{"id":19,"date":"2008-07-14T13:39:08","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T18:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/?page_id=19"},"modified":"2008-07-14T13:39:08","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T18:39:08","slug":"kill-myself-or-die-tryin-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/?page_id=19","title":{"rendered":"Kill Myself or Die Tryin&#8217; Pt. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Kill Myself or Die Tryin&#8217;<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>or<\/strong><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>I Was a Turntable    Tech for 50 Cent, Pt 1<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">By Mark Driver<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br \/>\nIf you were to ask me to describe three jobs that approximate what I imagine    the waiting room of hell to be like, I would offer you these three thoughts    (in ascending order of discomfort):<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">3. <strong>Taco Bell<\/strong> <strong>Employee<\/strong>, college campus, fifteen minutes after the bars close, only        person to show up for shift. Possibly stoned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">2. <strong>Monkey Cage Cleaner<\/strong>,        Center for Infectious and Communicable Diseases, no health insurance. Also        possibly stoned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">1. <strong>Driving a HUGE        vehicle through heavy rush hour traffic<\/strong>, a vehicle like a double-long        Metro bus filled with babies wired with crash-sensitive explosives; or a        Mansion 3000x Recreational Vehicle with optional helicopter landing pad;        or an enormous cargo van without side mirrors filled with thousands of dollars        of delicate equipment that doesn&#8217;t belong to me.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Well\u2026as I tooled out    of town, bumper to bumper with Seattle&#8217;s dumbass motorists on the way to KUBE    93 FM&#8217;s Summer Jam in a huge cargo van filled with eight top-of-the-line DJ    turntables, PA speakers, battle mixers, rack-mount effects, table stands, and    boxes that looked suspiciously like coffins for the dead\u2014I got to participate    in my own worst nightmare. I misjudged the weight of the van on the highway    cloverleaf and scraped the guardrail. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">It wasn&#8217;t as bad as I thought    it would be. It was worse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Fear, of course, is never    a reason not to do something. Indeed, as someone who sees even leaving the apartment    as an act of supreme bravery worthy of presidential commendation (I&#8217;ll wait    for the next administration, thanks), I will never claim to live as a man without    fear. Fear is my constant companion. Anxiety, hate, regret, dread, and embarrassment    are also in the posse. But together, we pull up our black bandana masks and    fake it. All challenges must be met and all calls must be answered. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The telephone shook me out    of bed at two in the afternoon and a dull voice on the other end posited, &#8220;Hey    man, last minute gig. You wanna be a turntable technician for 50 Cent out at    the Gorge?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">After listening to an amount    of money to be exchanged, I heard myself agreeing and I went back to bed. But    the sleep was shallow. Slowly, the gravity of the situation was upon me. This    was a pretty big gig. A task that could not be performed in pajamas. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">After a unsensible breakfast    of three leftover chicken wings and a black banana, I was in shorts and flip    flops, loading my backpack with vodka while being visited by premonitions of    crates dropped on my toes, long lines, metal detectors, methed-out gangsta wannabes    from Spokane, sunstroke, popped tires, dehydration, skin cancer, van accidents,    speeding tickets, ritual disembowelment, food poisoning, lack of beer\u2014and    I got back into bed. The grim reaper informed me that death would come after    I miswired the wheels of steel: I would be shot to death by the bodyguards of    DJ Jackass.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">But as I lay dying, visions    of $250 and catered hot dogs took over. I was in no position to refuse work    or free food. Ugh. Being broke sucks. I slid on a filthy Seahawks jersey, grabbed    my musty tent, and was out the door.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br \/>\nNow, as I am a somewhat functional member of <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20061025163340\/http:\/\/www.blindwino.com\/studio.html\" target=\"cockringwarehouse\">Blind    Wino Studios<\/a> (my man Mark T&#8217;s offshoot business that provides music and    sound effects for video games, radio commercials, and random Web projects),    I know my way around music equipment. You get me at a party, put about thirteen    beers in me, and I know everything there is to know about sound production and\u2014if    you ever make the mistake of pretending to be interested\u2014I will tell you    all about it at great length in excruciating detail. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">So when, at said party with    said amount of beer in me, I found out a friend of a friend worked for a company    that did live sound reinforcement for shows, I insisted on an immediate full-time    position with benefits and an immediate two-week vacation. That failing, I offered    my services for any gig he might have for me, no matter how small or marginally    profitable. It turns out that shamelessly asking every single person you meet    for employment occasionally pays off. He had a job for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The first of these gigs    occurred at an in-store performance at a local record shop here in Seattle.    The band was a permanently touring juggernaut once purported by a multitude    of critics of varying intelligence to be the next Nirvana, but was now languishing    in that medium level of success where you can fill a club, but the crowd just    wants you to play your one MTV hit twelve times in a row. You probably wouldn&#8217;t    recognize the name.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">I had really talked myself    up to the guy who hired me. Of course I could mic a sixty-piece orchestra in    Madison Square Garden, simultaneously riding the faders on all fourteen-hundred    members of UB40 while thirty-thousand goons from Long Island threw 9-volt batteries    at my head. No prob.