"We Got Attacked And Had To Respond"

Some folks say that about the Iraq war. I got into it on someone else's blog, and spent so much effort on a mere comment that I decided to paste it up here.

Yes, I understand that we are actually threatened to some degree by enemies in the Middle East. But in the wake of our invasion of Iraq, that country has become one of the biggest incubators of terrorism the world has known. (Maybe not the very biggest.) Just in the past few days, the Saudi minister of the Interior said that the lax security in Iraq has created a fertile ground for terrorists and a great danger to the region.

Anyone who understood that region before we invaded is not surprised by what has happened. Journalist George Packer published an article in the New York Times Magazine before our invasion called Dreaming of Democracy (free login required) in which several experts on democracy said that the ingredients for democracy do not exist in Iraq, that politics would take the form of vigilantism if we did not establish strong security right away. Also, in his archives from before the invasion, Juan Cole predicted much of what is happening now. Here is the permalink to Cole's essay called "The Risks of Peace, the Costs of War." Read this and try to tell me that no one could have known we would get into this mess in Iraq. Cole said that if we invade Iraq, we are likely to exacerbate the problem of terrorism. He also acknowledged the depravity of Saddam's regime -- he is not coddling our enemies here, as pro-war folks may say about him. He is understanding the complexity of the country and, to give my own summary, saying that we don't know enough about what we are doing to take on this task.

And according to George Packer's The Assassin's Gate, in the meeting with Bush and Cheney where Iraqi exile Kanan Makiya said that we would be greeted as liberators, there were two other Iraqi exiles (Hatem Mukhlis and Rend Rahim) who issued warnings: if we did not garner respect within two months of invading, we would have another Mogadishu on our hands; if we disbanded the army, we would be viewed as occupiers, not liberators; that tribal loyalties were very important to Iraqis; that none of the exiles that the Bush administration was listening to had been in Iraq for decades, so none of them really knew their countrymen that well any more.

But Cheney chose to listen only to Makiya, ironically the most liberal and idealistic of the Iraqi exiles. Cheney repeated Makiya's words to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" in the famous greeted as liberators statement.

Meanwhile, the intelligence about the existence of WMD's in Iraq was not conclusive. We could also not confirm their absence. But given this uncertainty, plus the warnings about the dangers of an invasion, I am very surprised that anyone, conservatives especially, thought the risk was worthwhile -- or, at least, that it was worthwhile without sending plenty of troops to make darn sure that we would be able to make the country secure, and without a very comprehensive and thorough plan for post-war reconstruction.

So no, I'm not convinced that our invasion was a legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks. Honestly, it really does seem to be the pursuit of a neocon dream which had been written about long before 9/11, at the Project for a New American Century and the American Enterprise Institute, to name just two places. Go back and read old William Kristol/Robert Kagan articles for a good laugh about how Shiites would establish a democracy on their own if we liberated them.

By invading Iraq, we took a huge chance. The results of our invasion are commensurate with our government's understanding of Iraq, and its planning for the war.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

Like Hydrocortisone for Handgun and Crackwhoreation

There's this new venue at our town's most dilapidated area, the heart of our decay, the corner of Handgun and Crackwhoreation. I have never dared to stop there. I drive through some mornings, see the folks hanging around, and presume that they convene there because the location offers the same things you can get down the street in jail: tattoos, religion, and lots of iron bars (over the storefronts). I'd see the bright yellow Cadillac parked, and presume where the money for it had come from.

Now, some folks like to talk a little smack about the "Creative Class" rising to possess our city. I may have slung a few stones myself, as it seems, you can stick some mic stands and speakers out anywhere, generate a little feedback, and the hipsters will come and sit on the pavement and clap like it's bible school.

But tonight I went to this venue at this dilapidated corner, and I'm here to tell you, while hipsters may swing in many diverse directions, the ones who opened this venue have some serious balls. They have gone to this place where no one has ever heard of an espresso machine, where there's not a Prius in sight, where one might feel lucky to be treated to a mere homophobic or racist slur rather than a bullet -- and they have actually started a club for local music, bicycle repair, and general love of one's fellow humans. And a contingent of the creative class comes out of their downtown lofts and cafes at ATC to attend. None of the folks I used to see hanging around this street corner were present tonight. Maybe the indie rock scared them off. I've heard classical music can be used to scare teenagers out of parking lots, but this is ridiculous. And what's truly amazing is, tonight, I saw this band Watercolors which has no website that I can find, and they actually sing with melody, harmony, and good intonation, something I hardly expect find on Franklin or Ninth, let alone here.

So keep it rolling and let's see where this venue takes us. If there ever were a locale that needed an influx of the creative class, it's the intersection of Handgun and Crackwhoreation, and what do you know, the class is fluxing in and making a stand.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

Like Hydrocortisone from the DOT

I have often thought that if the cuticle on my right middle finger would grow back, that would be a sign that my eczema has completely subsided. It is from the juncture of nail and skin on this finger that the condition seems to emanate and spread, not traveling down the middle finger and back up the next, but jumping from fingertip to fingertip as a forest fire from treetop to treetop.

For years, in our city, we have suffered an I-85 fractured and chopped, stricken with a rash of orange barrels. Birth pangs of a new freeway some called it, but most just bitched. Many times, while running late for a job, I found my exit ramp had changed like a river in an overnight flood, and myself in the wrong lane and having to backtrack.

It was the Guess Road interchange that was the worst, and had been the worst before the work began. Of all the city streets connected to I-85, Guess was most potted, its lanes the most constraining, causing the most backups for turning left. The renovation process brought even more constriction of lanes, more awful gouges in the pavement, the biggest flareup of orange barrels. This was where, most likely, you would find the very ramp you needed closed, with no alternative provided -- just drive past, turn around, come back, and if you don’t like it, tough toenails, we’ve got a job to do.

About the Washington Street bridge being closed for years, friend “S” said that it was a sign of extreme incompetence. He had never heard of road repairs taking so long. As for me, I live two blocks from that bridge, and I had never crossed it in my life. Now it’s back, wider than before, with an extra cross-hatched no-man’s lane in the middle for safety, and extra shoulder width on the sides for bicycles or maybe just safe walking, plus sidewalks on each side. I now do walk out on that bridge and admire our interstate.

