It's 9 am, and I pour my first cup, the kids and the wife have headed off to kid and wife places for the day, and I have work to do. serious work. heart felt stuff. The Late John Rose O'Riordan is having a chair commemorated in his name at the San Jose Stage Company tonight, and I have promised a little video summary of all the pre-show speechs that John would give before each show.
God love him, I hated those speechs. As an actor behind the curtain with three months of work piled down to ten minutes from curtain, I wanted no delays. I wanted to get the show up and out and live the life as it were.
But with stuborn patience, Every Show, John would hoble, wander, stride up to the stage and take the wireless mike , then promptly forget it was in his hand and gesture with it as if it were itself a prop in his own show.
He would often forget the time of day, the author of the show, where he was. But he would never forget to thank the audience. To tell them that the Mostly Irish Theatre Company is an elclectic, mom and pop organization on a shoe string budget. That we had spared Every Expense to bring them this show. He never forgot to point out dignitaries, freinds, preists, and family that had come to see this particular show. And he always shone with a glow of love that I never really glimpsed from my side of the curtain. Pride. Love. His creation was our creation. Nothing mattered to him expect the hope that the audience in the theater THAT show, enjoyed what we had put together for them.
Then he would return to his chair at Actor Stage Right. Always the same chair. That chair.
John passed on Saint Pat's Day. (of course) and now over a year later, the new Artistic Director of his theatre company sits to his computer to upload hours of tape trying to string together a montage of those speechs for a ceramony dedicating that chair to him.
There was still champagne to be bought, and a few other minor details. But this video whould have been finished days ago and here I sat, halfway through cup two, loading snippits and adjusting volume. thinking about overlay music.
Seven Straight hours of non stop editing later, I feel the tingle of time catching up to me. I have to be a the Stage at 6 to help set up, I still have to buy champagne....... but this was good. It was really good. I am a perfectionist when I care about what I am doing. And the last touchs of this were making me happy. I cried a little in memory as I watched this beloved man smile out at me from my screen. I miss him.
Finally, I hit the burn disk button. Counters tick past as I wait and start to think of timeing issues. Things are getting close but it will be all worth it.
SHIT! I forgot to get the viewer from work. Okay, I'll just have to load the TV and dvd player into the truck.....the kids can go without a movie tonight.
The counter ticks on. it has been half an hour and it is about halfway through rendering and burning. I go to the store and after a quick consult from Steve, my toasting expert. I buy 250 buck worth of Champagn for the 50 people coming to the event.
Stop by the house and grab the dvd, that will leave me ten minutes late but with drinks and a kick ass memory of the man I respected so dearly. I get inside and reach for the computer.
the counter is still only 3/4 of the way to done. it is
c r a w l i n g slowly.
I am out of time.
Plan c
I get in the car and drive slightly faster than everyone else in the world from my condo to the Stage downtown san Jose. It is 6:30. ALOT of people are already here. I race in with the champagne on ice in the back of the truck. Freindly hands help with the massive TV and Mary Smith, an angel who can make anything happen if you need her to, gentle but firmly takes my arm and says.."we got this, do whatever else you need to do. Everything will be fine."
I hit the freeway at 69 and then come to a dead halt. rush hour goes one way.
seven minutes from condo to stage equals 20 from stage to condo. I evaporate through the door and am in front of the computer about to push the button.
it is not yet finished.
I sit, I am ready to throw up but havn't eaten all day. ten after seven and the phone rings. Ray wants to know where I am, and when I will be there.
gimmie five more minutes.
What do we do?
Just start without me. I am not coming back without this vido. I don't care if I miss the ceremony, I will be there asap.
"but we don't know what you want us to do"
"GIVE DOUG A PENNYWHISTLE AND HAVE HIM PLAY, I don't know....I'll be there!"
As I click my phone off and resist the temptation to throw the 700 bucks worth of electronics against the wall, the disk chirps. "Finished"
two minutes later I am back on the freeway and the phone rings again. Its my wife. Alittle distrought becuase she was in mid sentence when whe relised I was gone.
Sorry.
7:35 I rush into the theater. Peggy is thanking everyone for coming and giving special things to varioius people who have supported the company for so long. Like John, Peggy never forgets.
After an endless few seconds, she looks at me and wiats for me to take the helm. I extemporize and prepare the crowd for the video. Talk about John and his preshow speechs as I slide the disk into place.
The tv lights up and,..
a video on proper footcare plays midway through it's schpeel. Oops! sorry, thats the wifes training video for body shop. the DVD player was set in vcr mode.
The audience chuckles with good nature. It's an easy crowd. They loved John. They love the rest of us. and they are used to mix ups.
