Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Como se dice "Shoot me" en espanol?
God I need a drink...
This shit just keeps getting weirder as we go along. So, the whole point of this program and my coming here was twofold. One, I would be learning to program robotic lighting instruments and and video production. Two, our five weeks of work would cumulate into some sort of a performance for the public. For example, one year the group designed a “halftime show” using robotic lighting and music for a local rodeo in San Jose. Sounds fun. So, I’ve been curious as to what our show would be. How big would it be? How many people would see it? And so has everyone else. In fact, we’ve been asking each other, “So, does anyone know what our final show is going to be?....Has Amarante mentioned anything to anyone?....Hey, do you think it will be cool like the rodeo?....Anyone?”
WELL…the people in the “Animatronics” class have been working on making stuffed animals become plugged in puppets with moving mouths for some undisclosed puppet show. We figured it's just class work, but for some random purpose. (They’re not learning true animatronics. They’re building gay little skeletons inside the animals with lame little motors. But I digress, as usual.) MY classes in robo lights and video have nothing to do with a puppet show for grade school kids, obviously.
How wrong I am. My classes may not relate to a puppet show, but oh contraire, my ability to give free labor does. So today Amarante calls a “meeting.” Oooooh, fancy. He whips out this calendar which shows that NEXT week we, WE, are going to be presenting “the puppet show” at the AMERICAN EMBASSY for school kids. He says it all serious like, very control freak-like and smug, adding, “Do you realize that’s only four days to work because we’re leaving for the beach this weekend?” Okay, hold it…. Can we please rewind? What the FUCK are you talking about? How can you tell us today, after we’ve been farting around for two weeks in this poopville, that we have some special appearance at the US Embassy to present a SHOW and you’re telling us four days ahead of time??..... Would someone please mail me a large machete so that I can break my skull open?! Oh, wait, I forgot!…they cut the grass here with those. Bueno!
So, we’re staring dumbly and Amarante mentions that “you all know the script, right?” Uhh, no, no right! We all say we have never received an e-mail with the script, and then he’s all, “Oh, well I’m SO busy with meetings all the time, I sometimes loose track of what I have and haven’t done. My bad.” Whatever…so then I’m assigned to work with Scott on building the puppet stage, which Amarante has designed, and which doesn’t make sense. But that’s a whoooooooooooole other story. So I’m all, “And how do we get the lumber?” “Well, you’ll need to start by making some phone calls.” What the f…….I don’t speak Spanish you klodnick! How am I supposed to ask for luan and 1X4s when I don’t know what those things ARE CALLED IN COSTA RICAN SPANISH?! So THEN I say, “And with what vehicle am I supposed to bring luan sheets back to the museum in?” And he acts all holier than thou as if I shouldn’t be asking and real slowly says, “Well, there are these guys who are delivery contractors who hang out behind the lumber yards that you’ll have to work with, but don’t take their first offer, you need to barter. All of this is part of your experience here, I can’t be everywhere and get to my meetings, now come on guys."
I’m really curious what the hell his meetings are about all the time. He’s always flitting off to here and there, no one knows where, and no one, including the other two professors, speaks fluent Spanish. So, who knows what he’s saying on his cell phone all the time before he leaves. NO ONE has been to one of these Embassy meetings. We just keep getting these little tidbits about, “Oh, the Embassy blah blah…script….performance space…blah blah.” And of course we’re not all really listening, just assuming that it’s all related to whatever our fancy show is going to be at the end of the program. (Yeah, yeah, assume, you-me-the ass, I got it.)
And then tonight during robo lab hours with just Scott, Paul, and me left, Scott says to Paul, “You’ve read the script, right?” And I’m all, “How did you get it?” So Paul says that he got it from Amarante last week when he was asked to come up with some music cues for it. And then Scott says he had read it because he noticed it sitting on Amarante’s desk and he’s nosey and no one was around, so he read it knowing it was related to something we’re doing. Well, they both start talking about how BAD it is, and Amarante freaking wrote it! Now, mind you, I’ve written several scripts for various projects, from City of Fort Worth commercials to a musical review, and, believe it or not, even a puppet show. And I realize I’m no genius, but I guess I’ve done a good job at them because I keep getting asked to write scripts for various things. So, I assume I don’t suck. (DON’T say it!....) But these two guys are telling me that a theatre professor at one of the premiere universities in the country for over twenty years wrote a suck-ass script? For PUPPETS?! Now, let me get allllllllll of this straight….
I paid money to come to this program on the understanding that I would be learning robotic lighting (I am) and video production (sort of) in an international environment (check) that was tropical (no tropics in hell, thank you), relaxing (maybe if you subtract the running away from crack whores), and SECURE (this word is literally on the program’s website). As an added bonus I get all of the yucky stuff that I’ve already written about PLUS now I get to go to a San Jose lumber yard and barter with some guy in a truck, build a set, help sew together puppets, and I’ll bet money that before this over I’m one of the puppet voices. Which means I’ll be an actress in an American Embassy children’s show for local school children speaking a language that I learned from a high school spanish teacher with a west Texas accent THAT SUCKS.
Soooooooo….when do we get to create a robo light public performance….?....that's fancy?......(enter cricket noise here)………anyone?.....
