One more

Posted on August 29, 2010 by jeffculmer

Yesterday I had the opportunity to do a show where the legendary band Stillwater played. It was pretty awesome.

Today is the last show on this little tour I’m on, it’ll be the last time I hear people yell at the band to play free bird, and then actually hear it be played.

I’ve learned so much on this tour, as you may get from my last post, I haven’t exactly been excited about the crew out here, but it’s been a good learning experience. I don’t want to go into to much of what I’ve learned because I have to get through the day yet.

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Bad Tech’s (Rant)

Posted on August 23, 2010 by jeffculmer

The tour I’m currently on, I was looking forward to working on, it’s for a great cause, last year I had a ton of fun doing it.  This year on the other hand, has been completely miserable, it has been a long time since I’ve dreaded going to work, the hours are long, and it’s a lot of little things that add up to make for a full day, but that’s not what I dread every day, it’s not the reason I’m miserable, long hours don’t bother me, a gigs a gig, no matter how much you have to do.  The problem is the crew, some of these guys are some of the most inconsiderate, rude, self absorbed, condescending, mean spirited individuals I have worked with yet.  Most of them have no morals or integrity.  Even being a fellow crew member they have no respect for me or anybody around them.  What’s funny is, is if you say something or complain about the fact that they are these things, people have excuses for them, it’s rock and roll, it’s this or that, or if you confront them, they purposely do things to make your day longer or suck more, I don’t think there’s an excuse for being a bad person, for being all the things that I mentioned above.

At what cost is it worth it to put up with these types of people?  Are they so good at what they do their not replaceable?  I mean come on, it’s not rocket science, it’s not even gym teacher science, what we do for a living, most every tech started with no schooling on how to do this, and figured it out by just gigging, you just have to have work ethic, and a little bit of common sense.

And since this is my blog I’m going to say it, I think we need to start firing the tech’s that are like this, are they really worth the headache?  Is listening to their pissing and moaning really worth their mediocre job performance?  And the sad part is, it’s like there’s two types of tech’s now, one half has only been in the business for a short period of time, and they all want to act like they’ve been in forever, so they act like the other half which have been in the “business” forever and talk about it all the time with such gruffness.  It’s such crap, to me it’s like the longer your in the industry the more you forget what it’s like to work without bitching the entire day!  There’s plenty of good tech’s out there that need work!

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Busy Rant

Posted on August 3, 2010 by jeffculmer

— if you can name the tour or song that the video on the led is from in the picture above, I’ll buy you ice cream —

I spent the better part of my day yesterday trying to figure what somebody else is thinking. I learned a couple things out of it, I learned that being busy is simply something that is what you make it. Or better it’s become a preference, like, I prefer to be busy so I don’t have to do things for you. Busy has become the new excuse for lazy, or better yet negligence, ignorance, and self gratifying, to be busy means you’re important, or you have all this stuff going on in your life.

I’m to blame for this too, I personally have a list that keeps me going from when I wake up till I go to bed, some of it is work, some it is home stuff, and the two are always entwined but I stay “busy”, I don’t always accomplish all of it, because there’s to much on the list, you and I want to say to that, I’m so “busy”, I think it’s just life.  Don’t get me wrong, there can be things that take up time out of your day that shouldn’t, (Work) or it’s taking time from the things that matter to you, like family, wife, kids, xbox etc.

The point is I’m getting tired of hearing how busy everybody is, myself included, whatever happen to people that are “busy” getting help from people that are not busy.  But you don’t see that any more, because everybody is to busy to help anybody.  Because of our rapid and “busy” lives, we have become more self absorbed, more inwardly focused, we’re just so busy we can’t stop and say hello to your neighbor or the little old lady that’s making conversation with the checkout person!  Doesn’t that drive you crazy!  Because we just don’t have time to make someone else feel appreciated, or like a human!  We’ve been working all day and we have to make it home to eat, shower, do laundry watch “Fringe” and go to bed.

There I said it, I’m tired of being to busy to be a good person.  What about you?

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It was Hot

Posted on July 17, 2010 by jeffculmer

Today we were finishing up a few things, and I had put my “wind meter/temperature thingy” on my work box and walked away for a second to work on something else, when I came back the temperature said 137 degree’s and change, I took a picture (for this post, I think ahead sometimes) and then noticed it kept going till it hit 140 degree’s then the meter said “HI”, I wonder if it was saying HI temp. or HI as in hello dummy get me off this case it’s 140 degree’s on here stupid!

