IATSE Local 33 Stagehand Died at Gibson Amphitheater

Jose Lucero was only 22 years old. I didn't know him, as I left IATSE Local 33 before he got in. But when I heard he had fallen to his death from the "ozone" in the grid at the Gibson Amphitheater, formerly the Universal Amphitheater, I immediately remembered my great fear the one time I had to go out on one of those steel beams. I never said anything to anyone I worked with, because I really needed the work at the time, but it scared the hell out of me. Back then, we never wore safety harnesses hooked to fall-arresters, like you're supposed to now (and the investigation is underway to determine if Jose was wearing his), and it was scary as shit to go out on those beams. After that one time, I avoided rigging because I could handle working in grids from catwalks with rails, or working in grids with "ribbon" floors (meaning small gaps between steel beams that you could maybe get your foot stuck in but not fall through), but I just couldn't overcome my fear of heights when I was on one of those beams with nothing but air and floor on either side of me.

But there are guys I've worked with who, like Mohawk Indians on the high steel of sky-scrapers, would just saunter right out on those beams, like they were walking down the sidewalk. Of all the different specialist stagehands I worked with, I always had a huge respect for the riggers. They take big chances to make slightly more money than the guys on the floor, and they do it with gusto.

To put this incident in context, I was shocked to learn yesterday that more people died on the job in the US in 2009 than the total amount of Americans who died in the entire Iraq war:

...4,551 people killed on the job in America in 2009, carnage that eclipsed the total number of U.S. fatalities in the nine-year Iraq war. Combine the victims of traumatic injuries with the estimated 50,000 people who die annually of work-related diseases and it’s as if a fully loaded Boeing 737-700 crashed every day. Yet the typical fine for a worker death is about $7,900.

If you'd really like to get an idea of what a huge problem workplace safety is in this country, check out the AFL-CIO's Death on the Job Report.

In 2010, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4,690 workers were killed on the job—an average of 13 workers every day—and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases. Workers suffer an additional 7.6 million to 11.4 million job injuries and illnesses each year. The cost of job injuries and illnesses is enormous—estimated at $250 billion to $300 billion a year.

We have a much higher worker fatality rate than other industrialized nations, and Republicans would like to cut OSHA and other workplace safety programs. Insanity. It reminds me of a poster we had back at Arkansas Explosives Inc, where I occasionally worked when I was in college: "OSHA is not a small town in Kansas." I guess if the GOP gets their way, it would be.

Keith Visona Was a Great Stagehand and a Better Friend

When I was a young stagehand in LA scraping up work scraping the paint off the floor at ABC stage 54, the old Lawrence Welk stage at the ABC Prospect Lot in Hollywood, I met Keith Visona, a drawly southerner with an Italian-style demeanor of gregariousness. He could, and did, make friends with anyone and everyone. He genuinely liked people.

We worked together many times over the years, most notably on the Home Show on stage 54. When that show went non-union, we picketed together. When I couldn't get new work right away, and then the Northridge earthquake shook the employment scene into rubble, our car was repossessed. Keith lent me his "yellow rocket," a beat up old Datsun pickup that he had kept running for many hundreds of thousands of miles with, as we southerners say, duct tape, spit, and a lot of hope. There were, I'm pretty sure, a few wire clothes hangers holding things together under the hood. Keith was the King of southern ingenuity.

After driving the rocket for a few months, I managed to get back on my feet, and went to his house to return the truck. He was cooking, which he loved to do, and wanted to show me his huge baseball card collection. There was a homeless guy in there helping sort the cards. Keith's charity.

Keith went on to have a good career for a stagehand, working as head carpenter mostly, most notably City Guys and Nurses. You couldn't ask for a better guy to work for. He was patient, never minded teaching you something, but didn't hold you by the hand and dictate every minute detail. He's let you figure your own way as much as he could. When I became a head of department, I would often think, "What would Keith do?"

We lost touch over the years, and he got cancer. I got osteoarthritis and moved up here, about as far away from Hollywood as you can get. He and I kept in touch, occasionally, by email. I always liked the funny things he sent to his list, and I was happy to be on it.

A few weeks ago, Keith went down to Atlanta, where they were going to try a new Chemo. Here's his last Facebook post:

I am tired, more than usual though. I am packing for a move back to Georgia and relatives that can keep me on schedule for this new try at a of chemo/radiation. Should be settled in a week, see you all then. Keith

He was surrounded by friends and loved ones when he died yesterday. I'm sure that's the way he would want it. Surrounded by loved ones right in the middle of the fall classic.