V
This shit just keeps getting weirder as we go along. So, the whole point of this program and my coming here was twofold. One, I would be learning to program robotic lighting instruments and and video production. Two, our five weeks of work would cumulate into some sort of a performance for the public. For example, one year the group designed a “halftime show” using robotic lighting and music for a local rodeo in San Jose. Sounds fun. So, I’ve been curious as to what our show would be. How big would it be? How many people would see it? And so has everyone else. In fact, we’ve been asking each other, “So, does anyone know what our final show is going to be?....Has Amarante mentioned anything to anyone?....Hey, do you think it will be cool like the rodeo?....Anyone?”
WELL…the people in the “Animatronics” class have been working on making stuffed animals become plugged in puppets with moving mouths for some undisclosed puppet show. We figured it's just class work, but for some random purpose. (They’re not learning true animatronics. They’re building gay little skeletons inside the animals with lame little motors. But I digress, as usual.) MY classes in robo lights and video have nothing to do with a puppet show for grade school kids, obviously.
How wrong I am. My classes may not relate to a puppet show, but oh contraire, my ability to give free labor does. So today Amarante calls a “meeting.” Oooooh, fancy. He whips out this calendar which shows that NEXT week we, WE, are going to be presenting “the puppet show” at the AMERICAN EMBASSY for school kids. He says it all serious like, very control freak-like and smug, adding, “Do you realize that’s only four days to work because we’re leaving for the beach this weekend?” Okay, hold it…. Can we please rewind? What the FUCK are you talking about? How can you tell us today, after we’ve been farting around for two weeks in this poopville, that we have some special appearance at the US Embassy to present a SHOW and you’re telling us four days ahead of time??..... Would someone please mail me a large machete so that I can break my skull open?! Oh, wait, I forgot!…they cut the grass here with those. Bueno!
So, we’re staring dumbly and Amarante mentions that “you all know the script, right?” Uhh, no, no right! We all say we have never received an e-mail with the script, and then he’s all, “Oh, well I’m SO busy with meetings all the time, I sometimes loose track of what I have and haven’t done. My bad.” Whatever…so then I’m assigned to work with Scott on building the puppet stage, which Amarante has designed, and which doesn’t make sense. But that’s a whoooooooooooole other story. So I’m all, “And how do we get the lumber?” “Well, you’ll need to start by making some phone calls.” What the f…….I don’t speak Spanish you klodnick! How am I supposed to ask for luan and 1X4s when I don’t know what those things ARE CALLED IN COSTA RICAN SPANISH?! So THEN I say, “And with what vehicle am I supposed to bring luan sheets back to the museum in?” And he acts all holier than thou as if I shouldn’t be asking and real slowly says, “Well, there are these guys who are delivery contractors who hang out behind the lumber yards that you’ll have to work with, but don’t take their first offer, you need to barter. All of this is part of your experience here, I can’t be everywhere and get to my meetings, now come on guys."
I’m really curious what the hell his meetings are about all the time. He’s always flitting off to here and there, no one knows where, and no one, including the other two professors, speaks fluent Spanish. So, who knows what he’s saying on his cell phone all the time before he leaves. NO ONE has been to one of these Embassy meetings. We just keep getting these little tidbits about, “Oh, the Embassy blah blah…script….performance space…blah blah.” And of course we’re not all really listening, just assuming that it’s all related to whatever our fancy show is going to be at the end of the program. (Yeah, yeah, assume, you-me-the ass, I got it.)
And then tonight during robo lab hours with just Scott, Paul, and me left, Scott says to Paul, “You’ve read the script, right?” And I’m all, “How did you get it?” So Paul says that he got it from Amarante last week when he was asked to come up with some music cues for it. And then Scott says he had read it because he noticed it sitting on Amarante’s desk and he’s nosey and no one was around, so he read it knowing it was related to something we’re doing. Well, they both start talking about how BAD it is, and Amarante freaking wrote it! Now, mind you, I’ve written several scripts for various projects, from City of Fort Worth commercials to a musical review, and, believe it or not, even a puppet show. And I realize I’m no genius, but I guess I’ve done a good job at them because I keep getting asked to write scripts for various things. So, I assume I don’t suck. (DON’T say it!....) But these two guys are telling me that a theatre professor at one of the premiere universities in the country for over twenty years wrote a suck-ass script? For PUPPETS?! Now, let me get allllllllll of this straight….
I paid money to come to this program on the understanding that I would be learning robotic lighting (I am) and video production (sort of) in an international environment (check) that was tropical (no tropics in hell, thank you), relaxing (maybe if you subtract the running away from crack whores), and SECURE (this word is literally on the program’s website). As an added bonus I get all of the yucky stuff that I’ve already written about PLUS now I get to go to a San Jose lumber yard and barter with some guy in a truck, build a set, help sew together puppets, and I’ll bet money that before this over I’m one of the puppet voices. Which means I’ll be an actress in an American Embassy children’s show for local school children speaking a language that I learned from a high school spanish teacher with a west Texas accent THAT SUCKS.
Soooooooo….when do we get to create a robo light public performance….?....that's fancy?......(enter cricket noise here)………anyone?.....
V
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