We’ve got handsome brick sound barriers that will glow burnt orange in the summer evenings, echoing the color of the haze in the sky. We’ve got crape myrtles all down the center. Where else on earth do you have crape myrtles all down the center? If they like CO2, heat, and humidity, they’re in for a joyous summer.

Friend “G” always hated the 15-501 northbound to I-85 northbound entrance ramp; now, he says, the ramp itself has as many lanes as the interstate used to have, and the interstate at that portion now has, like, 4 lanes.

From the Washington street bridge, counting the lanes is like counting stripes in a suit. Your eye tends to skip a few, there are so many.

And that Guess Road interchange? Now Guess has two through lanes going each way, plus the left-turn lanes going each way, plus a large median with a brick border and plantings of shrubbery and flowers.

Our disease has been cured at its center, and we can all enjoy a safer, more supple, wrinkle-free, youthful interstate-driving experience. Passers-through may not be inclined to stop in our city, but they will certainly be inclined to pass back and forth before continuing on their way.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

One of Those Days

I was called Sunday about a job Tuesday. I said I could do it, but that I don't have equipment, so I hoped I could get that together on Monday. The job would have two or three people talking on camera and the producer warned that there would be a few wide shots. I said that for those wide shots I would probably rely on wireless mics. To this, the producer replied, "I am not a wireless mic person. Don't you hate the sound of wireless mics?"

There are darn few people who make small videos who like boom better than wireless. I've had reality TV producers tell me to put the boom away. They just want the camera to fly, they want the body mics to get everything, the sound guy to stand back and be neither seen nor heard. It doesn't matter to them that mixing body mics makes them sound phasey, or that one person's coughing ruins another's good sound bite. They just need those quick bites they can grab, like when the daughter goes into the newly remodeled kitchen and exclaims, "Mom, you've got THREE ovens!"

Here was a producer with the opposite leanings. Old school. Like they did it in the day when boom mics ruled the Earth, and wirelesses were mere rodents lurking in the underbrush, running from everything. When I first worked on a movie in audio about 15 years ago, I was a cableperson for a sound guy who hated wirelesses and pretty much trusted all audio to one boom operator, sometimes two, with me filling in as second boom. Sometimes he did use up to 3 wireless mics, but these were mostly on outdoor wide shots. And sometimes he preferred to plant a mic on the set -- in a windowframe or on a column -- than to put it on a person. Constantly frustrated by wireless mics, he would sit at his audio cart and, during down time, fuss with them, trying to figure out ways to put them on people to make them sound decent. I think this is the biggest challenge I face too.

So anyway, here was a producer who wanted me to make the boom work. But we decided we'd still get wirelesses, because we wanted to be sure we had it all covered. Who knew what surprises the lighting guys would make for me, throwing lights everywhere and possibly thinking that I could just stick wirelesses on the actors.

I had to get up at 7:30 am Monday just to get ready to make calls at 8am. At 8 I left several messages about gear. Lights were already coming from one rental company, so it might make sense to rent audio gear from them. But they only had two units of the latest model of fancy-schmancy wireless systems, and I would need three. The cameraman for the job was known to have some wirelesses, but his probably were not this new model, and there is a theoretical problem that can develop when mixing the old and the new, because the new have a 3 millisecond delay in their sound, and as every sound guy knows, 3 milliseconds is just enough. Then there was this other company in Raleigh that I work for a lot that has 4 of these top-model wireless systems all rigged up in a 4-channel mixer bag with ergonomic shoulder harness. I tentatively asked if I could just make my own arrangement with this company, and the producer said sure, go ahead with that.

Luckily, this audio package was available.

But still, the boom mic needed to be a really good one, and the company in Raleigh does not have a really good one -- just the kind that everybody uses. So I arranged to get the really good one from the rental company providing the lights.

So then I had to wolf down breakfast and meet my dance partner at her and her husband's new house. We used to practice at a theater space in town, but she has left that place and plans to build her own studio on her property. Until that is built, she has to teach her students wherever she can, and she and I practice in her bare wood-floored living room. Their new house is a ways out of town, so now it takes 20 minutes for me to meet her.

Knowing what all I had left to do that day, it was hard for me to concentrate on how much turn to make on each step of each move of American Rumba, which is what we have space to work on in her living room. 5/8 turn here, 1/4 turn there. This is what we are memorizing for the American Silver Certification. I only had an hour to spend with her before I had to leave and bust-ass to the next city over to pick up the gear for Tuesday.

I made it there, got the gear, turned around and came back partway along the interstate and stopped to do a half-day afternoon gig at a major networking corporation in their studio. They do live webcasts from there, and these are the most stressful gigs I get these days, because I have to have deep understanding of the audio routing that someone else made up, and I have to react quickly and pot up and down on the fly, and sometimes insert sound effects like applause, and cross-fade to musical selections or "commercials," while sitting right next to about three folks who outrank me give me sometimes conflicting information on how things work, or what to do next. And there are all these voices going at once -- the ones on the studio monitors, the ones on the feed from the central corporate office, the people in the room, and for some reason, somebody down the row from me had a radio going.

Anyway, that went okay. Then I had to get to the rental company in the next town over in the other direction, and get the really nice boom mic.

Then I had to get toilet paper because we were out, and we had two prospective housemate interviews to do that evening.

Then I had to get home and be there for the two interviews. I and the current housemates quickly swept a little, put toilet paper on the rolls in the bathrooms, took out the kitchen trash. I also brought in the audio gear before the first interview and rigged the mic from one place to the boom and mixer from the other place and checked all that out.

The interviews went okay, but what with everyone's uncertain plans, we don't have anything nailed down yet.

Then I had to make dinner, at 10 pm.

All day I had been trying to memorize the actors' lines (5 pages or so) for Tuesday, because I would have to operate boom. I rarely have boom-intensive days, so I really wanted it to go well. But I've been having terrible problems concentrating on anything these days, 'cause my mind is always jumping around and obsessing. Last summer I tried two different kinds of ADD medicine, and they didn't make any difference.

Today, Tuesday, I got up at 5am and studied the lines some more, ate breakfast and showered, and went to the job. I was 10 minutes late because of a confusing thing on Google Maps' directions that I should not have let confuse me.

Setup was easy there. We had to wear our socks because we could not get the white-painted floor for chroma-keying dirty. I paced around and continued to work on the lines.

