![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
That's Show Biz
Jan. 19th, 2013 10:39 pmWhile there is fan activity going on this weekend in downtown San Jose (Further Confusion), I am utterly strapped for cash right now, can't afford a membership, and won't ghost conventions. However, the RetroDome had put out a call for volunteers to help disassemble the theatre. There's still one more weekend of life for The Red Room (movies), the Blue Room (live theatre) is done. Everything inside the building belongs to Guggenheim Entertainment, including the seats, and Everything Must Go. I volunteered to help today.
( Pictures from a Deconstruction )
I lasted until about 4 PM, at which point I'd spent much too much time on my knees. If I'm able to come back for one of the February work parties (and I hope that I am able to do so), I'll look into buying some knee pads. I gingerly made my way home, had some dinner, and fell into bed and slept for a couple of hours. Everything hurts. I wish I had a hot tub at this apartment building and think longingly of having had one at the last place I lived (but that I only ended up using once or twice in ten years, silly me).
Today was a vast amount of work, but I actually rather enjoyed it. (Although I wish it wasn't necessary.) And considering how much fun I've had at the RetroDome in the short time I've been acquainted with it, I'm happy to do what I can to help out. Besides, there was an element in this work comparable to what I've done with SF conventions. I remembered seeing Joe Siclari, chair of MagiCon, helping disassemble the miniature golf course on the last afternoon of the 1992 Worldcon, and Karen Meschke, chair of LoneStarCon 2, helping carry what I recall as art show panels on the final day of the 1997 Worldcon. Everybody works, everybody plays.
Jerry Majors-Patterson cracked about how glamorous show business is while we were wrestling with seats. We all laughed, but there's a serious element here. For every bit of showtime, there's a huge amount more times where you're doing the hard work to make the show happen. This is as true for SF genre conventions as it is for theatres like the RetroDome. And this is why I get so riled up when people accuse me of only being involved in conrunning because of the Vast Perks or Big Bucks Under the Table they're convinced I must be raking in. This says more about them than it does me, since such people would never put in the work necessary to make things happen unless they were being paid big time for it, and therefore they can't conceive of other people like me working our a**es off like this. It sure wasn't for the free pizza, that's for sure.
I guess I just have the volunteer gene, also known as a severe reluctance to say No.
( Pictures from a Deconstruction )
I lasted until about 4 PM, at which point I'd spent much too much time on my knees. If I'm able to come back for one of the February work parties (and I hope that I am able to do so), I'll look into buying some knee pads. I gingerly made my way home, had some dinner, and fell into bed and slept for a couple of hours. Everything hurts. I wish I had a hot tub at this apartment building and think longingly of having had one at the last place I lived (but that I only ended up using once or twice in ten years, silly me).
Today was a vast amount of work, but I actually rather enjoyed it. (Although I wish it wasn't necessary.) And considering how much fun I've had at the RetroDome in the short time I've been acquainted with it, I'm happy to do what I can to help out. Besides, there was an element in this work comparable to what I've done with SF conventions. I remembered seeing Joe Siclari, chair of MagiCon, helping disassemble the miniature golf course on the last afternoon of the 1992 Worldcon, and Karen Meschke, chair of LoneStarCon 2, helping carry what I recall as art show panels on the final day of the 1997 Worldcon. Everybody works, everybody plays.
Jerry Majors-Patterson cracked about how glamorous show business is while we were wrestling with seats. We all laughed, but there's a serious element here. For every bit of showtime, there's a huge amount more times where you're doing the hard work to make the show happen. This is as true for SF genre conventions as it is for theatres like the RetroDome. And this is why I get so riled up when people accuse me of only being involved in conrunning because of the Vast Perks or Big Bucks Under the Table they're convinced I must be raking in. This says more about them than it does me, since such people would never put in the work necessary to make things happen unless they were being paid big time for it, and therefore they can't conceive of other people like me working our a**es off like this. It sure wasn't for the free pizza, that's for sure.
I guess I just have the volunteer gene, also known as a severe reluctance to say No.
