Detroit Airport Tunnel connecting Concourse A and B. The light show in this tunnel rivals anything Las Vegas has to offer, and this is just in an airport. Why? Well… why not? It’s pretty cool! (Yes, picture posts are kind of cheezy, but nothing really interesting has happened in a few days except LOTS of sleep! Stay tuned,
next week will be PLENTY interesting!)

November 29th, 2005

Busted – November 29, 2005

From the WWE.com website yesterday afternoon:

That’s Candace Michelle arriving for RAW last night. A new feature on the WWE website has exclusive “backstage” pictures for the most rabid WWE fans.

But wait, look closer:

Why, that’s Abi (lower right), looking SUUUUPER FAAH-BU-LOUS in his stunning tiger-striped smock, staring a hole in Candace’s backside!!

It’s bad enough to get caught in a picture staring like some crazed pervert at someone’s ass, worse when you are wrapped in a SMASHING tiger-striped smock… even worse still to have that picture end up on the company’s website.

And if the executive producer of the show is the one that made every single person on the crew aware of this picture, that’s probably about as bad as it could get, right?

Well, not exactly.

Worst of all is what happens once the Photoshop wizards get a hold of the picture:

November 28th, 2005

Cleveland – November 28, 2005

7th Floor – Renaissance Hotel – Cleveland, OH
November 28, 2005 – 3:35 AM

November 28th, 2005

Sheffield Day 4

Show day number one, and I am dragging a bit. Can’t quite figure out why… I think I might take tonight off from the Frog and Parrot. Might just stay in and attend the “Mass for Shut-Ins”… Yeah RIGHT!

We spent the day chasing a mysterious “hum” in my submix audio console, and while we never did completely eliminate it, we managed to hide it at an acceptable level. With all the pyro and cheering fans, I think we will be fine.

All day long, the stench of something burning plagued us. The engineers all ran around thinking something in one of the trucks was on fire. While the source of the mysterious burning smell was never figured out, It was determined that it wasn’t one of our TV trucks. My favorite quote of the day was “I regret to inform you that unfortunately this truck is most certainly not on fire.” Burning the truck would have solved our hum problems for sure.

Rehearsals were long and swear-filled. Typical. This show involves a complicated fight scene that goes outside the arena. Also, there was a meeting between Vince McMahon and talent earlier in the day. A new drug policy is being implemented in the next few weeks, where, according to the website, “a new drug testing policy will be implemented in which performance enhancing drugs, such as steroids, recreational drugs as well as abuse of prescription drugs will be banned.” Not sure exactly what that means, but it is certainly in response to Eddie Guerrero’s death last week, and the rumor that a wrestler was found passed out in the lobby of a hotel wearing nothing but his underpants. The story goes that he was putting a room service tray outside his room, and the door locked behind him. He allegedly went to the front desk to get another room key, and passed out on the couch. I don’t know how true the story is, these stories often get embellished. It sure sounds believable to me.

Ten minutes before air time, the embedders started acting up. Suddenly the audio was extremely delayed from the video, then just as mysteriously then video feed disappeared altogether back in the states. The best laid plans….

Video was restored (I think) a few minutes before the show started, and things were seemingly OK. The fight scene that we rehearsed was predictably changed. During rehearsal, the talent were supposed to stop at a garage door, open it, then the fight commenced. Nobody took into account the smoke from the opening pyro fireworks would set off the building’s smoke alarm. Therefore, the garage door had to be opened to let the smoke out.of the arena. Ooops!

Then there was a little matter of one of the cameras not working at all during the live fight scene. Worked fine during the rehearsal, just not for the show. Naturally. Much panic ensued. In the end the scene worked fine, just not as planned.

The scenic that was shot in the Frog and Parrot made the show, but of course they cut off right before my big debut. Didn’t look British enough I guess.

Tomorrow, after SmackDown is over, we are taking busses back to Manchester, in order to catch our flights on Wednesday. This will be my last night in Sheffield for this trip, and to be honest, I am ready to go home.

November 28th, 2005

Sheffield Day 3

Well, the dreaded day of work finally arrived. It would be nice if they’d let me have a four or five day paid vacation, but sadly, they don’t see it that way. The whole crew had to report at 9 AM to the HallamFM arena to set up for RAW and Smackdown. Of course I woke up around 2:30 AM and was wide awake until about 4 AM or so. I drifted back to sleep until the the alarm jolted me from a great dream about living in a beach house. Dammit!