And I was not my best, not really. It had been so long since I had used this really nice boom mic, and I had forgotten how sensitive it is. Sheesh. I had boomed with it a lot of times in the past, but never had to do so while carrying the mixer and receivers in a bag slung around my shoulders. It was a lot to think about. I kept shaking the boom and jarring the cable inside it, something that causes no trouble on common boom mics, but on this one causes a rattle.

So I was cautious in the first scene. I didn't grab all the off-camera lines on boom like I usually try to do, but I got them the on-camera stuff okay.

The second scene had one actor sneezing loudly and the other comforting him in a softer voice. I had to position the boom to even these levels out some, and I did manage this okay. So I felt better about that.

The third scene had lots of moving in and out for me to cover the actors standing far apart. The rattly boom was extended nearly all its 16 feet, and I was springing back and forth on my toes, in socks, again with the mixer and receivers suspended from my shoulders. By the end of the last scene for the day, I felt like I was kind of in the boom operating groove again. But I had to turn that nice boom mic back in, and I won't be using it for a while. I'm back to the mundane interviews and simple shots for now.

After work, I went to another Argentine tango lesson. Then I was sitting at home eating fruit and yogurt, with the audio gear from the company in Raleigh on the other end of the dining room table. I was looking at it, thinking about how I had picked it all out for this company a year ago, when we were getting very demanding reality TV work and we barely had the gear to cover it, and a deal fell through one time to rent gear for a job, so the company owner told me to tell him what to buy and he would get it. So now there's the gear. If I were to buy my own, I'd get the same stuff. But then, so many folks around here have gear and want me to use theirs, I probably would not be able to pay off my own gear if I had it. And this particular gear from Raleigh doesn't get enough work anyway for itself. So it makes sense that I rent it from them when I do need it.

It's just that I imagine having gear like it. 4 excellent wireless mics and a mixer that you can really put your name on, 'cause it will last probably 8 years in rough conditions. Of course, those mics and that mixer allow you to mix 3 or 4 wireless mics together in one muddy track which sounds mediocre at best, and terrible to a studio recordist. And the wireless systems don't sound as good as a $25.00 hardwire connection, and cost 100 times that. Still, with such mics and that mixer, you can keep up with today's wild and crazy camerapeople and talent, and that's pretty much what you gotta do in audio these days. You get hired if you can keep up. Nobody ever gives feedback on audio quality.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

The Scum is Coming

Readers of this blog well understand the significant role that algae cultivation could play as an alternative energy source. For one thing, it can grow in human-made tubes or ponds or other containers on land that’s not good for much else. In our country, who was relegated to poor land? Native Americans. What can you do on a reservation? You can gamble; and now, you can also cultivate algae. Don’t believe me? read this.

Meanwhile, that same oil drilling company is making arrangements to start algae farms in Australia.

And they’re doing it in Alabama!

That other company mentioned earlier in this blog that is using power plant emissions to grow algae (cutting emissions drastically and producing crude oil and feedstock that the power plant can sell) has built a facility in (these links are to pdf’s) Arizona and is going to build one in Louisiana.

And there’s someone else in on the smokestack emissions to biofuel game.

This editor says that the means to combat global warming will be cheaper in the future than in the present day, so it is economically feasible to wait until the future to take these steps. But I say, how will we know how to make it cheaper in the future if we don't start making our mistakes now? You never know what you're in for until you get started on it. I am very happy that some companies are starting algae farms today, rather than tomorrow. This is what will make tomorrow's algae farms more efficient.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

Back to the South

I waited a year before trying out a different Argentine tango instructor. Actually, all this time, I had not even known about this second instructor. I had thought this area had only the first, and I had had trouble relating to much of his instruction. “You don’t get what you want by making her do it,” he would say. “You ask a question, and she answers. ‘Would you like to go this way?’ ‘Yes I would.’ Or maybe she doesn’t. So, you adapt. Just like you do in life.”

I mean, I wasn’t (and rarely am) in a relationship; I was just there to start learning a new dance. And sure, Argentine tango is about mindset as much as anything else. But in those classes it seemed almost like I was supposed to think a certain way, and it would happen, like Clint Eastwood flying Firefox. The internationally renowned Lithuanian ballroom teachers in town are more down-to-Earth.

Argentine tango dancers say their dance is a more natural way to move than ballroom tango, but I had serious trouble with the Argentine body positioning. In ballroom, our arms are firm and held out to the sides, making a big steering wheel with plenty of leverage for leading. The woman plants her lower right front rib firmly against my belly, and she pretty much stays there, rolling around to my right side for promenade position, and back for closed. Our upper bodies and heads are apart from each other, giving us room to breathe and to see, respecting the “my dance space, your dance space” convention à la Dirty Dancing.

In Argentine tango, we keep our arms softer and lower by our sides. Our bodies are closer at the top and more separate lower down. So, while ballroom tango looks wider at the top like Vermont, Argentine tango looks wider at the bottom like New Hampshire.

I couldn’t give a clear lead. I was knocking knees with women, stepping on their toes, because they didn’t feel me coming at them. Hadn’t I taken care of this in ballroom? Apparently I had to learn it again here.

I let my butt stick out backwards, which folded my body at the waist and lessened whatever slight connection I had with my partners to begin with.

I couldn't visualize turning my partner and myself, especially with that tilted New Hampshire shape. I kept nearly falling over. Anyway, how do you turn your partner when your arms are so soft?

Then there was close embrace. After only a few lessons, partners were supposed to actually touch chests to each other. What if the woman is much shorter than I? Then she’s staring into my chest. And if she’s taller, I’m staring into hers I presume, but this did not happen in those classes. Regardless, I am a fairly standoffish person. In fact, a few people have told me that I am just about the most sensitive to personal space of anyone they know.

In ballroom, personal space is preserved in a sense. Though your stomach and pelvic regions are connected, that’s down there, out of sight, where God intended men and women to connect; and you’ve got room to breathe in front of your face. In Argentine tango, I can hardly see because her head is in the way, and the problem with stepping on her feet is compounded.

I gave up. I wasn’t getting it. Bad attitude, I know. This was a drag, because Argentine tango had seemed to be the most vibrant and accessible social group for someone my age in our area -- more so than swing (more peppy than though) or salsa (more sexy than though) or ballroom (too insular and more populated by folks over 55 and under 22). So when I heard about this other teacher, I decided to give it another try.