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">In reality, I was at the    library at 8 am, illegally photocopying relevant pages from a book on live sound    reinforcement, pouring over schematics and memorizing big words to throw around.    If anything went wrong, it would be negative impedance, mismatched ohms, and    the dreaded 60 kHz hum. I mean, I sorta knew what I was doing. I&#8217;ve been playing    in shitty bands long enough to know how to plug in microphones and make them    louder than the guitars. Plus, the setup this band needed was an easy configuration:    three acoustic guitars, three mics, two speakers, standard mixer. I could do    this. No sweat. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">I showed up at the record    store fifteen minutes early, and after a brief conversation with the girl at    the register in which I ascertained load-in logistics, I walked past shelves    of CDs in longboxes and walls of glossy promo posters towards the back wall    of the record store. Pushing aside a dark blue curtain, I found myself in a    combined storeroom, office, breakroom, and bathroom. Because there were all    kinds of yummy stealables in this sacrosanct, employees-only area\u2014and given    my appearance at any given point of any given day garners about as much trust    as you&#8217;d give a starving goat with a boner\u2014an employee was assigned to    &#8220;assist&#8221; me with the gear, which meant the scrawny little waif stood    around and watched while I ruined my back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">There was a lovely food    spread waiting for me. Or maybe for the band. It mattered not. It was a Costco-catering    standard of cloudy veggies and dip, broken chips and salsa, and a pot of gummy    gray hummus that broke tortilla chips in half and didn&#8217;t stick to any vegetables,    thus remaining uneaten, save a few aborted stabs to its surface. I ate a handful    of veggies. Stuck my thumb in the hummus. Assigned employee nervously mentioned    the presence of beer in the fridge. I cracked one, took a deep pull, set the    bottle against a wall, and pushed up my sleeves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Then there was a pounding    on the back door. It was the equipment being delivered. The company&#8217;s delivery    guy had obviously just been shot out of a cannon. He was tall and skinny, like    a mantis in leather gloves, and appeared to have injected a thirty-pound sack    of methamphetamines into his spinal column prior to busting through the door.    In the first five minutes of hauling PA speakers with him, I found out about    the motorcycle accident that resulted in the painful reconstruction of his face,    the difficulty of obtaining an electrical engineering degree, his gay brother    in Ft. Lauderdale, the best place on North Aurora to gamble, where not to go    camping, what bullshit that <em>Survivor<\/em> TV show is, how San Diego chicks    put out, and to be happy that I didn&#8217;t have to run sound for a goddamn Latin    ensemble, because those things are a real pain in the ass to set up. &#8220;All    right, have fun,&#8221; he said, taking two long steps out the back door.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">He leaves and I&#8217;m standing    there, surrounded by a huge pile of speakers in cases, guitars stacked against    a wall, an unmarked crate on casters, and three boxes of tangled cables.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;Looks like you got    some work to do,&#8221; said assigned employee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;Yup.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">I chugged the beer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The set-up was simple. I    tuned the guitars, rang out the monitors, checked all levels, tweaked the EQ,    put a line of tape across the mixer and labeled each fader. All done. With twenty    minutes to spare. I rubbed my hands and waited. And waited. And waited.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The band finally shows up,    and it&#8217;s the standard thing. Straight outta central casting. They&#8217;re tired and    look like they&#8217;ve been living out of the trunk of a taxicab for a year. Young    from a distance, old up close. Floppy rat hair, professionally dyed, perfectly    tattered jeans, forearm tattoos, designer thrift-store styles. The singer&#8217;s    cranky and all business, the drummer immediately lights a smoke in the store,    the token dopey bass player goes for a handful of tortilla chips, says &#8220;stale&#8221;    to nobody, and locks himself in the bathroom to consume loads of drugs. I introduce    myself and let them know that the stage is all set up and ready to go. One of    the few attempts in my life to be professional is greeted with as much enthusiasm    as &#8220;Hi, my name&#8217;s Mark and I&#8217;ll be your server tonight,&#8221; gets at Denny&#8217;s.    The singer looks past the curtain into the store. There are about eleven people    waiting to hear them rock out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;There&#8217;s no one here,&#8221;    he says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;Great,&#8221; says    the drummer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">I meet the label rep, an    overenthusiastic dweeb wearing hipster glasses he&#8217;s not quite pulling off. He&#8217;s    the only one interested in any conversation, which dries up after it is established    that: 1) I don&#8217;t own the record store, 2) I don&#8217;t own the production company,    3) I&#8217;m just some schmuck getting paid $75 to run a board for an hour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Prick.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Then, this little and loud    guy barges through the back door and immediately starts barking like a feral    seal. I assume he&#8217;s the band manager because he&#8217;s British.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;They coll this a meal?    A few rohtten garrets and a gan of sulsa? I thought we agreed on meals! Where    are the rehcord advahnces? We hovernighted them spehcial from Lohs Angelees!    You know ow much that sheet cohsts?