A Barking Dog

Jesus has been to see us a few times over the last month or so. He should. Near as I can figure, and I ain’t no math major, he’s pumped about 25 mil, cold hard cash into the joint in the last few months. Mostly all good though some, in my not so humble opinion, not. If you want change the world, shut your mouth and start this minute. This week we also bid a fond farewell (err, not exactly) to our visiting lighting design team. More like don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Most of them were pretty cool, all of them high end established pros in the biz.

The Princess of Darkness is special though. She’s touched. If she were an Absolut commercial, it would be “Absolut Batshit Wacky”. The arrogance doesn’t bother me as much as the lack of respect for the 200 other people working on the show. Consider this, someone sets up a huge creation zone in front of what is one of the busiest departments in the show. Then complains about how we go in and out of our offices. Sorry you set up in front of one of the most trafficed places in the production. What’s more sorry is the lack of support from upper management and the propensity to kiss her ass so hard that they may likely suck out a turd. Everyone thrown under the bus all because the Princess has been nominated for several awards from that Tony guy and she’s in the favor of Jesus. Still haven’t found that Tony guy, I hear he doesn’t like sound guys. And it looks like shit. But what do I know, I’ve only been doing this and enjoying live shows for more than three decades.

Sweetiebabycookiehoney, we don’t give two fucks about how they do it in New York. This is Vegas, baby. And if New York wasn’t such a run down shithole, we’d consider buying it. But they don’t have 24 hr booze, gaming and quality hookers so it doesn’t quite fit our business model. Well, they have that, but not legally so we can give the State a taste. That’s what we sell here, kids. Fun and fantasy. And we tax the shit out of it. And no one complains.

At one point the Princess proclaimed to all within earshot that “this is how we do it at the highest level of lighting”. If by that, Princess, do you mean wash the stage with so much lighting you can’t see what’s happening then move the lights not in time to the music? It looks like a Full Sail graduate’s time at a Whole Hog in the Martin booth at NAMM rather than a multi million dollar lighting design by some acclaimed Broadway designer. But then what do I know? I’m only some broke dick ass that’s done rock for the last few decades.

Well what the hell is the point, Dave? Glad you asked because I was ready to go on another tangent. The point is, no matter how good you are, or more importantly, how good you THINK you are, don’t be a dick. In the long run it will bite you in the ass. I know this from experience. Also, don’t think because you are good at one thing and got really rich from it, don’t think you can be good at other things automatically. I call this the “transitive property of having your head firmly in your ass”. You’re good at what you’re good at, and that’s it. It’s really is that simple. Too bad Jesus doesn’t get it.

Dirty hair and titty rings sold separately.

The buzz/panic/hysteria mode in the pro audio and production biz is the (now old, really old) news that the FCC has been and will continue to auction off portions of the spectrum currently used by TV and wireless devices such as ear mons, mics, comm, etc. Some rather poorly informed souls attribute this to powerful lobbies of the electronics industry. It’s a bit deeper than that. In 1993 Congress passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act which gave the FCC the power to allocate portions of the spectrum, thus creating a competitive environment for the “product” (the public airwaves) and therefore driving up the price that the private sector was willing to pay, creating if you will, a market value for something that had previously been allocated via such methods as lotteries and comparitive hearings. As any noob with an eBay account can tell you, the best way to get a feel for the worth (or in some cases the perceived worth) of a good or service is to put it on eBay. In 1997 Congress extended and expanded the FFC’s authority over the matter. And that brings us to where we are today and are heading in the next few years.

Anyone that’s done any touring in the last few years or is working in a harsh radio environment, for example NYC is well familiar with the ever crowded spectrum. With the advent of DTV, space we used freely for the last several decades has been displaced by the new format TV channels. Over the next couple of years, the analog UHF channels will go dark. Some of this spectrum is already taken. For example when the DTV legislation was being hashed out, it was agreed that UHF band would be sold to the highest bidder. All other uses be damned. No one thought what that would do to unlicensed users of that particular spectrum. So, what the fuck dude? What’s going to happen? Well hell if I know for sure, or that anybody knows. In fact I started writing this episode about 10 months ago after attending a private meeting held for my pals at the Sirkus of the Sun, who are kind enough to invite someone that works for the Redheaded Stepchild of that genre of show to informal technical gatherings, not including the Drinking Club with an Audio Problem. The Dark Menis is good like that.

Here’s the deal, most everything but much of 700 mHz is gone, sold to the highest bidder. While it might look like we are fucked harder than Doogie Howser in prison, it’s not quite that bad, yet. I mean the wireless spectrum deal, not prison sex. There have been some proposals to allow us to coexist in the spectrum, but we’ve been skirting the law for as long as there have been wireless mics and ears. Truth be told we been scofflaws the whole time. Now I’m not going to get all sanctamonious like my pal Jimmy B did on the Theater Sound list, because A) that’s not reality, and B), because unlike JImmy, I push faders for a living and not pencils and I know what it takes to gig in the biz. Big difference between designing a rig, and doing a gig. Easy to write on the Interweb about how things should be (hey Dave, aren’t you doing that now?) and how things really are (hey Dave, don’t you always tell us how “things really are”, or at least how you think they are in your world, Dave?). Well yes, yes I do.

Well, what should we do? OK, cool, for starters, either A) get off your young disenfranchised asses, or B) get off your cynical, jaded old asses and make sure you are informed on the subject. Start at the FCC Auctions page. Lot’s of skinny on what The Gov(tm) is planning to do, or at least what they think they are planning to do. Remember, this government is the same one that can’t get water to thirsty disaster victims much less get them off their roofs during a flood or provide the troops that proudly and bravely (my balls certainly aren’t that big) serve us with the proper gear for such a dangerous job. If the gov can find a way to fuck it up, they will. And we’ll all end up paying for it. Don’t matter if you’re Red State or Blue State, you gotta agree that we haven’t been exactly Varsity over the last several years when it comes to this shit. Bet none of you could shoot a guy in the face and get away with it.

The kats that build this wireless shit have a stake in what happens, but unfortunately don’t have the bankroll that those supporting it do. Shure has a page with Whitespace information on what’s happening. Now most of you should know this already. All the lobbying that the wireless manufacturers is going to pale in comparison to what will really be the driving factor in how this will sort out. Bigtime sports. Imagine a Superbowl without wireless mics, comm or IFB. These days, it couldn’t happen. Do what you want, but don’t fuck with a guy’s Superbowl. Personally, I could give a shit about pro football or the Superbowl, but if it saves us some spectrum for radio mics, I’m all for it. The reality is (at least Dave’s reality) that in the last minute we’ll be granted space in which to operate our devices legally (unlike now) because in the end, money and power always wins. While we have really neither, broadcast has both as does high end political TV and corporate and doing events of the scale to which we have become accustomed is going to require some space to facilitate radio devices. It’s ironic to me that the same event that caused so much uproar showing Janet’s titty as a sign of “indecency” is likely to be the same one that saves us some spectrum so we can use our shit. I suppose indecency is in the ey of the beholder and I find it more offensive than showing the beauty of a human body that to report yet another human body mangled or destroyed. But that’s just me…