He started us on close embrace the first day. But he explained that you don’t really lean on each other at the upper body in the way I had thought. Instead, our legs are inclined forward some, but then our torsos are upright, and my partner and connect over much more surface area, from the stomach up through the chest. We look not like New Hampshire, but like an upside down “Y,” or a peace symbol. Already, this new understanding is helping me. Still, I struggle.

In the first classes I took a year ago, I had harbored the question of whether my troubles were entirely my doing, or maybe caused in part by my partners. I never said anything about this ‘cause it’s bad form to raise this question in a dance class. This second instructor sees when you’re struggling, takes the woman, tries her out, and then decides whom to lecture -- me or her. It’s not really so reassuring when he lectures her. I’d just as soon take the heat. Though he is blunt, he's clear, and I’m getting a lot more sense of technique here. That’s what I need. Tell me how to do it. I am a shape and movement imitator. Don’t expect me to improvise or make it up myself -- I just wander that way.

In the first class with the second instructor, there was this other woman who, dancing with me, wanted us to extend my left/her right arm out to the side like ballroomers do. “It’s prettier like this,” she said. I still had the scars from being corrected on this a year ago. “Nope,” I said in a rare instance of directly contradicting a partner. “This is Argentine tango. It’s all in here,” and I drew our arms in to be lower by our sides.

I had to get her used to reality. She had probably seen some ballroom movie and wanted to glide around the floor. Sorry, sister, you came to Argentine class. Keep your eyes downcast and concentrate on your abdomen. If you're good, maybe, in a year, we'll let you raise your leg and wrap it around mine.

After this second instructor had taken her for a turn and showered her with instructions, she came back to me an said, “Have you been to the other instructor? Is he different?” She was asking about the first one I had been to.

I said he was different, but I didn’t have a chance to elaborate. I have not seen her come back in subsequent lessons.

I’ve been two more times now. Days are turning into weeks, which may turn into months if I stay with it this time. It’s like being in some abstinence program. I tried it once, and relapsed. Maybe it will stick this time.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

Racehorse Names from the Parlance of Our Times

Who knows what racehorse names mean? "Secretariat"? "Seattle Slew"? The inventive naming is the coolest thing about horse racing. After seeing "Wildandcrazyguy" in the recent Derby, I starting thinking how we could use the parlance of our times, as expressed in The Big Lebowski, as a way to derive more racehorse names.

Trophy Wife
Abiding Dude
SorryIWasn'tListening
Laziest Worldwide
Catch You On Down the Line
Cut and Run
Five Deferments
And In English Too
Swift Oat Brethren Forsooth
Good Sasparilla
Ties the Room Together
Fahrenheit 9 to 1
Some Chinaman in Korea
Like Lenin Said
Suck Your Cock for a Thousand Dollars
Three Thousand Years of Beautiful Tradition
Goldbricking Ass
Parts at Least

. . . who's got some?

Continue . . .

Summary only...

Take the Hermitian

I just saw The Matrix Reloaded. It is only the second Matrix movie I have seen, and I can't tell if it's #2 or #3 in the series. Then again, I was never that good at matrices.

My housemate who owns the DVD said that lots of people say they don't like the other two as much as they liked the first one, but that he liked all three a lot. I said that I didn't like the first one very much, and I didn't like this one as much as I liked the first one.

If it were me in that scene where all the humans had the orgy, I'd be the one guy who didn't get any. Maybe that's a good thing, 'cause in the future controlled by machines, apparently it's anal sex that begets more humans. So I guess the machines switched it so that babies grow in the intestines, and digestion occurs in the uterus. I hate to think where sausages come from.

Neo told Trinity not to go into the matrix. Why not? Was he going to take the Hermitian?

Isn't it manipulative to resurrect someone just so you can have sex with her? Shouldn't she be allowed to choose what is done with her body?

I always said that anyone who had read one page of any sci-fi written before 1980 pretty much had all the philosophy of the first Matrix down already. Reloaded had all the depth of one sentence of any such sci-fi. I guess the remaining Revolutions, whether it's the second or third movie in the series, will be commensurate with one serif on one letter of any page of any sci-fi written before 1980.

One good thing about it -- it has Elrond in it. Lots of Elronds in fact. And I guess the whole thing about self-determinism of fate and bad sci-fi is like Scientology. So really, with a convergence of Elrond and Scientology, the Matrix oeuvre embodies the true essence of an "Elrond Hubbard." Excuse me while I go wash my computer keyboard off with soap. I chose this blog name because it was the stupidest thing I could think of, and now here I am, lying on the bottom level of Zion with all the humans in their post-coital stickiness, the one guy who didn't get any, and I have the stupidest blog name anyone can think of. I'm going to bed.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

The Next Night in TV

So, tonight I go down and turn on the TV and sit on the floor to stretch. The first thing I hear is a voice I've been obsessing over the past few weeks, that of this newscaster. And you know, it really sounded a lot like how I heard it in the second episode of our new crime show as streamed from the website.

I had been worried that I had made the host's voice sound muffled by hiding his mic on the crime show, an unnecessary thing to do on a so-called "studio" shoot. But what I heard on tonight's news on an exposed mic sounded so much like my audio that I am no longer very concerned that I had made his voice sound muffled. I think maybe his voice just sounds that way. And it sounds fine -- I'm just obsessing over whether I'm altering its sound in some way. One time I totally obsessed over a certain celebrity's voice. I had never heard him, or heard of him, before the day two years ago when I worked with him, and I kept taking my headphones off to see that rasp in his voice was natural, or was being caused by some minor distortion that I was introducing. And there was a short time where I did have an actual distortion problem, but that got fixed. Other than that moment, yes, his voice is naturally raspy. And he's loud too. Turn down that transmitter before you put it on him, 'cause he'll overdrive it just by talking about the weather, and to make things worse he's squirrelly, so once you get it on him you'll never catch up to him again to make further adjustments.

So anyway, tonight I feel better about how this newscaster sounds under my audio care, in his role as host of the new crime show.

Meanwhile, there's this other thing I worked on recently, which is a series of commercials for a local car dealership. It would be nice to be able to watch these short commercials online, but I can't find them anywhere. I can only find outtakes, which are not as funny as they are probably supposed to be, as streamed from the dealership website here. There's one outtake where you can see the body mic exposed and hear wind blowing on it. I did not work on that commercial. But I worked on the commercials where all the other outtakes came from, where I'm rather proud that the mics are completely hidden and still sound pretty good.

