On The Topic Of Precarious Ladders:

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.

Letterkenny Live Encore Tour

Wed Dec 5, 2018

Meridian Center, St. Catharines, Ontario

In the audience for a change! A holiday treat.

Season 6 confirmed for Xmas Day!

Check your local LCBO for the official Puppers beer!

I loves me some rats, and these ones are super heroes. Spreading awareness of their good work.

m.facebook.com

Jack Whitehall Fans

Jack goes hunting for the land mines, with the help of some furry friends!

First saw these kinds of rats in this comedy travelogue on Netflix, humor is a bit unique but good way to spread knowledge.

Hero Rats

Theatre Tips and Tricks:

Nightvision:

No, not the goggles.

So you're backstage and it's dark and you forgot your flashlight and you KNOW there's scenery and props that you are probably going to run in to, but no matter how hard you stare, you can only see the black void that exists in all technician's souls.

And there's an actual, biological science reason as to why.

It comes down to those little things in the eyeball called rods and cones. Cones are near the center of the retina and are great at picking up colour. Rods are on the edges of the retina and are great at picking up light. Rods are a bit shit at colour, but cones are a bit shit if there isn't a lot of light.

So when you stare -AT- something in low light conditions, you're mostly using the Cones, and they're like "We can't tell what that is because it's too dark so here's a dark blob."

What you want to do is look Above or to the Side of what you want to see. And then gather information with your peripheral vision. This uses the signals from the rods who are like "We'll suck in all the light we can to help you see, but we're not sure what color that is," which is fine.

It's tricky to get used to, because of course we want to look right at where we're going, but next time you're waving your arms blindly in the wings, give it a go.

Also note it takes five to twenty minutes for your eyes to fully adjust to dark conditions, and you can wreck that in a couple seconds by flicking on a light, so keep one eye closed if you have to click on your MagLight to check something and that can help retain your vision in at least one eye.

Hope that helps!

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

I'm killing time by decorating my helmet with LEDs anew.  The lights on the Icon Variant Thriller lasted from December to May, which was when I crashed and had to retire the helmet.

So I'm sitting here sticking the lights to the peak on my Scorpion Exo and this church asshole keeps glancing over at me and I can tell he's dieing to say something.

 I finish up and he blurts out to the audio guy "There's no way that's gonna hold!"

 I calmly inform him it held last year.  And last year I used low tack green painters tape.   So by logic, the gaff tape I have now should be even better.

He's flustered for a second, then retorts gleefully "then you must not go very fast!" as he grins triumphantly at the audio guy again.

 "Yah, I mean, I've only got a 750cc Adventure bike so I top out around 180 (km).  Maybe if I could break 250  I'd work in more zip ties."

 He got mad and turned his back to me. And hasn't talked or looked at me since.