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Unfortunately, there&#8217;s no    one to really yell at. It&#8217;s a free show. At a record store. It&#8217;s been announced    all week on two radio stations and nobody cares. There are radio-station DJ&#8217;s    broadcasting from a van at the curb outside, attempting to ignore two muskrat    panhandlers who keep banging on the doors. There are now fourteen people in    the crowd. The lead singer disappears for a while. The employees of the record    store make excuses to come in the back and gawk at the rock stars, and then    feel sort of dumb for bothering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">T<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">he    crowd&#8217;s rank swells to about seventeen, the band takes take the stage. As the    drummer climbs up onto the small platform, he hands me a box. &#8220;Oh, could    you plug this in too?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">A drum-machine sampler thing    with a walkman-sized sound output. You guys stood around for an hour and then    hand me this as you climb on stage? &#8220;I guess. I need to get some shit out,    though.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;The batteries are    sorta dying. Get me a power adapter too.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;All the gear is packed    under the stage,&#8221; I tell him. &#8220;It&#8217;s gonna be a few minutes.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;Whatever. I&#8217;ll go    smoke.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;Oi,&#8221; the manager    breaks in. &#8220;We paid goohd mohnee to your compny. All this wus &#8216;greed to    en the cuntract. We paid fore it.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;Yeah, yeah, yeah.    I&#8217;m getting it.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;Paul,&#8221; says the    lead singer, sitting on stage with a guitar in his lap. &#8220;If this guy doesn&#8217;t    know how to hook it up, forget it. Let&#8217;s get this over with.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The manager starts talking    about getting money knocked off their bill as the singer grabs the mic and tries    to say something. The mic&#8217;s not on. I run to the board and unmute it. His hand    has dropped and it&#8217;s directly in front of the monitor and the whole system gives    an ugly rip of feedback. The singer shakes his head. &#8220;Very professional,&#8221;    he says. &#8220;Nice job.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">But, this is Seattle. And    though we encourage our mediocre hometown bands to dress up like rock stars,    we don&#8217;t care much for bands who actually <em>act<\/em> like rock stars. Someone    from the crowd yelled, &#8220;You don&#8217;t even need the mic, dude. There&#8217;s like    ten people here.&#8221; The singer was obviously considering scrapping the entire    event and leaving all seventeen fans in the lurch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">This is not a good match:    indie record store, failed major-label band, and the only thing standing between    them an underemployed drink enthusiast who couldn&#8217;t give one fuck about anything    past his $75 fee. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The grizzled singer asks    the audience for requests. He doesn&#8217;t know any of the songs that get shouted    out. The trio play some generic three-chord songs which I assume are originals,    because nobody seems to recognize them. They attempt a few spontaneous covers    that they can&#8217;t completely get through. The crowd&#8217;s bored. People stream out    the front door in quiet escape. The band plays for twenty-three minutes and    clears out within five. The manager shakes my hand sheepishly, thanks me, and    apologizes for being a dickhead. The label rep leaves and I chase him into the    back alley and give him an invoice. Their label gets charged $550 for my excellent    services. Shit\u2026and all I get is $75? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The cruddy major-label band    didn&#8217;t sell a single record. And apparently, no one told them about the beer    either, because there was still a cold case in the tiny dorm fridge. I opened    two and started packing up the gear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"> Two weeks later, it was    a disco-night cover band at an Indian casino. Easy gig with a twenty-minute    setup. I got paid $150 while grinding ass on the light-up dance floor with some    Grade D toothless hootchies to a sad and slaughtered version of &#8220;Disco    Inferno.&#8221; Lost $20 at the craps table, $10 at blackjack, $5 at roulette,    and a large portion of my colon at the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">But there is a difference    between wiring guitars for a few scrawny rockers in a record store or running    casino amp duty for a 43-year-old bass player who works at Bank of America during    the day\u2014and being on stage in front of 14,000 screaming people having some    guy with a diamond glued onto in his front tooth about to decapitate you with    a bowie knife because he thinks you stole his lucky needle cartridge&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">My two starting gigs were    chump change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">But now, an iron boot had    descended from the clouds and the training wheels had been kicked off. I was    in charge of the turntables for a huge hip-hop festival. Little ol&#8217; me! I blindly    merged the battered cargo van onto I-90, hoping I won&#8217;t get charged for scraping    the siderail. The sun rides high. Traffic thins out. I&#8217;m heading due east. Away    from salt water. Up, across the mountains. Into the desert. Gray asphalt, blinding    brightness, yellow hills, dead towns, bleached burger stands. Rattlesnakes rule    the rocks. Any breakdown means certain death. The skeletons of fallen pack animals    strewn about by coyotes and buzzards litter the highway. It&#8217;s a long journey    between here and the next watering hole. I pull down my black bandana mask and    dig through the cooler on the floor to my right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">&#8220;50 Cent,&#8221; I mumbled    into the can of Pabst on my lips, &#8220;what a fucking stupid name.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>====<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Hey freeloader, feed a writer    by <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20061025163340\/http:\/\/www.blindwino.com\/book\/index.html\">buying a book!<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kill Myself or Die Tryin&#8217; or I Was a Turntable Tech for 50 Cent, Pt 1 By Mark Driver If you were to ask me to describe three jobs that approximate what I imagine the waiting room of hell to be like, I would offer you these three thoughts (in ascending order of discomfort): 3. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":62,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blindwino.cyberphreak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}