The Stones, Man

I had decided that I had had enough of show business. I wanted to head in a new direction. What better new direction than to work in the retail displays industry where I started in March of 1972? Weeks before I left Presentations South I answered an ad for a "shop foreman" at Central Florida Display and Exhibits, Inc. I won't dwell on the details of this non-show-biz gig, but I will illustrate why I called it "The Stones, Man"

March of 1995 saw me trying to finish up the Easter Village for a mall near Houston, Texas. My crew were not carpenters, there were no coherant plans for what to build, and the table saw blade stopped when I tried to cut corrugated cardboard with it. And my boss, Tony, was totally oblivious. I asked about a new table saw or maybe a compressor, and he told me that if he were going to spend hundreds of dollars to improve his business, he would buy a new suit. The only power tool he knew how to use was a hot glue gun, and he burned himself every time he used that. I was on salary, so the long days and nights I spent drawing plans, wrestling with the tools, building pieces and fixing what others built counted for nothing as far as pay or future time off. Nothing. My favorite story about that Easter project was the day we were all out in the parking lot doing the fancy colorful paint job on everything. The landlord of the warehouse complex was very picky about his parking lot, so Tony bought a roll of plastic, we set everything on it, and then Tony placed our dozens of cans of brightly colored paint all around the edges to hold the plastic down . Good plan - until a big wind came racing through the lot and lifted the sheet of plastic, dumping ALL the cans of paint onto the parking lot. Oops.

Things didn't get any better during the ensuing ten months of employment. It came to pass that as "shop Foreman" it was my job to do drawings for approval and for non-carpenters to build from; to call lunber yards etc. for the best prices on all materials, order materials, go pick up materials in my little Corolla, build, paint and deliver everything we did. Meanwhile, we couldn't keep a graphics person, so I learned to operate the computer driven vinyl graphics cutting system, weed the vinyl and install it. By the end of October I was getting pretty good at juggling all of these hats.

Then we got the go-ahead for a big Christmas Village for a mall outside of Gainesville, Florida. Suddenly the lack of carpenters other than me was cutting into my other jobs big time. I told Tony that I needed at least one person who could build something without me standing over them showing them, cut by cut, staple by screw how to build it. He said he'd put an ad in the Sunday paper. Sunday morning I looked in the paper, all over the help wanted section. No ad for a carpenter for Central Florida Display. Hmmmm. Monday I went to him and almost quit on the spot. "I put the ad in, " he told me. He showed me his ad :"Floral arrangers wanted for busy retail display company. Will assemble, arrange and install seasonal decor in malls and stores during November and December. Also needed: carpenter." Needless to say, no carpenters looking for jobs saw that. Tony did hire a young man who, when asked, said "Sure, I'm a carpenter!" I gave him a simple box to build and he couldn't do it. Tony said, "You didn't give him any direction!" "If you mean I didn't stand over him telling him how to build a box, cut by cut, staple by screw, yes you're right. But if that's what I have to do, then there's a lot of other things I have to do that aren't going to get done - which is why I wanted you to hire a carpenter in the first place, remember?"

Once I had finished building the village, the installations began at malls and stores all over Central Florida. Weeks were averaging eighty hours and more. My crew members were showing up drunk, raiding food courts during the nights, installing things crooked or unsafely or in the wrong places, try though I might to keep my eyes on twenty unmotivated people at once.

The good thing about it was that on my way home during the morning hours I could swing by F/X Scenery And Display and see if Eddie was around. When he was I would describe my night to him and reminded him of our pact: bring me aboard when you can! He did. After my last Christmas Crap removal detail in January, we took a week's vacation to Seattle, then I started my nine and a quarter years at F/X.

About three months into the F/X job I was stricken with kidney stones. I wondered at the time whether working for Tony had had anything to do with it. Then, early in the following year, the poor sucker who had replaced me at CFD&E came to work at F/X. Within a couple of months he too was stricken with - the stones, man. Like wow.

Sixty Three Days In The Footsteps Of Og

In mid-December, 1994 I responded to an ad for an exhibit installer. The company was a union shop called Presentations South Incorporated - PSI for short. They had been in business for a long time, which in this business isn't all that long - maybe twelve years. I had never heard of them, but they had heard of Image International. They hired me anyway.

There were no exhibits going out during the last days of December or early January. Jim Matthews assigned me to a table at the far end. It was covered with what we lovingly refer to as "crap," so my first task was to dig out. As I unearthed artifacts and asked what to do with them, everyone was reminded of the previous resident of this "cursed" table: Og, they called him, because they thought he looked and acted like a Neanderthal carpenter. His real name was... Frank! Yes, the Lemonade Stand owner. They were amazed and amused to hear my stories about Space Concepts. I didn't tell them about the tax scam. I wasn't sure whether anything was going to come of it, so I didn't make it public.

