The Pushcart Takes A Hit

The NY Times reports that during a time of deepening economic crisis, The Broadway League imposed an unannounced $1 a ticket surcharge on the tickets sold at TKTS. TKTS is the ticket outlet for discount tickets sold by the Theatre Development Fund, the not-for-profit that was established to aid in the promotion of the performing arts in NYC. The League, which has decried anything that would raise ticket prices, quietly imposed the surcharge/fee/restoration charge on those patrons at the lower end of the economic scale; those who patiently wait in line in all kinds of weather to see what discount tickets are available. Three months later, when the state considered a restoration of the amusement tax, Rocco Landesman, the nominee for Chairman of the NEA, plead "pity the poor workingman" in arguing against the tax in front of a legislative hearing on the tax proposals, saying that ticket price increases will cause shows to close, restaurants to fail and frogs to fall from the sky. The League, which according to tax returns spends 30% of its revenue on salaries, claims that the fee is for "added value for theatergoers", educational programs and web sites. League member dues, which make up about half of the Leagues $8 million revenue, will go up by 10%. The source of the additional 10% was not disclosed but it is unlikely that in these troubled times, the theatre patron will see ticket prices drop.

I fail to see how raising the cost of a ticket will add value to theatre-goers on a budget. It’s also interesting how we’ve gotten to “the hard-working men and women employed by Broadway” from "Our goal is simple: to pay for workers we need and for work that is actually performed."

The last surcharge became a war chest. Who's next?

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Does anyone else see a similarity between the uproar over Nancy Pelosi and scenery? Not to make light of the suffering these human beings were put through but it seems to me that blaming Nancy Pelosi for the torture scandal is like blaming the closing of a show on the scenery. Both were in the background, neither were strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage. She didn't write the play, cast it, light it, prop it or even elect to produce the turkey in the first place. And now the actors and producers are saying, “Nancy, why didn’t you tell us this one was a stinker? It’s your fault!”

And the Times dutifully reports about the latest fight backstage as if it was actually somehow consequential. “Minsky outraged he’s not being sued for a million.”

There’s the news and then there’s the facts. What a world.

Where's The Adult Supervision?

So The Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA) decided that a nice little concert would be fun. They even had a cute little name for it. Last Smash Platinum Bash. Since the Kanye West "Glow in the Dark Tour," packed the McKale Center's 14,545 seats with 9000 ticket buyers, the President of the University, Tommy Bruce, decided to make it a "top priority during his second term to rekindle a stadium concert."

The student promoters’ education began with an unusual pairing of acts and strange method of financing. University of Arizona to Host 1 Million Dollar Concert Featuring Jay-Z and Kelly Clarkson reports that while the cost to put on the show rose to above $1 million, ASUA was working on a zero-based budget in which all expenses will be covered after the concert in the form of ticket sales and other revenue. What could possibly go wrong?

JAY-Z/KELLY CLARKSON CONCERT A BUST

*An Arizona concert featuring Jay-Z and Kelly Clarkson was a financial failure, according to organizers.
The Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA), who put on the concert, paid Jay-Z $750,000 to co-headline the event with pop star Kelly Clarkson. While Jigga praised the odd pairing, telling MTV it reaffirms that "good music" is neither black nor white; it wasn't enough to sell tickets.

According to estimates listed in the Arizona Daily Star, the student union gave away over 4000 tickets to the Last Smash Platinum Bash in hopes of securing marketing deals with newspapers and radio stations. However, the show still posted a loss of $917,000.

Did the university fire anyone or demand that the promoters add the loss to their student loans? Well, no. In teaching the young adults both personal and business ethics, it allowed the deficit to be made up to be made up not by the promoters but by the University Bookstore. The Bookstore, a monopoly on campus, seems to be operating at such a large profit margin that it had the excess funds at its disposal. A bit like a trust fund in which the well-to-do can fall back on in times of difficulty instead taking personal responsibility for their failures.

Stupid Things Said By House Crew

Road guys talk about the local crews on a site just for them. It's educational and good to see yourself through others eyes. I can't say I like it but it's real.

I know I'm in for a bad night of mixing when the house sound says "Yeah, it's an acoustically perfect room!". Perfect for what, I wonder? Not for a live show, that's for sure.

A local rigger on a show call for a tour I was on blew me off when I asked him to watch the chains while he was running motors. I believe he said "Ive been doing this longer than you have been alive" or another typical line. Right afterwords he began chatting with his buddy while working. The chain got jammed and ruined the motor while I watched it all happen....lame

Working in a small arena, we marked that one point was to be a split 15 - 15 bridal. we hear the up rigger shout own to the ground rigger "whats the F***ks a 15 dash 15 V" yup.....

So were dumping the trucks, give one of the hands the FOH cases. "Where do these go?" he asks. "Send it to Front of House" our SM tells him. almost 1/2 hour later this kid comes back to the trucks and i shit you not i quote "I looked and looked, but could not find this house you were talking about."

