Hi Nancy!
 Been a strange week around here for me. While going to an "out"  I
messed up my right wrist bad on a bike fall that has kept me mostly
incommunicado and not caring most of the week. Sorry bout that!! What
was neat though is that no one was upset that I was only working one
handed on that call when they saw the swelling going on. Prehaps
it helped reinforce that I'm aware that "the show must go on!" Should
have gone to a doctor, but it really wasn't much that could be done,
nothing appeared broke, just needed to avoid using my right hand that
night (and still a week later!). The bummer part is that I was just
getting ready to lay some keyboard tracks this week. Grr.. speaking of
which, I still have a Hammond B2 that I've cursed for many a year about
lugging that thing around, but until recently nothing came close to
that sound in a smaller package. You mentioned lugging one of those (B3
that is) around. Used to tick me off, getting to the gig with the sound
equipment and the drummer and after hours of setting up and testing the
horn players walk in, open their case, put their instrument on the stage
and wonder what's taking so long. Grrrr!!!!!
 As I mentioned, perhaps because of being in California and in the midst
of the liberal west, while we work alongside of the men all of the time,
it appears that only seldom so far have I run into sexism running
rampant. I does unnerve me a little when EVERYONE knows who I am, and I
don't necessarily know everyone on the call though. A recent example of
this happened on the KISS call, when the Fire Marshall said hello to me
by name, which at the time I'd forgotten that we had met and talked
about a year before. I got pretty paranoid for about an hour trying to
figure out why he knew me!! Well, my apartment complex DID have a fire
two doors down a couple of weeks ago!!! I don't often get offered or ask
for easy duty on any call though I did appreciated those that worked
with me last weekend for special assistance due to the injury.
He has a damned good memory for names, something I don't have from too
many years of a week here and a week there type of living on the road as
a musician, where you have to remember a lot of people's names for only
a short period of time and chances are you'll never see them again..
 The only time I've encountered any kind of sexism on IA calls funny
enough was when doing some work for Freeman about a year ago on a
"convention" call locally. I'm grateful that I am as well accepted and
seemingly liked by the local stagehands from getting invites to eat with
them at lunch breaks, and have also been invited to sit in on the Bill
Graham Productions  end of season party coming up soon by the stagehands
that are also competent musicians.
All in all, I'm fairly happy with being accepted by my peers, but then I
met most of them as a technician first, fixing problems in the shows
they were working on before actually working with them on productions.
Now, they're finding out that the reason I'm into all of this stuff is
because I am a musician first.
Sorry this is a rambling message..  I am on drugs and this is still the
"middle of the night" to me at the moment!
 Bonnie *:>
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