Here are some things that have happened in the 6 days since my last post. Also, this entry is slightly dated. I have already quit my job with the artist mentioned below. Also, I delve into some very frank discussion about some of the things this artist said and did, which are the sorts of things children shouldn’t read.
Still programming the show for Florida on my virtual rig. It’s fun. Because I like lights. A lot. This is also the reason I have exactly zero desire to stay with this current artist. (Hereafter “Damien”)
See, here’s the thing: Damien is not a good person. He’s a terrible person, in fact.
He brings girls onto the bus and sleeps with them – even though he’s “in love” this his girlfriend. He constantly throws “faggot” at me, or anyone else who he perceives as being “unmanly”, usually because they won’t smoke pot with him or hang out. He treats the monitor engineer / production manager like crap, puts completely unreasonable demands on the guitar tech – such as asking him to tech three people at once, refusing to stick to a set list, and calling out random songs with random guitars whenever the hell he feels likes it. He plays music far, far into the night – loud, obnoxious bass-thumpy music which keeps everyone else up, then proceeds to sleep until 4 in the afternoon before waltzing into soundcheck and proceeding to soundcheck for two to three hours.
But it isn’t his perpetual braggadocio and toddler-level hissyfits he throws about some of the most inane things (Like us putting the drum riser on the stage when two days earlier he was angry because we didn’t put the drum riser on the stage.) that are the most powerful driving force of me wanting to leave. It’s his utter unpredictability. One minute he can be a laid-back pot-smoking stoner, the next he can be stark-naked drunk off his ass in the bunks yelling into my bunk calling me a faggot and loudly claiming that I had fellated him. He hates the production people because he doesn’t understand anything about the work we put into things, and constantly threatens to replace all of us. “Fuck those guys.” I’m frankly not interested in being sexually harassed by my boss, and I have no qualms about telling the leasing company this when I talk to them after the holidays. I would love to work with the “big” artist that the production company manages, and so I’m really going to be pushing that. [edit: not going to happen] I’m tired of bars and clubs, I’m tired of being around band members who are constantly unfaithful to their wives, I’m tired of drunk people touching me and putting their beers down near my console, I’m tired of getting no help for load-out, I’m tired of Damien acting like a spoiled petulant man-child with the self-control and ability to delay gratification of a toddler, I’m tired of tiny-ass stages smaller than anything in even the worst churches, I’m tired of fearing that I’ll be fired for some stupid little thing. He’s not worth it. I have zero respect for him as a person, and I refuse to stay with him.
Glad I got that off my chest. I’m going back out with Big Daddy Weave and possibly Terri Clark this year, so I have backup plans. And I happen to know that I really like both of those artists – they’re really fun to work with. I’m excited. Big Daddy Weave might be purchasing a rig, too, which would be absolutely groovy, because it would possibly mean salary for me.
Things with Girlbert continue to go well. Very well, in fact. She’s wonderful in every way, and unless something goes terribly, terribly awry (like me getting hit by a bus) I plan on spending my life with her. Like, marriage. I plan to ask her this year at a time and date that I can’t reveal because I know she reads this.
The Carvers are leaving January 23rd. The next time I see Eva, she will be 11 or 12 years old, depending on the length of their stay. So, yeah.
I’m currently in Kentucky on a job with the production company that does the aforementioned artist. I’m lighting a gymnastics event – not exactly my cup of tea, but it was easy to program and run, and only about 15 minutes of lighting at the beginning. Also driving a 30-foot box truck down narrow streets is like trying to take an aircraft carrier through a McDonald’s drive-through.
Exit, stage left.
Sparks