Del Ethier (blackhole_son) wrote in we_float, @ 2010-07-07 20:08:00 |
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Current music: | 'Radio Radio' - Elvis Costello and The Attractions |
'And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anaesthetize the way that you feel!'
Who: Del Ethier and Tom Sturbridge
When: Tuesday July 6, evening
Where: The Radio Room
What: Del and Tom discuss the show
Status: log/complete
Del sat in the booth, shaded eyes reflecting back the light from the computer, fingertips skimming over the mouse pad as he watched the second chapter of Ganesh's how-to-guide for the third time.
"God, you are just going to have to come show me how to work this," Del said frustratedly as he rewound it once again. When it played again, he leaned in closer, as if that would help. After 4 viewings and each time successively closing in on the screen, Del was only about half a foot from the screen. It was only a few seconds before he was looking at the other tabs of information and itching to just start clicking buttons to see how they worked and being altogether distracted enough that the play of Ganesh's sweetly-lilted voice went in one ear and straight out of the other.
Tom crashed into the wall at the bottom of the stairs, having missed the last one. He winced as he whacked his elbow, knowing it would bruise. What wouldn't he give for just a little bit of coordination?
He found Del with his nose practically pressed against the computer screen. "Um... is the screensaver one of those things where if you stare at it long enough something else pops out of the design?" he asked. "I always heard it was better to be farther away from those. Not that I ever managed to get one to work." He grinned and flopped into a chair.
"It's directions. They put in a green button for on and off, but I'm trying to figure out how to upload sounds for broadcast - you know, like for an opening theme or something. But fuck it, maybe you'll be better at it." Del hopped out of the chair and held it out to Tom.
"I'm not exactly a technological genius," Tom said. "But uploading can't really be that hard, right? I mean, I know how to upload files into most programs, and shouldn't we able to just, like, hit play? I mean, it can't actually be more complicated than that, can it?" He started poking around in the program, completely ignoring any and all instructions in favor of the trial and error method. The only thing he didn't click on was "Broadcast", which was, in fact, another big green button.
"So when do we want to start?" he asked as clicked around.
"Maybe. I don't know," Del replied as he slumped into the other chair. He sighed at his own stupidity and shrugged. "I don't know - anytime, I guess. Do you think we should have like, fake names?"
The chair spun some so he swayed to some internal rhythm, back and forth a couple of times before throwing his weight enough to spin the chair a full circle.
Tom considered that. "I don't see why," he said after a minute. "I mean, Tom definitely is a totally common name. You could use one if you wanted to, I guess, but I can't promise I'll remember to call you by the fake name. Unless you decided to be Jerry or something." He grinned at him. "I wish we'd been able to get up and running before your show. We could have advertised it, maybe. But then I was thinking, maybe that would be a good thing to talk about, that the show got shut down? I mean, that's censorship, and I think a lot of people are against that."
"Yeah?" Del said interestedly, perking up a bit. "Hm. Yeah, I could talk about that. Oh, and we can talk about that article that was in the paper last week - about how Joker music is troubling America. Hey - which school do you go to again? I bet they have some sort of music scene, I wonder if they're getting protested."
He was sitting up now, twisting excitedly in his seat as he though. "I wonder if we could have a musical guest."
"Seattle University, and yeah, there's a music scene, although I'm not really part of it. I mean, I don't know any guys in bands, or at least not any that are jokers. But if we could find some, we could probably... well, can we actually bring people here? There's definitely not room for them to set up with instruments, but maybe we could do link-up through the internet and get them on that way? I kind of get the feeling like we're not really supposed to have outsiders here."
"Oh, cam them in. Remote concerts! Probably for the best cause we can turn off our cam and if they suck, they won't have to see us looking uncomfortable as hell," Del chuckled, then frowned.
"But that will take time. And research. I don't know about you, but I'm an ASAP kind of guy. I think the more we think about this, the less authentic it's gonna end up. It should be organic, you know?"
"So what are we waiting for?" Tom asked. "Well, except we should probably do some advertising so we actually have listeners. Otherwise it kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? If we're just talking to ourselves. It'd be like... radio masturbation."
Del snorted. "Circle radio jerk."
"And I think I'm going to have to pass on that," Tom said with a laugh. "So we should pick a time and start advertising. Maybe this weekend? When do you think people would be likely to tune in?"
"At night. I mean, it can't be too long. I don't know about you, but I can't talk for 8 hours straight. But maybe if we did like a morning show and a night show, just for 3 or 4 hours, that'll cover more people. And maybe not every day either cause you'll have school and stuff."
Tom looked at him, startled. "Oh. I was thinking more like... an hour once or twice a week. I didn't realize you meant to make it, like, a full time gig."
Del blinked, equally startled. "But... do you think that'll give people enough time to call in? I thought... I thought it would be a place - a cyberplace, I guess - where people could connect. Not just us talking to them, but giving them a place to talk aloud. To vent. To warn. To... commiserate, really," he remarked with a chuckle.
"I think that's kind of outside of the scope of a radio show?" Tom frowned. "I mean, for people to be able to talk to people other than us, that's more than just a radio show. That'd be like... a message board, kind of? Chat rooms, maybe? That kind of thing. I mean, it's your project. You can do it however you want. I just didn't realize you intended for it to be a full time thing."
