The Service Machines, and "We Are All Whores..."

Greetings, for the first time in a while. The sun has finally shone again for what feels like ages, and from mountains of melting snow and ice I think we're going to see our way out of all this.

https://www.facebook.com/tory.gates/media_set?set=a.10151892746485787.1073741827.552340786&type=3

Want to see pictures and video? Go there...

...so what has been happening? Well, I'm slowly getting back to work. My training with Tango Traffic is complete, and I'm now working weekends and fill-in, generally for northern cities.

www.tangotraffic.com is the site: that's a basic listen of what we do for major cities. The format is not much different than what I did for XM Radio, but the company is delivering this content in localized and specialized ways. I can't really tell you all the details, because I don't know them. Suffice to say, the vision is for something a little bit different. Tapping another market, so to speak.

I like the people I work with...just about every one of us has been in the business for some time...some of us, decades, and I mean decades. I'm back aboard with a couple of my former XM compadres, and everyone seems to know everyone from somewhere. Radio, and broadcasting in general is like a small town.

Now this is out in the Philly suburbs, and it's a drive on Route 30. I have considered moving, but I am not sure I will. See the link above? Why would I leave that?

Yes, getting up and down that hill in winter is dangerous...why I didn't buy a Jeep I don't know, but whatever. The drive is no longer than some I made in the past. From that place to DC? Even longer. It worked out that it became a best option.

This also lets me remain in this area, and I can keep my hand in the business around here. I will still do work for the Radio PA Network, and whatever else I can find and fit in. Needless to say, the Tango money is way better. But I don't just do it for money; this is what I do. We all find ways to stay in this business, and no matter what role we've got, we give it our best.

Besides, this beats working!

Now how about this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1494401975/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1494401975&linkCode=as2&tag=coverscroll-20

"Parasite Girls" is selling slowly, across the Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and other platforms, but I do not mind so much. I'm working on getting it out there. I have it in a few indie stores, most of them in the York area. I have also donated copies to the York and Dauphin County Library Systems. I even got one in the Varnum Library, in my old hometown in Vermont!

Suppose I could blanket more, but I have to select my targets. Made a trip yesterday to Lancaster to try and get some action there. Some places just don't do "new" books, and others have to also choose carefully. I did have a nice talk with the manager of the bookstore at Franklin & Marshall College. She might just take it, I gotta hope. 

Never been to the campus, and my short walk across it was interesting. Reminded me of days of walking across St. Joseph's...didn't feel much different.

Now...what is coming next? I hope to do more readings, once I get my schedule straightened out. And this:

https://www.behance.net/torygates

Selected bits of future projects are here...what one will I do next? Hmmm...

Not sure at this point, because I need to give a push to "Parasite Girls," as far as I can this year. But also get ready for the follow-up. 

My wish is to make my next one a first step into the Young Adult world. I will not be kept to one genre, no need to do that. I have to figure out which story fits, which story works, and so forth.

Either way, I'm having fun.

http://www.genedante.com/

At the bottom, click on the "Play" thingie, and listen:

If that song does not blow you the fuck away, I don't know what will. "We Are All Whores" is a great song that is direct in a way so many pop songs today are not.

Gene is an old and dear friend...we did Rocky Horror together in the 90's, and this guy was the one out of all of us that had the talent to take it wherever he wanted to go. His band has done some great music over the years, and I'll explain why I am plugging it.

I may be back in the writing and critiquing business for this part of PA. I was a music critic for years for the old FACE Magazine. Didn't always know what I was doing, because in writing that was an ongoing exercise. 

A certain publication might be taking me on, and I have a new way to serve the public around here, yet again. I hope. 

One thing you need to remember, folks: CRITICS (AND/OR REVIEWERS) ARE JUST PEOPLE WITH AN OPINION. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BELIEVE EVERY FUCKING THING THEY SAY.

I tended to not often agree with the writers of Rolling Stone or other publications about what they thought of music, bands, etc. We all have our views and we have a right to those views. We just have to remember a couple of things: THE OPINON IS LIKE AN ASSHOLE. WE ALL HAVE ONE.

