Just Checking In

What a month. Or rather, a non-month. Flew out of Frankfurt on November 29th, had a pleasant if lonely day in San Francisco. Worked like a Japanese beaver with 6 straight show- days and had a day off in Vegas. i didnt gamble a cent, but visited some of the old casinos, like the MGM Grand, where Elvis made his prolonged comeback. It was awash with Brits there for the Hatton fight, queueing up to buy T-shirts and autographed gloves, then wandering into the street, beer in hand. Shudder. Then another 6 days straight to increasingly shrinking audiences, ending up in Albuquerque playing to 2000 people. We should be thankful, Blue Man Group only managed 1200. For those who dont know (and I certainl didnt) Albuquerque is in New Mexico, and is actually over a mile above sea-level. Denver appears to have grabbed the name 'The Mile High City' and run away with it, much to the chagrin of the locals. Then, Denver is actually a city, rather than a mountain outpost in the middle of nowhere. Ouch.

Our Belgian bus driver didnt have a permit to drive there and so he was arrested at the border checkpoint (apparently there is a border checkpoint) so the Orchestra only made it to the venue 45 minutes before showtime. But the show must go on, and so it did. I didnt have time to catch a nap, unlike everyone else, and we spent another night on the bus before heading to the airport for a flight to Toronto, transferring in Chicago.

Hence, the stage was set for my boss' crowning glory, officially The Biggest Show on Earth(tm).
A year of work, 80 sea containers, 700 tons of steel, 20,000 balloons, 1000 moving lights, 2 ice rinks, 2 fountains, 6 specially-imported Lipizzaner stallions pulling a golden coach, 3 Guinness World Records and no sleep.

But does anyone care?