Over the past year, I've done several days of work for this dealership, and its owner's other dealerships in Sanford, NC, and in Columbia, SC. The Raleigh and Columbia commercials always have the grown son and general manager, a woman whom everyone thinks is his sister but is really a family friend and actress, and sometimes her twin sister, giving their spiels in the dealerships' lots, as you can see in the outtake examples. I also happen to have the same birthday as these twins.

It's an advertising agency in Baton Rouge, LA that makes these commercials. They handle many dealerships of this brand around the Gulf area and Southeast, but not all of them, because once they land a client, they don't take on any other dealerships that could be considered competition for that client's business. This means that while they don't do these commercials, and thank goodness for that.

All this relates to my discussion in the previous posting of hidden vs. exposed body mics. I had the rare opportunity this week of working with another sound guy whom I feel comfortable asking anything. I asked him today about equalizing, in post production, the audio from hidden mics, to make them sound less muffled. He said yes, you can boost the high frequencies, and maybe bring back some crispness to the sound which can be lost when the mic is under clothing. We both agreed that even when you position the mic so it is not completely covered and can "see" out from behind clothing, it still sounds a little muffled. But I never do post-audio and he does not do much of it, and neither of us ever has a chance to do post-work on the audio we've recorded ourselves. And we both agreed that most of the editors who do the post-work on shows we work on don't bother to do anything with the audio. They just use the audio as we give it to them without equalization or anything. Often all their skill lies in picture editing and graphics anyway, and it has not occurred to them to do anything with audio.

This week, another audio guy and I were working for a local video company that is really cool to work for and has really nice folks. But they have sort of lame body mics that we have to use. I was using them all this week, so their lameness is fresh in my mind. I also happen to know that the ad agency from Baton Rouge made one commercial in studio for this local car dealership whose commercials I had been working on, but they had NOT hired me for the studio commercial.

Okay. So tonight, while I was stretching, after the newscast with the crime host ended, there came this OTHER commercial for this same dealership that was shot in studio, that I did not work on. And there, in this controlled studio shot done against a green screen, the type of situation where a boom could have been used, or where the audio guy would be less harried by distractions and could spend a little more time hiding body mics carefully, the body mics were exposed. And they were the same lame body mics I was using this week. And they still sound muffled, even when exposed. This time it's not because the people's voices sound naturally muffled, but because of the mics' lameness. And they're huge too, like two big cockroaches up there on the lapels. Sheesh. It makes me feel good that I hid them on all the commercials I worked on. It just looks so much better. I even hid them on testimonials with customers for the Sanford commercials. Yep, total strangers get mics dropped down the insides of their shirts and taped in there by me.

So now all we need is for editors to pay attention to audio a little more, and try out a little equalization to see if it helps.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

Catch the Exciting Second Episode

What?! You didn't stay home Saturday to watch the second episode of this new local crime show I'm working on? Well don't panic, there is still time to watch it on the website. Go here, look at the video window on the right, and view the video list. The second episode is on top. For this, I did audio on the host segments and voiceovers only, which were shot the same harrowing night as those for the first episode, as described in I'm Tired Y'all part 3 of 5. (I also worked on some other parts of the first episode as noted at the end of my posting about the premiere party.

As I said in the premiere party posting, after we all viewed the first episode, the host complained that he sounded like he had a lisp. Nobody else at the party thought he sounded funny, but just between myself and you dear blog readers, I did suspect that the positioning of the microphone high in his shirt was what made it sound odd to him. For the second episode host segments, I had positioned the mic lower on his clothing. That made his voice seem more natural in the headphones at the time.

Now I think I'm hearing another small problem. I know I should not judge audio quality by compressed streaming media, but after viewing the second episode on the website, I'm thinking the host sounds slightly muffled compared to how other folks sound on interviews I did not work on. The reason for the difference is that I hid the mic in the host's clothes, while on the other interviews, done by their in-house audio guy, the mic is visible. The host's sound on my segments is probably as good as it can get if I insist on keeping the microphone hidden. But these are news folks. They are "grab and go," accustomed to clipping the mic on the outside of the clothes and just hearing what they say, that's what mics are for after all. I had thought I could show them a thing or two about the advantages of hiring a freelance audio guy -- look how we hide the mics, like magic! But I have a feeling I'm gonna get asked to cool it with the funny stuff, to quit the fancy-pants reality TV/movie audio mic hiding, and just clip the damn thing to his lapel, now, we don't have all day. It's not that I'm even much of a reality TV/movie guy, but I do feel that hiding microphones is one of the craftiest things audio people do, and I try to do it unless it's really run-and-gun business for Inside Edition, or a live news shot.

If they ask me to leave the mic exposed, I won't argue. I don't have much of a case for hiding it, really. The host segments are "studio shots" (though it's really shot on a crappy rubble-riddled location which looks like an lavishly decorated studio) and in such cases mics are usually visible. I just like hiding it because it's a challenge. It makes me feel like I'm doing something. Otherwise, any monkey could do what I have to do in a studio shot. But they ain't paying me to feel good about my work. They're just paying me to do it.

Also, though I have virtually no post-audio experience, I think the editor could apply some equalization to the host's voice to make the mic sound less muffled. Maybe the editor could just boost the high end a little. But again, that's fruity movie stuff, and these are news people.

Well, I should hear the show uncompressed before making any judgments on audio quality.

This makes me want to buy a top-model computer and audio software, get a copy of my raw audio, and fuss with it myself to see if I can make that hidden mic sound better. Ah, so much to buy, all of it so expensive.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

Our Show Premiered Tonight!

This is what I was working on in I’m Tired Y’all part 3 (a long posting indeed, but one which I Zimbra actually read and commented on). The host of the new show had the crew and producers over for a small party to watch the premiere. It was a really special occasion for me. I rarely get to see projects that I work on, and I often don’t really feel part of the overall team. And I am certainly not a part of the creative process on this show or any other -- I’m just there to get audio while accommodating the needs of camera and lighting. So it was great to be invited.

But what should I take? How should I dress and behave? I don’t go to parties hosted by news anchors. He said it was dinner, but arrive at 8pm. So I made sure I ate something before I went, in case it was more just post-dinner snacks. He said he would have everything, but we could bring something if we wanted. I put on slacks and a new dressy shirt, bought a bottle of wine, moderately priced, on the way, even though I don’t drink.

