back to the Euros (and sadly higher prices), and technology. And brands we recognize.

I started the week by going to a gymnastics gym with the German free-running team. It was a blast, and it kicked my ass. I've never thought I'd be doing front flips off a trampoline into a foam pit. Good times. The next day was an exercise in soreness though.

I've gained a new tour buddy, our new Production Assistant and I have become good friends and have terrorized the city. OK we had lunch and dinner and went to a lame nightclub, but in our minds it was wild. Somehow I always end up getting along with the dancers.

Besides that, another week of shows, rehearsals, Japanese press, fixing lights and hanging around an arena. No more tattoos this week, but who knows what the future may hold!!

Riga

2009-12-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

So amongst the things I did in Lithuania I found a new Lowepro bag to put both my camera and laptop in. Unfortunately when I changed everything over I forgot to also transfer my travel wallet with my passports and other documents. So on Sunday at around 11pm I figured out I had no passport to catch the flight the next day, since the old bag was in a truck that was by then about 200km from the venue. After waking out our production coordinator we found out there were a few trucks that weren't leaving till the next morning and so I took a 4 hour drive across Lithuania to get to Riga, Latvia.

Yes, it was stupid, but at the same time I saw a lot of the countryside that nobody else did. Things change when you leave the city: people live in these tiny shacks that look like they're about to collapse any minute, and besides them there's different ones in different level of destruction. like its easier for them to build a new one than to fix the old ones. So it wasn't uncommon to see 4 houses in one lot, one slightly older than the other one.

But I made it to Riga alright, took some great pictures of the sunset as I came in to my room, and proceeded to go to sleep. I was up at 6am on Tuesday to do what is by far the fastest load in we've done. We were done before 16:00, which puts us at about 9 hours. I kept thinking we had forgotten something.

Yesterday I got my arm shaded in, Rudolf came all the way from Tallin to sort me out, and in the meantime a couple of the other guys seem to have some stuff they want done also. So here's the little guy all done:

Tonight's our night out since tomorrow most of us have the day off. There's a nightclub right next door to the hotel, this is not going to end well! Or maybe it'll end up great! We'll see how many people run into my arm and make me leave early.

Lithuania

2009-11-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

I think Vilnius has been one of the funnest cities we've been in, and it hasn't been short on competition, Helsinki was a ton of fun also, so was St. Petersburg. I'm clearly enjoying the Baltic countries! There's a mixture of resident Russian behaviour, mixed with their struggling attempt to become more modern and "Western". They're a lot more laid back than the Estonian men, but they still have that hard-headed trait.

In any case, this country has a lot of history, I think all of it very marked in about 6 blocks downtown: there's the KGB/Gestapo headquarters, medieval churches and the remains of "Old Town". There's street vendors and cute little shops mixed in with giant malls of glass and LED screens. It's just fun to walk around and the people are really willing to help. Or try to get you into a strip club, it can go either way.

Good parties, good clubs, amazing women and a lot of rain.

And because I'm a geek I bought the new Apple Magic Mouse here, and a new Lowepro camera backpack that's pretty awesome.

Uncle BIll

2009-11-21T02:03:00.000-08:00

Bill Douglas, one of the best tour bus drivers around, and one of our drivers during the Hannah Montana "Best Of Both Worlds" tour last year, died today in an accident in Virginia.

It's a sad day when these things happen, we're a very closely knit industry and people like Uncle Bill are known by everyone. He'll be remembered by the care he took of his passengers, and the fact he tried, till the last minute, to avoid an even bigger tragedy and protect his "children" on board.

Some of the lighting crew have minor injuries and are in shock but are otherwise OK.

Sad days...

Helsinki

2009-11-21T01:50:00.000-08:00

One short ferry ride from Tallin got us in to Helsinki, Finland. Helsinki...as far North as I've ever been, cold as all get out and foggy. Really really foggy.

This week I got my new workbox, which was sorely needed, my last one was as packed as it could be, and I was holding back on buying tools until I had more room. So here is my new toy:

We had one really good night of partying, and I found some amazing Finnish vodka called Koskenkorva. Definitely on the top of my list right now. The colder the better.

Another new toy is a Hart Steel razor from the US. It's heavy and big, and unfortunately I haven't got a chance to use it yet. It's a gorgeous piece of steel though!