I told a neck-down that I needed all the Stage Right Gear on the STAGE RIGHT Side....He actually had to ask the second dumbest question, "So is that YOUR stage right? or My Stage Right?"

"Ive been a stagehand for 20 years and never once has anyone asked me if I had a cresent wrench."

"Which one is the snare?" Spoken by a local audio guy in a theater, who had just finished telling me he'd been there for 15 years.

My fav was at Madison Square Garden when I said to the stagehands "Are you with audio?" and they replied "No, we're with sound?" You can't make this shit up!

I'd like to hope on that last one somebody was being ironic and somebody else missed it.

The Oak And The Willow

"The best test of a civilized society is the way in which it treats its most vulnerable and weakest members. "

Mahatma Gandhi

One of the main talking points of the Broadway League during the run-up to and during the strike in 2007 was that the Local was too inflexible in its rules and resistant to change. The Local replied that we were resistant to job losses and that Local would not change work rules without something in exchange. We were called featherbedders in public and worse in private, I'm sure.

The reality is somewhat different, of course. Given the width and breath of Local One's jurisdiction, with scene shops, television, opera, concert halls, Off-Broadway and LORT contracts, there is no such thing as a one size fits all contract. Are there standards that we want maintained? Yes. Safety, retirement security, cleanliness, the ability to take a break and have a meal, minimum calls, a living wage, these are all standards we work to keep. However, we don’t write contracts that close shows or shops. We will make adjustments when they are called for. Stagehands are nothing if not practical.

It was with some pride that I learned that the Local members voted on Sunday to accept wage freezes at two theatre companies that have been hit hard by the financial mess. As a Local we have worked over the years to help grow these companies with contracts and conditions that were appropriate for them and their size. Also passed was a new contract for a space in the Bronx that had been organized. In that contract the Local recognizes that the venue has a split mission, one as a roadhouse and one as community theatrical resource. As a result, there are different pay rates for the crew, depending on the event.

I think one of the inadvertent highlights of the labor disputes 2003 and 2007 is a renewed sense of “community” in the theatrical community. We have a history of helping each other during tough times. Now is one of those times and Local One is doing its part.

Is This the Time and Place?

Anonymous (who seems to be all over the Internet) posted a comment to an off-hand remark I made in “After The Fall” about romancing the Federal Theatre Project. In the comment, Anonymous claims “theater unions were vehemently against its beginning”. I asked for references and he/she referred me to two books. I have not read the books so I can’t judge on how accurate the original works are on the subject. Nor on Anonymous’ interpretation of their interpretation. Being underemployed and with a slight case of OCD, I did my own research. In NYC there are various theatre libraries like the NYPL for the Performing Arts , the Wagner Archives and industry resources at one's disposal.

Thanks, Anonymous, for making me proud to be a union member.

In the 1928/29 season there were about 264 shows that opened. In the 1931/32 season that number had dropped to 230. By the 1935/36 season that number had dropped to 170. In 1931, upstart Shubert Brothers were bankrupt. The League of New York Theatres and Producers, now the Broadway League, was formed in 1930. It was estimated that 25,000 show folk were out of work.

There was no unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, pensions or health care. Hoover, the conservatives and Big Business rejected ideas of programs of emergency relief and instead raised tariffs, which worsened the problem.

With rising unemployment in it’s own ranks, IATSE Local One decided to create it’s own relief program. With the agreement of the theatre managers, it was decided stagehands would work a five-show week and that unemployed stagehands would make up the rest of the shows. I haven’t determined how the program was administered, though perhaps like our League Strike, we learned to administer it on the fly. When there wasn’t enough work, there were relief stipends, and in emergency cases, there were loans. Sometimes raffles were held to help individuals, often the retired stagehand without a pension, who were having illnesses or other hard times.

In September of 1935, IATSE representatives, Local One business agents and others in the industry met in Washington and New York with Hattie Flanagan, newly appointed head of the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration. In her first Regional Directors Report on Oct. 8th, 1935, Miss Flanagan describes meeting with the various interested parties. After meeting with “National Stage hands Union” she said, "The decision was that we cannot run a union shop, but that preferences is given to union workers because of their professional qualifications". The meetings with the League were successful only after some negotiations. “These meetings, in New York City, resulted in this group moving from complete antagonism to the project to the utmost cooperation, with an offer to sponsor several New York units as try-out theatres. “

With that out of the way, Flanagan, Edward Rollin, J. Horn and Mr. Barber of the Theatrical Projects Administration Staff, the IATSE Reps and Local One Business Agent Vince Jacobi began to set up the mechanics of the administration of the FTP in NYC. Business Agent Jacobi was appointed to oversee the application process for the stage technicians.

