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TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION
EDITOR’S NOTE
P R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
By RichardCadena
Five People
The Publication of Record for the Lighting,
Staging and Projection Industries
Publisher
Terry Lowe
tlowe@plsn.com
Here’s an interesting thought
from the late Jim Rohn, a motivational
speaker and author:
“You are the average of the five people
you spend the most time with.”
If true, then who are the five people
with whom you would want to spend
the most time and why?
You might want to surround yourself
with people who are creative,
intelligent, funny, industrious, determined
and resourceful. Some of my
favorite creative people are Frank
Zappa, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude
Monet, Andy Warhol and M.C. Escher.
Of course, none of them are alive today
so there’s a greater chance that I’ll
be invited to Prince William’s wedding
reception than I’ll be hanging out
with any of them. But in this industry,
there’s a good chance I could rub
elbows with designers like Willie Williams,
Roy Bennett, Jules Fisher, Bruce
Rodgers, Jonathan Smeeton and Kieran
Healy.
Who else would you want to hang
out with? How about some really intelligent
people like Albert Einstein,
Stephen Hawking, Leonardo da Vinci,
Nikola Tesla and Socrates. But the
odds of ever having a chance to sip
tea with Stephen Hawking are, as Carl
Sagan used to say, billions and billions
to one against. But I’ve been lucky
enough to spend some quality time
with Steve Terry of ETC, Mike Wood of
Mike Wood Consulting, Professor John
Huntington of New York City College
of Technology, Jim Bornhorst of PRG,
David Cunningham, the inventor of
the Source Four and Richard Belliveau
of Barco/High End Systems.
And who doesn’t like to hang out
with funny people? Some of my favorites
are Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld,
Andy Kaufman, Robin Williams and
Will Ferrell. I once met Jerry Seinfeld
on the set of Saturday Night Live, but
he didn’t seem too interested in looking
me up the next time he was in
town. But there are plenty of other
people I know that keep me in stitches,
like Steve Shelley, Tim Saunders,
Robert Mokry, Bill Sapsis and Butch
Allen.
And then there are people who
so are persistent, resourceful and resilient
that they are studies in human
achievement. Wouldn’t it have been
cool to have had the opportunity to
spend time with Thomas Edison, who
failed 2000 times before he finally
found a long-lasting filament for the
incandescent lamp; Abraham Lincoln,
who had a number of setbacks before
becoming president of the U.S.;
or Django Reinhardt, who lost the
use of the third and fourth fingers
on his left hand in a fire when he was
18, yet he became one of the world’s
greatest guitarists? When it comes to
these qualities, you could almost pick
names of people in our industry at
random and hold them up as examples
of persistence, resourcefulness
and resiliency. I think anyone who
has pulled an all-nighter to stage a
show or who has repaired a piece of
gear from a perch in the truss minutes
before doors qualifies. Randy
Pausch, the dying professor who
inspired the book, The Last Lecture,
said that entertainment executive
Jon Snoddy once told him, “Wait
long enough, and people will surprise
and impress you.” In our industry
you don’t have to wait very long.
If it’s true that you are the average
of the five people you spend
the most time with, and you’re
working in the entertainment production
industry, then you’re in
great company. Our industry is
filled with interesting people who
bring a road case full of creativity,
intelligence, humor, determination,
passion and insight. This is an industry
where the average person
is above average and some are off
the charts. And considering that we
often spend more time with our coworkers
than with our own families,
that’s a heartening thought. That’s
one of the reasons that most of us
love our jobs — because it attracts
the kind of people we like to be
around. And that even includes our
audio brethren.
Richard Cadena can be reached by
at least five e-mail addresses, but the
best one to use is rcadena@plsn.com.
PRO LIGHTING SPACE
Editor
Richard Cadena
rcadena@plsn.com
Managing Editor
Frank Hammel
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Victoria Laabs
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Kevin M. Mitchell
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Paul Berliner, Vickie Claiborne, Dan Daley,
David John Farinella, Steve Jennings,
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Nook Schoenfeld
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Steve Jennings
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Garret Petrov
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William Hamilton Vanyo
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Projection, Lights & Staging News (ISSN:
1537-0046) Volume 11, Number 11. Published
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