Category Archives: Sociology

I Didn’t Know

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In “real life,” the place we used to call “meatspace,” I chair a small regional arts council.

Over the years, we’ve hung a lot of art and presented a lot of concerts including the only stop the national Artrain ever made in Vermont; Artrain included works by Henry Casselli, Peter Hurd, Peter Max, Jamie Wyeth, and my friend Deborah Deschner from Vermont. We brought to the stage April Wine and 17 other bands in an all-day benefit we called Floodstock, held in the same site as the Grateful Dead concerts.

I know lots of artists. I know lots of musicians. Hundreds. Maybe thousands, but not as many as Mark Sustic. And I’ve strung cables on stage and lugged gear.

That’s why it surprised me that I didn’t recognize the gear in this Facebook conversation:

Great Female Vocalist (rock/pop/country singer-songwriter):
Last night the guts fell out of my Shure PG58. Dangit. Do any of you vocalists out there want to recommend your favorite mic for live performances? I’m in the market! Thanks!

Band Leader #1
EV N/DYM 767A

Supercharged Drummer:
Shure Beta 58

Supercharged Drummer:
Or a Sennheiser E935

House Rocker Drummer #2:
Well then… Put the guts back in… The little set screw most likely fell out or became loose.

Gypsy Singer-Guitarist:
Shure Beta 58 is what I use.

Great Female Vocalist:
Well, I’d heard from my sound man that he’d appreciate me getting a better mic so that he could make better adjustments. That’s why I’m looking for feedback. I always liked that mic, but I don’t have the sound man’s perspective.

House Rocker Drummer #2:
Shure SM58 Industry work horse. But I am old school …If all is adjusted correctly…there is no feedback.

Band Leader #2:
I like our Beta 87 A’s for live work. Check with [female vocalist]. She has a mic she swears by. I forget what it is though.

August Sound Engineer:
I absolutely love the AUDIX OM-6 and it’s great for female voices. Highly recommended… Same with the Shure Beta 87A of course. There’s lots that’ll work well for you and of course that depends on your budget too. Best idea is testing them with your own voice though ! Good luck

I know that Shure designed the legendary SM58™ vocal mic for professional vocal use in live performance, sound reinforcement, and studio recording. I even know what it looks like. But I have no idea which of these mics is right for our Great Female Vocalist or whether some other one not named would be even better.

I’m a pretty knowledgeable guy with a broad expertise. Want to devise an AI controlled pick-and-pack warehouse or just a pick-and-place machine? I’m your guy. Need a suspension consult for your hot rod? I’m your guy. Want to design a website to sell your artwork? I’m your guy. Need a landscape photo or an opinion printed in portrait? I’m your guy. I didn’t know that I didn’t know an answer to this. And unlike most 3rd or 4th graders and most politicians, I couldn’t simply make one up.

There are undoubtedly lots of other questions I had no idea that I know nothing about. Maybe as many as the number of musicians I’ve never met. Using that data point of one, I shall now generalize that there are issues in this wide world that our self-proclaimed pundits also have no idea they know nothing about. But soooooo many of these authorities will analyze, and philosophize, and sound off anyway.

Gotta be a lesson in there somewhere.

Bloody Hell, Part 1

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It’s the media’s fault.

It’s the Tea Party’s fault.

It’s the Demorat’s fault.

I have spent the last week or so watching the news coverage and Innertoob noodlings that blamed pretty much everyone but the Man in the Moon for the Arizona shootings.

I’m tired of the Blame Game.

Paul “Buster” Door, a now-retired North Puffin car dealer and Democratic party official, has spent the entire time railing at me about the “climate of hate and blame” that set Jared Loughner off on his path of disintegration. “Dupnik proved his case without lifting a finger,” he said about Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. “And now the Party of Hate and Violence has turned its lie machine loose on him.”

Hello?

Buster doesn’t think the lie machine will get much traction there in southern Arizona where the 75-year old “anti-Sheriff Joe” has been re-elected seven times since 1980.