In February of 1936 an agreement was reached whereby Heads of Departments were paid $130 a month and grips, clearers and operators were paid $103 a month for 12 days of work for eight hours a day. 90 to 100 stagehands were expected to be employed by the program. By way of comparison, at the Hippodrome in 1935, a head made $125 a week and flymen, front light operators and others made $6 a show.

Many Local One members took great pride in being part of the program. While they were making less than they could with their Relief Tickets at other non-WPA theatres, protecting the Union and supporting the work that was being put on was more important than a days work at a higher rate. It was the policy of the Union that any man who did not protect the Union in the WPA jobs would be removed from the program and replaced.

In April of 1936, Congressman Wagner had read into the Congressional Report a telegram of support for the WPA, sent by Local One.

The success of the program was such that RKO, Loews and other theatre managers who saw the FTP as competition, complained to Local One that the FTP stagehands were being paid less they were paying for stagehands.

According to IATSE President George Browne’s Convention Report in June of 1938, the original program expanded from the original 90 in 1935 to 400 stagehands and 60 Department Heads. The rate had also been improved to $145 a month. The report ends with, “Our dealings with the officials of the Federal Theatre Project have been exceptionally satisfactory. I have always found a keen desire on their part to cooperate with us, which I have endeavored to reciprocate at every turn.”

The Living Newspaper shows played at Maxine Elliot’s Theatre, 49th St., Adelphi, Ritz, and the Biltmore Theatres.

The Negro Theatre Unit performed at the Lafayette and Adelphi Theatres.

The Children’s Unit performed at the Adelphi.

The Experimental Theatre Unit performed at the Venice and Experimental Theatre (Daly's 63rd Street) Theatres.

There were also units for Managers Try-out, One-Act, Poetic, Popular Price, Studio, Theatre for Youth, Variety, and Yiddish Theatre.

By the end of the 1939/1940 season , when the FTP ended, there were about 100 shows that opened. In the 1946/47 season about 130 shows opened. We never saw another season as busy as 1928 with 264 shows.

But our finest hour may have been ahead of us.

WWKTD

What Would Kenneth Tynan Do?

In an article in Bloomberg about “Impressionism”, Jeremy Gerard writes a “commentary” (which evidently is a little less than reporting and a little more than opinion) about why “Impressionism” got less than stellar reviews. It was the stagehands. Those damned expensive stagehands. And their damned expensive scenery.

Gerard starts by painting sophomore playwright Michael Jacobs as a victim of a critical “mugging” and then calls the show a “muddle.” Manny Azenberg is quoted as saying everything is getting more expensive than it was in the old days (much more expensive!) but at least he attributes some of the cost to retirement and health care, not just the dirty greed of those nasty, nasty union thugs. Gerard then says “God of Carnage” is succeeding only because it is “ferociously funny” while omitting the cost/benefit analysis. And in the last line, he quotes Producer Bill Haber of “Impressionism”, who appears to be channeling Yogi Berra when he says, “The minute they stop buying tickets, I will close the show,” he says. “I’m not in the charity business.”

I think the future of Broadway lies in the stagehands writing funnier, cheaper scenery.

After The Fall

Before the bankers and brokers coughed up this massive furball of a financial mess, the common wisdom in the theatre was that “people will always need entertainment” and that we were recession proof. There would be shows and music and we would bring a few moments of joy to a suffering public. As long as one never took a long, hard look at our history as an industry, this was comforting. The Federal Theatre Project existed simply to give the Marc Blitzstein background for The Cradle Will Rock , nothing more.

Now, however, the interconnectiveness of it all is starting to become clearer. Right after New Years, headlines predicted the collapse of Broadway (OMG, 11 SHOWS CLOSING. SELL EVERYTHING!) while failing to mention that 9 shows were scheduled to open by March 1st. They may have been more correct than their short attention spans would have indicated. When the pipeline of new work emptied out of the scene shops and the theatres reopened, everyone looked over their shoulder to see what was next. There wasn’t anything. The shops that had hired 40 to 50 went down to minimal staffs and now there is a just smattering of new work coming in. What’s missing? The two things everybody in this business needs, money and credit. The money is for the landlord and the credits for the resume. Now the real world has intervened and things have gotten switched around. Bankers aren’t giving credit to shop owners and the rest of us aren’t getting any money. Shop owners play a key role in keeping this business afloat by carrying producers and fronting them material and crews to built the sets. There is certainly upfront money needed for each show but tools, buildings, plywood, screws, etc are all bought on credit, the shop owner’s credit. Some shop owners have better credit and cash flow management techniques than others. Like the ones whose payrolls don't lag with the producers checks and weeks pass without the crew getting paid. Don’t get me started.

