I started working for F/X Scenery And Display in January of 1996. There was a Project Manager there at the time that everyone on the crew hated to work with. That meant that, as the new guy, I was next to be awarded the honor of being Mike's bitch. To tell the truth, I worked with him on ten or twelve gigs and never learned to hate it - but then, I'm rather more flexible than the average stagehand.
And so it came to pass that in December, 1996 Mike somehow cajoled Triple A into having F/X do the honors of shepherding their incredibly expensive new corporate meeting set to its many scheduled destinations. He wanted to be the one to travel with it, but he knew that some destinations were better left to his bitch, me, when he had bigger gigs to fry. So when the fancy new set debuted at Disney's Contemporary Resort, he went there to begin this new position. He took me to learn the set along with him. Two guys from the Chicago company that designed and built it were to be there to show us how it's done.
Call time at the Contemporary: Sunday at noon. I, of course, showed up at 11:15. I found the big-ass function room scheduled for Triple A. As usual, there was a function already going on in there. With a lot of luck, they would finish up by noon or a little after. HA! So Mike came along, the designer-guys came along, the trucks from Chicago backed into the loading dock. Noon came and went, one, two...pretty normal show biz crapola. The Disney people were not willing to rush their guests out of there.
Mike and the designers decided to start bringing the stuff up the freight elevator from the dock. The biggest problem with that - several of the crates were too big to fit on the elevator! By 4:00 most of the set was upstairs, and Mike was huddled with the design guys sorting pieces and laying it out on the floor in an air-walled-off section of the ballroom. We even stood up the two screen surrounds just to be busy. Mike wanted to scoot them fully assembled fifty feet to the stage and lift them three feet in the air onto the stage. All of the rest of us kind of looked at him strangely, especially since the face of the set was sculpted foam with images of space travel and astronauts and planets and satellites and such. To grip this set firmly was to crush the thin shell of paint and pop holes in the sculpture with our fingers. We convinced Mike to reconsider.
Finally, a little after 5:00 the party broke up. The Disney Events Crew charged in to clear the room. Mike zeroed in on the leader of the pack. "You guys the ones bringing in the staging?" Mike asked. "Staging?" the guy mused. He got on his radio to headquarters. Of course no-one had ordered staging. But they could do it - for a slight extra fee - on a Sunday night! So we stretched our rear-projection screens, set up projection towers, assembled logos lights and microphones to the lectern, and unloaded the turntable parts to get them organized. It was after 9:00 when the stage was ready for us. We assembled the turntable centered at the rear (upstage) and installed the set pieces on it. This told us where the two screen surrounds should be placed. We did that.
The stuff on the turntable wobbled with the turning. We cabled the upper corners to the turntable floor to stabilize that. We washed our hands and added the pristine white flats and the very fragile Gatorfoam globe to the back side of the center section. We set in and shimmed up the triangular stage plugs on the corners of the rectangular staging pieces and velcroed up the facing pieces. We unpacked the big stage-wall AAA logos to install on the walls, and that's when Mike and the designers realized that these were the OLD logos - without the new blue orbits!
So, at about 2:30 in the morning, Mike and I headed to the shop with crude drawings of orbits to be cut out of blue PVC sheet stock. We drew them, I cut them on the band saw and we hauled ass back to Disney World. We installed orbits on all the logos and the day was saved. I went home at 5:30am. Mike stayed to meet the AAA cheeses. They walked in at 8:00, looked at the set and said, "How did those orbits get there? We don't start using the new logo until after the first of the year!"
Several days later, we were back at the Contemporary, disassembling the set, loading some parts back into the smaller crates, and busting up the way-too-big crates for disposal. Mike had talked them into letting me build wagons, one for the stage left screen surround, one for the stage right screen surround, one for the front center section, one for the white backside and fragile globe section, and one for the oddly shaped stage plugs and stage facing pieces. The intent was to have maximum flexibility from venue to venue - to be able to use whatever sections were needed to fill whatever space they were using, and to be able to load whatever wagons were needed each time. It was while I was working on this that I learned that in September this baby was going to London, England. I was pretty sure Mike would take that gig himself.