“The lunatic right-wing conspiracy theorists created the atmosphere that drove Loughner to act,” he said. “Their Dupnik spin comes through loud and clear about how hard they’re working to ‘prove’ their conspiracy theory about Mr. Loughner’s actions.”

Right wing conspiracy theories? Hello?

The NY Times reported that Mr. Loughner’s comments were “strikingly similar in language and tone” to the voices of the Internet’s more paranoid, extremist, right-wing militia writers. The NY Times.

I did have to correct Buster a few other times on the facts in a conversation he started about the wonderfulness of the sheriff.

Arizona seems to be the national capitol for wack jobs. Sheriff Dupnik comes through loud and clear, alright. Last year he said out loud that he would refuse to enforce his state’s immigration law. This year, when he should have been investigating the shootings, he spent his time building the defense’s “debbil made me do it” case by telling everyone who would listen that it was all the fault of the right wing media.

I can understand why Buster want this guy for his sheriff. I don’t understand why anyone else would.

To set the record straight, over the past week even the MSM news admitted that if Mr. Loughner is political at all, he leans left. Funny thing about jumping to conclusions.

“Since we’re engaging in sophistry,” Buster said “Dupnik’s comment was simply that, should the bill become law, he wouldn’t enforce it.”

No sophistry. Dupnik said he wouldn’t enforce the law.

Period. Paragraph.

“Nice job trying to steer the discussion from the real point,” Buster said “and off into a total non issue.”

We do agree on that. It’s what leftwingnuts do.

See, every single MSM outlet including the NY Times jumped all over Mr. Loughner as driven by “that hateful national political rhetoric” that drove his murderous fantasies. And, in spite of what the ongoing investigation shows, Buster still want to blame “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric” for the murders instead of blaming Mr. Loughner.

A. Man. Killed. Six. People.

But Buster keeps pushing “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric.”

A. Man. Killed. Six. People.

But Bernie Sanders is fund raising to combat “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric.”

A. Man. Killed. Six. People. He killed 9-year-old Christina Green and Federal Judge John Roll and wounded 14 others, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, his apparent target.

But all Buster can talk about is us hateful conservatives and our rhetoric.

It’s what leftwingnuts do when they can’t dispute the facts.

So Buster changed the subject.

“You saw that Sarah Palin got into it, right?” he asked. “She deliberately riled up her gun nuts with that reprehensible comment about the mainstream ‘journalists and pundits [who] manufactured a blood libel to incite hatred and violence against them.”

I know the stories that Jews used human blood and the particularly blood of innocent Christian children to bake the matzos of Passover. I didn’t remember the term “blood libel” nor did I associate it with the Jews when I did.

I’m a pretty fair country wordsmith and I use metaphor and allegory in most teaching and most of my editorial writing. “Blood libel” is not a word pairing I would have dreamt up so I have to believe Ms. Palin’s speech writers knew exactly what it meant.

Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than Mr. Obama calling Congressional Repuglicans “hostage takers” then offering to negotiate with them. Sends terrorists a great message that does. Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than calling a budget bill a “rape of the American people.” There wasn’t a woman in America untouched by that statement. Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) saying “Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him” about then candidate and now Governor Rick Scott (R-FL).

Mr. Kanjorski issued a pretty explicit call to violence. And yet. And yet Buster and Jon Stewart ignored it. If Rep. Joe “you lie” Wilson had called for Nancy Pelosi to be put against a wall and shot, the Demorats and the MSM would have eaten his shorts.

This is a bad trend. Next thing you know, we’ll start equating our politicians to Catholic priests.

It’s what leftwingnuts do when they can’t dispute the facts.

This column started out spinning the giant Blame Game wheel. Let’s see where the ball landed.

It’s the media’s fault. Yeppers.

It’s the Tea Party’s fault. Sho ’nuff.

It’s the Demorat’s fault. Exactly.

That’s all true but the real truth is simple. It’s your fault.