Other than that, another week of fixing lights and doing shows. The Cyberlights seem to keep finding new ways to break, things that take hours and hours to sort out. I'm off to decapitate a $10,000 light now. Good times!

Estonia

2009-11-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

Tallin, Estonia was a bit of a disappointment. For a country that's trying so hard to get away from the ghost of the USSR they still keep some very oppressive and aggressive behaviours.

To be frank, the men are rude and blatantly dry. They are the most aggressive individuals I've ever seen to women, going to them and demanding they spend their night with them. If any of us tried to talk to a girl a swarm of them would just appear and literally push us out of the way. I got fed up soon, rudeness is not a favorite trait of mine and I wasn't about to end up in a fight over a girl in a nightclub.

The venue was small and load out was a bit of a disaster. Load in was graced by a random snow like I've rarely seen, and by the end of the day everything was covered in disgusting slush.

The big highlight of the week was some new ink I got. Nothing big. Just huge. Five and a half painful hours in a tattoo shop got me almost a full arm. A week later and it's still recovering, but very well so far.

That's all I have for Estonia, I wasn't impressed.

Россия

2009-11-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

Well we had an exciting week in Russia full of immigration problems, vodka, girls, vodka, and strange alphabets. Oh and there was vodka involved there too.

After the immigration dilemma we headed out to a vodka bar. 3 bars and 11 shots of vodka later I managed to get my ass to my hotel and sleep. The next day was a bit more fun, topped with a subway ride that was pretty intense. In the end it was an early night because of load in the next morning, but we did meet a lovely Russian girl that took Sean and me for coffee which was surprising and rather nice.

Load in was OK: slow and a bit strange, with a bunch of translators running around trying to help us bark our orders at our clearly confused stagehands. In the end we got it done, it just took a while. It started snowing a bit during the day but other than that we saw little snow there.

After that...I don't know, the week is all blended together with a visit to a bar called Purga, a lot of vodka, more Russian girls and a really really dodgy lift in the venue. At some point I was actually reading Russian in their Cyrillic alphabet which was pretty impressive.

Now we're in Estonia, and the little snow we saw in Russia caught up with us in load in where it came down hard. So much for the easy day in.

NIET!!!

2009-11-02T05:34:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Russia! We'll start by scaring the living crap out of you in Customs. Yeah, we made it in, in my case barely. I think I'm the only Argentine to ever make it here seeing how they were extremely confused over my passports and visas. Needless to say after 30 minutes of me not having my passport and nobody talking to me I became...worried?

But they let me go and now I'm in my scarily American-ish hotel. Even if it's a Novotel which is French, the design is the same as every other American hotel I've been in. The trip here was interesting, marred by an un-ventilated bus and a brake-heavy bus driver. The city is pretty much 100% what I expected: it's gray and sad with some imposing huge buildings that I cant' wai tto go take pictures of. It's a different world for sure.

Now, I need a vodka bar. Paka!!

Almost Extinct

2009-10-23T03:15:00.001-07:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks. We made it out of Gothenburg and headed to Copenhagen (I slept for about 3 and a half hours of the 4 hour trip). Copenhagen was, well, cold. Gorgeous city, but really cold and really really expensive. We tried to take pictures one night and after a few I had to give up because my hands were freezing. The venue was alright, we had a tight spot to fix things in and a lot of rehearsals. Video world got flooded thanks to a hole in the roof. Everyone was concerned about the expresso machine.

Now we're back in Sweden. Stockholm this time around, at the monstrous Globe Arena. This is basically a giant ball with seats in it. Pretty impressive. This is a shot of the rig inside of the place:

I've been walking around downtown with Sean (owner of the previously mentioned expresso machine). We both went out looking for the new Apple Magic Mouse (and in my case, Office 2008) but instead ended up spending a lot of money on proper winter clothes, the stuff Scandinavian people wear. Now I'm toasty.

I ended up buying Office online only to discover that the Home edition wont' do Exchange Server...which was giving me problems in my Office 2004 version. So I shelled out another $230 and bout the Business Suite. Lame.

And here is T-Rex:

Sweden Pt. 1

2009-10-07T05:28:00.000-07:00

I've been in Gothenburg for over a week now, at this point we're fully on show mode and once again hiding underground in an arena. This week is the Scandinavium, which is pretty low trim and a bit uncomfortable to be in, but otherwise fine.