F/X ordered up a storage semi trailer dedicated to Triple A. As each wagon was finished and loaded, we rolled it into the trailer. The turntable already had a steel wagon, so it went on. I built a rolling box for the lectern. It went. When all was finished, it was apparent that a 40 foot trailer was just exactly big enough to handle the whole set. One of the guys working with me figuring out how to fit it all in there said that it was quite a puzzle - but in his Honduras accent it sounded like "quite a pus-hole." This became a buzz phrase at F/X that is still used today.
***
In January parts of the set went to Sawgrass Resort near Jacksonville. This was one that Mike was happy to pass off to me. I rented a Ryder Truck, backed it up to the semi, and loaded up the chunks I needed for this abbreviated version. The system worked. I drove it over on I-4, took I-95 up to Saint Augustine, then trundled up A1A all the way to Sawgrass. I backed 'er up to the loading dock, and quickly figured out that the three twelve-foot wagons were not going to make it out onto the six-foot-deep dock. Hmmm. There was a ramp from the back parking lot up to the side of the dock. Hmmm. Would my wagons roll down the metal ramp included in the truck? I kept my baloney lips zipped, took my two local helpers and drove the truck out to the middle of the space. We set the truck ramp and slowly rolled a wagon to the edge. It turned out that I couldn't possibly have put the wheels in a better place. They had an inch of clearance all the way, which made them very stable going down the ramp. Whew! We rolled them across the lot, up the ramp to the dock, and right into the ballroom, no problem. We set up one screen and the front center with no turntable - easy stuff - and the designer-guys helped me get my rental car to drive back to Orlando and then in a couple of days to drive back to Sawgrass. I guess Triple A figured out that this was their cheapest alternative over lodgings, truck driving mileage or whatever. So in a couple days I drove back, turned in my car, disassembled the set, loaded the wagons, rolled them out to the truck and headed home again. Easy gig.
***
In February a short round went to Miami. Mike was going to take this one, but in the interim Triple A called Mack, the owner of F/X, and told him that Mike had told them that he was going out on his own and wanted to take AAA with him. Suddenly, I was the only one at FX who knew the set. When I got to Miami I learned that the design guys from Chicago had been removed from the gravy train as well. Suddenly, I was the only one in the whole world who knew the set. Now if I could only hold out until September!
Two things stick in my mind about the Miami gig. First, I had to unload and load the truck in the front driveway of the hotel, and roll the wagons through the parking garage to the ballroom entrance. Many people were very unhappy about that. Then, after spending one night in the hotel and hanging out until early afternoon, I was able to strike the show, load up, and drive to Vero Beach by early evening and hang out with Craig and Linda Bowers for a couple of hours before continuing home. Nice.
***
The first Atlanta gig was a strange one. It was for another company that had seen the new, incredibly expensive Triple A set and asked to rent it for a show in Atlanta. They wanted the whole magilla minus the turntable, lectern and stage plugs, which I could just squeeze into a 24 foot Ryder - it was quite a pus-hole! It was a rainy March day when I drove my truck north. It was a rainy March evening when I arrived around 5:30, looking for the hotel during rush hour. I found it, but there was no parking anywhere near it. I circled it a few times, and was finally able to squeeze in on a side street and leave it there long enough to talk to the guys at the loading dock. "Where can I park it?" I asked. They shrugged. I went to the front desk and asked. They shrugged. I headed out the front door, passing the Doorman. "Where can I park my truck?" I asked. "The Days Inn next door will let you park it in their lot for a fee." Cool.
While I'd been gone, a Fed Ex truck had backed in behind me and tight to the curb. His rear end was actually between my truck's rear end and the curb. When I pulled away. the left rear corner of the Ryder scraped a lens off of the right rear corner light of the Fed Ex truck. I stopped, police were called, an accident report was written. Luckily, when I rented the truck I accepted the full insurance coverage. This came in very handy when the lawyer for the Fed Ex driver began weeks later to try to make a big liability thing out of it. Dumbass.
The next morning I retrieved the truck from the Days Inn, parked in almost the same spot as the night before, and with my local labor, easily rolled all of the wagons down to the street and onto the freight elevator. We were done before noon, I parked at the Days Inn again, and grabbed MARTA to the airport. This company flew me home to Orlando for the three days of the show, then back to Atlanta for the strike. Strike started at about five in the afternoon. I was not given a room for the night. I set out driving at eleven, and didn't crap out until 3:30 in the morning in north Florida. Not too bad for a forty four year old man.
