More Trauma Followed by a Perfect Show - Thank You Ellen

As I'm listening to one of my favorite songs, Dust in the Wind, by the group Kansas, I am reminded of the line, "...just a drop of water in an endless sea....", referring to us as beings granted a small time on earth, but otherwise as fairly insignificant, as the title of the song indicates. Well without being too morbid let me say that the song actually reminded me of the many travails I have faced in producing this show. Just when I think Ellen and I have seen it all, along comes yet another bump in the road. But I get ahead of myself, so let me go back one day to Thursday, March 29, when I watched the Apocalypse Varga Show on Woodstock Public Access TV. Christina Varga, who owns the Varga Gallery in Woodstock, is a wonderful, intelligent, and creative lady who has a marvelous show. You may remember I was interviewed by her on her show a few weeks ago, but other than that show I had never seen her, so I finally tuned in as she was trumpeting the cause of a local doctor in town who had given up his doctor's license pending the trial he was facing on writing too many of a certain drug to patients. Without going into the details, let me just say that the show was excellent and lasted for 90 minutes, thirty minutes over her normal allotment. It WAS that good. I called in a question to gain clarification of the situation, as I was unaware that the doctor was having such difficulty. She was doing a variety of strange photo manipulations and images that distracted somewhat from the issue, but showed Cristina's creativity and extraordinary range as a producer. All I was thinking was that I hope she doesn't mess up the equipment for my show the next night. As I was preparing to do my show, Ellen indicated a lot of problems were occurring, and up to the final seconds before I was to start, we were unsure we would be able to do the show. The image of Christina and all those strange things she was doing flashed through my mind. Ellen assured me that Christina's work probably had nothing to do with the current problems. Ellen finally figured out how to get me on the air, but for some reason the DVD machine did not give me a copy of the show !!! Now I am there to put on a show each Friday evening precisely at 5 PM for the citizens of the town, but I also like to give people who cannot watch at that time the chance to see the show, so using the DVD I get afterward, I then copy it for repeat mode two weeks later (it then appears on the station as a repeat at least a dozen or more times) and also on upload it to Youtube. Not having a copy on DVD is a hardship for at least a few score of people who avail themselves of one of these options (perhaps a hundred but hard to tell how many watch repeats, but Youtube indicates the number of views). I didn't realize this until I got home, and frankly always feared this would eventually happen; it took 14 shows for that to happen. I frantically phoned Ellen who assured me we would do the show over again, not on the air, but just to create a DVD. She indicated that 9 AM the next morning would be a time when the studio was probably free. So today, Saturday, we met at that time early this morning with me half asleep (now that I am retired doing anything at 9 AM is a hardship; this is after spending my 41 year working career waking up at 5 AM, so don't think I am lazy or anything !!!!). The bottom line is that we did a great show, better than the first one !!!! Ellen's technical work was flawless and amazing, and I did a very good job. This is as good a time as any to state here and now that Ellen is a wonderful, very bright, talented person who is an excellent technician working under sometimes hard conditions. Given some problems that would cause anyone else, I believe, to simply give up, she preservers and always comes up with a solution. She is totally sympathetic to my needs as a producer, director, writer, and performer, dealing with my neuroses, and always does so with a smile on her face and a cheerful disposition. She is absolutely great and the reason I am doing this show, so this particular blog is dedicated to her, my engineer, technician par excellence, and, of course, my savior and inspiration !!!! THANK YOU ELLEN !! Incidentally let me say that Central Tuscany is a stunning land of many wonders, and Part 1 of a 5 part series on Tuscany began successfully as I took my audience through the eastern portion of what I referred to as "Central Tuscany". My favorite of those towns, Anghairi, showed beautifully, and of course Laura's photos were as extraordinarily stunningly beautiful as ever, perhaps the best she ever took (but then again I always say that, don't I ?). Ellen, engineer par excellence and Laura, my amazing photographer  !!!!! Where would I her without them ? Thanks again to my readers for listening to all this.