The last few days of my week off have been pretty interesting though. Purely by chance I ended up meeting Peter Johansson who has a Queen tribute show called Champions Of Rock. Peter, in turn, introduced me to their producer who invited me to the show the next day. There I met a few more family members and the amazing Kerry Ellis (of We Will Rock You and Wicked fame). Granted I had pretty much no idea who anyone was at the time, but after a few introductions I was pretty impressed. The show was good, great band and singers and, ya know...Queen's alright =)

We discovered Kerry and me had a few friends in common, and in 2 days the whole thing went full circle and everyone ended up knowing everyone else. Pretty random, but that's how things go with me.

Still freezing in here, but not nearly as bad as we will in 4 weeks in Russia, in full blown winter. Our cables are starting to freeze already, so they come off the truck frozen in their cases, and they come out of the cases holding their shape, which is bad enough when there are 3 or 4 cables in a loom, with our 8-way looms its a whole new level of pain. We have to re-think our load-in game here.

More broken lights, one which has been a work in progress for the last 6 or 7 weeks and I'm about to put in a box an deem unusable till we return to the US. I can't spend any more time tinkering with it and letting go of the other units. Speaking of which, I should go back to fixing.

FARVÄL!

Things I've learnt in 2 days

2009-09-29T06:15:00.001-07:00

Iggy's facts about Gothenburg:

1) Restaurants have really funky hours
2) Its REALLY easy to get lost here. Really.
3) Street names are huge and have funny letters in them. Makes reading maps a blast!

And not really about Gothenburg but:

4) You should never practice a handstand in a rock floor. My knee will attest to it.

Week Off #2

2009-09-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

Well here goes my try of going to a random country on my own and hope I make it! I'll be in Gothenburg for a week off, and then we have a show week there. No D300 or bass (the airline has teeny tiny Embraer jets), so I'm off with a suitcase and a backpack. I'm taking my Leica so I'll try and take a couple hundred pictures :)

I've managed to hurt myself yet again during load out ( like I usually do). Ran right into one of our cable hooks which was conveniently the same color as the floor (black!). So I've added another scar to my "roadie shins".

I'm in the Zurich airport and I'm watching this lady get into the smokers lounge and then tell her kid how to play with his cars...through the glass. Get the fuck out of there and pay attention to your kid! I mean, you had a kid, now you're stuck with it, be freaking nice to it.

Now you see why I'm not looking to have kids any time in the future!

UPDATE: Oh, its ok...the dad was int he smokers lounge as well. Nice family, that house must stink of old cigarettes. Ugh.

Ice Skating With Dinosaurs

2009-09-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well we made it to...ehm. Where are we? Oh yeah Zurich. The arena still has ice on the floor, which translates to water on our floor (not to mention all my cables are sitting in puddles of icy water). Which, in turn, translates to...slippery. Very. We've had one of the suits go down, and some pretty funny RC car races, other than that its pretty boring to waddle around trying to to fall on your ass.

Luckily I've been pretty much hiding in my hospital area fixing lights like crazy...I've made a good dent in our list of broken stuff so I'm a bit more relaxed. And to top it off we have a week off next week. Sweden here I come!

Our video director dragged me to old town Zurich today, and I have to admit its a great city. Granted I can't afford anything here, but its lovely. Probably because people like me can't afford anything here!

Now I have to start packing for my silly little flight in these silly little planes where I can only take 20 kilos with me. Lame.

Europa!

2009-09-13T02:17:00.001-07:00

Ok so technically the UK is in Europe, but seeing how even they speak of "Europe" and "UK" so will we! In any case we're officially in Europe. Antwerp, Belgium to be precise; home of diamonds and mussels and chips (or fries). I have no interest in either really.

We had a cute little flight from London City Airport, in this ass backwards airline called VLM that made me skip from one desk to the other and back to pay an overweight charge, then back to the first desk to get my boarding pass...again. Then they made me take my bass to the "special luggage" window. Weirdos. But after terrorizing the flight attendants and fellow passengers by acting like we do we landed in Belgium, got passports stamped, and were off to our hotel. Apparently they really dig Argentine steak houses here: I saw 3 in a block, none of them owned or tended by an Argentine, one of the owners spoke broken Spanish though. What the fuck? Luckily people here speak English quite a bit and that helped me order food. I like ordering food.