And Halloween used to be my favorite holiday.

Backstage with Michael Jackson

News that Michael Jackson's death was a homicide (a deadly drug overdose administered to an addict, even if by a Doctor, is still foul play) reminded me that after his death I wanted to put a little backstage story up here about the time I worked with him.

I was working in the audio department at the Shrine Auditorium in LA for the 25th Anniversary Soul Train Awards, and Michael was one of the performers. We'd heard that he was very picky about his monitor mix--that he liked it loud, so we had a cue to roll in some extra side fill during his performance. So he shows up (late) and does his rehearsal, and he doesn't look happy, so the mixer sends me up there with my headset to relay any instructions the King of Pop might have for the monitor mix.

I walk up to him, and he looks up at me, see's the head set and says (in his high-pitch voice, almost stereotypically) "You Audio?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Jackson." They hired me for a reason: my southern-school manners.

"Michael."

"Yes, Michael, what can we do for you?"

"Make it louder."

"We've given you all the side fill we can, Michael."

"No, make the bass louder. I want to feel! it! right! here!" (hitting his chest with both hands with each "!").

"OK, Michael, I'll have him boost the bass."

"That's not going to be enough. You're going to need more sub-woofers."

"OK, but there's already two."

"More! Right! Here!" Pounding his chest again.

I went to get the last two subs in the building, cabled them up, had the monitor mixer (Kevin Wopner, maybe?) patch them in, rolled them out and stuck them next to the side fill, focusing them right at his skinny ass.

When I was ready, he does the number again, and I felt nauseous from all the bass, and I wasn't even in front of them. He's out there, center stage, with two huge sidefills and four giant subs focused right on him. It was so loud I couldn't hear the carpenters working. I could see him smiling at me.

When it was over, I walked up and asked how that was, and he spun around on one foot very dancer like, and slapped his chest again: "Perfect!"

A Backstage Story of Downstage Proportions

It's been a while since I told a backstage story, so how about the time, maybe 10 years ago, working a show at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles called Tongue of a Bird. With Cherry Jones, Sharon Lawrence, Diane Venora, and my friend Marian Seldes. Fun show with Sharon flying around all over the place, falling out of the grid, and a set with lots of sliding doors. Great fun back stage with a small rail to operate the doors, prop guys doubling on the rail, barely enough time to make your next cue...

One of my cues was going out on stage for a scene change in low light. Cherry Jones rolled a big heavy iron frame bed toward me, and I put it up stage through a door, which then closed, with me and the bed in there. One night, Cherry makes a bad roll with the bed, which heads off stage left, which, in the horseshoe-shaped house of the Taper, means it's heading right for an old ladie's lap in the front row. I jump down stage, stop the bed, spin it around, throw it in the upstage hole, the door closes, the lights come up, and I'm standing there on stage with Cherry Jones who looks at me like, "What are you doing here?"

So, I jump off stage, over a row of foot lights, and as I'm running up the aisle to the vom, I hear a round of applause! For me!

Well, the stage manager who shut that door and left me out there in the light (my Dad always said the only time anyone ever notices a stage hand is when you fuck up) became a good friend over the years. We did many shows together after that, and she never left me out in the light again. But we sure like to laugh about that story, still. Now she writes a blog, There I Am. Exactly how I felt that night, standing there in front of 750 people... There I was!

If you're interested in theater at all, you should follow her blog. It's a great insider's take on the theater world from an old hippie who has, quite literally, seen it all (I almost wrote scene it all)...

Health Care's the Cure that Ails Us

I'm a big fan of the Freakonomics blog. They recently announced the winner of their new 6 word slogan for the US contest. The winner was: Consumption's the Cure that Ails Us.

Today, I learned from two of my stagehand buddies that health care is the cure that's going to break the back of the unions. One of those buddies you probably heard of. He's the stagehand who "surfed" the collapsing scaffolding at the Academy Awards a few years ago, breaking his back in the process. He was a rigger, made good money, and is now disabled, but he stays in touch with old friends from backstage. Here's what he told me:

[...] health care has a annual low limit....weekly, a person has to make $830/week to qualify for health insurance....[a friend] worked for Port Charles props nighttime turnaround...averaged 40 hour weeks. in 2000, she made $600/week for a 40 hr week. with the raises per year to now.....nighttime turnaround at GH probably makes over $700/week...not enough to make health insurance.....there are many uninsured members in the 2 and 3 groups [this union has 5 senority "groups"].

