If That's The Most Important Thing For A Load-in, Then This Is The Most Important Thing Of A Load-out.

If that's the most important thing for a load-in, then this is the most important thing of a load-out.

One size fits fattest, as usual. I have so many unused dresses.

The most important sign of any concert load-in or movie/tv location shoot.

Oh man, when I was a kid there was one just like this in Lewiston, NY. Dad had a P.O. box in town and I looked forward to going to the giant house MickeyD's. Same as you place it had an upper inner balcony level, and I always remember the washrooms deep in the brick basement because each of the stalls were completely walled to either side of the toilet, proper painted brick walls and full doors.

It's called Frontier House and "In September 1973, the manager and chef of Frontier House were rescued in a fire. One dining room was destroyed along with widespread water damage.[6]Two years later the historic hotel of Lewiston's future was handed to William McDonald, who restored the interior and leased it to the McDonald's food chain. McDonald's closed in 2004, and the structure has been vacant ever since. It was acquired by the village of Lewiston in July 2013." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_House_(Lewiston,_New_York)

Apparently it's haunted? The basement always felt unnerving.

There was also one in Montreal that had something to do with Cadillac but the building was just a converted brick storefront type, built in a historical location.

I'd love a trend of fast food chains working to preserve and restore historical landmarks - rather than just plopping down another plastic window modern mess.

So me and my friends were out playing pokemon go and we had to literally stop the car and turn around because we may have found the fanciest McDonald’s I’ve ever seen in my life

A MANSION

And the inside is actually beautiful??????

Like there were live plants and I felt like I was walking into an upscale hotel??

It also had a second fancy entrance???

Not only that but there was like a secret upstairs that’s apparently open usually, but it was too late for us to go up too (I’m deffo gonna go back and check that out because come on)

Like what is she hiding 

But yeah I think I found either the most cursed or fanciest McDonalds in America

Also!

It was a pokestop!

There is a phrase used to describe people, often strangers, as “ships passing in the night.” The phrase is meant to describe how fleeting the intersection of two lives can be, how briefly people we don’t know can flicker in and out of our lives. 

But when I read about the Titanic, I think we can push the phrase further. Because sometimes, as you pass another ship in the night, you may hear a cry in the dark. A person in danger. A shout for help. Distress rockets and SOS signals wailing into the night. A stranger in crisis. 

And in those fleeting moments as your ship passes theirs, you get to make the choice- are you the Californian, the closest ship to the Titanic, which saw the distress rockets and saw the lights on the horizon and sat and did nothing; or are you the Carpathia, turning on a dime, pushing all steam to the engines, racing to help?

We can not say for sure what caused the Californian to not help the Titanic in that night of crisis. Whether is was apathy or incompetence or fear, we don’t know.

 But we know that every single soul who survived the Titanic survived because of the Carpathia. Because the crew and the passengers of that ship raced nearly 60 miles through ice fields above their maximum speed in the dead of night, readying life boats, readying triage, to pull them from the water. 

So, yes, we are ships passing in the night, and when given the chance to turn away or do good, always err on the side of reckless compassion. 

Me: *shows basic human decency to cashier

Cashier: ??!?! Thank you! You’re the nicest person ever!

Me: are you ok

On the topic of precarious ladders:

So writing about working at heights hijinks and life-panicing moments got me thinking about an old member of my first local. This guy had been installing wiring for the Big Bang, I garuntee. We were talking one day about ladder adventures. Both being short, small, and overconfident, we had plenty of moments to swap, but his took the cake.

He was on a North American tour of an Opera, back in his day, and they were down in the States, I want to say California but I can't recall precisely.

So this venue they're at, they're doing the load in, and it has this odd grating installed over the last few feet of the stage that allows the actors to walk right above the orchestra, a sort of grid covered pit.

The touring rig has a lighting pipe that needs to be hung right out over the stage edge, so motor lines are dropped in, everything is built and hooked up, and up it goes. But then, the local crew explains to Ronnie, because of the unique floor covering the pit, it wasn't load bearing enough for a scissor lift to be run across it. "But how do we focus those lights?" Ronnie asked, confused.

So that's when the house crew went out into the house, up to the back of the third balcony, and pulled out three segments of an extension ladder, 20 feet each. A quick chat determined that the apron pipe was about 40 feet above the deck, so two chunks of the ladder were passed over the edge of the third balcony to the second; over the second to the main floor, carried out to the edge of the stage, and linked together.

"Now what," Ronnie asks, probably well caught on, but just making sure. The local guys grin, and walk the ladder upright. Then four of them get around the base. "Up you go."

40 feet, straight vertical, no safety, nowhere to anchor to, no wall around, held in place by four crew hugging the bottom.

Up zips Ronnie, straddling the top rung and hooking his feet into lower bars, pulls out his wrench, and gets the first light focused.

"Okay, now, hang on," the guys at the base holler, and proceed to waddle-walk the base of the ladder to get Ronnie to the next fixture.

One foot, pivot-twist - rock onto other foot, pivot twist. Stop, work, repeat.

The whole width of the apron.

I can still see the grin on Ronnie's face retelling it, I bet he was having the time of his life.

And then, the story goes, he was so comfortable up there, and the ground team so competent, they got the pipe done in record time, but halfway along, tragedy struck upstage.

If you've never heard a motor bag dump a full length of chain after everything has been flown out, well, consider yourselves lucky. A collective groan went up from the carpentry team as a bag spilled, the only way to clean it up being bring the set in again.

"Hold up," says Ronnie, "maybe we can help." And his base team waddle-walked his ladder across the stage, where he pulled up the chain and stuffed it back in the bag to the cheers of the other crews below. Lighting was the hero of the show for the rest of the production's stay there.

So... Every now and then, when my leg is cramping because my harness is biting off circulation in my thigh because I'm folded in half trying to adjust some fixture, and my retractable lanyard is trying to choke me to death, or at the very least pull my hair out, and some Technical Director is griping that I "shouldn't be doooiiiing thaaaaat..." Okay fine, then I guess you can't have the effect, because I can't set it up legally; I think back to Ronnie, seated on the top rung of a forty foot ladder, being waddled across a stage, and I wonder if all this safety has dumbed down our skills.

And I wish like hell I could try that.

The most important sign of any concert load-in or movie/tv location shoot.