To add insult to these injuries, when I went to the airport to retrieve my vehicle, it had a parking ticket on it because it was too long for the space and poked out into the drive a little too far. I was beginning to regret being the world's leading authority on the Triple A set.
***
Atlanta Two was no driving required. Those Triple A guys had figured out that if their own guy drove the truck and I flew, it saved them money. I really don't like driving, so that worked for me. There was a huge underground loading dock and truck parking lot at this venue. I believe I set up the whole thing for this show, and they didn't bring me back for the strike. The weirdest thing, though, was that Mike the Snake was there doing the lighting for them. Hmmmm.
***
In May the abreviated set went to New Orleans. They didn't want me at all other than to pull and help them load the chunks they needed. I was sad, but also a bit relieved. A week later, the truck came back with the set in a shambles. The strike crew had just flung the pieces onto the truck. The pieces were damaged and the wagons were damaged. The Triple A guys were not happy about their incredibly expensive set. They authorized F/X to make all necessary repairs, and give it a new paint job for London. They even sent us a half-set they had been using in europe, for us to refurbish and repaint to match the big guy. Then they were taking it away from us forever. Weeks later, all spiffy and sparkly again, the full big set was loaded onto a shipping container and sent to London.
Weeks after that, AAA called to say that they had a very limited time to install in London, and could I please come and take care of the set for them? I told Mack to tell them that if I could have a private room so my wife could come, I'd do it. Otherwise, never mind. They said, "Fine, but you're only there for install, not strike." I said "Fine, but fly me back on Thursday with the rest of the crew. My wife and I want to explore for a few days." "Fine." "Fine."
And so it came to pass that we got our passports in order and Carmen booked a round trip to London on Virgin Air. This cost hundreds less than flying Delta with the AAA bunch. I was on the Delta flight with the psyched-up church choir going to England to sing at some big shindig. They were practicing all the way. I left Friday morning, nearly a week after Princess Diana was killed, and arrived, totally sleepless, on Saturday morning.
There was some hullaballoo about road boxes of gear clearing customs or whatever. My tool box came through fine, and one lighting guy and I split a cab to the Hyatt Hyde Park. We arrived at the ballroom just in time to see the first pieces of the set come off the elevator. They were unloading the wagons down at the dock. Before the job was finished, they had dropped one center sculpted foam piece and popped several finger-sized holes in it. Right in the center.
Carmen arrived and we got her squared away in my room. She got right on the phone and began making reservations for tours. She booked us a Jack The Ripper Tour for that night. By supper time, the set was pretty much done except for the tweaking. One thing was preying on my mind: those holes in the center. What could I use to fill them? The surface was a mottled and pitted texture, so anything smooth would show up like a beacon. A sponge would work, but it would need to be whitish-greyish. Hmmm.
I had a hard time staying awake on the bus with the driver telling stories and offering theories about Jack The Ripper. We visited the pubs, we visited the crime scenes, and back on the bus I fought to stay awake. When we finally got back to the hotel, I slept like a baby.
The next morning I knew that the only really big challenge remaining was to fill those holes. I was sitting in the bathroom picturing something that could be compressed into the holes and painted or Sharpied to blend in. I was wadding up toilet paper in my hand...HEY! A few minutes later I was downstairs with my roll of toilet paper. I climbed the ladder, wadded up some balls of tp and stuffed them in the holes. I climbed down, looked up - and couldn't see the holes, at all. A stroke of brilliance.
Carmen went on a bus tour to Leeds Castle, Dover and Canterbury that day. I finished up everything I knew to do and sat in the corner of the ballroom. Soon the Technical Director woke me up and told me not to sleep in a chair in front of the client who was paying me to be there. I told him to let me know if there was anything else they needed from me, and went out for a long walk. I was pleased to find that I remembered my way around quite a bit of the city from my trip here 22 years ago when I was 22. (Four Plays)
Carmen returned in the late afternoon, bubbling over with enthusiasm about Leeds, Canterbury and the White Cliffs. We were hungry, so we asked the Concierge to recommend a moderately priced Italian Restaurant. He recommended Toto's. We grabbed a cab.
My only regret about this whole trip is that I didn't go back to the Hyatt, grab the Concierge by the lapels and ask him how expensive a meal would have to be to earn the rank of HIGH priced. Our dinner came to just over 100 pounds- way over 200 dollars! They put us upstairs in the Beverley Hillbillies section, where everyone wearing jeans was put. The up side: we were by the railing and could watch the fancy people down below, including Uma Thurman.
