A Week in the Magic City

Monday, April 7th

It is safe to say that Birmingham was not one of my favorite cities. However, a week to sleep in and take it easy was welcome. That said, there were still highlights to be found.

The travel day from Orlando to Birmingham SUCKED. We were booked on a 7 AM Southwest flight from Orlando International. I left the hotel at 4:45 AM - this is when the suckiness began. I was at the airport slightly after 5 AM. I had a Hertz rental car to return; after I circled the airport the second time, it became apparent that the Hertz "airport" location was not, actually, at the airport. I followed a sign pointing to the airport exit and began to get a little concerned. Once I found the Hertz location, things went well but took time. It was quarter 'til six when the shuttle bus dropped me off at the terminal. The line at the Southwest counter was, literally, out the door. I checked in around 6:15 and dropped my bags at the bomb sniffing machine. When I reached the security screening, my heart sank - the line was enormous. It was nearly seven by the time I made it through security and boarded the tram for my gate. I finally boarded the plane right around the time it was scheduled to take off. I was not the last person to board, nearly a dozen came after me - we held at the gate for more than 15 minutes after the scheduled take-off time, but my heart didn't recover until we were on the ground in Birmingham. After we landed, I relaxed at breakfast with Karl and Wayne - all this before 9 AM (with the change to central time).

I spent Monday afternoon playing tourist with Wayne and Roy. For weeks before we arrived in Birmingham, Wayne had been talking about Vulcan, the giant statue that sits on Red Mountain above town. Created for the 1904 for World's Fair, Vulcan is the largest cast-iron statue in the world. He's 56 feet tall and sits atop a 126' tower built of local sandstone by the WPA. Vulcan was created to advertise Birmingham's thriving iron industry and growing industrial might. Around the turn of the century, Birmingham became a major production center for iron; the coal, limestone and iron ore in the mountains of the region came together with the newly constructed railroads to make the city grow "as if by magic" and gave the city it's nickname: "The Magic City". We rode the elevator to Vulcan's observation deck and took in the view of Birmingham before we visited the adjacent museum that detailed the history of both the monument and the city.

Vulcan

Roy looks out at Birmingham from atop Vulcan

Vulcan used to hold this torch - it normally glowed green, but turned red whenever there was a traffic fatality. The torch was replaced with a replica of his original spear when he was restored in the 90's.

After our visit to Vulcan, we cast about a bit for something else to do. We happened upon the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark. The Furnaces are the ruins of the Sloss Iron Factory and are open to the public as a self-guided walking tour. The industrial ruins are magnificent and gigantic in scale. The signs took us through the process of smelting iron into pigs that could then be shipped off and turned into finished products. We climbed around on the steam shovels, looked at the air turbines that fed the furnace and peered into the furnace. The place was truly fascinating.

The Sloss Furnaces

JV on a Steam shovel

Tuesday was, of course, devoted to load-in. We played the Concert Hall of the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Center. The Concert Hall is one part of the a complex that also includes two Convention Center Exhibit Halls, a smaller Theater, 19,000 seat Arena, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, meeting rooms and the Birmingham Municipal Auditorium. It turns out that the Concert Hall is undergoing front of house renovations. The lobby was a construction zone complete with scaffolding, a trench in the floor, plastic sheeting over sections of the seating area and a pile of broken concrete. This also meant that the elevators in the building were out of service. Of course, this made load-in a challenge. Things were further complicated by the theatre's inept manager. He failed to secure the proper permits for the show's pyrotechnics, meaning that all the pyro had to be cut. Just before show time, the manager showed up in our office with the Fire Marshall. He introduced the Marshall to me and the following conversation ensued:

Me: "Nice to meet you."
Marshall: "I just wanted to make sure y'all weren't planning to use any pyro effects tonight."
Me: "No, sir. I don't believe we even have any pyro in the building."
Marshall: "If any pyro gets fired in here tonight, somebody's going to jail."
(Looks meaningfully at me.)
Me: "OK."
Marshall: "I'm going to a concert on the other side of town and I don't want to have to come back here."
Me: "I don't either, sir."
Marshall: "My office takes these things very seriously."

Seriously?!?!

The rest of the night was uneventful. The show went well: there was no pyro or jail-going. Of course, there was a language barrier that had to be overcome backstage: the stagehands were speaking Southern and I was speaking Yankee. Often we could barely communicate. It was a mutual misunderstanding - they couldn't understand me any better than I could them, but we muddled through.

The Concert Hall at BJCC

While we were there, the Convention Center and our hotel (the Sheraton across the street) played host to the Regional Metalform Convention, a sporting goods store regional meeting, a country music concert and the Birmingham Boat Show. As busy as the BJCC was, there were few places to eat nearby. The Subway across the street had lines out the door at lunch time and the hotel restaurant was the only other option. Yikes.

TVFMHRW - Birmingham

Sunrise VFMHRW - The time difference meant that Sheila and I were often having our morning conversation at dawn.

Wednesday I met up with some of the boys and we headed up to Birmingham's "cool neighborhood": Five Points. It's a historic neighborhood with a five pointed intersection, a record shop, a Starbucks and several restaurants and bars. While it was cooler than the other parts of Birmingham available to us, Greenwich Village it was not. We enjoyed a meal at Jim 'n Nicks BBQ. The barbecue was tasty and the company was great.

Berg eats his masterpiece: an onion ring covered in queso with jalapenos

I resumed the roadfood tour on Thursday with a trip to Niki's West with Gurr and Suzanne - Gurr was nice enough to drive. Niki's is a cafeteria across the street from the Birmingham Produce Market (sort of like Hunt's Point Terminal in the Bronx) that is justifiably famous for it's vegetable sides. The choice of sides seemed endless and choosing just four was a challenge. Eventually, I settled on stewed okra, candied beets, piccalilli and turnip greens to go with my meatloaf - delicious. We all left in a food coma (thanks, in no small part to three kinds of pie).

Gurr and Suzanne with our bounty

The rest of the week was uneventful until Sunday. The BJCC is home to the last operating man lift in the country. A man lift is a vertical conveyor belt with hand-holds and platforms for a person to stand on. The lift at the BJCC carries one from the stage floor up to the fly rail, then on to the loading platform and the grid (more than 100' straight up without any safety railing). I took a ride on the lift - giggling all the way to the fly rail. Then, we convinced Ken to take a ride. He took off up the lift, as he reached the fly floor we heard: "Make it stop! Make it stop! Help!" Ken missed the fly floor and was headed up to the grid and into the darkness. We got the thing stopped, but Ken was stuck between levels clinging to the belt. Nate went up the lift and helped Ken to safety.

That's it folks - my boss nearly dying was one of the highlights of the week. Bree Branker made her debut in the ensemble. David Havasi joined the company (he'll replace Brian O'Brien). Casey Nicholaw (our Choreographer) visited, saw two shows and gave notes. We packed up the circus.

The album of photos is here.

JV