Recently, I've been caught up in a flood of activity here in the 406. If I can, I offer to all of you a quick string of the events I've been up to: getting up to ten or fifteen hours of overtime (i.e. working at least 50+ hours this last week); paintballing in a random section of woods/farm/junkyard; being recruited to help a stuntman in training build an obstacle course; learning the true meaning of chess as a sport with drunken five-minute speed chess against graphic artists living in what is, essentially, a commune; and filming and taking pictures of one of our largest worksites for this summer- (once I figure out how to get videos and photos on this darn thing, expect to see a fair number).
A word on overtime, briefly- getting paid time-and-a-half is fantastic, but it begins to drag out a bit when you're doing heavy manual labor. A few days ago, I found myself unable to make a fist with my left hand after a thirteen hour day in the rain. Today, one of my two non-consecutive days off this week, my forearms/wrists/fingers are getting on a first name basis with Icyhot. In short, the money is good, but the hours are really killing my body. I was hoping that the beginning of the season -early to mid June- would find life in the wedding rental business a bit less hectic, as was the case last summer. One would expect that between unpredictable heavy thunderstorms, hailstorms, and snowstorms (yes, in June, that is how Montana works in the spring/early summer) that pre-planned galla events would take place largely indoors. However, one would be largely wrong.
Our most recent job, the largest one, and the one that I attempted, however haphazardly, to document, might serve as a decent example of this. Our largest tent- a 60' X 100' went up in a rodeo grounds, where it had been raining for the last three days. Essentially, we were setting up in a mudpit. Even the heavy equipment we use to set up this large of a tent couldn't deal- the forklift ended up spinning out. Fortunately, my boss (effectively, if not in title) is a totally badass 50-something man. He's a bit short, has just had shoulder surgery, has been doing manual labor his entire life, and has a great deal of technical expertise. When the forklift began spinning out, he had his sister (who works with us as well, ahh the joys of family life) jump in his diesel pickup, pull into the rodeo grounds, and haul the entirety of the tent and the forklift. At the end of the day, when we had driven the hour and a half back into Bozeman, he told us to clock out by stroking briefly at his white facial hair, then touching the brim of his ducttaped straw cowboy hat, uttering the phrase, "Party's over." What a man.
In a similar but much more unsettling vein, I find myself awkwardly running into a fair amount of strange racism both on the job and from a few acquaintances who grew up in Bozeman. The casual use of incredibly offensive terms, phrases, and ideas takes what I've seen from east coast upper-crusters and puts it to shame. It seems as though, here in Montana, ignorance and hatred are not yet dead, and the nasty malaise will settle on any target- the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Blacks, the Native Americans, the Indians, the Arabs, the Muslims, the Mormons- the list goes on, but my patience begins to wear thin. I never really took myself for someone with a political message -with a social agenda to push- but nowadays I could easily see myself becoming one of "those" people. The people who kill jokes, the people who turn an entire conversation on its ear to talk about the latest famine or natural disaster or genocide. Not that these issues aren't important, mind you, simply that, in day-to-day conversation, bringing them up as a first choice topic tends to turn whatever the general atmosphere is to one of guilt and depression. In other words, a downer. Yet, slamming up against this level of ignorance may yet force me to jump into that role. I realize I'm being ferociously vague, but it's hard to speak out against someone who's your senior when he or she tells you that, "All the Chinamen are jerks. They just come off the tour buses and stand around in the grocery stores like idiots and don't let you by. But that's because they're Chinamen and they don't speak our language. They should just go back to China." Mildly humorous because of the level of ignorance, yes. Terrifying to hear coming from the lips of someone 20+ years older than you? Definitely.
Anywho, enough of that. For right now I only have one last thought to share, which is simply that the movie Prince of Persia is actually somewhat worth seeing. It's a trashy action movie based on a video game, yes, but it's the first one in that genre that I've seen since Resident Evil that might actually stand on its own as a trashy action movie without the video game franchise to back it up. Not a cinematic game-changer, but if you're looking to kill a few hours to see some special effects and parkour, you could do worse than the Prince of Persia.
Adios for now, sports fans.
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