Why isn’t there credit for scenery? Because bankers, like Toby Keith, are vowing that they will never smoke dope with Willie again. They partied long and hard and ended up in the fetal position with drool on their chin. “Just one more credit default swap and I’ll be good, man, I mean it.” The bankers and brokers are like those who are new to recovery and are just a little itchy and scratchy. “Credit? No, man, I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t go there right now. I gotta meeting I got to go to, otherwise I would. Maybe later.” Meanwhile we, the toiling class, have to start a national Alanon meeting for those of us whose lives have been directly impacted by those with an addiction to money.

Things will loosen up. Money will start to flow again and we’ll go back to churning out entertainment. I don’t think there will be that “Quinn The Eskimo” moment when everybody jumps for joy, but we’ll get better. Just will just happen one day at a time.

Imagine Sisyphus Happy

In a post back in December I looked at some IATSE history and road scales. Then I found Working Life by the Labor Research Association. Jonathan Tasini had a column about wages not keeping up with productivity or inflation. Since I already had a reference point for IATSE I thought I'd see how we have done.

1917 $45
2008 Adjusted for inflation $759.73
2008 $30hr or $1200wk is fairly typical

Considering where we started from, over all, pretty good.

1917 $45
1974 Adjusted for Inflation $173
1974 $280

Through the Depression, WWII and after, it looks like we were doing pretty well for ourselves. Beating inflation, getting ahead, buying homes, and educating our kids.

1974 $280 (from an hourly rate for a grip, $6.70 hr)
2008 Adjusted for inflation $1,227.34 or $30 an hour.

The last quarter century we've just been keeping even and stopped getting ahead.

But then if minimum wage had kept up with inflation from it's start in 1938 when it was .25, it would be only be $3.85. Oh wait. In NY State, it's $7.15.

It's a good thing we had cheap credit and jobs for our wives or we might have been in trouble.

Broadway Saves Wall Street

What's so funny about an amusement tax?

So the Gov wants to tack on 4% to tickets and Hizzoner wants to tack on another 4%. “Everybody's gettin' inta da act!” For this they did away with term limits?

This is what happens when you gross close to a Billion a year. A victim of our own success.

Why not a luxury tax like baseball has. Figure out what the average ticket price is for each house and then average that across all the legitimate houses. Let's say the hypothetical number is $86.50. Tickets below $86.50 or whatever remain tax-free. Any tickets above that are taxed incrementally until tickets that are priced at twice the average are taxed at 25%. Tickets above twice the average are then taxed at a steeper rate until those people who are buying hot tickets are paying the highest taxes. If you can afford a $450 ticket to a Broadway show then taxes aren't really important to you. If you're a school group buying tickets in the upper balcony, that 8% may be the difference of you seeing your first Broadway show or not.

When pigs fly!

Mopping The Counting-up Room Floor

Bloomberg has an article that describes the latest feeding frenzy in the shark filled waters of Broadway. Seems that those folks who believe that the arts exist for the sole benefit of themselves, i.e. the Producers, lifted the curtain on a little drama being played out with the party of the second part, i.e. the Theatre Owners, the other folks who believe that the arts exist solely for themselves. The subject only seems to be "a comprehensive discussion on the economics of the producer- theater-owner" because-the wolf is at the door, the wolf is at the door!

Learning their lessons from the Bob ( Ain't Nobodies Bidness If I Do ) Sillerman school of theatre production, some of the Producers are contending that the reason audiences are staying away from yet another juke-box musical is because of additional fees charged by the house, like the fee for staying after the show and actually counting the receipts. “The landlords won’t ever admit they charge bogus fees,” said the producer of several major Broadway hits, speaking on condition of anonymity because he hopes to continue producing Broadway hits." Note the diminishing reference to "landlords" rather than "theatre owner" by the brave but anonymous producer.

As sense memory exercise try this. Substitute "piano" for "counting-out room", substitute "mopping" for "restoration" and substitute "flyman" for "credit card fees". Then watch this rewind from the League's Strike Press Conference. If you begin to see their lips moving and nothing coming out, you may or may not have reached a higher state of awareness in your ability to analyze the cycles of the extraction of the surplus value by the owners of capital. In fact,the sound really is dropping out of the video.

From Limelight To Plasma

The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

Check this out. Imagine a lamp for a moving light or follow spot that is smaller than a dime, uses half the power of the current lamp, burns with the brilliance of the sun and gets its power from radio waves. Luxim has introduced a solid state plasma light source that is the step away from LEDs. LIFI™ light sources use a solid-state device to generate RF (radio frequency) energy to power a plasma light source while LEDs use the solid state device itself. The plasma lamp also has a life of thousands of hours. There go work calls.

LEDs Magazine has an article here and PLSN has an article here .

Luxim has a video here and Cnet has a video here.

A Little IATSE History

One faces the future with one's past. Pearl S. Buck

A friend recently lent me his copy of the IATSE convention minutes from the beginning in 1893 to 1926 and I've found them to be great reading. It started when he was telling me about the Clearers Local #390 and Calcium and Electro-Calcium Light Local #35 in NYC. I had never heard of them so I decided to do a little research. The things you find out!