I got there 45 minutes late, feeling awkward. If they were sitting down to dinner soon after 8pm, then I would be walking into the midst of that.

No cars were outside his house. But there were cars outside another house, so I thought maybe that was it. I went to that door, rang, saw people in there. Someone came to the door, and I said, “This isn’t [the host's] house is it?” No, that was two down.

But the host's house was quiet. I really felt like I shouldn’t be there as I walked up the monstrous brick steps to his front door. I rang, he answered. He was in bare feet, jeans, a nice T-shirt. Only one other guest and his wife were there. Nobody else had come yet. The other guest was a retired SBI investigator who is an adviser for the show. She and I sat at the big round kitchen table picking at the full spread of shrimp, brownies, crackers, cheese, veggies in front of us. “Where are your people,” said the host's wife to him. She put the shrimp away so it wouldn’t get warm sitting out.

Finally, the others came: the three young women who write the show, coordinate things, conduct the interviews; the overarching producer; the on-staff crew (editor, cameraman, sound/webmaster with their spouses or fiancées).

We went upstairs, not just one floor, but two. The host's house is like Ringside in Durham. It has multiple levels, each with TV’s and spaces for sitting and socializing. The ground floor and 3rd floor have bars. The ground floor’s TV is regular format, while the second and third floors’ TV’s are HD. The middle floor has constrictor snakes in glass terrariums. The top floor has special features of pool table and air hocky.

The owner of the TV station producing the show, as well as another station nearby, the Durham Bulls, and much of the American Tobacco Historic District arrived with his wife. He came up to third floor and immediately went around the room shaking everyone’s hand.

We took our places on couches and the floor and it was kind of a wonderful experience. One might say it’s a cheesy sensational crime show, and it is. But it’s our cheesy crime show, and again, one of the few things I’ve worked on where I feel part of the team and I can actually see the finished product. And beyond being sensational, it talks about a sense of community in our state, presents these crime cases in the context of all of us working to improve things. It also takes the stance that much reform is needed in the justice system, and it features segments with judges called The View from The Bench.

In the first episode I did audio on the interviews, the View from the Bench segment, and the host segments in front of a gutted tobacco warehouse (described in I’m Tired Y’all part 3). After we watched it tonight, the host said he thought he sounded like he has a lisp in his segments. Everyone else, including his wife, said he sounded fine. He asked me about it. I said he sounded fine. But I knew something I didn’t tell him. I had put the hidden mic pretty high in his shirt, near his neck, and it did sound a little too up-close. And the quality of his voice changed a little as he moved his head around. I noticed this more in headphones on set, and figured that it would not show up much in the final wash, which was true. But he noticed the difference from his regular newscaster sound.

The night that we shot that, we also recorded host segments for the second show. For that one, I put the microphone farther down, behind the fold of the lapel on his jacket, and it sounded better there.

The streaming video content has changed since I first posted this. Now, the whole feature story segment is there. You can go to the home page, look at video window on the right, and click on the bottom choice. I worked on all the interviews you see and recorded the voiceover on the same night we shot the host segments.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

I'm Tired Y'all part 3 of 5

Getting home late on Tuesday night, I checked email and found out that Wednesday’s gig was to start not in the morning, but at 4 pm, and run until midnight. And I had accepted a job that would begin at 6 am Thursday morning.

The producer said to arrive at WRAZ Fox-50. I got there on time, and found her and some other producers talking in their office. We watched, online, some footage we had shot a few weeks prior. After 20 minutes or so, I asked where the other crew was. “Oh, they’re down at the location setting up,” they said. I said, ”Shouldn’t I be there?” and they said, “yes, you should be there,” and gave me directions to it.

The location was a portion of the American Tobacco Historic District that was still stuck in its history. It was a warehouse that had been gutted and was being remodeled, but still looked like Ramadi. I walked on to set around 4:30 and saw, with dismay, lights already set up and the crew hard at work. I knew they would kid me about being late, and maybe, in some minds, I would be judged, to some degree, irresponsible, no matter what explanation I had. I hate being late anyway. It is even difficult when I am not late but am scheduled to arrive later than the rest of the crew, because that makes me feel like I’m “catching up” all day long. I don’t know where electrical cables are, I may not know where all the lights are, I may not know what’s really going on in the shot, all because I was not present for setup from the start, and nobody has time to explain all this to me when I do arrive. And when the sound guy makes a mistake or acts clueless, it usually happens right before or during shooting, and everyone knows it. So, walking up to set, I had a feeling that this would be one of those “days.”

Friend “A,” a cameraman and DP who had referred me for this job, saw me first and announced to everyone that I was “in the house.” Crewmembers looked up from what they were doing, and I noted with some relief that they were all friendly folks whom I knew well. I put on a relaxed smile and told friend “A” where I had been for the past half hour. He didn’t seem upset. He told me what was going on -- that we would be shooting host segments for the upcoming TV show “NC Most Wanted.” The host would be walking all around the area, friend “A” was not sure exactly where, with the camera way up on a camera boom, so I would not be able to use a microphone boom. “Oh and,” he said, “for one spot, we’ll have another guy over there in front of the green screen, acting like he’s in a different location. You know, like they do on The Daily Show?” Yep, I know. I’ve been to a taping of The Daily Show. And it’s hilarious that that has become a reference point for certain production techniques.

There was dust, rubble, chips of mortar and brick everywhere. I knew lots of noisy foot crunching was in the future if I didn’t sweep now, so I asked if I could sweep. “Sweep? We’d love it if you’d sweep,” said friend “A.” But he said I would have to cover the electronics.

So I looked around and found the black plastic Bisqueen. I cut huge sheets and found that already, pollen was sticking to them. I rubbed them off on my shirt and pants and put them over the camera and clipped them to the tripod. I covered the huge HD flat-screen TV that was out there for use in the shots too. And the DVD player that would feed it. Construction guys working in the ruins nearby had a broom that I borrowed, and I swept the area for about half an hour. Wind was gusting through, but mostly the pollen and dust was blown away from people and electronics.

After sweeping I looked around for other audio nuisances. The construction crew was gone, so they would not be making noise, but there were huge translucent plastic sheets over the large window gaps in the walls, and these sheets were blowing inward and outward like sails in the shifting wind, making loud snapping noises. I said that would be a problem. “Well, tear them down,” said friend “A.” I asked the producer if this would be okay. He said, “I don’t care. We owe them one anyway, ‘cause yesterday they left their truck parked in the driveway and we couldn’t get out.”

