Not Tonight...

So now that I’m pretending to be a grownup with a real job, it turns out that it’s much harder to update a blog with any regularity. It’s not really for lack of free time – I just don’t really do interesting stuff anymore. In college I could always fall back on the “I got real drunk and something funny happened” story, but I don’t really do that much crazy shit, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t write about it in a public forum, because it turns out that employers don’t like that so much. Plus, it’s much easier to motivate yourself to write about something asinine in college because the choice (at least for me) was usually between writing something fun online or writing something boring for class. Round about the fifth or sixth essay about Plato or Lessing or Wordsworth, writing about beer sports or baseball or really anything that’s not literary, seems downright enjoyable. It’s like a warmup for writing something meaningful – twenty minutes to let the martini kick in before starting to write. (That’s the trick to good writing kids – fix a real dry martini before you sit down with your computer and twenty-odd books. It really gets the creative juices flowing. All the great writers did it.) But now it seems like more of a chore than anything. In fact, the only reason I’m even writing now is because I didn’t have anything to do at work between my morning meeting and my afternoon meeting, so I took a two hour lunch break. I’m not even hungry, but I’ll be damned if I’m sitting at my desk for no reason when I don’t get paid hourly. But I digress. What generally happens in my life is this: I go to work, then to the gym, and then I make dinner, and by the time I get to my computer, I look at my blog and it looks at me, and I’m like, “Not tonight, I have a headache.”

Electrics Glossary

Every profession has its own lexicon, built on the jargon, jokes, and technical terminology used by its laborers. Theatre – perhaps more so than other trades – has some really quality (and really colorful) vocabulary, the brunt of which originates in the electrics department. For all those of you who are fortunate enough to have a job that isn’t a theatre electrician, allow me to introduce you to some of the more useful and entertaining terms and phrases that exist in my world. In no particular order:


Hot Pocket: Hot patch or “courtesy” outlets contained in many touring dimmer racks. They are always on (“hot”) allowing the user to quickly test fixtures, cables, etc.

Inhibs: Inhibitive Submasters, which prevent lights from coming on. Opposite of a standard submaster, the higher the level of the sub, the lower the level of the light. Also a verb.

Pepsi Challenge: the act of slightly altering a designer’s specifications to be more practical/less neurotic. For example, if a designer specs a trim height of 20’-1” on his or her electrics, you would trim them at 20’ because that is a normal height, and then if, and only if, the designer notices, you change it. Pepsi Challenge can also refer to a scenario in which a designer gives you a note, and you don’t do it, but the next day you tell them you’ve done it and see if simply thinking it’s better alters their perception of what they thought was wrong in the first place.

50/50: the standard home position for many moving lights. 50% of tilt faces the light straight down, and 50% of pan gives the light ability to rotate in either direction.

Iso-opto: isolated optical splitter. It’s a device that splits a single line of data (usually DMX) into several lines. It serves roughly the same function for lighting data as a switch does for Ethernet.

Strippers: wire strippers.

Spaghetti: a cable or rope that is hopelessly and irrevocably knotted around itself and other cables or ropes. Also referred to as an “Asshole.”

Fucknut: the tiny set-screw on many lighting c-clamps that controls the pan of the unit. So named because it is super easy to over-tighten and shear off, and when you inevitably do it, you say “fuck.” Also known in some circles as the OJN (Oh Jesus nut).

Dykes: diagonal cutters.

Stinger: can be one of two things. Either a) a hot Edison extension cable or b) a short wire cable used for rigging.

Meanie: a rope cleat on the west coast.

Uncle Buddy: a rope cleat on the east coast.

“Spin a disk:” to save a show on a light board. This phrase has its origins in the fact that all computerized lighting consoles used to have floppy disk drives so you could save a backup copy of your show.

Jumper: an extension cable (usually stage pin).

“Bang it:” to go directly into a cue, bypassing the computerized fade time. This phrase has stems from the fact that on early model ETC consoles, you would go into a cue by “banging” the playback faders down and up. This phrase has been made largely obsolete by the “go to cue” function.

Dimmer Beach: the area in a theatre (or, more commonly, in a touring setup) designated for the lighting dimmers. Supposed origin: Since the dimmers are usually the heaviest things on the electrics truck, they are usually packed near the rear of the truck, over the wheels. As such, they are one of the first things off the truck during load in. Once the dimmers off the truck and set up on the venue, many L1’s like to set up a beach chair near (or sometimes on top of) the dimmers and instruct the crew on where to put the rest of the lighting gear. Hence, dimmer beach.

Alligator Pits: This may just be a thing at my theatre, but the open holes in the grid through which the batten lift lines travel are called alligator pits. Presumably because if you fall into one, you die.

Yup. See if you can take my job seriously now (as if you ever could)…

Needless Sexual Innuendo The Week Before Christmas

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to log in to my work email before I went home. Awaiting me were several messages, but the one that jumped out at me had a subject line that read, “Have you seen my package?” I was really scared to open it, but it turned out to be a guy looking for a DVD he got in the mail. Fortunately, the next email I read was one about how there was a going to be a free keg at 4:30pm, so I was able to calm my nerves. But, Jesus Christ. Proofread your emails.