It seems that there were Property Men and assistants but the rest of the work of setting props and decorating were done by "clearers'. This was a separate Local and the men were not considered to be as skilled as mechanics, flymen, carpenters or electricians. It wasn't until 1920 that these separate Locals were "amalgamated" into
Local One.

I knew that the Alliance was originally called the National Alliance (NATSE) but had heard the name was changed because it rhymed with Nazi. Turns out that this little item was planted by some Hollywood press agent in the 1940's. Actually it was changed because, among other reasons, Canadian locals were included in the Alliance. That was done at the convention meeting at Emerald Hall in Norfolk, Va in July of 1902.

Items from various minutes.
July, 1895 Resolution passed that offers support to Eugene V. Debs and his brothers in Woodstock jail.
Resolution offered by Local 5 Cincinnatti to do away with counterweights and sandbags. Rejected as interfering with local laws to much.

July 1896 Rates for Traveling Men
Master Machinist $35
Asst Machinist and Flymen $25
Extra Men $20
Property Men $25
Asst Propertymen $20
Electrician $25

In 1903, Local 4 in Brooklyn requested that the rates charged in Brooklyn were to be as follows:
Master Machinist $30 week
Asst. Machinist $20 week
Traveling Company $20 Week
Property Man and assistant $35 Week
Stage and Fly Hands (extra hours and broken time) .65 hour
Electrician or Gas-man $21 Week
Stage Carpenters Per Day $3.50
Stagehands Per Day $2.50
Stagehands and Flymen per performance $1.50
Sunday, Nights, Holidays Double Time

1905, IATSE locals collect $1695 for San Francisco earthquake relief.

In 1914 Quebec outlawed sandbags and counterweights being used over "the heads of actors, machinists or other persons on the stage." What we call "arbors" were required.

May 1917 Road Scale Rates:(Pink Contract)
Master Machinist $45 week
Asst. Machinist $40 week
Flyman $35
Extramen $35
Propertymen $40
Asst. Propertymen $35

January, 1919, Local 4 requests amalgamation with Local One.
May, 1919 IATSE Executive Board rejects the Local 4 request for amalgamation.

May 1920, President Shay reports that during the Actors Equity Association strike, IATSE supported the union with an assessment of $1 per member. It was the support of all members of the Alliance that helped AEA win the strike.
Electrician $40 Week
Assst Electrician $35 Week
Moving Picture Machine Operator $45

1917 $45
2008 Adjusted for inflation $759.73

On The Bounce

The business is slow right now and there is a lot of fear out there. As workers we’ve been inculcated with fear about our jobs, our future and our status in life since the Reagan administration. The middle class life we knew has moved further and further out of our reach. Rightly or wrongly we measure our self worth by the kind of work we do and when there isn’t any work, we’re diminished.
One of the odd things about this business is working on the bounce. There is a sizable population of our business who work as per-diems or daily hires. Technicians who by design or circumstance live a life determined by the ebb and flow of work calls, holidays, special events, swinging into a show track, one-offs or hotel jobs. Split shifts, back to back to back calls, clockers and short notice calls are all part of the career. Depending on what is going on in you home life will determine how quickly you take any call that comes along. A stagehand with kids and a mortgage isn’t going to get much sleep.
How one copes with financial insecurity often determines the part of this business one goes into. Stagehands sometimes get a basic, full-time job and never venture out of the venue into the rest of the jurisdiction. Others don’t have the skills or the contacts that allow them to get these jobs offered to them in the first place. Still others seem to have the job skills but lack the social skills to stay in one place for very long. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
The hardest part is managing cash flow. After enough time in the business you learn that a steady job often means you can keep a smaller cushion since money is coming in on a steady basis. When your bouncing around, however, you keep a larger cushion because the checks arrive when they arrive. When doing a hotel job you know not to count on the check at the end of the call, the end of the week or even at the end of the month. Corporate jobs often tend to be slow since the payroll has to get invoiced, passed through the production company that hired you, then sent to the client, processed through their invoicing system and checks are then cut. Weeks can pass and sometimes enough time passes that a check comes in the mail that you had forgotten about. Sometimes you end up being fly-by-night operations creditors but the Local is pretty good about that sort of stuff. I’ve gotten ripped off a lot more often without a contract than with one.
It’s a balancing act keeping the bills paid, the calls filled and having a real life. Most of the time when things get out of balance it’s the real life that goes first. There’s no time for family issues or relationships or relaxation. You can’t really relax because every show closes, every job comes to an end and you have to find the next one. More work, a little sleep, another call across town and a quick meal. You get home to change clothes and grab some shuteye. And repeat.
I see fear in people’s eyes now. The cushion is getting smaller or perhaps has disappeared. The calls are fewer and after watching the news or reading their annuity statements, the prospects look grim. However fear is an emotion and not a fact. There is an ebb and flow to show business and to life and we need to keep that in mind. Watch out for people that are trying to play on your emotions, be they politicians, financers or commentators. The wealthy lose a bunch of paper money and it's a depression. Working folks lose their homes and it's a housing bubble. The multinationals that control the levers of power are jockeying for position with these bailouts and playing chicken with the financial system.