My first project was to help the guy at the next table. He was working on a piece of the new "Tomorrowland Express" set for The Magic Kingdom. This was my first clue that Disney was at last updating "Tomorrowland," a showcase of technology from the sixties. Anyway, Brian had put together this section of a wing with all of the framing in the wrong places. He gave it to me to knock out the sticks and install new sticks in the right places. Jim Matthews wandered by a while later. "Hmmm," he said, "fucked up already." I looked to Brian to straighten out this misunderstanding. Brian just stood there smirking. Grrrr.

When I got home from my first day, there was a message on our answering machine from F/X Scenery And Display. I had sent them a resume back in '93, and they still had it. They wanted to talk to me about being their shop foreman. If I had known where things were headed at PSI, I would have jumped at it. But after only one day on the job, I thought it would be bad form to bail. So I called Eddie Channell and told him that F/X was looking for a shop foreman. He jumped on it. He was still clinging to the last turds circling the flushing toilet bowl of Noro Orlando Associates, formerly known as Image International.

Life at PSI hardly got any better. Laminating was a huge part of the job, and I was totally inept at it. Matthews kept telling me to get advice from the other guys. Each one of the other guys had a different way of doing things that worked for them - but not for me. One of my projects went on display in the break room so the guys could have a good laugh whenever they saw it.

Meanwhile, I was frantically looking for another job.


Finally an exhibit became ready for assembly and prepping for installation. Their main installer, Jamie and I spent three days assembling and tweaking and figuring out hardware and inventing ways to make it work. For those three days I was living my potential. Then it was back to Og's bench.

For another couple of days, Jim Matthews had me going through the Tomorrowland pieces and working out hardware and other assembly issues. That, too, was a good use of my skills. Then I was put on the Tomorrowland installation crew, about eight guys hauling in big pieces and bolting them in place. I had worked out the hardware, and therefore was a valued member of the team. We worked from 9:00 at night until 6:00 in the morning for four nights. This left my days free to interview and negotiate with Tony Chapman of Central Florida Display. He needed a production manager. I needed to get the hell out of PSI


After sixty days I could join the union and become a full-fledged PSI employee. March was fast approaching. Tony needed a guy to get his Easter displays done. I was in no hurry to join the PSI union etcetera. I talked it over with Jim Matthews and he agreed that it was best for me to go. I gave notice and was gone after sixty three days. Out of the frying pan...

The Truck Ees Broke!

Another out-of-chronological-order story has surfaced recently. I have somehow completely forgotten to tell you thousands of rabid readers about the most interesting character (among so many!) at Image International. He was - I assume still is - a gay Puerto Rican named Otto. He was the primary decorator of theme parties, and became one of the better crew bosses during my six and a half years there. Actually, the fact that we were both there for that long makes us both anomalies in Image lore. I would guess that the average duration of employment was maybe four to six months.

One lazy afternoon, I was lingering in the office after punching out. Suddenly the company dispatch radio burst into life. "Kghello, Eemage," it said. Kghello Eemage."

Jim Locke, the company's primary driver and Lord of the Trucks, picked up the microphone. "Yes, Otto, what is it?"

The truck ees broke!" said Otto.

"What's the matter with it?"

"EES BROKE!" said Otto, obviously impatiently.

"Okay," said Jim Locke. "Where are you?"

"On the road," said Otto, matter of factly.

"Okay," said Jim Locke, "where on the road?"

The exasperation with this "estupid Amellican" was fairly oozing from Otto's voice when he said, "On the SIDE of the road!!!"

Sandi At The Zoo

Here is another one of those instances wherein I have forgotten to include an event until it is many years late in the chronology of the blog. Three years before I left Image International, I answered an advertisement in the Orlando Sentinal. The Central Florida Zoo was mounting a touring ecological fairy tale, and needed actors. I called, was invited for an interview, and was cast in the title role of "The Last Remaining Bird." I'm pretty sure that there was no competition.

Sandi was delighted to learn that in addition to acting, I knew a thing or two about scenery, props and such. As Education Person at the zoo, she didn't have a lot of time or resources for making such things. I volunteered to make my own bird head (of course), I supplied the multi-colored shimmery rain curtain for my wings, and I made the trees that, when spun 180 degrees, became statues of the King.


All of this, plus Sandi and her (then) husband and lighting tech Jeff plus Paul (the King) and I could all fit in a Zoo van and go to elementary schools all over Central Florida. We rehearsed at the First Unitarian Church of Orlando, where I was a new member and Paul soon became one.

Oh yes, and I also did the layout and paste-up for the brochure that was sent out to the schools and such.

Having so much to do with so much of the production, I had a lot of messages on my answering machine that began: "This is Sandi...at the Zoo."

For about six months, we toured, doing a grand total of maybe twenty performances, paying each of us twenty five bucks per show before interest petered out and we gave it up.

Several times I missed work at Image International to do a show or two. My favorite day, however, was the day my boss advised me not to punch out, but to stay on the Image clock while I went to a school and did three shows! Talk about double dipping!

The last time I talked to Sandi, about twelve years ago, she told me she still had the bird costume and the trees in her office, ready to do another show at the drop of a check. Paul went to New York sixteen years ago, so I don't think he's available. I, of course, am in western Pennsylvania.

Sandi is at the Zoo.