Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Starbucks, Magnolia and Vine. My morning office that satisfies the the requirements of hot coffee, edible food and a constant flow of humans reminiscent of trying to work in the crew room or catering. Fifth day home and the first day the tour haze begins to lift and the realities of this other world come into focus. Fifth day at home and for every morning I wake up and realize how cool it is that a housekeeper has not tapped on my door every 15 minutes for the past 3 hours, I am equally dismayed that the mess I left here yesterday is still where I left it and once again there are no clean towels. If I only had a phone in my room I would call the front desk to complain.

I spend the bulk of my home-time solo, at least solo as in "not in the proximity of the humans I speak with other than buying things like food." The exception being the two or three days a week I go in to the Rat office or the weekends that I have the girls. I spend most of my tour time surrounded by huge quantities of people I know quite well with the exceptions being the mornings of days off before the quest for coffee inspires me out of my hotel room. My two lives could not be much more different. I think the term used in describing these transitions is culture shock, when applied to normal humans.

I guess working at Starbucks is just my little version of Cargo Cult Science as if hanging out at home around bustling humans will somehow inspire the tour bus to show up. If you have not read it, it is worth a look look, if you have read it, well, it's is still worth a look. Richard Feynman would have made an excellent roadie.

Perfection is unachievable and on projects that I put my heart into, mediocrity is unacceptable. Combining that thought with the project of the big rock show and the fact that my sound world is but one facet of a multi-dimensional presentation results in a complex balancing act that is far from boring. Pushing for the best but not to the point that it will overly compromise another department's presentation, requires a level of cooperation, understanding and the ability for all involved to look at the bigger picture. I guess that applies to just about every cooperative life endeavor.

OK, my newly implemented morning work/blog time limit is and the fully charged laptop battery is reaching red line warnings. Upload time and oh, hey, tomorrow we load into the Grammy's!

The shaky hands, 20 oz drip coffee buzzed

Dave Rat