Alright. I had permission to go crazy on the plastic sheeting. It was all on the second floor of the gutted warehouse, and friend “M” was up there setting lights. I hollered up to him and asked how he got up there, and he said that inside, on first floor, there was a scaffold I would have to climp. “It’s kind of sketchy,” he said.

It was indeed. The orange scaffold had accessible rungs, but nearing the top, I was anxious about having to climb over the top rung to stand on the platform. I have health insurance, I thought, but I have no workman’s comp insurance. And I have not climbed on something like this in years. The lighting guys do it all the time, but I rarely have to. But I remembered how I used to climb on playground equipment a fair amount when I was a kid, so I tried to channel that image, and I made it to the platform.

From the scaffold platform, I had to climb up the final rungs and reach up through a hole in the ceiling that I would crawl through to get onto the second floor. I found some braces to grab onto there, and I gripped them and stood on tiptoe on the top rung of the scaffold and wiggled myself up until my waist was folded over the edge of the hole. I thought about the scissors in my waist pouch, how if I fell, they would no doubt impale me and everyone would think I was stupid for having them there. I told myself, if I became paralyzed from the neck down, there was always library school and a subsequent sedentary career.

Friend “M” had come over and he said, “you got it? I said it was sketchy.”

I got my knees up onto the ceiling and crawled away from the hole. Jesus. How many times would I have to do that?

Now I was on level with the noisy plastic sheeting. Wind was pretty fierce too, and the plastic was snapping dramatically. The window openings were big, and I could reach only a little way up the sides, and certainly not the top. I went to one window and tried cut it along the bottom with my knife. Then I tried to pull it off the sides and top, but it didn’t tear very well. I looked around. There were some metal angle braces about 6 feet long lying nearby, and I picked one up and started thrusting it at the top of the plastic, as if I were about the throw it like a javelin. It punched through the plastic easily. So I made perforations along the top, then down the sides. Then I went back and tried to hit the intact portions between my perforations. This required good aim, and it was tough. When the plastic had fallen off the top and one side of the window, I looked out from it and saw the other crewmembers milling around the set, which I had swept earlier. “Don’t nobody come under these windows,” I said, and they glanced up at me but didn’t seem concerned. So I finished tearing the plastic down, and I pulled it inside and threw it in a corner where the construction workers would find it the next day. They would not have my name or number to call and complain, so I wasn’t worried.

I did this on about 4 windows overlooking the set. Then I climbed back down, this time having to carefully wiggle backward on the floor until my waist again was at the edge of the hole, and feel around with my toe for the top rung of the scaffold, then wiggle backwards and make sure the ball of my foot was squarely planted on the rung, then give more weight to it and ease my hands down to lower handholds, and finally climb down to the platform. From there, I could sit and duck under a bar and just jump down to the floor.

On the set again, I could hear more plastic snapping, but I could not see any. I would have to go up again. But they called “lunch,” which was really dinner. I went with them to dinner knowing I had more plastic cutting to do, and I had not even started checking the audio gear yet.

After dinner I went up again and looked around the plywood second floor of the gutted building, watching my step all the way. The sun was setting and orangish rays were coming horizontally into the second floor from the windows that did not have plastic. There was some heavier plastic over some windows that did not overlook our set, but I didn’t think I could hear these snapping. Plus, they were reinforced with plastic ribbing, and did not really snap anyway in the shifting wind.

Friend “M” was up there working on lights again. We both could hear plastic snapping somewhere, but could not see where. With all the brick walls of neighboring buildings around, sound was bouncing everywhere and it was hard to spot its source.

He said the sound was coming from “right up there,” on third floor.

How would I get up there? I walked way into the building’s second floor, carrying my javelin, passing between vertical slats that would someday form the mountings for drywall, I reckon. These spaces would become offices that would be occupied by advertising agencies, insurance companies, managers and salesmen and marketers and executives. But now I could walk right through their walls like Shadowcat, and they would never know of my passing.

I found some temporary wooden stairs leading upwards, so I took them. On third floor, plywood was not everywhere, so I really had to watch my step lest I fall between joists. I found an opening leading out to a roof, so I walked out on it. There was some large structure, a “fourth floor,” there, and it was covered with Tyvek home wrapping, which was rattling some in the wind, but not too loudly. I didn’t think this was the big noise maker, and I couldn’t tear it down anyway, because I knew from working on a video about Tyvek home wrapping years ago that it’s part of the construction. It stays on the house after you finish the exterior siding, and it keeps moisture from getting into your house from the walls. I don’t know what you do if you live in a house built before there was Tyvek home wrapping. I guess your walls are moist, and you’re just fucked.

So I went back down again. We were to start shooting when it was dark, and I still had all the audio to set up. It was time to end the plastic tearing project.

Cables had to be rigged on the camera boom. A second camera had to be fed. I had to wire both the guys who would be on camera for the first “scene,” which was the Daily Show style green screen deal.

There was the question of whether to hide the body mics. The producer told me I could leave them exposed for this, since it was clearly a studio style shoot. But I always feel like I’m not doing my job if I leave the mics exposed. Granted, it needs to be done that way sometimes, and for live TV, you leave them clipped on the outside of clothing because you don’t want to take any chances on them slipping inside and getting muffled. But for this, I wanted to hide them if I could.

The host was a big handsome guy. His shirt and sport jacket were quiet -- not synthetic fabric -- so I took a chance on hiding his mic in his shirt. Then there was the other guy that he would be talking to, who would be in front of the green screen. He was a fat older guy in a suit, and sometimes these guys are the noisiest on a body mic. The folds of their neck fat rub on their collars when they speak or turn their heads slightly, and all their clothes fit tight and also creak and rustle a lot. And their ties flop around. But I hid the mic anyway, taking a chance.

I had luck. The host always spoke directly to camera, so he never turned away from his body mic, and he made only minor movements, so his clothes were very quiet. And the other guy sat absolutely still while he talked, so there was almost no noise from his clothes as well. And the set was dark, with ominous colored lights making pools of light on the rubble and bombed out brick walls. And the camera on the boom swooped down and up and side to side during the segments, so they really got the look they wanted.