I thought that was pretty funny, for years I’ve always known that the cases get hot just sitting around in the sun, I mean it’s not rocket science to figure that out, especially when you touch them. Just earlier in today we were stacking our led cases (3 high) and I kept telling the guys “the cases are hot so…. hurry up”

Doing festivals can be a lot of fun, it can be a good place to catch up with bands and band crew that you don’t get to see all the time, for the most part I have a lot of fun doing festivals.  This particular festival all the crew, lighting (which is just one guy, Travis, for a 160 par can rig and 20 movers maybe, is a lot of crap for one guy, bless his heart) and audio just happen to be tour guys, and some really good friends of mine, which makes this festival feel more like a tour show, rather than doing a gig up in the black hills.  Also this festival is one of the few festivals that I do that the hotel accommodations are pretty awesome.  Just thought I would throw that in there.

Today one of the the opener bands was Petra, it was pretty awesome to see and hear some old school music from old school guys.  Only 2 of them were actually ever in Petra, but one of the cool things was seeing Bob Hartman play again, I mean he is Petra but has been the behind the scenes guy since the mid 90′s, that was pretty cool.  The last time I saw Petra was in the 90′s my mom took me to see White Heart/Petra/Grammatrain/Johnny Q. Public show, that was a good show, I can still remember it, we sat house left in a church in Georgia.  I didn’t know much about production, but I remember it being cramped on that stage, and my mom liking everybody, except not caring much for Johnny Q Public (haha)

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New

Posted on July 15, 2010 by jeffculmer


I’m not sure if you’ve noticed the new look to the blog, but it’s changed a little.  Not a whole lot, but enough.  About a month ago I clicked update on something that said I needed to update my blog, and it changed everything as I mentioned in a previous post, after that, I had a show in the middle of no where, where I had no cell service or Internet. And by the time I got done with that gig I had so much to catch up on that my blog took a back seat for a bit.

I’ve been trying a little at a time to tweak this and that, and to take a brief moment to post something.

If you’re wondering what the picture has to do with this post, It doesn’t.

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Changed

Posted on June 21, 2010 by jeffculmer

Workin’ hard. I havent been able to post anything in a while, the last festival had just enough Internet to Check your email, so i get home yesterday, I get on th internet and start checking a few things, and saw that my blog needed updating so I updated, and when it was finished, it had completely changed the whole look of my site. So that’s awesome.

So I guess till I can I find some time to sit down and play with the site it’s just going to have to look like this.

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Nicknames

Posted on June 6, 2010 by jeffculmer

Since I can remember I’ve always had a nickname, or have been called by everything other than my first name, most common is my last name, growing up playing sports you get use to hearing last names being yelled from the dugouts and sidelines, even now most of the people I know or the guys on the road I work with, we use our last names when talking about or talking to someone, it’s just easier.  But there’s also nicknames, most have to do like any nickname with a moment in time or place.  I’ve had a few, but one nickname has stuck with me for a long time other than “red” has been yeti, and the funny thing is, it’s not a nickname that people call me when they’re talking to me, I’ve never heard anybody say “Hey Yeti, what’s up?”  It’s always in the third person, like “don’t piss off the yeti”, that one is most common to new people or union hands, or “you’re looking for the red yeti”, and “there’s so much bus food because we have the yeti”.  The last one I think is more of fat joke, but it’s kinda funny that the nickname has stuck around.

Originally a lighting guy (Danny Z.) was the first to call me the name, what seems like a long time ago, and it’s just kinda stuck with me.  Some how, I’m not the type to go around and introduce myself as a the nickname, like some people I know.

I love the pictures that are above, my buddy Harry took these and sent them to me.  I just need to figure out how to get these and hang them in my office.

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SWC

Posted on June 1, 2010 by jeffculmer

I didn’t get a chance to post anything from my trip out to San Diego while I was out there, the festival was good, nothing new there. We set up, we stayed in a motel that had some challenges, we ate fair food the whole time we packed up and now I’m home, and… I got a chance the chance to go a baseball game.  I’ve always wanted to visit every teams home park in MLB.  I’ve heard of people taking road trips all summer visiting parks, that’s something that I think would be fun, but realistically I don’t have the time or the finances.  But I figure if I can visit one or two here and there I’ll be able to accomplish this as a long term goal.

I think I’m doing pretty good, I’ve got a little bit of luck on my side with the job I have, being able to travel to places that I normally would have no reason to go too except for work, like San Diego, it’s just not some place that’s on the way to anywhere.  So missing an opportunity to go to a Padre’s game would be stupid, the park had a lot of interesting features, the nice people in front of us (Certa) explained to us some of the cool things about the park.  Like the building in left field was historic or something like that so the city wouldn’t let them tear it down, so they built around it, and put bleachers on the side of the building, and made the inside the official store.  To me that’s what make it special.

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