After that I lost all interest in Antwerp...I don't think I really like this city, there's just nothing in it I found really cool. Also I've been stuck in the arena for the rest of the week. There's a ginormous Haribo gummy stand. I've had enough sugar for the rest of my life I think! I'm addicted to gummy stuff and this is a problem.

Today's our last day here, 3 shows and load out, followed by a bus trip to Rotterdam, a few hours free to sleep and loading in again. We'll be done for by Tuesday, I plan on sleeping most of the day anyways. I should start putting things away.

London Times

2009-09-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm officially on my 6 days off in London. So far it's been pretty hectic, and I took the oportunity to become a tourist...for once.

So day 1 was taken over by travel, visiting the Tower Of London, and going to the premiere of "I Bought a Blue Car Today" which was pretty good and funny. As always I ended up backstage, which was pretty...unimpressive and very very small. Life in a theater I guess.

Today was a combination of fighting with Western Union, visiting Harrod's and going to Westminster Abbey, which was a bit somber and a whole lot more impressive I thought it'd be. After a few minutes of walking on people's graves and seeing their effigies on the graves it gets a bit creepy.

Tonight on the other hand....I'm bored.

Paranormal Romance

2009-08-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

We're back in London, sort of. Technically the venue is in Wembley and the hotel is in Brent Cross, which while they're in or around London, they couldn't be further from that city. The hotel's in the middle of nowhere, with just a mall across the street and a Toys R Us up the road. The Wembley Arena is - no doubt about it - the equivalent of Madison Square Garden in NYC: the gig everyone has played and the top of the list, but a cruddy shithole of a building for roadies. Rigging here was a pain: triple leg bridles, limited beams, one floating supergrid and a bunch of house trusses that limit our trim. We had the Health and Safety department walking around during load-in demanding hardhats even though nobody was rigging and at one point there were 6 people "inspecting" a camera platform. It's a bit silly if you ask me, I understand the concept of protecting the patrons and the local crews, but we're grown up people that build giant shows for a living, we understand and take the risks willingly.

So today I have a day off and skipped over to Borders, funnily enough I found a section labeled "Paranormal Romance". When this this become such a huge thing that it requires its own section? I must have missed something between "Biographies" and "Self-help". I guess all those Twilight, True Blood and whatever bizarre mixture of "monster loves a girl" books are hidden there. I half-expect to see Fabio on the cover, dressed as Dracula.

On the other hand this is our last week of shows in the UK, I have a week off in London coming up, including bass lessons with Steve Lawson and my friend Julia who is coming to look at apartments for college. Tim is lighting Alan Cummings so maybe I'll go check that out, and I really want to go see War Horse and Wicked. Busy week!

Not Alabama

2009-08-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

We made it to Birmingham, UK. Not in Alabama as everyone keeps asking me, I am not in the US again, but honestly its the same difference. Alabama is scary, UK is depressing, this is a gray city, its only saving point is the canals and the gigantic mall.
The venue is pretty decent, big, but their Health & Safety enforcement is a bit ridiculous. I think its fair for me to remind that there's a point where it doesn't matter how much you scrutinize things, people are going to panic and run into walls any way.
The highlight of the week was the hole I managed to shave in my head on Monday night. 3 hours of bleeding followed by a day of loading in with a hard hat on it. That was amazing, its healing pretty damn well despite that.

London Rant

2009-08-06T05:58:00.001-07:00

We made it to London, at the now glorious O2 Arena inside the Millennium Dome which is pretty damn cool. We had a rather bizarre load-in and topped it off with a strange opening night including visits by pretty much everyone: Upstaging's GM, the lighting designer, all the directors, creatives and producers. The highlight was us having a boom lift that didn't reach the rig so we had to wait for the monstrosity that we got in today! Pretty cool.

We had our European Premiere at a bar called Gaucho (go figure, I was the only Argentine there!) inside the O2's pavilion. We walked in surprised to find a ton of other people with AAA passes all dapper and looking sharp which we didn't know. pretty much every promoter and media in Europe, looking down at a bunch of roadies that just came off a gig. Quite the mix.

But that brings me to a few rants about the UK:

1) Girls wear WAY too much makeup. It's a bit disconcerting really.
2) There's an unhealthy obsession with mayonnaise here, which brings me to:
3) The eat like shite here! I've never seen so many KFC, McDonald's and fried food joints in one place!

But we're at the venue again and I should go fix some lights.