{"id":162,"date":"2004-12-17T16:38:17","date_gmt":"2004-12-17T16:38:17","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2006-04-08T12:57:16","modified_gmt":"2006-04-08T18:57:16","slug":"dfw-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/?p=162","title":{"rendered":"DFW Airport&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb_share_1\" style=\"clear:left; float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-top:10px;;width: 55px;\" name=\"fb_share\"><div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#appId=125029517579627&amp;xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/?p=162\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"55\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m part of a strange brotherhood that lives away<br \/>\nfrom home in coffin sized bedrooms, airport terminals, hotels, side<br \/>\nstreets and parking lots. We have families, we lose families, we run<br \/>\nand hide&#8230; mostly we have one another. We have adopted each other and<br \/>\nwe are all related. We love, we grumble, we forgive and in time, we go<br \/>\nhome to try to make sense of who we are.<\/p>\n<p>We have to re-learn how<br \/>\nto speak to our wives and remember that the cutting style of attention<br \/>\nhas no place at home. We&#8217;re not soldiers but we could be warriors.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;re not businessmen but we can upgrade with the best of them. We&#8217;re<br \/>\nnot IT guys but watch us hack into a building everyday to keep our<br \/>\nphone bills down. Call us techs, call us roadies, call us&#8230;we are<br \/>\nalways looking for the next gig. Call us lampies, humheads, noiseboys,<br \/>\npart timers, country clubbers, squints, stage manglers, carps,<br \/>\nvidiots&#8230; we all respond to douchebag if yelled out of the lighting<br \/>\ntruss when it means not getting hit in the head.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a strong<br \/>\nbond; normal folk (and sometimes even our immediate family) don&#8217;t<br \/>\nreally understand. I&#8217;ve known some of my co-workers longer than my<br \/>\nwife. We&#8217;ve been places together that are not on the vacation circuit.<br \/>\nIf not at the same time, often in spirit, noticing the same anomalies<br \/>\nand oddities. Rich people pays us well to shorten our lives with<br \/>\nstress, long hours, bad food and hard, often dangerous work. We are<br \/>\npaid in money, black cotton clothes, free bags, stolen batteries and<br \/>\ncollected frequent flier miles. We&#8217;re not special but we are clearly<br \/>\ndifferent. Our connection to show business makes us glamorous to others<br \/>\nbut it can be anything but. The bond between us is strong; it&#8217;s the<br \/>\nreason I&#8217;m flying to LA today.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">A Great Loss<\/span><\/p>\n<p>One of mentors passed away recently. It was too soon. I am not<br \/>\nreally sure if our way of life could be to blame but it could be. We<br \/>\nseem to fight the lessons of how to care for ourselves and have to be<br \/>\nreminded daily. We get so good at taking care of other people&#8217;s lives.<br \/>\nSometimes we don&#8217;t even make it through the day, we binge, we medicate,<br \/>\nwe reward ourselves in lieu of the forgotten thank yous that go unsaid.<br \/>\nWe try to fill the hole; I&#8217;m not gonna pull up a soapbox here but I&#8217;ve<br \/>\nput a name on it for myself and I&#8217;m not terribly unique.<\/p>\n<p>My<br \/>\nfriend taught me a few lessons that I needed badly and carry with me to<br \/>\nthis day. We met in the mid-80&#8217;s early in my &#8220;career&#8221; when I was still<br \/>\nfucked up on whatever I had and young in every way. He told me to calm<br \/>\ndown and relax. I still have problems with that one. He was the best<br \/>\nexample of getting more flies with honey than with vinegar. He was<br \/>\nsmooth, friendly and so rarely resorted to yelling or anger in a<br \/>\nprofessional situation.<\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of others whose style<br \/>\nis harsh, belittling, demeaning and condescending; it gets results but<br \/>\nin the concert biz you often return to the scene of the crime. People<br \/>\nremember you, how you treated them and your level of service<br \/>\ncorresponds to what a jerk you were. By being polite and calm, the<br \/>\nwhole complexion of the day can change when the local people see you.<br \/>\nIt can make things a whole lot easier.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been accused of<br \/>\nbeing aloof and elitist by some, but I think I&#8217;m just easily<br \/>\ndistracted&#8230; as well as aloof and a bit &#8220;partial&#8221;. I honestly think<br \/>\nthat when people I see on the road are glad to see me it&#8217;s because of<br \/>\nthe efforts I&#8217;ve made with the lesson of kindness he taught me.<\/p>\n<p>My friend was a festival stage manager when I first met him. Corralling<br \/>\n23 bands in two days with no set change time on a turntable gig is no<br \/>\nsmall feat. It requires a few disciplines: good advance work, seeing<br \/>\nthe big picture, sensing flow, going with that flow, adapting to<br \/>\nchanges beyond your control&#8230; real Serenity Prayer stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Certain events can really get away from you when multiple things shift all at once.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine that an artist is somewhat loaded and on some kind of ego trip&#8230; it shouldn&#8217;t be all that hard;<\/p>\n<p>Add to that the union stage hands coming up on a meal penalty;<\/p>\n<p>An<br \/>\ninexperienced band crew (oh, I don&#8217;t know, maybe a relative of the<br \/>\nartist let&#8217;s say) not being able to do their job without being slapped<br \/>\nby the artist&#8217;s wife\/manager\/enforcer;<\/p>\n<p>VIP&#8217;s in the wrong place<br \/>\nat the wrong place at the wrong time (showing a drunken girlfriend what<br \/>\n&#8220;backstage&#8221; is like during a set change by standing in the load out<br \/>\ndoor way, perhaps both of them with a drink in each hand and on a cell<br \/>\nphone);<\/p>\n<p>Add in a technical difficulty of some sort (bad snake line);<\/p>\n<p>Someone from a group that doesn&#8217;t go on for another 4 hours insisting on being the center of attention;<\/p>\n<p>How about the parking lot attendant walking up and asking you to find out whose car is parked in the fire lane without keys?<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s<br \/>\nadd the artist on stage currently is going over his allotted time by<br \/>\nadding yet another song and your boss telling you it&#8217;s time to get him<br \/>\noff. It can push you to the edge unless you stay centered.<\/p>\n<p>My<br \/>\nfriend would stay calm, delegate, prioritize and smile. The smile was<br \/>\nreal too&#8230; most of the time. We did our best to watch each other&#8217;s<br \/>\nback and run a safe, smooth and professional show. He often would have<br \/>\nto deal with the political nonsense while us young guys would do the<br \/>\nphysical shiftin&#8230; we had the easier job. When it came down to<br \/>\nspinning the stage and starting the next bands performance, we all<br \/>\nwaited for his signal. He sometimes got his signal from someone else<br \/>\nbut we all keyed off of him.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve worked with other good<br \/>\npeople over the years that have taught me other important lessons (like<br \/>\nthe meat under all that gravy might be dog) but he has a special place<br \/>\nin my life and in my heart. He trusted and taught me what I needed to<br \/>\nknow. I hope I can carry his lessons with me always.<\/p>\n<p>My friend<br \/>\nwas Bill Cope. He is survived by a wonderful wife, a growing son and a<br \/>\ngroup of friends and co-workers who still can&#8217;t grasp his departure and<br \/>\nwill try to make him proud in his absence.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll do our best to spin without you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m part of a strange brotherhood that lives away from home in coffin sized bedrooms, airport terminals, hotels, side streets and parking lots. We have families, we lose families, we run and hide&#8230; mostly we have one another. We have adopted each other and we are all related. We love, we grumble, we forgive and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[10,16,4,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peNcU-2C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}