You, dear reader, buy the newspapers. You, dear reader, tune to those television stations. You, dear reader, spread these exaggerations and untruths. And the media, the political parties, and your neighbors echo you.

Premte Peeves

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When a “devout” Muslim extremist shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Demorats and the MainStream Media were fast to tell us not to jump to conclusions about devout Muslim extremists. When a sole wacko shot 19 and killed 5 in Arizona, the MSM (as well Lee Bruhl and the rest of his Gang) was fast to conclude it was right wing politics as usual.

The peeve: Perhaps the MSM is the real “Party of Hate and Murder.” And everybody wants to make money on 19 people gunned down by a simple murderer in Arizona.

BE IT Resolved…

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I grew up (professionally) in the Dark Ages1 when employees set their own performance goals for the year and enshrined them in a “P.D.P.”

Liz Arden and I talked about that a little this morning. “I don’t make resolutions,” she said.

Neither do I. It struck me as odd since both of us are hardwired to achieve goals. We Floridians did make a few resolutions for next year, though:

  • Make sure the body you bury at sea doesn’t walk ashore.
  • Do not eat giant African snail mucus.
  • Do not wear an underwire bra to a federal detention center.
  • Learn CPR. And carry a sidearm.

A Tampa alligator snatched a Jack Russell terrier from its owner. The man shot at the gator which let go of the dog. The catatonic pet wasn’t breathing until the man revived it with CPR. Hope he had some extra pooper scooper bags. Resolved: teach Cardio Pet Resuscitation.

A Miami attorney was stopped from visiting her client because the underwire set off the metal detector. Guards wouldn’t let her in after she took it off because she was braless! Resolved: find a better class of jailers.

A Hialeah man convinced his followers to drink the juices of smuggled African snails as part of a religious “healing” ceremony. Several became ill, lost weight, and develop lumpy bellies. Resolved: find a new weight loss ceremony.

A couple who paid $8 for a box of bones at a yard sale found their Halloween decoration was a real dead guy. And a family buried a deceased relative at sea; the body resurfaced at a Fort Lauderdale beach. Broward Sheriff’s deputies are conferring with the Coast Guard to figure out what charges they can bring. Resolved: pass a new law about cutting the feet off relatives and selling them in garage sales.

“In business we fill out the form at the beginning of the period and file it,” Liz said. “Spend the year doing our jobs. At review time, we sit down, pull out the form, and look for all the ways what we really did met the stuff we wrote down.”

And that’s why resolutions don’t work.

288 years ago, more than 100 years after 102 English reprobates and separatists set foot in the New World, Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards prescribed reading his 70 resolutions at least once each and every week. I hope he was able to do so; it’s the right prescription for keeping them.

Happy New Year, everyone!

1 “Management by Objectives is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they are in the organization…

“The essence of MBO is participative goal setting, choosing course of actions and decision making. An important part of the MBO is the measurement and the comparison of the employee’s actual performance with the standards set.”

Black and Blue Friday

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My 25 year old dryer and 15 year old washer were still running when Sears ran its Black Friday ad last year. Brand new, low water use, high efficiency, front loading, stackable washer-dryer pair for $579.98. Regular retail (does anyone pay regular retail for appliances?) price on those particular models was $1,399.98. “At least four per store” the ad said.

Key West has a very small store and it is an hour away. I figured four pairs would be the most they ever had.

Hmmm. I wonder if it is four pairs or four appliances? I didn’t want to get up at 0:dark:30 and drive 55 miles for something I didn’t absolutely need right then.

Why should I have expected any different? I called the store and the appliance department manager treated me like an annoyance.

I want a nap.

After the short wait programmed into the auto-attendant phone system, “Darrell” answered. I asked if he had the advertised washer and dryer in stock.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m in the shipping department.”

I asked the expected question about why a call to the major appliance department would be shunted to the shipping department.

“Because I’m the appliance manager but all my people are on the floor with customers.” Ahh, Sears.