Health care is killing unions. Every inch of negotiating room is eaten alive by the health insurance monster. My other friend from the IATSE sent me a story from today's LA Times, Conflict erupts inside theatrical stage employees union:

Leaders of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, whose members include 35,000 who work behind the scenes on film and television sets, are facing a high level of dissent from the rank and file over a contract that includes modest pay increases but also deep cuts in the union's coveted health and pension benefits.

There's more than one way to battle the health care monster. Cutting coverage for those covered is one way. Another is to put heafty qualifications on qualifying, like requiring substantial over time hours or even a second call (daily hire job) on your days off. Here we have yet another American Union, the battlers for the 40 hour week, and worker protection, essentially bowing to corporate demands that workers only deserve health care and pensions if they work more than 40 hours per week. From the LA Times again:

Under the proposed three-year contract, members would be required to work 400 hours every six months, up from the current 300 hours, to keep their benefits.

That's the movie locals requirement, and at least it's less than 40 hours per week average. My old local, 33, is in even worse shape, and has been forced to institute coverage that only covers those who make the most money. Younger members, who often work in lower paying television jobs, don't even make enough to qualify when they work full time.

Eugene Debs would be appalled.

Unions are going to be forced to cut back on pensions, 401ks, increased hourly wages, and better working conditions (meal penalties, continuous tour, golden time, etc) in order to feed the health care monster, and the Wall Street Monster that Ate the Pensions. These Unions (not all IATSE) already hamper themselves by sending stagehands in $200 suits in to negotiate with lawyers in $5000 suites. Now they have the other arm tied behind their back with capitalist, robber baron, Republican tactics to drain power away from what they see as communist union thugs robbing them of their next BMW.

As much as I hate to say it, I don't see any light on the cyc, so to speak. Things are going to get much worse, and who knows if we'll ever recover. And now our new progressive government is going to tinker around the edges while the solution, single payer universal non-profit health care, stands screaming from the sidelines, while we all talk about Rush Fucking Limbaugh.

The only slight glow coming from the dimmer racks on this one is that, in the kollapsnik world, guys with calluses and working knowledge of mechanical systems will be the new kings, wearing $200 overalls.

My Local One Union Brothers on Strike

A stagehand friend of mine sent me this story about a typical Broadway stagehand, who's on strike. It reminded me a of great period in my career as a stagehand, and got me thinking about this crazy career.

Back in the summer of 2000, I went to New York to learn how to operate the automation for the LA version of The Lion King, which was built by Hudson Scenic. The New York version of the show was still running at the New Amsterdam Theatre, home to many great shows including the Ziegfeld Follies. We spent our days at Hudson's shop in Yonkers, and at night we went to the show where we watched and learned backstage. I'll never forget the tour Drew Sicardi, the head carpenter, gave us of the theater above the theater, known as the Roof Garden Theater, where a racier version of the Follies, the Midnight Frolics, played, starring Fanny Brice. It was just a concrete shell of a theatre, but I was amazed at the sense of history and the grooves in the floor where blocks of ice were put to cool the big theater downstairs.

I've been a stagehand for 20 years, but being backstage on Broadway welled up a sense of history and awe. Mostly I was amazed at how small the theaters are. Working in LA, space is usually never a problem (I say usually because I spent the last few years working in the Mark Taper Forum, where space is always a problem). But in New York, especially on a show the size of The Lion King, I was amazed at how they got so much in such a small space. As if working backstage on a Broadway show isn't hard enough. Depending on the show, people scurry all over the place trying to do things at precisely the right moment. Traffic patterns, technical problems, actor variations, and many other variables make each show an adventure. The stress is enormous. So is the sense of accomplishment.

I got to know a lot of those IATSE Local One guys. Many of them came out to LA and helped install our Lion King at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. These are some of the hardest working guys in the world, and they have a very specialized set of skills. People don't really understand what stagecraft is all about. The hours are awful. The work--a combination of the worst aspects of movers, riggers, mechanics, electricians, technicians, and construction workers--is extremely hard. Perhaps the worst part is that usually the only time anyone notices a stagehand is when they screw up.

For this production--the strike--hopefully people are noticing the stagehands for a better reason. And when you hear from some anti-labor people how much the "typical" stagehand in New York makes, remember what they do and that they live and work in New York. It's all relative.

Hang in there guys. You've earned the respect you deserve.