3:52 p.m. - 2007-11-30
Civilization
I've been visiting Radio Shacks with unusual frequency the past few weeks. I've been buying Piezo (is it a name or an adjective? I don't know, so I'll capitalize just to be safe) transducers, quarter inch (or "phone") plugs, quarter inch mono splitters and various pieces of wire. Also, some new solder (chock full of delicious lead!) and a complicated wire stripping tool that doesn't work as well as it might. Indeed, I've become a stripping (WIRE stripping), twisting, soldering machine, the end of which is to wire up my vibes with little microphones on each bar, thirty seven in all. Why? Because, as any regular Stevergo reader already knows, I have very little going on in my life and need to keep my hands busy in order to stave off panic and existential despair. Also, so I can make the vibes loud as fuck, which will hopefully allow me to hear myself onstage in the midst of lots of amps and volume (with the Gomers, say) without lots of physical exertion. It's been a dream of mine ever since I became old and soft.
So, as I say, I've been visiting the local Radio Shacks lately, noting the slight variances between locations. The one on University Avenue is the best stocked, but also tends to be the most crowded, sometimes with upwards of five customers (more than enough to overwhelm the sales staff) at a time. The one at East Towne mall is the worst stocked and may have the most inept staff. On one visit a young salesdude asked if he could help me find something, and I replied that I could find no transducers in the drawer, and wondered if they might have some in the stockroom. He asked me to describe the item. I told him it's the same as the little buzzers that they DID have in the drawer, except without the electronics. He replied that NO SUCH PART EXISTED, which, having bought numerous of these transducers, I knew to be not true. WHAT WAS HE TRYING TO PULL? At this point, had we been characters in a movie, I would have grabbed him by the collar, saying, "LOOK, PUNK, we both know you have a big box of transducers in the back, which it may prove to be in your best interest to retreive immediately, lest I get all cellular on your doughy ass" (because, remember, we were in a Radio Shack), and I'd get what I came for and probably become involved in a kick-ass car chase on the way home. But, this being stupid real life, all I did was say thanks and leave. I've also been to two other, more nondescript locations. The thing all the Radio Shacks have in common is a strangely narcoticized atmosphere. They're surprisingly quiet and non-sensory-assaultive for stores that sell all electronics, and the sales people always seem sort of far off but not in a stoned way. It's odd. It's like "Brave New World" got it wrong, and the Soma isn't being taken orally or intravenously but through osmosis, delivered by waves of ions dispensed by electronic devices.
Okay, and here's a thing about electronic stuff that I don't get: powered speakers. Why must the speakers be powered when they're hooked up to something that is itself SURGING WITH POWER?? I just learned that my little hundred dollar Yamaha mixer requires either powered speakers or an amp (I've only used it with a keyboard amp). I don't know how anything electronic works, but electronic things strike me as incredibly fickle. I'm used to dealing with simple things, like drums. There's nothing hidden inside the drums that would cause them to stop working; either you have an intact drum head or you don't, and it's immediately apparent which. And what the fuck is "grounding", and why is it important? Some wires are grounded and some aren't, apparently. WHO GETS TO DECIDE? Why must everything be some kind of big hierarchy? Why does something as basic as not electrocuting yourself have to be so complicated?
And what about direct versus alternanting current? Here's the only thing I know about alternating current: When some guy invented alternating current, Edison considered it a dangerous abomination that would overturn all his earlier innovations, so to prove it he invented the ELECTRIC CHAIR, which used alternating current. His intention was not to create a sadistic and bizarre form of execution, but to demonstrate how potentially deadly was this strange new technology. Of course, when the authorities learned that this new technology could prove an effective killing technique, it was all over for Edison's beloved direct current. At least that's the story I remember. I may have gotten some of the details wrong, but, in a nutshell, there's your story of civilation.
