First off, there’s Lester, the man who has been responsible for greasing the loading dock skids for well over 30 years. We take a lot of deliveries during the weekend – dates for the Eagles and Jazz Attack, medical supplies, biologicals and Guinness kegs, and it would surely be a disaster if those deliveries were to back up on the docks, or even worse, collide with our outgoing shipments of itineraries for acts like The Cribs, 3 Doors Down and Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express. That’s why Lester is so important, for it’s his job to lube the skids so those crates move as smoothly as damage control at Neverland Ranch. Attaboy, Lester!

Next up is Clem, our chief of weekend security. A former member of Iraq’s Republican Guard, Clem is tasked with keeping the Pollstar.com compound secure. Concert information, like routings for Buck 65 or The Blood Arm, is a ruthless business, and industrial espionage goes with the territory. Although we rarely see Clem, we know he’s on the job, if only because of the random gunshots, explosions and bloodcurdling screams that can be heard throughout our facilities on Saturdays and Sundays. That is, when those sounds aren’t drowned out by Clem’s favorite CD, the soundtrack to Deliverance, blasting out over the Pollstar.com p.a. system. Wait a sec. Did you hear that noise? Was that a pig squealing? Time to cue those banjos!

Of course, we couldn’t keep this place running on the weekends without Franny, our solid waste engineer. Running a business responsible for listing dates for Jimmy Buffett, Elvis Costello and Kenny Chesney involves a lot of solid waste, and Franny’s job is to make sure that what goes in one end comes out the other. Yes, whether its bran-flake hydraulics or checking up on the raisin trees in the hydroponic gardens, Franny knows that an operation like this one requires clean colons and lots of ’em. Her greatest achievement? Convincing management to switch to two-ply. Here’s to you, Franny. Long may you run!

Last, but not least, we’d like to tip our hat to Abner, our weekend electrical engineer. It takes a lot of juice to keep this place running on the weekends. Furthermore, Homeland Security rules & regs require that concert info Web sites, like hospitals, police stations and fire houses, maintain independent power supplies to be used in case of disasters, either natural or terrorist-born. After all, it would truly be a disaster if, say, a dirty bomb was to go off outside our headquarters in Fresno, California, thus knocking us off of the state’s power grid and preventing concert fans from looking up dates for Neil Diamond, Avril Lavigne and Coldplay. We had planned on introducing you to Abner today, but he’s busy feeding the hamster and making sure the little critter’s treadwheel spins unimpeded. Oh, well, it’s the thought that counts.

Yes, it takes a lot of people to keep this place going on the weekends. Lester, Clem, Franny, Abner – they’re just a few of Pollstar.com’s unsung heroes that keep the lights on, the riff-raff out, and the plumbing a hummin’ while you spend your leisure time looking up dates for The Ditty Bops and George Benson. What’s more, our weekend crew is so talented, so devoted, that we’d love to have them on the payroll full time, but several factors beyond our control prevent them from working for us Mondays through Fridays.

Well, actually, it’s just one thing that keeps them from working for us during the week, but we have our best people dealing with the matter. However, as everyone knows, those prison furlough programs can be soooo inflexible.