The most basic and the most important task of any technician in both music and theatre production is simply wrapping a cable. It may sound basic, but *how* you wrap a cable can actually determine how long it lasts. Now, most professional for-profit productions do list cable as “consumables”, meaning that they are designed to be thrown out and purchased or manufactured anew if they develop an issue. But you will catch hell by any Foreperson, TD or SM for wrapping cable in a way that damages it.
There is a correct technique accepted by both IATSE and Teamsters production houses, and that is called the “Over/Under” technique. Trying to describe it in words is maddening, and even I have a hard time trying to tell someone what has become a reflex to me over 20 years. But, this video by the London School of Sound perfectly shows the way I learned how to wrap cable.
Now, I know what you are saying if this is a new thing to you, or if you’ve been too embarrassed to ask because some asshole stagehand called you out for not knowing such a “basic” thing (And, if any tech does pull that, they are a bad person and shouldn’t be on the gig, FYI)
“But, WHY?!??! Why do Techs gotta make EVERYTHING so hard and, well, dramatic!!??”
Excellent Question!
It all comes down to how the cable is constructed. The cable itself is actually made up of various different wires (which is why we don’t call a cable a “wire” on a show, because they technically mean two different things). The wires in a cable, such as a balanced XLR cable, are actually wrapped around one another, like this:
Now you see that the wires are actually wrapped AROUND one another! This means that the cable, once covered in shielding, it going to want to twist a certain way, because the cable is tensioned around one another (usually counter-clockwise). This means if you try to wrap it like your extension cord you use for your Christmas lights, it is going to get kinked up, and the wires inside will start binding against one another because by just wrapping it over your arm like a garden hose is going to force those cables to bind and twist in a way that is unnatural.
In short: You end up forcing them against one another until they simply break.
Yep. Wire itself is just thin bits of copper (anywhere from 22 to 10 gauge thick, with the bigger the number being the thinner the wire), and it doesn’t take much to bend them out. Just like when you shove your earbuds in your pocket without making sure they are coiled up nicely.
So, when you wrap Over/Under, you are actually alternating the coil of the cable to match the natural way the cable wants to go (this is called the “lay” of the cable). When you get the over/under technique down, you will feel that the cable naturally wants to coil that way, and it takes no effort. When you wrap a coil just one over the other like a home extension cord, you can feel the cable actually twist and want to fight you.
Also, to know if you got it right, all you have to do is take one end of the cable, and then throw the rest of it out away from your body. If you did it right the cable will FLY out of your hands and land straight and true right on the deck, making you look like a badass stage ninja!
It may take a lot of practice, but eventually you will literally do it in your sleep. Just like any motor action, it just takes practice! And, you will find that many professional houses still have people who cannot coil cable correctly (these tend to also be the know-it-alls who will give new techs trouble, ironically). Master fast, accurate cable wrapping and you will save the band or the venue a TON of money in cable costs, and it will make you more attractive too! Trust me.
Image is a cool off-white with black text.
“You can be a good person with a kind spirit and still tell people to go fuck themselves when needed.”
You can consider this a distant sequel to The More Things Change, but it isn’t necessary.
This is also so short because I wanted to experiment with something. I don’t want to say what because I don’t want it to skew what people think of the prompt. React to it like you normally would.
Established Garashir.
Light
Dirt coated his mouth, his hair, his scales. His nails dug into the ground. He pulled, reached, dug, pulled, reached, trembled. The light. The glow of the sun. It shone beyond the mouth of the cave, spread across the mountains, dipped into the valleys that once skittered with so much light. It was him. It was him.
The cave walls rattled. Small rocks fell. No. Then an avalanche. No. Then, then!
Darkness.
His heart wrenched. His fingers dug, pulled, reached, dug, pulled, reached, reached, reached, trembled, fell. Ragged breaths escaped him. Ragged, choked, whiny breaths that echoed off the rocks, the walls, the black, that black, the only thing that remained now of the place he longed to return, the place he once called home. The sun burned, rose, set, cycled, and yet… yet…
It was too late.
Garak screamed.
The dirt beneath him flew away and speckled against the black. Drifted. Stopped. Froze. Lightened. The rocks sank back, smoothed, evened. It was quick, sudden, but seemed slow. Garak knew though that they hadn’t changed. In the same way that the dirt hadn’t become the stars that stretched across the view painted in front of him. His heart rattled against the fear that remained, though. It was the only thing that did. Even his scream was silenced against the fabrics of reality.
Something stirred. It wasn’t himself. Garak looked down. He lay on his left side and a figure pressed into his chest. It was dark, though not choking of it. He could make out the raven hairs and tanned skin, the slender figure with the soft belly, the lanky limbs covered in a thin layer of cooled silk. It took no less heat away from that natural light that curled against Garak’s chest. No, his dear Julian Bashir was as warm asleep as he was awake, alert, alive.
Garak kissed the crown of the man’s head. His light came closer, nose brushed twice against the fabric of Garak’s shirt, then stilled. Sleep induced breaths continued. There was silence once more.
Garak looked to the stars. He couldn’t see the Cardassian sun from the window in Julian’s quarters. For the first time since he arrived on the station, he wasn’t sure he cared. There was nothing the sun could offer him anyway.
[Video with a very fluffy white cat who looks like an incredibly cute goblin. The cat is loudly meowing throughout everything the human says. “You do realize it’s like, twenty below. It’s twenty degrees below zero. It’s the same temperature as Antarctica today! We can’t go walking when it’s that cold. We can’t. Too cold! Too cold! Too cold.”]
Me: Okay so I shower, make lunch, clean the kitchen, and write for a while in prep–
DM: I’m gonna need you to roll three will saving throws
Me: *rolls two critical fails and a 5*
DM: You stare at the ceiling for six hours trying not to cry, walk into the kitchen and look at the cabinets before going back to your room and staring at the computer for the remainder of the day.
Me: FOR FUCKS SAKE
Faulty executive functioning imposes a disadvantage on every roll involved in accomplishing shit, and you have to roll twice, once to initiate the action and again to actually finish it. Low success on either roll means the task is accomplished 40+2d10 percent.
You get 3d6 attempts a day, plus WILL bonus, minus any penalties imposed by lack of sleep/meds/emotional support.
Failing to accomplish a task gives you a -1 to your next action, cumulative until you manage to finish something.
It is possible to function past your allotted actions at +1 action per point of WILL. This reduces your WILL immediately, and the penalty persists 1 day per point of WILL expended in this way.
Welcome to life with mental illness.
I really like this analogy, since it makes it something to work around. Ima going to start calling my life hacks stat buffs and take short rests (naps) more often…
There's a Mirror on the Wall 