Oddly, I was a customer.

Darrell spent about 10 minutes refusing to help me and asking for my phone number so “someone could call me back.” I do not respond well to stonewalling so I spent my part of those 10 minutes demanding that he treat me like a customer and give me the info I wanted. I got nowhere but I did leave my number with him.

He also refused to let me speak to his supervisor; he then refused to let me speak to the store manager when I asked to be transferred.

“You know,” I said near the end of the conversation, “if you had simply looked up whether you had the product in stock instead of being a dickweed (actually I probably said ‘instead of jerking me around’), you would have had a happy customer in me and would have had time to take care of two or even three other customers.”

I called the store back to speak to the Sears store manager. I had to leave my number on voice mail. I’m still waiting for that call back.

I need a nap.

OTOH, a saleslady named Ann did call me 45 minutes later.

“We had four pairs in stock,” she said. “I know we sold two right after the store opened but I think there are still two left.

Ann explained that they were giving customers a ticket that let them buy the appliances and that the sale rules said they could not do a telephone sale. Sort of no tickee no shirty, and you must be present to win. She put me on hold to check.

They did have two pairs left; Ann advised driving down right then. Key West is an hour from my little house but I loaded up and did just that.

The store sold one more pair while I was on the road. I got the last pair.

Ann tried twice to sell me a new pigtail and vent but I demurred. I wondered why anyone would buy either, since most retail appliances today are replacements.

“Our installers will not use an existing cord,” she said citing liability. “If yours is even a little bit frayed and your house burns, we would buy you a new house.”

Loading was interesting. The dryer was the first box out the door. The stock boy rocked his hand truck back steeply and laid the bottom front edge of on the tailgate. He rocked the hand truck up a little and we lifted it right onto the tailgate.

Oops.

The box was two-three inches taller than my truck cap. No problem. He popped it over on its side and we pushed it to the front of the bed. The second stock boy brought the washer; the two of them laid it down on its side and popped it in without issue.

So here’s the bottom line. Ann at Sears was very nice, very helpful and deserves the little bit of commission they paid her. I got the washer and dryer I wanted. My 25 year old dryer and 15 year old washer experienced some … issues over the winter so I put the new ones in service and moved the old ones elsewhere. And I didn’t have to take Harvest Gold. Or Plum.

This year was different.

My UPS has been talking back lately so I’m thinking it’s time. Electronics don’t last as long here as in gentler climes. Office Depot had an APC 1500 VA UPS on sale for half price. No shipping. Big batteried UPSes are expensive to ship. I set the alarm for 5:40. Ayem.

Pink and purple sunrise and me without a camera phone. It was not red enough to take warning but I did watch. Not a sight I recognized.

Got to Office Depot about 6:20 and was dumbfounded to see the parking lot full. As in seriously full. Had to drive past many cars to find a parking space.

I did (eventually and with the help of a personal shopper) find and buy the UPS I wanted. Long lines at the checkout, mostly because the cashiers were hard selling extended warranties. Everyone was helpful and very nice. No Android Tablets. None of my other gimmes.

I also looked at a Ryobi cordless tool bundle in the Home Depot flier and didn’t even bother going there. Ditto the wrapping paper at Walgreens.

I thought long and hard about the wrapping paper. Then I thought long and hard about the lines. Inertia and the fact that I don’t actually use wrapping paper, particularly here, won out. About the Ryobi, if this year is anything like last year, the store was sold out in 10-15 minutes. It is the new 19.2 volt model which matches nothing I have. Drill, light, circular saw, vacuum. I would use the drill and light but can’t see much use for the circular saw or vacuum.

Back to the UPS. The Office Depot parking lot was full but, after writing that, I realized that “full” in a small town is a whole lot different than “full” in Miami or New York. Here, there were three or four or even five peeps at each of the three or four open registers. I’m really really really glad I didn’t find anything I couldn’t live without at Brandsmart up in the United States.