Early Monday morning we checked out of the Hyatt, leaving our luggage at the front desk. We had a good breakfast before our tour bus picked us up and took us to Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral and Bath.
Stonehenge is a little like the Grand Canyon. You can see photographs and movies, and you can hear and read descriptions, but until you actually see what those wacky Druids did all those thousands of years ago, the impact pales.
Salisbury Cathedral was very cool, lots of famous dead people entombed in there, beautiful architecture. The tour group was walking, walking from the cathedral to a pub for lunch, but Carmen wanted to linger in the gift shop and such. My job was to watch which way the group went so we could catch up. I watched them through five or six turnings out of the cathedral grounds, down this street, turn onto that street. I went beyond where Carmen could see me from the grounds, watched one more turn and headed back. By the time we set out to follow the group and we attained the last turn I'd seen, there was no sign of them or any pub. We guessed the next turn to no avail. Several college-age boys came down the street, so we asked them. Believe it or not, they knew exactly where the pub was. Lunch was crappy, by the way.
Bath was very cool as well. You know, seeing signs directing you to "Historic Downtown Orlando" loses all of its charm after you spend a day looking at a five thousand year old henge, a seven hundred year old cathedral and baths where the Romans bathed.
We returned to London during rush hour. Carmen got off at the Knightsbridge Hotel on Knightsbridge Street to check us in. I continued on to the Hyatt Hyde Park, collected our luggage and took a cab back. Once we had settled in we went out for a walk to explore our new neighborhood and find some dinner. We turned down Brompton Road and passed Harrod's with its chest-high heaps of flowers and gifts from mourners of Princess Di. Dinner was pizza at a much more moderately priced Italian restaurant than Toto's.
Tuesday's tour was called "The Historic And Modern London Tour," with yet another twinge for Orlandoans. "Modern" London was anything built since the fire of 1666. We saw all the usual stuff: the Changing of the Guard between chest-high heaps of flowers and other gifts all along the fences around Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, lunch in Covent Garden, Saint Paul's Cathedral, Parliament, all that stuff. It ended with a boat ride from the Tower of London up the Thames to meet the bus and go home.
Wednesday, our last day, was a wandering day, a shopping day (yes, she bought pottery) and we had tickets to see "The Woman In Black" at a theatre near Covent Garden. She went to the Victoria And Albert Museum and gift shop. I walked to the Harley Davidson store (they don't sell motorcycles) and bought Harley Davidson London T-shirts for the three guys back at F/X who requested them. They had a special going: buy two, get one free! Then we went to St. Martin in the Fields, Picadilly Circus and back to the hotel to dress for the theatre.
The play was pretty good, with a couple of really chilling moments. After the show we went back to the hotel to pack for our sad departure. I disappointed Carmen by just going back to the hotel instead of coming out wild and crazy and telling the driver to take us to a fun night spot to close out our best vacation ever. So far.
I missed the best part of our return trips. I checked in at Delta first, then Carmen went by herself to check in at Virgin with her way-too-heavy carry-on bag of pottery that, hell no, she wasn't going to check it! She wouldn't even let ME carry it!
***
Soon we come to the end of the Triple A saga. It all came down to Time Change Weekend, Fall, 1997. A few weeks prior, the AAA guys asked Mack if I could come to Phoenix. They'd seen the loaded shipping container in London and weren't at all confident that the set would be in very good shape when the container got to Phoenix. They sent their truck to pick up the European half-set, and F/X was almost completely done with it.
I flew to Phoenix on Friday afternoon, and in the evening we opened the container. Their fears were not in vain. One screen surround flat was completely snapped in half! "What do we do now?" they lamented. My face lit up. It just so happened that that exact piece was duplicated in the European half-set! All day Saturday I installed the whole set, turntable and all, all by myself. I used half a roll of toilet paper, gaff tape, Sharpies- everything in the arsenal, and it looked good one last time.
On Sunday morning I knew the time had changed everywhere but Arizona. I got on the standby list at Delta, left four hours earlier than scheduled, flew from Mountain Time to Eastern Time, and had absolutely no idea what time it was when I got home. There were no parking tickets on my vehicle at the airport - life was good and Triple A was over!
No comments:
Post a Comment