I have no idea where it will end up. I do know that we have more survival skills, street smarts. We had to have them in order to get by in the New World Order. Don’t buy what they’re selling. We’ll be alright if we stick together.

Stagehand of Babylon

A couple of folks with to much time on their hands have asked me why I’ve stopped posting. I’ve been blessed with a schedule that has been filled with a lot of work. Those of you in the business know what “busy” means in terms of time constraints. If you don’t, ask you family.

I think many of us like to think that we primarily make our living in the arts or at least on the periphery of it. But even in New York City it sometimes difficult to survive on just a diet of culture. As we get further and further from the hot sun of the fine arts, away from the nourishing atmosphere of Broadway we’ll work in the cold outer planets of “television” and “industrial.” Even these can be satisfying when the technological gee-whiz factor is high enough. A lot of product rollouts and events have a lot of bright, new shiny toys.

So where am I? Out in the cold outer reaches of our universe, there is a distant planet called “Cable.” It can support life but it’s a hardscrabble existence. Orbiting that planet is a lifeless, gray moon called the “Business News Channel“.

Business News Channel is inhabited by a race of people called “Clients”. It’s a soul-sucking place where the end result of a stagehand’s labor is to help tell the rest of the Universe about the importance of the “Market”. The Market and the Clients don’t produce anything. They do, however, talk a lot about how important they are and why they are the “Masters Of The Universe.”

Their main religion is a philosophy called the “Tao”; I believe it’s spelled. A great deal of attention is paid to the daily and even hourly moods of their god. Often you will hear it brightly said, “The Tao was up today” or solemnly “the Tao closed down today”. "The Tao went for a walk on Wall Street."

Space is often warped on Business News Channel. Regularly in the workplace, small groups of Clients will arrive, blink quickly and announce, ”It looks bigger/smaller than I thought it would.” For me, it looks exactly the size it was drawn to be on the blueprints but for the Client there seems to be a problem with perception on many levels. Sometimes color is a major problem. “It’s bluer/darker/flatter than I thought it would be” as if the sample of the color they were shown is not the same color as the one that appeared on the set.

The distortion in perception is not limited to scenery. Their measure of success in life is marked by the acquisition of things. They also seem to believe that a Bank is more important a Bakery. That Commerce is more important than Community. They put Profits before People.

There’s more, so much more and yet so very little. There will come a time when I’ll get off this little moon. As the saying goes, “when the money runs out, so do we”. The Client can hire my body for a couple of hours or days but the money always runs out and that’s my ticket back to sunshine.

Where have I been? I prefer to think about where I’m going, thank you very much.

And so it goes.

Chimera

I had the opportunity to work the Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium and I was again struck by unique skill sets required of stagehands that not many workers have. We take the known and create the new. And if it is done correctly, after the audience, the music, the applause and the bows, we make it disappear. After everything is swept and clean, the idiot check performed and the ghost light put out, we leave no evidence of our presence except the memory. Other trades build for permanence; we build to create a figment of a feeling.

Major league baseball understands this illusion. If you’ve been to a ball game in high school or even played beer league softball, the dimensions of the field are the same, more or less. What changes in a major league park is the scale. The immenseness of the stands creates a feeling of being dwarfed and changes the 90 feet between the bases to multiples of that. Television shots can create an intimacy with the players at home that is missing at the park much like the difference in theatre and film. Being on the field helps to understand the similarities.

Like a theatre there is certain sanctity about the place. The diamond and the outfield grass were as protected by the grounds crew and the security force as if it were a brand new auditorium and these were brand new seats. "Don't put anything on the seats" was changed into "don't walk on the grass". They may be different venues but it’s the exact same reaction.

Then there was a transformation. The fabled "House that Ruth Built" became something much more familiar. It stopped being a baseball cathedral and became a stage for a mass. It was going to be religious rite on a grand scale but also entertainment. Meaning no disrespect to the rituals involved or the faith of the participants but this was the start of a process we, as stagehands, knew intimately, creating entertainment out of a bare stage. Musical, concert, drama, religious ceremony, political event, business meeting, all require the same elements to achieve the same goal, to convey a message using presence.

Part of that transformation was a change in scale. During the day the trusses soared against the blue sky and at night the white ceiling glowed translucent. Although the stage was of a standard size commonly found in outdoor events, the upper decks of the Stadium that surrounded the stage provided an unusual point of reference. There developed an illusion of the stage/altar growing larger and the Stadium shrinking.