Now, the other one is very hard for my colleagues in the media to figure out: JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE WRITING THE STORY DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE THE STORY.

I cringe when I listen to or watch people in the media (sports media, in particular) go on about some subject, when you know it's really all about them. Their views, their authoritative blatherings and rantings about what makes this good/bad, etc. And of course, what must we do about this...

Small-town and syndicated columnists are even worse. To get paid, they have to write the most ridiculous, inflammatory and downright hateful garbage. This is how they get attention. 

We don't need that kind of attention. I don't want it.

Look, if I write something nice about someone, or I criticize somebody's work, I'm not trying to kiss up/start a fight. Just opinion. You do not have to believe it.

But look at how we are...talk radio, scream TV, Internet mania, anti-social media...we believe every goddamn thing we hear/read, don't we?

I'm using this potential gig as a means to say to you: we are all here trying to get along, get forward, get going. At least I am...if you want to wallow in your private universe, and regurgitate everything you read/see/hear from what comes out of the radio, the TV, the net...go ahead. Don't expect me to give you the time of fucking day. I don't have time.

I have work to do. This is my role; I write, I create, I offer my services in the best way possible. I am a service machine; I admit it. I do my own original things, but I also can do things that I hope make a difference, even if that difference is just a miniscule blip on your radar screen.

I want it to help. 

I am not interested in being a talking head, where the head does all the talking and no thinking exists. I do not care to be a crotch-grabbing loudmouth pumping up the virtues of the local sports team, at the behest of whomever. 

None of that makes sense to me...I've lived it, seen both ends of it. At this stage of my life, if being a traffic reporter (as I was for several years before) makes a difference to a commuter, then good. I did something good, and right.

With regards to "Parasite Girls," I have received two positive reviews on one of its aspects, mental illness. Both have told me I hit on the issue correctly, and well. That's great news...I drew on the experience of those around me, and my own issues, to try and make it work.

The whole damn thing works, I know it does.

So you see, why I'm like this. I do not expect you to believe anything I say, or write, or whatever. Understand this exercise helps me do what I have to do to survive. I don't blog much, because I don't have time. Not for you, but I just have better things to write, to work on, and I have to be on the go.

The other point, in using Gene's title is this...we do get off on our attention, don't we? We're all human, we all do it. Sometimes, it's good to have a little of that.

I was relieved, and happy to hear a family member and a friend say what needed to be said about "Parasite Girls." 

I did something right. Nice feeling.

See ya.

"The only thing constantly changing is change..." -- Lou Reed

I took this mantra of sorts from "The Raven," and it is more than true. It's been a while since I have blogged, and mostly that is because I'm so busy doing other things. But anyway, I'm listening to this:

This collection is one I often meditate to. Really nice stuff. I'm using it now at the Office because who knows what is going to come up on playlist today? Not that it's all bad but I've made my pronouncements on some of the stuff.

So...change. It is inevitable, and for the past year I have contemplated the oncoming rush of change that has to happen. I have not been afraid of it, more concerned about the execution thereof.

Before I get into details, I have found a job. I accepted an offer from a certain company, and I begin training on Monday. I need to explain something to you...you have been hearing in the news (if not having experienced it yourself), how people just go on and on looking for work, and are not finding anything. How some people have given up looking for work, have lost their benefits, and so forth?

Well, it happened to me. It's no different than what anyone else has gone through, but I am fortunate that I only am responsible for myself and my cats. That made it easier, but I know how hard it's been.

With my acceptance of this offer, I should soon be moved from part-time training to full time. Do you know how long it has been since I have had a full-time job? Meaning however many hours one is supposed to work to get "full-time?"

Five years.

Yes. I was let go from XM Radio in January 2009. I have been a jobber since then. To be fair, I did have severance for a while, and I did go back to school for ten months. I did not plan to go back into broadcasting, but it kind of happened that way.