The second guy was finished after the first spots, so he left. Then it was just the host. And he is a professional newscaster, so he never muffed a line. He banged out one segment after another, with teleprompter aiding him. Still, it took way longer than expected. We passed midnight, the expected finish time. We passed 1 am. It got really cold. I had worn long underwear and had been uncomfortable earlier, but now was glad I had it. We had cold Subway sandwiches long ago cooled and dried on their plastic party tray. Someone went out for fresh coffee and snacks. All during shooting, there was nothing for me to do but sit and turn one knob and listen, so I had plenty of time to worry about how I would feel on the next day’s shoot.

At 2 am we were done. It’s always great to get a microphone off the talent at the end of the “day.” Around 3 am I was done wrapping audio, and the lighting guys still had lots of work to do. I asked friend “M,” if they needed help, but both of us knew I had the early start the next day. Plus, we were on overtime at that point, so the production would want me to go home and get off the clock. So friend “M” told me to get lost.

On the way out, I had to pass through some offices in the Tobacco District. I stole some hard candy out of a receptionist’s jar.

At home I had clean laundry on my bed that I needed to put away. I just pushed it aside and collapsed, face down. I set the alarm to get up at 4:30 so I would have time to eat something before driving out to meet the crew for Thursday. When it went off, I couldn’t figure out what for -- it was too early wasn’t it? I had a feeling that it had interrupted me while I was doing something important, but I wasn’t sure what.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

I’m Tired Y’all part 2 of 5

Tuesday, thankfully, my job started at 5 pm. I got some taxes done in the daytime, exercised, got in the car to drive to the location. On the way, this guy I have not seen for 10 years called and asked me to work Thursday. He warned me that it was to be an early 6 am start, and I said that would be fine. I knew I was working Wednesday, but that would not interfere.

Tuesday’s shoot started with a woman whose husband had divorced her soon after they moved into their nice suburban house. She has a son in college and a daughter still at home, in high school. She has raised her family alone in this house and not made any routine repairs on it ‘cause there wasn’t much money for stuff like that. Now she is selling the house and having to make all these repairs at once. So that’s the crux of her story.

I kind of got a crush on her. She’s not age appropriate, she’s raised kids, she’s done a whole lot of living that eludes a single person. So of course it’s silly. But she was really mellow and laid back about meeting me, letting me drop a microphone cable down her blouse, tape the microphone in her blouse, tie an ace bandage around her belly, clip the transmitter to the bandage in the small of her back under her blouse, turn off her refrigerator, and ask her daughter to turn off her stereo. And she was steadily cheerful packing, on camera, for a short vacation to see her old friend whom she would go hiking with and “solve every problem.” Her cheerfulness continued in going over, with her realtor, the hefty home repair costs facing her. It was all just stuff that needed to be done, no need to be down about it. I could learn from that attitude.

She had done some acting in college and knew about video making. “Just shut the door,” she said with an assistant director’s quick-mindedness, when I said “Oops, I’m gonna be in that mirror.” And when we asked what figures she had pointed to with her pen, she knew. Her realtor asked how she could remember. “Continuity. That’s important,” she said.

So you see. She was cool.

Then we had to go to another home where the same realtor was going to meet with a couple and present them the counter offer from a potential buyer. I really dig that couple too. They support each other, they speak their minds well, they have lived all over the world. The man has done community theater all his life so he has a knack for acting, and when his brother comes over, they really put on quite a show for camera, with comic timing and everything. But that night, I wasn’t in to their conversation about counter offers. And it took hours. Honestly, how long does it take to say “no thank you?” I think someone could make a killing as the “Ten Minute Conversation Realtor: You don’t waste my time, I don’t waste yours.”

It was past 10 pm when I finally got out of there. I was too tired to make it to the Passover Seder I had been invited to. I’m not Jewish, but I faithfully attend this particular Seder that friend “M” has. But I missed it this year. I stopped at Cook Out for a huge hamburger, fries, and a shake. I love the post modernity of putting a drive through window for each side of your car, so if you have a passenger, you can pull up to the right-side window and the passenger can receive the goods from the vendor. That night, there was a line for the left-side window, so I went to the right side window and leaned way over.

Continue . . .

Summary only...

I'm Tired Y'all part 1 of 5

Sunday night I stayed up too late, as always, preparing for the class I teach on Mondays in spring semesters at Piedmont Community College. It seems I should be able to prepare more in advance, but I never really do.

Monday morning, I got up early to finish preparing. It’s an hour drive to get to PCC, and that day, I had to get there early to give someone a makeup test. I always get some Subway "to go" on the way, and the students joke about my coming into class each time with the same items on my person: my backpack, my waist pouch, my file box, and my Subway dangling in its clear bag. We can’t eat in the classroom, because it’s a new carpeted Foley studio, so I have to keep the sandwich in the bag at the back of the room on the AV cart which holds the TV that is useless ‘cause someone lost the remote. On our hourly breaks, we can eat in the hallway.

Our Foley stage is irregularly shaped, like a good sound studio should be, to reduce reverb. But it has cinderblock walls instead of that foamy egg carton stuff, and this is not good. I suppose putting up the foam is on the “to do” list, but this is community college where they have to fill out a requisition form and wait until the next budget cycle. Also, one of the angles between walls is very acute, which is not good. All the angles should be oblique. This acute angle is covered by a piece of plywood which is painted to look like the walls, so on first glance you think all the angles are oblique. But if you stand next to the plywood and talk, you can hear your own voice reverberating in the triangular space behind it. So I don’t make any claims about the effectiveness of our Foley stage. In fact, I have not used it in our class because this is the first year we have had it, and we have spent all our time so far on location recording. Our stage does have pits for Foley “walking,” with carpeted wooden covers over the pits that rock and thump when you step on top of them. Being in there is like being on a space station, with that reverberating ring to your voice, the shifting floor, and the thumping to your walk. I do that 5 hour class, from 12:30 to 5:30, lightheaded from tiredness, and by the time its over, I am totally beat. And I stayed late that day too to put together sound gear for this weekend’s student movie shoot.

On the way home on Mondays, I meet my dance partner for mind-flaying practice of our routines which we are memorizing for the big test in silver level American ballroom. Most Mondays I can hardly bear to think any more, but this is a chance we have to practice, so I do it. She is very patient with me in my zoned-out state those evenings.

Continue . . .

Summary only...