He supposed it made sense for Del; he didn't have a lot else going on unless he got into another dance show. Tom, once summer was over, would have classes full time and wouldn't be able to commit a huge amount of time to it.
"Not full time. I mean, I hope I'll be able to get a real job at some point. But just..."
Del paused. "Do you like old movies? Did you ever see one called Sleepless in Seattle?"
"Nope. Why?"
"The main character, or one of them, was a man whose wife had died and he calls into this radio show. Some doctor or something - you know. And it opens him up in a way that people... don't usually. Because you're talking to a person and that's different than writing something down where you re-read it and edit it. But they aren't in front of you, so it's like they're not there, judging you or analyzing you. And this woman in Boston or something falls in love with him and it's very whatever. But the point is - people underestimate the power of people. And maybe it'll fail and no one will care or whatever. But I wanted this to be... more than just me shooting my mouth. I wanted a way for people not to feel alone."
Del got up and turned the chair around so he could sit on it backwards and rest his chin on the headrest. "A conversation. Not a lecture. You know?" He looked at the computer solemnly. Was he asking for too much? Maybe no one would care and this was all a delusion of his, but he missed it. He missed the community of Jokertown. Could he be the only one?
"Oh. Yeah. I totally agree with that. I just... I guess I wasn't thinking there would be that much demand for it? Or, not exactly that, but at least at first? Maybe we should start with a two hour show. I mean, if people keep calling past the two hours, we can stay on, right? It's not like there's anyone coming up after us. Just sort of roll with it?" Tom lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "It seems like it's easier to start small and work from there. Kind of gauge what people are really looking for. Which, maybe that'll be the point of the first show. To figure out what people are looking for."
Del thought about that for a second, then slowly nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just. Introduce ourselves. Then have a conversation. Then invite people to join in on it."
"And then if we discover that there's a demand for us to be on for four hours or something, we just stay on. So we already have that logo thing I created. When do we want to set it for? I'll add the date and time and website and we'll post it all over the web and do flyers and stuff, too. Hard copy, y'know?" Tom grinned, practically bouncing with excitement.
"But how do we keep it from falling into the wrong hands?" Del asked, leaning forward, straining almost for an answer. "What if the only people that call are, you know, purists or something just comin' on to hate on us?"
Tom shrugged. "So be it. We just need to be prepared to tell them they're wrong. I mean, obviously that's not ideal, and not what we want to be doing the whole time. But honestly? It'll fuel people calling in to tell them they're wrong. And if we put it out on the internet, there's no way to make sure it's only wild cards getting hold of it, right? So what's the difference?"
"Well, I don't care if regular people call. Just, you know, don't call and be assholes. I mean, I know it's a lot to ask for people to have a little common decency, but still. It'd be nice."
Del spun his chair around and around, thinking. "We should hand out flyers this weekend and start Monday. Just up and fucking go at... lets start at 9. Get like, people our age who are just getting their night started, and people with jobs that can't stay up late."
"Works for me," Tom said, smiling at him. "I'll fix up the flyers for online and for handing out. We'll try to target wild card friendly places, but I think we'd probably better be prepared for some assholes. It's kind of inevitable."
"Are you quick with a quip?" Del asked as she pushed off and managed to spin himself twice with one great push before coming to a natural stop. "You wanna go out Friday? We can hit up your school and Seattle Pacific and U-Dub, although I don't know if it's good or bad to blend in with those dudes that pass out VIP passes to clubs. Saturday we can tackle Jokertown. That should be interesting."
"Sure!" Tom agreed readily. "And I'm pretty good... maybe? I mean, I think I'm funny, but maybe you'd better ask Maxxie if I'm right." He grin widened.
"Really? Max doesn't really strike me as someone who likes a lot of funny. I mean, she's very... I don't want to say serious. But I kind of do. Like..." Del made a chopping, if measured, motion with his hand. "Not even blunt. Just... a very straight line."
Del looked down the line his arm made with a cocked head. "Hey, you known her since she's been in college, right? Did she have some sort of thing at a frat once?"
"It was a joke," Tom pointed out. "I'm sure she would tell you I was completely not funny. Which is what's funny about it." His smile faded slightly at the mention of the frat. "I've known her since the beginning of her freshman year, yeah. I don't know if there was ever a thing at a frat. Why?" Because he didn't know for sure. He'd just guessed. He'd never tried to get her to confirm it.
"We went to dancing once and I told her that I liked to drink and hang out and she spazzed. Not completely but you know, one minute we're dancing just fine and the next it's all she can do to get away from me and keep dancing with me at the same time. I asked her about it, but she blew me off about it and you know, if you're gonna press for shit like that, you do it in private, not out on the parquet. Then the rest of the night was just weird, although that was not just her. I felt weird about the fact she was being weird about it."
Del watched Tom's face and looked for a hint - either towards confusion, concern or understanding.
"She doesn't like being around drunk people," Tom said with a shrug. "I can't say I'm a big fan either, honestly."
"Yeah, most people don't recoil from the idea of it though," Del said lightly, trailing off dreamily as he pondered, thoroughly distracted from the reason they'd met in the first place.
"Hmmm. Now I want a beer, though. And fries. You wanna grab some food? We can sort out the rest of this... assuming there is more rest?" Del asked, unsure about the last.
"I don't know if there's much left to sort out, but I definitely won't say no to food," Tom said. "Let's go."