Then, as with any ballgame, show, event or religious rite, it was over. Silence settled over the familiar blue and green space as the last off the mats were pulled up and the forklifts backed up the runway. So lightly did the Pope thread on Yankee Stadium that there could have been a ballgame that night.

I wonder if the Yankee grounds crew has a ghost light.

Continuing Education

Due to a combination of work schedule and a lack of motivation, I've not been posting. Call it spring fever, laziness, whatever.

I came across this link to a SFX workshop that I thought looked promising.

SPECIAL EFFECTS CLASS LED BY GREG MEEH

The six-hour class will cover a wide spectrum of effects including uses of SFX in a variety of mediums from performing arts to print to TV and film. The first section of the class will cover Designing Special Effects: based on hundreds of images and drawings from 35 years of special effects design, Gregory Meeh will comment on and discuss the techniques and applications used to realize the needs of many types of productions, from the Off Broadway originations of Broadway hits to major Las Vegas hotel venues to fashion shows, auto shows, and daytime television.

Demonstrations and discussions will follow about the tools used to create the following effects: confetti and snow, water effects, atmospherics, wind, firearms, flames, and pyrotechnics. Each technical section will include experienced J&M technicians expert in the area and will include examples of functioning equipment as well as applicable safety information.

WWED (What Would Euripides Do?)

I've always been a technology buff. The formative influences in my youth were the polio vaccine, the Mercury Seven, pictures from Mars and deep-sea submarines. I can recall watching open-heart surgery on local television. It was shown late at night so as to avoid disturbing the squeamish but the image of a surgeon holding a beating, human heart in his hand will always stay with me. Good theatre should have a similar gee-whiz factor, either in production, performance or at best, a combination of the two.

While theatrical plotlines remain essentially the same (seven-count em, seven), science, engineering and the audience drive the technological advances in the theatre. Moving lights can produce millions of colors, hydraulics can move tons with ease and high tensile steels and alloys allow for scenery and cables of incredible strength. But the audience doesn't want to see a show about moving lights or scenery or flying people. It still boils down to telling a captivating story. And that human element can still trump technology.

A case in point is automated follow spots. They've been trying for years to find a way to allow an automated moving light to replace a human spot operator. Cheaper and flashier, theoretically you could put twenty spots on a single performer. Its been tried with rock and roll and more recently on a Broadway show. There are two major problems. Lag time and head fakes. Currently a performer carries tracking device that the unit tries to follow. The problem is processing time. Even in milliseconds, the time it takes for a signal to get from performer to processor to the motors is long enough to create a visible lag or jerkiness in the moving head. If you try to preprogram moving head for a point to point cross following an actor, well, unexpected things happen in live theatre. Even the fastest computer processing power will not react faster to a head fake or the suddenly reblocking of a scene than an stagehand who can decide, on the fly, to open the iris and follow the changes as best they can until the regular blocking is restored. Try that with software.

In the first Darpa Grand Challenge in 2004 the furthest an autonomous vehicle got was 7 miles out of the 150-mile course. In the 2007 Urban Challenge, this clip shows how unmanned technology mixed with human traffic . It did pretty well for the most part. For the most part. However imagine being the robot car being a piece of automation and the actors name is Taurus. Ford Taurus. The bugs for follow spots will be worked out.

One potential answer for follow spots may lie in joining facial recognition software in a unit such as High End Systems DL.2 with its built in camera and infrared sensors. By eliminating the need receive a signal from a homing device and introducing the process directly into the software, you may cut down on the lag time. Which could make automated follow spots a reality.

Do I want to hang on to carbon arc follow spots for the sake of job preservation? I would if, with their heat and foul odors, a carbon arc would put fannies in seats. If not, give the people what they want and give me a healthier work environment. Bring on the next deus ex machina. Since the Greeks, it’s always been about spectacle and the story. Why change now?

You design, we decide.

In my mind, the set I've just loaded-in is representative of the disconnect between the so-called information society and the rest of us. Framed out of tubular steel, it produces the illusion of being very slender while still being very strong. It's also been designed with a CAD program that is a marvel of functionality. It allows for 3D views, cut lists,cost estimates and multiple color combinations that the client can approve of without every leaving their office. It is also usually "drafted" by someone who is much more familiar with a hard drive than a drill press, with the language of software than the language of truck drivers. And when the lack of familiarity with the shop process collides with the computer process, it's the language of truck drivers that is heard the loudest when bolts holes don't line up. When the inexperienced doesn't account for the build up of welds when making joints, things can get loud and profane. It's the workman’s skill that makes the real the symmetry of the beautiful drawing on the dirty, sagging floor of the studio.

