I travel to different venues daily. I’ve done gigs in every grand arena as well as crap hole pretending to be a proper concert venue, on this planet. Of course some gigs are better than others. Some are very tough to load into, but many of them can be overlooked as physically bad gigs because the local stagehands there are just great. But often enough, the opposite is seen. Horrible venues with less than desirable hands are not fun. Especially when the local hands can’t shut their mouths for a minute. Then these gigs just plain suck to work.
Mouth Pollution
There’s this place in DC that is far from pleasant to load in. The trucks park at an angle on a hill, and the gear has to be pushed upwards to the end of the trailer to get it out. Then you have a long push down a hall, around a corner, up a skinny corridor and onto a tight stage. On top of that, there are few places to hang a rigging point, and a curved wall upstage prevents any 40-foot truss from being hung upstage. All this can be overlooked as just a tough venue to get in and out of it. Unfortunately, there are a select few stagehands here that just can’t shut up and gig. Instead, they keep yapping, spewing statements that are specifically spoken to rile the touring crew.
The load-in starts out fine, but as the morning goes by, I keep cringing as these guys continuously bring up gay slurs. I have absolutely nothing against gay people, but I do have a problem with people talking crap about someone’s sexual preference. This is a crappy gig, and these particular hands seem to work every show that plays this venue. Maybe it’s rubbed off and that’s why they have such a poor attitude. Every single task I ask them to do, they happily accomplish. Just after they place another snide remark out there for their union brothers to hear. And they think they are being cool. No dude, you are not cool. You actually make your whole union look bad. How about you just do your gig and shut your trap?
There’s one guy who is getting to our stage manager. All day long he’s been asking “What’s next,” which is usually a good sign of a proper work ethic. But in this case, it is getting annoying. The guy is spewing crap from his mouth just to impress his union brethren. My stage manager has this saying, “As I get older, the fuse gets longer. The bomb still ticks, it just takes longer for the fuse to burn.” By the end of the evening, while loading gear back into the lopsided truck, he’s had enough. The hand comes up to him like he’s late for his own wedding. “What’s next, what’s next, c’mon guy, get it together.” My guy doesn’t let the bomb go off. Instead he simply turns to the idiot and says, “Next is you gather your stuff, walk away and get the hell out of my load out. You will get paid, I just don’t want to hear any more lip.” The guy is now happy. He thinks he has impressed his local buddies and gets to go home early with the same pay. Instead, another guy comes up and offers a heartfelt thank you along with the phrase, “I don’t know why he acts like that. It gives us all a bad rep here.”
Keep Your Cool
Later on in the tour, I find myself in a theater in Florida that I have played on a few occasions. It’s a good load-in and the gig is actually a decent venue to play. But as we are driving up to the gig, I hear the production manager bellow, “Let’s just get this one over with.” I ask him why he doesn’t like this particular place. “The gig is just fine, but wait til the stagehands start in with their attitude.” I never recalled this being a problem when I walk in, but as the day goes by I get what the PM said. I’m getting back talk and snappy answers to many of my simple questions. I ask if they have a hole on the side of the stage — I have to run the snake through. I’m met with a snazzy reply. “Of course we have that,” the guy says, adding, “and we will get to it in our own time. We’re not like those crap theaters you guys have been playing, we are pros here. We’ll let you know when the time is right.” I just asked a simple question. I didn’t ask for any lip.
As we load out that night, I watch a rigger trying to run a full box of 1-ton motors over a lot of cable. I kindly ask him to stop struggling and simply roll the motor box 20 feet in another direction where there are no obstacles to stop him. “This ain’t my first rodeo, punk,” is the reply I get. I’m a 50 year-old new guy punk now. Then he stops another rigger from working and has him come over to help him lift the 240-pound case over my cables. The phrase, “You can’t fix stupid,” comes to mind.
I can be guilty of having a big mouth. Anyone who has employed me will tell you that. Maybe it’s my New York attitude at times, or simply the fact that I tend to say what’s on my mind if something bothers me. I do try and remember this fault of mine and I try to change. But having a big mouth is not the same as having to have the last word in. That’s just a character flaw many others have. And I don’t need to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man. But some people just can’t let stuff go. I have been a lighting crew chief for decades. I’m a hands on working LD who enjoys putting together stage elements. And sometimes I will see stuff being put together in a way I hadn’t envisioned when I designed the show.
Last summer, I was in Northern Ohio as I watched some guys setting up some set pieces I designed. “Hey buddy, the risers are in the wrong configuration here. You need to switch them around like this,” as I point to the drawings in my hand. This huge burly guy pushes by his buddies to confront me. “I’m just doing what your guy told me to do. You got a problem with that, take it up with him.” Instantly, the show carpenter walks over, hoping to defuse the man’s anger. “Fella, I showed you the right way on this side of the stage and asked you to copy it on this side. Obviously, your side doesn’t look like the first side you set up.” But the hand has to have the last word. “I did what you told me, man. If you are not going to guide us, what do you expect?” The carp’s reply was perfect. “Common sense, I guess.” That was it — the burly guy immediately asks us to step outside for a minute so we can solve this like men. Instead, I walked over to the steward and had the man removed from the call.
In this instance, it was the easiest way for me to “lose the lip.”