I switch to DVD mode and the word Loading lights the screen. The crowd quiets as we wait.
and wait.
long after the ice has moved back down from the glacieral passages, I try not to trip over my heart down there on the floor as I struggle to hold on for one more second before hitting the off button. I turn to the crowd. I can see my own pained expression shining in their eyes. They hold no grudges. They are a loving group of folks. Excatly the reason I swore I would not fail them.
With the determination that has kept me going through other plights in my life, I brush aside the massive pile of wreckage that is my plan, and we move on.
It was a lovely evening. Everyone really wants to see the video when it gets completed. Nothing though can repair the loss of that magic moment that I wanted.
The vidoe is working now. a gig of memory from Frys and a few software patchs fixed it right up. It is just as good as it was at 5:30 the other day,
but.........
Dear Eddie,
Thank you for your call this afternoon, and I have reviewed the information sent. I always like to offer the opportunity to create a business relationship, and do my best to give a fair look at all options. One does not learn, grow, or build, without keeping ones eyes open.
Upon review of the information provided, I can find nothing that catches me or draws me to look further into a partnership at this time, but I will offer some unsolicited feedback, in an effort to help you understand how a well researched and put together presentation can sometimes fail at the one thing it is designed to do. Grab the attention of the viewer, and entice them to take a second look.
Starting with the cold call:
Cold calls are difficult. Mostly for the caller. You have to make more than you care to, just to get to someone who will let you finish the first sentence before cutting you off with a flippant “Not Interested”. I can here it in the tone of your voice. It is that patient methodical presentation that one must hold onto to make it through that part of your day.
That being said, from the receiving end, it is rare that I ever even pick up that phone line because the only people who end up at my land line extension….are cold calls. Anyone I do business with has my cell number, so picking up the line; I am predisposed to the other side of cold calls. I patiently listen, permit information to be sent, and hang up as soon as it sounds like someone thinks they are getting a commitment from me for anything more. I was pleasantly surprised when you skipped right to the “May I send you information” phase. It grabbed my attention. It enticed me to look.
Then I got the info.
Never lie. Even when being polite. I am hard pressed to understand what pleasure you might have derived from our conversation, though perhaps it was the fact that I was not rude and did not hang up on you, but to say it was a pleasure to talk to me today, does not bode well for how your day went. If I mistake, forgive me, and know that I am glad to have improved your day.
The bulk of my disinterest in the product though, is through no fault of your own. The info included on your email spoke of a company that can spend a great deal of time telling me nothing. Lovely inserts of “business type click art”, a well taken picture of the corporate headquarters building, and lots of words telling me that your company sells lots of quality products and services at a great price. Welcome to Capitalism 101. We ALL sell lots of goods and services at a quality price. The information left me with no gut feel for why your company’s goods and services are the right ones for my company. The only thing I was enticed to do was to click the link to the website in hopes of finding out the answer to those questions.
On the company web site, I found…. More of the same.
In all, I get the impression that there are an awful lot of things that En Pointe does. I haven’t the time or energy to spend finding out if any of them are things I need though, and I find that most companies that do a lot of things do none of them in a significantly marketable improved way over the other guys.
So thanks for your interest in my business, and good luck in your endeavor.
Charles Mckeithan
Facilities and Technology Devison
CCLC Inc.
This web log is brought to you by the samsung i700 in partnership with the "think Outside" stowaway keyboard. The keyboard itself is a foldaway unit that colapses into a hardshell case that is barely larger than my pocket PC itself. The keys on the keyboard are in standard position for typing, and the only hard part to get used to is that the number line and various symbol functions that are normally on the next row up from the alphabet keys, are set within the top row of letters and require a Function key to reach. Still, no matter how good I get at graffiti and block recognition, it is still good to have the real deal when it comes to typing out an email, (or a blog entry)
More amazing than anything to me is that I now carry in my pocket better and faster and more productive technology than my father did when he proudly lugged his Ozborn "laptop" onto a plane. This thing was the Original Gangsta when it came to portable computing. It wieghed in at at least 30 pounds, was the size of the average large samsonite weekend traveler, and had a monocrome screen that was a sportey eight inchs on the diagnal.
And who do we really have to thank for the shinking down of all those chips and dips?
Porn.
And Video Games
That's right brothers and sisters, if it were not for those two great big self indulgent wasts of time, we would still be dialing each other up on rotory phones and watching the boring news on the black and white television with about six local broadcast stations to choose from.
Some people like to claim its space research, others lend creadence to the war efforts of the past. but dollar for dollar, what we are willing to pay the money for to see the improvements now on, all boils down to videogames and video dames.
and isnt it a little odd that this phone/email/webbrowser/camera/word processer has neither on it? It is the most productive tool in my facilites job arsonal, yet it is devorced from its heratage like a red headed stepchild.
/lifes funny.
/charles