My official job search lasted 27 months. I have a 92-page document of all of my job contacts, answers, interviews, etc. Now it's not Excel, so it probably would be a whole lot smaller than that, but that's what it is.

I am not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories or wild ideas of what is coming in this country. I left junior high school, folks. I do think however that the landscape of our economy must change as well, and fairly soon or we will have a serious issue.

On the same token, we can't sit around. I have not. My job hunt was a job, as I've often said about other things. We each must make those things happen for ourselves, best we can. 

So, where am I going?

http://www.tangotraffic.com/

If there is one portion of the broadcast world that is still working, it is...traffic. What do people need? What do they have to have to get about their work, their day, their lives?

The science has come a very long way. I spent nearly five years at XM doing traffic for more than 20 cities. It is an art, to take masses of information being hurled at you and turning that into a report listeners can understand.

With Twitter and all the immediate forms of social media, it has intensified. Our thirst for information is huge, but think about what kinds we NEED?

Tango is a new player in the arena, relatively speaking. I do not know the whole deal by far, and I train with one of my old colleagues from the XM and Metro Networks days. We go back a decade or more, and I've seen inside enough to know where we are headed. 

This is pretty exciting, actually. Now, what is funny is back in '09 or '10, I briefly worked for a startup firm called Traffic Talk. Sadly they could not get the money together for this, but the guys who I was with had an interesting idea, another way to make the traffic world understandable. That could even still work, I think, one day.

It's funny: I cannot remember where I saw it, I think it was in a trade publication, around 1990 or '91. There was a joke one-page promotional ad for an LA radio station: ALL TRAFFIC, ALL THE TIME.

The idea was that you would have DJ's or hosts on the air in studio, giving you constantly updated traffic with their own twists. "The Great Pandini" was a guy who would hypnotize you while driving; another guy who's name I can't remember would play driving music to make your commute go faster, like stuff from the James Bond movies.

My favorite was the guy who would broadcast live, every day from a car. And a lucky motorist might get a huge rubber arrow stuck to their ride as they traveled about: this was the DRIVE-BY SHOOTING OF THE DAY.

Now, that probably would not fly in LA, or anyplace else for that matter. But it was funny.

Back then, we didn't have Internet, but for a very few clued in tech geeks. Cell phones were not a big thing for everyone, nor pagers. That would have been a very big challenge to do something like that.

All traffic would not work on a terrestrial radio station, but it sounds like it would be fun. I believe in Tokyo there is a low-power AM station that just does traffic, but I don't recall details. Stuff I learned while researching one of my books.

Bandwidth on satellite radio makes it easy to allocate space for Sirius/XM to do traffic channels, though the mashing of them together, post merger I wonder about.

Now how about the traffic world? Tango is out in Chester County, which is just to the west of Philadelphia. The warehouse they are in is a temporary location, and they'll move to a new place soon. Jim Battagliese, my former XM boss and one of the gurus of the changing face of traffic reporting likes to tell the story of his first company operating out of his house in Philly. The whole house, from attic to basemen was the traffic center. Think about that.

This is not unusual, not at all. Now, I have to tell where I was the other day.

Without naming names, I had an interview in Maryland at a company that has been around a long while. I wasn't sure what to expect...I didn't expect this:

A fairly active city site, floors up in a big building. You'd think this is gonna be slick, right, professional, all that?

WRONG.

The only parking was in an expensive garage next door. I then had to go through levels of madness to get into the building, show my ID, jump through hoops and then take an express elevator.

I got to the big glass door. It is locked. At 11 am.

It is dark. No receptionist. No lights on, apart from a screensaver showing all the stations they do traffic and stuff for.

The man who would have become my boss arrived after me. I waited while he did whatever he had to do to get ready for me. Quiet...deathly quiet.

I was taken on a tour of a dark, poorly lit level of Hell that only Dante could imagine. There is a horror movie to be shot here.

This huge floor was a dead zone. Lights off, cubicles that looked like from a time capsule. It seemed all the occupants got up and left things as they were, like they were going to come back. And they vanished. 

