Archive for January, 2008
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
Blogroll updated
I finally doped out how to order my damned blogroll, though I must admit I wasn’t really trying all that hard. What I was most concerned with is linking to some of the good folks and excellent sites that have somehow found and linked me. So please check out the sidebar and go see what [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Administrative,Link Dump by Nailbanger
Friday, January 25th, 2008
So, you still working at….
I don’t get out much. The fact that the business keeps me busy or recovering mostly around the clock means that when I do get a day off, I don’t feel like doing much of anything. Add to that my natural semi-agoraphobic tendencies (I’m not at all agoraphobic, but if you knew all the details, [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Bouncing,Unions,Work by Nailbanger
Monday, January 21st, 2008
As goes asshole, so goes the crew.
I was talking to a friend of mine recently. He was telling me about the first (I think) person he had to fire, who was the second (I think) guy he ever hired. Basically it sounds like the guy had been around a while, and just started to become a prima donna…he would refuse jobs [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Work by Nailbanger
Friday, January 18th, 2008
Knot knowing.
An observant person who was familiar with both can pretty easily see that there are a lot of things which the sailboat and the stage have in common. A big one is in rigging and knots. The rest? Well, I recently read something comparing stagehands to pirates that wasn’t too much of a stretch, so [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Knots,Theater,Work by Nailbanger
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
Practical matters.
OneNYCStagehand put up a brilliant post about the massive disconnect today between “book learnin” and real-world, hands-on knowledge. Hopefully he won’t mind if I quote liberally: 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 [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Loadins and Loadouts,Theater,Work by Nailbanger
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
The wild and wooly olden days.
Occasionally we get to talking on set, as there can be some significant downtime during rehearsals and blocking and taping. There are millions of stories in this business…stagehands tend to be misfits and ne’er do wells, and as such we often associate with really (really, really, really) colorful characters….guys who’ve done some amazing things (opening [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Work by Nailbanger
Monday, January 14th, 2008
Learning to speed on the Patransformational Hiway.
I wrote this a few months back…it was sitting there as a draft, mostly ready, when the strike occurred and I realized that reporters from the NY Times were reading this site and I suddenly became…shy. Strange. Anyway: The Mrs and I had a pretty decent fight the other night, started as a result of [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Fathers and Sons,Life,The Mrs,Work by Nailbanger
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
The life of a prop crate.
The Mrs and I were visiting my parents for Christmas and, as sometimes happens with family visits, we got to talking. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a third generation stagehand. Without getting into the pros and cons of “third-generation anything” or getting into the story of how I got in vs how others might [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Fathers and Sons,Life,Work by Nailbanger
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
Featherbedding at management level.
I recently worked a loadin that was a pretty big deal, if the population of men with ties standing around having worthless, conflicting opinions can be used as a measure. Actually, that’s not really fair. I know for a fact it was a huge deal. The fact that there was an endless parade of management [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Loadins and Loadouts,Strike,Suits,Unions,Work by Nailbanger
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Tough guys, teary eyes.
This past Christmas, my father gave me the pocketknife he carried with him his whole working life. It’s still sharp as a razor – seriously, you can shave a patch of hair off your arm with it, which is typical of my father – though it looks kind of funny…it’s really half a knife. The [...]