That ain't working, that's the way you do it.

Dizzy Gillespie's cheeks bulging as he blows Salt Peanut on his upturned horn. Putting an 8 inch wide strip of white tape out on the stage floor in front of the orchestra pit so Miss Fitzgerald wouldn't wander too far down front with her poor eyesight. Minnie Riperton holding that note for what seemed like 5 minutes. My stage manager Sean getting yelled at in one ear by Buddy Rich about the lights while in his other ear some smartass follow-spot operator is making comments about Rich's hair and how it would look much better if he got peed on from the catwalks above the stage.

  Joseph Campbell said follow your bliss. Long before I heard of Mr Campbell that's what I was doing. It started out on the 2 stages at Texas Women's University in Denton. Not a bad gig for a 22 year old ex-sailor. My neighbor Jim Estes hooked me up with a job as janitor learning the art of stage lighting. I am forever grateful. Jim and I had 9 student assistant's to help out, while we worked with the dance program and the music program and of course the actors. Ages 18-22, reasonably pretty and very friendly. My favorite was the dance department. I gained an appreciation for an art form I hadn't any experience with beyond The Nutcracker on TV every year. The ballets were okay but the modern interpretative dance, the girls in skimpy costumes with gorgeous lighting and good music was the best.

   That lasted a year and half, finally decided to head back home to the South Bay and go to school. I was lucky. I stopped by the main theater on the campus of El Camino College in Torrance, CA. I was hired right on the spot and started working within days. El Camino was well known for a good jazz program that brought many of the legends in to play for the people. I was also a theater major. I wanted to work as a lighting designer, in fact I wanted my friend Larry Poindexter's father's job as the lighting designer for the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

   That didn't work out. I did get a chance to design lights for a few productions while in school until the acting bug bit. As has been explained elsewhere that didn't work out either. I found myself back in the Navy. Funny thing about theater. Once you do it it's in your blood for good. (Think Ethel Merman singing 'There's no business like show business'") Within two months of retiring I had a job back in theatre. The Virginia Beach Pavilion working local dance recitals, a community musical theatre program and the assorted celebrity, like Robert Klein, Rita Moreno and Mario Cuomo. I would still be doing it if the city hadn't torn down a perfectly good theater and put up a parking lot.

  There's something magical about working live theatre. You usually only get one chance to get it right. I worked with a few stars and many wannabes, but the true professional like Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Hope, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie were nice people when they didn't have to be. I like to think that they knew the show wasn't going on without the stage hands.. Most of them with the glaring exception of Buddy Rich knew that and treated us accordingly. The best thing was that it was always fun. We must have been doing it right.

Coutn Basie and Oscar Peterson - Jumpin at the Woodside. I didn't work this one, Damn!