The Postal Service is a Sham

First, let me make perfectly clear that the organization we are about to be mercilessly deriding is, in fact, the United States Postal Service, not the band “The Postal Service,” because the band is actually pretty decent at what they do, namely making sweet music. But even if their music was totally horrible, they’d still be doing a better job than USPS because, well, at least they’d be doing something. I swear to Christ, if I had a nickel for every time some deadbeat postal worker decided to go on break right when I walk in the post office, I’d be a rich man (well, I’d have at least about seventy five cents, because I try at all costs to avoid the post office like Fox News avoids the issues). Since I have been living in California (about four months) the following have not been delivered to my apartment: two issues of GQ, one issue of the New Yorker, one birthday card containing a check, and one freelance check. The following have been delivered to my apartment: numerous letters and a package for someone with an unpronounceable Asian name, a jury summons for someone named David, an alumni magazine from a college that neither my roommates nor I attended, a metric shitload of direct mail advertising for “current resident” and a letter marked “Urgent: Open Immediately, Time Sensitive Information Enclosed” for someone named Steve. I find it absolutely remarkable that I can get so much mail for people whose names are not Matt Avery, but that mail addressed to me has such a hard time actually getting to me. You’d think that at the very least, since I’m getting everyone else’s mail, the odds would be better for me to get some of my own mail too – it’s just simple odds.

Oh, and UPS, you’re on notice too. The next time you pull up next to my apartment with a package and don’t knock or even leave a “delivery attempt” slip, you’re getting a nasty blog post too. And don’t think I forgot about that time you somehow managed to get into our locked parking lot and leave a package outside my back door where I never go without leaving a note that sat out there for god knows how long before I happened to find it while I was taking out the trash. I know I live in South Berkeley and I don’t have a doorbell, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to knock on the goddamn door. At least pretend to make an effort.

All delivery services outside of FedEx and DHL are duly warned. Everyone else, if you need to send something, send it to my work address. If you don’t know what it is, ask, but then I damn well better see a package within the week.

Punk ass delivery services think they can charge an arm and a leg and a kidney and a pint of virgin blood to not deliver packages…

A few items of note:

I bought plane tickets on my cell phone the other day. Apparently, we’ve come to the point in history where anyone can make a major credit card transaction involving interstate travel from a device that fits in your pocket. All while walking down the street. Gotta love technology.

I finally designed a show on an Eos. The show was a playwright’s series, which was only about 90 minutes long, and needed minimal tech support. I was using one of the best consoles on the market, with over 400 lights and about 40 scrollers at my disposal. It was like driving a tank to the supermarket: ultra badass, but super unnecessary.

The Bay Bridge is a PR nightmare. If it’s not getting destroyed by earthquakes or falling on cars, cars (or, more specifically, huge semi trucks) are falling off of it. I go to Treasure Island regularly because one of our rental vendors is located there, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t ever felt safe driving on that bridge. The new bridge being built to replace it is already years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget, and the new bridge isn’t going to replace or even circumvent the retarded double deck tunnel through Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island. Also, Treasure Island and YBI are technically only one island because Treasure Island is man-made, but that’s a story for another time. Caltrans and the Highway Patrol might as well give up and cut their losses – it’s only going to get worse from here.

I’m flying from the second busiest airport on the west coast to the busiest this weekend. Wish me luck.

Somebody out there has to hate Halloween as much as I do

I really fucking hate Halloween. It’s just the truth. I hate costumes and I hate going to parties where everyone is wearing a stupid costume and I hate walking down the street and seeing people in costumes. I hate it when all the bars are really crowded, and I hate it even more when they’re really crowded with costumed drunks. It’s like the one day of the year where everybody gets license to act and look dumber than they already do in their everyday lives. This one holiday basically embodies most of the things that are wrong with America.

I also hate children, and as such, I hate trick or treating. It really defies every type of conventional logic and reason. If there’s anything worse than a mob of children walking unattended down the street, it’s a mob of sticky, costumed, sugar-crazed children walking down the street asking you for free shit. Fuck trick or treat. Who thought up that crazy-ass shit? Let’s give all these already hyperactive children a metric f-ton of candy. For free. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Hell.

But here’s the thing: everybody else fucking loves Halloween. It’s like these people wait all fucking year to get dressed up and get really drunk and puke on their stupid ass costumes. Nobody’s even clever about it. I don’t how many girls in college told me the were going to their Halloween parties as a sexy (insert noun here): pirate, soldier, fucking bumblebee. Here’s a word to the wise. Bumblebees aren’t sexy. They’re really fucking boring. All they do is make honey and sting the shit out of people. That’s not a good Halloween costume. The only good Halloween costume I’ve seen this year is a girl who went as the Bay Bridge wrapped in caution tape with crushed matchbox cars glued to it. And the guy last night who was dressed like Aristotle Onassis, but that was more just a good fashion choice than a good costume.

I can make neither heads nor tails of it. It doesn’t seem to me like you would do more work and spend more money just to go out drinking - which, incidentally, is already really expensive– but I guess that’s just me. Which is why this year, like every other year, I’ll spend Halloween sitting in my apartment with all the lights off and the curtains closed, drinking alone and cursing quietly cursing the trick or treaters.

In Explanation:

Yeah. I haven’t posted for a month. Want to fight about it?

Here’s what’s been keeping me busy:

1. Getting engaged to my girlfriend. More to come.
2. Tech week for Tiny Kushner
3. Watching both the Dodgers and the Angels lose, shattering my dreams for a freeway series the one year I’m living in California. Was that really too much to ask?
4. Reading all the awesome reviews of American Idiot and Tiny Kushner.
5. Serving drinks to Lea Michele (of recent fame on the TV show Glee, for those of you who don’t follow Broadway actors).
6. Seeing a guy Chinese fire drill the Bart train.
7. Getting verbally abused by bums.
8. Enjoying the nice weather.

But not to worry. I’ll be back with a vengeance in the coming weeks.