Everywhere I turned, there were places where people once worked, but no more. I saw at one corner nearly three dozen computer towers stacked on the floor like coffins.

The man I spoke with was very nice. He tried to put the best spin on things, consolidation of people down here, this, that, other. 

There was one person working in a tiny studio in one corner. Another way down the hall in another studio. The traffic center looked like an air traffic control center from the 50's or 60's. Three people there. Now it was not drive time, to be fair, but this was surreal.

I have never seen anything like this in my life. If this is how it runs, then fine, I've been in crazy places too. But this...I thought of Luigi Pirandello's plays and the interplay of ongoing behavior that leads all to think the rest of the universe is insane, but you are not.

Or is it you that is mad?

Escape from the time capsule led me home, and Tango's offer was waiting. So there you have that.

Honestly...would I have worked for the other? If that was the only offer, yes. What choice have I?

Change again, this is what has come about. I will have to move, after 14 years in York, 13 in the same place. There are things I will miss, but much I cannot miss.

The sameness. I have written and spoken of the feeling that this part of the world fears change more than most, and refuses to do so. A colleague likes to say this part of the world "still thinks Kennedy is president."

They live in 1962, Camelot, JFK and Jackie, Reds under every bed, the Cubans are coming to destroy us, and what do those "Negroes" want, anyway?

They didn't know from gay people. Of course where I move, is that any different? At least I am close to Philly, so that will be a change.

I have to move, and I do not like that. Moving is a horrific prospect, and I will have a company do it while I can still afford it. Trying to find a place, going through all that again, relearning my surroundings, and navigating a big city...

...you get used to knowing where stuff is, and I imagine "here" will fade away, as it does for most people. You go somewhere, where's everyone else, right?

The 'net lets us all stay sort of in touch, so wherever I go I know I'll be sure to hear/see about what everyone else is doing. The next chapter in the great adventure, right?

So what does that mean for other things?

I do not know at this point for a lot of it. I don't have a clue.

As for the writing, it goes on. I have to do a couple of readings of "Parasite Girls" in the near future here, and I'll find other spots to do them. I know I have to do them, and yet I am rather worried about trying this method. It bothers me, but I also know (back to the changing landscape) I have to engage the public.

Got a letter today from Barnes & Noble, regarding my wish to get "Parasite Girls" on the shelves. They just don't have the space for self-published books, and I get that. Worth a try.

They said they noted that most self-published authors only sell "about 100 copies." Well, thanks for that bit of lovely news, I'm soooooo encouraged!

But they are right, I guess. So what is my writing going to do? Apart from being therapy, and a hobby? I still plan to keep on writing. I pretty much do not see myself ever getting a publishing deal, but I think a lot of that has to also do with building a body of work, and I am just getting started. I hope to live long enough to see it really happen. But again, I must engage.

"Parasite Girls," well it's too soon to tell how it is going to be received, but I've gotten some nice comments. For that I am thankful, and I'm going to keep at it.

What's next...oh...lots of things, but what will be next? I do not know for sure at this point.

www.behance.net/torygates is my online site for numerous things. There, you will find rough cuts and openers. Two or three possibilities are right there. 

So I'm probably going to give out more copies of "PG" than I sell, but that's how it goes. 

The thing that is important to impart on you: my painter friend Sunny said over 20 years ago when I expressed doubt: just do it.

Not the Nike way, but the way each of us have. There you are.

So, hopefully I will have time to blog again in the near future and tell you how this new venture goes. And how everything else goes...time to move on because I feel my years are slowly getting away from me. Every day I have is one to make something happen, something more. 

Warren Zevon had an interesting take when he faced cancer, and the final days of his life: "Enjoy Every Sandwich."

I think he found a sense of place. Lou Reed did as well...his wife Laurie Anderson wrote that right to the end, Lou's sense of wonder at the world didn't go away. He lived to the end.

We gotta just do it.

Peace, Out.