In my mind this typifies what is going on in much of the business and political world today. There are business school graduates running businesses who have never even watched people unloading the trucks in the business they're running and would never consider unloading one themselves. To them, a repetitive stress injury is an abstraction that only affects the cost of the health plan and not the reality of not being able to play with the kids after work because of the pain. Because of their income levels, politicians can relate in a real sense to tax brackets but only in an abstract sense to poverty levels because they have never felt the stinging isolation of being poor. Designers with MFA's who are breaking into the entertainment industry by doing computer drafting work aren't going to be able to relate to the shop carpenters or stagehands that are going to work the multiple 16 hour days it will take to build or load in the beautiful drawings.

To complain to the boss will result in some flippant remark about “that if I don’t like it here etc, etc”. At this point I know that his kid’s tuition has been paid for, his greens fees have been paid for and that he thinks that he’s probably immune to being fired. For the new designer, one can only hope that he or she acquires his or her skill without someone getting hurt because of the hacks required to make the illusion real.

As for politicians, I have a new rule of thumb. The candidate who has a net worth that is closest to mine will have my vote. I’ve had enough of Ivy League millionaires trying to tell me that I have to live my life according to their standards which they can apply to themselves at their discretion, meaning if they don’t get caught, it’s okay. The operatives of the two major parties seem to have less and less in common with the people they govern and are not working at improving the lives of the governed. They are skilled at fund raising from major donors, improving the tax code for the said donors and getting the government off “our” backs. By getting the government off our backs they really mean that corporations can have free run over the environment, workers, communities, our retirement system, our military, our health care, our education and then pit us against each other for their cynical ends. Here’s a radical idea. Lets bring the government back. Big badass government. A government that will take tax cheats to court, sues polluters, protects workers, gives us the health care we require, the retirement we’ve earned, the education our children really require and allows all of us to live in peace and prosperity. In the words of Lincoln, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

So Much For Holiday Cheer

Paul Krugman has an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times today.

But what really happened is that beginning in the 1970s, corporate America, which had previously had a largely cooperative relationship with unions, in effect declared war on organized labor.

Don’t take my word for it; read Business Week, which published an article in 2002 titled “How Wal-Mart Keeps Unions at Bay.” The article explained that “over the past two decades, Corporate America has perfected its ability to fend off labor groups.” It then described the tactics — some legal, some illegal, all involving a healthy dose of intimidation — that Wal-Mart and other giant firms use to block organizing drives.

These hardball tactics have been enabled by a political environment that has been deeply hostile to organized labor, both because politicians favored employers’ interests and because conservatives sought to weaken the Democratic Party. “We’re going to crush labor as a political entity,” Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist, once declared.

If the past is prologue then how did the body politic of the New Deal change into Neo-Conservatism? In a book published in 1995, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics Dan T Carter argues that the George Wallace tapped into the growing white backlash against the civil rights movement that was sweeping the country and blaming godless liberals for ruining our American values. Wallace, who consistently gathered favorable poll results of 8% outside the Deep South and gathered 30% to 43% of the votes in early primaries in 1968, represented a deep feeling of helplessness that many working and middle class Americans felt in the 60's. He also represented a threat to Richard Nixon's support among Republican voters. Nixon used an IRS investigation to force Wallace to run in the Democratic primaries instead as an independent, which would have drawn off Nixon voters.

While Nixon viewed Wallace and the sentiment he represented as a threat, Ronald Reagan saw this helplessness as an opportunity to restore and improve upon the Conservative Coalition that brought together the conservative Republicans with Southern Democrats and had ruled Congress from 1939 through 1964. The Southern Coalition was against Communism, atheism, unionism, liberalism and stood as a bulwark against the Civil Rights movement. When Reagan campaigned for President in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, he used the racist code phrase “I believe in states’ rights,” When he did, he picked up Wallace's flag in the city where civil rights workers were killed, using the language of the "Old South”, the money of supply side corporations and the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation with it's attacks on the "liberal media". Thus when Gingrich took over for Cheney as Republican House Whip in 1989 and with Reagan in the White House, the union movement was stopped in its tracks. The support unions had from the government in 1935 with the passing of the Wagner Act (NLRB) had turned hostile in 1939 with the Conservative Coalition and the passing of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. With Reagan and Gingrich, the conservatives and the business community were out to destroy organized labor altogether and roll back the Civil Rights movement.

Today it's not politically correct to openly racist but saying "damn, there sure are a lot of illegal immigrants, let's build a wall" " is perfectly acceptable. A wall for New Mexico and not Minnesota.

Today it's not politically correct to criticize the globalization of the economy, which sends American jobs overseas, but it is all right to blame unions for sending those jobs to places where workers can be exploited.

Today it's politically correct to support the troops in Iraq and be against the war while at the same time it not correct to point out that the majority of those volunteers who have been killed in Iraq come from the Rust Belt in the upper Midwest and the poorest sections of Texas, California, Virginia, Georgia and Florida. In places where there used to be jobs other than the military. Good union jobs.

That's enough for now. Have a better New Year.