After a traditional British breakfast of runny eggs, runny baked beans, extra salty and runny ham and of course a runny half-tomato, we boarded the bus and made our way to work. I feared all that runny foods would… well… you can fill in the blank with the “runs” joke of choice…

In England we hire a crew of local audio freelancers to help out. Normally in the US, I am responsible for all the patching and audio signal flow of the show. Not so across the pond. We hire a brave and cheerful man named Joff White to take over this job. I call him the British Frenchy…

My job here will be to submix all the effects, bringing all those fantastic wrestling grunts, groans and hits home to our audience. It’s actually pretty easy, and will be a fun change for me.

However, not having much to do makes a day drag on and on, especially without a constant internet connection. Internet access is spotty at best, but at least I have time to write all these updates!

The day progressed much faster than normal. The biggest issue of the day was getting the “embedders” to work. Embedders are devices that basically take a pretty simple procedure and complicate the hell out of it. I call this process “re-complication”. We have successfully re-complicated the whole television process to the point that it takes three days and five engineers to do what used to only take one. All in the name of progress!!

The show came together nicely. I stole… no, wait… I mean… err… I “re-allocated” an internet connection, once I found out where the super-secret router was hidden. Tomorrow should go much faster, now that I have a high speed internet connection!

After ten hours we were ready to leave. Our local audio crew was ready to quaff a few pints. I gave Joff my UK phone number so that we could meet up later… (I am just sooo cosmopolitan!) I’m hoping that Joff and company will know the secret code to bypass those rock-headed bouncers.

Getting into the elevator back at the Hilton, I had a “WWE moment” I was joined by two of our newer wrestlers on their way to their rooms. Since the elevator is very tiny, we were pretty crowded together. They introduced themselves. One, who introduced himself as “Chad”, I recognized as half of the tag team “The Dicks” The other guy I didn’t recognize until he said, “Hello, I am the Boogeyman!”

Imagine being trapped in an elevator with the Boogeyman and the only other person there is a Dick? Now THAT’S a WWE moment!

Abi and I decided to go for dinner at a Tapas restaurant. I’d never tried tapas before, so it sounded like fun. On the way to the restaurant, Joff called and said he and a few of the lads were in a cab on the way to meet us. I told him we were on our way to a tapas restaurant. He sounded a bit confused by that. “Do they serve food in topless bars now? We’ll be right there!”

I had to disappoint him.

Joff and the rest had already eaten, and since nobody was topless in the tapas bar, they said to meet them when we finished our dinner at my new favorite pub, the Frog and Parrot (naturally!)

Tapas consist mostly of appetizers that you order then share with the table. There were about thirty on the menu, from quesadillas to exotic-sounding beef dishes. There was a list of vegetarian dishes as well, which made Abi happy. We sampled a few of the many tapas, then went to meet up with “the boys”.

On the walk to the F&P, I noticed that, interestingly enough, there were no bouncer-cretins in sight. In fact, on Sunday night, downtown Sheffield seems very quiet. We were welcome to enter any bar or club we wanted to, even the ones that rejected us the previous night. All I could say is a hearty “FUUUUCK YOU!” to each of those snooty bars. If I wasn’t good enough last night to come in and spend money, they your place isn’t good enough now. I’d much rather spend all my money at the place that has been very good to me so far, the Frog and Parrot.

We walked in, and immediately noticed a TV crew was set up behind the bar. One of the WWE crews was out shooting “scenics” for tomorrow’s show. They were shooting the lovely and well-endowed bar maids serving beers to the locals. I told them I wanted to be in the shot. The scene was this: One bar maid hands a patron a drink as the camera pans down the bar, then a second one hands a beer across to another patron (me). We all toast, and then drink the beer.

Abi and the rest of the audio crew milled around behind us to lend atmosphere to the bar (After all, what could be more believable than a TV crew in a bar?) We had to shoot the scene three or four times to get it exactly right, and I managed to score three free beers! The bar maid kept refilling my rather large glass, and I kept dutifully emptying it. (The things I will do for art’s sake!) I am sure the scene won’t make air, but it should give people in the truck a good laugh when they see the French “local” toasting the others in the shot. What fun!

We talked about television, shared stories that only audio guys would find funny, filled them in on the latest gossip, and had a great time. We had many loud laughs until the bar closed at 10:30. They told us that this was the last weekend the bars would be closing so early, which was a shame in a way. I wanted to stay out later and laugh it up some more, but sadly it was time to return to the hotel.

Tomorrow, RAW from the UK!

Frenchy's Rant

Ride – Rant – Repeat

Detroit – December 1, 2005

Busted – November 29, 2005

Cleveland – November 28, 2005

Sheffield Day 4

Sheffield Day 3

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