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Chapter 5 - Another Rude Awakening
Story by: Thomas Daulton and Justin
Art by: Justin and Thomas Daulton
Music by: Evan Brau
By Friday night, radioactive dreams had translated
into full-blown anxiety during the waking day.
It became harder and harder for Art to rest and enjoy his sick leave while
he obsessed about the City collapsing all around him. ...
His memories of the Electricity Crisis of
2001 made him doubt that the Governor’s privatization plans were going to end
well. They might even end up laying off
more City workers – or giving the Pool
less work – if they followed through with water privatization.
That got him thinking about how unpredictable
his own City job schedule had already become … what used to be a full-time job
was now offering him six hours of paid work one week, fifty the next. He spent a few minutes on the City and County
employment websites, looking to move laterally in the City. But the only available job that was in his
field was a fairly low-ranking GIS data entry technician. For
this they want to see my transcripts all the way back to high school, and personal
references who can confirm the transcripts all the way back to high school too?
…Art stared in shock at the online application form. He doublechecked the salary grade and
wondered sarcastically, all that for a
job that pays twelve buckaroos an hour?
Does that include twelve for the hour I’ve just wasted filling out this
form?
He knew he had to think about a different job –
if he wanted out of this dead-end City labor pool, if he ever wanted to get
ahead on all the bills, let alone fix his car or buy a new wetsuit. But, at least for now, he needed a source of
income that wouldn’t interfere with his current day job. The job market was clearly a jungle, and he
soon realized that his setup was better than many people had. As Art brooded on these thoughts, day was
already turning into night. It was too
late to make phone calls or apply to another regular office job until Monday,
of course… (a week of sick leave had quickly disabused him of the habit of
waking up early for work). He had just
about given up on the idea, and he started to preen his meticulously tagged MP3
collection again. Of course!! That was what I was
thinking about before I got sick, he realized. The Bootstrapper Lounge! …suddenly remembering a half-formed plan of
his that had interested him earlier in the week.
The Bootstrapper Lounge was a fairly trendy
nightclub within walking distance of Art’s house. Plopped incongruously at the edge of Art’s
sketchy neighborhood, its industrial exterior was a carefully designed façade; USC students – who generally could still afford
to commute by car -- were starting to discover the cheap rents in Silverlake,
gentrifying as they conquered new territory.
From the cars, the dress code, and the snatches of conversation Art
sometimes heard while walking by, it was the latest new hangout for MBA
students.
Although he was not much of a dancer or a
drinker, about the most fun at parties that Art had ever had in college was
when he tried his hand at DJ-ing. When
Art was daydreaming in the Employee Lounge at work about what he’d rather be
doing, the idea of DJ-ing a club was a wistful, recurring desire. Lately he’d started to think about it more
seriously. He felt pretty sure he had a
hard-drive full of the latest music that was second to nobody’s (obtained
through legal and… quasi-legal means).
But electricity was Art’s angle.
He would approach someplace like the Bootstrapper Lounge and tell them
he’d provide his own electric power. The
week of sickbed and the frustratingly common blackouts and brown-outs had
prompted Art to renew his experiment with storage batteries, with chargers and
low-power equipment for his music and his gaming console.
He’d started tinkering with these independent
electric systems years ago when he first moved into the basement from grad
school, simply because of the difficulty and expense of running more outlets
down there to a 1950’s basement whose rickety wiring system was never meant for
more than a single incandescent. The
idea that the nuclear plant was failing only threw his efforts into sharper focus. Art now recharged his smaller high-tech
devices continuously during the day with a couple of trickle-chargers. His computer took too much power to manage in
this way, but at least he could have music and a shoot-‘em-up game on his
flatscreen whenever he wanted, regardless of how SoCal Gas & Electric was
performing that day.
Even a place like the Bootstrapper had to be
feeling the pinch of these electricity bills, and they probably lost a lot of
their business on those occasions when the power went down completely. Spending long nights in his darkened
basement, Art had perfected a mixer, amplifier, and speaker system that ran off
of a car battery and four sets of double-D’s that could last six hours with
only one quick battery swap. It would
interface with the club speakers, or at least Art felt sure he had enough
adapters to make it connect. His own,
smaller speakers wouldn’t be ear-splitting during a blackout, like normal club
speakers -- but for such small units they packed a punch, and they’d project a blurry
beat well enough to keep people dancing despite a dozen conversations in the
room. He assumed the club would have
some emergency lights that would come on in case of blackout.
So that evening, after he and Mom had finished
a light dinner of soup and salad, Art put on some of his least threadbare
go-to-meetin’ clothes and bundled up the essential components of his sound
system into his worn but ample leather satchel.
Mom had settled into the TV room and didn’t seem to notice as Art
slinked down the corridor behind her chair.
He shut the front door quietly – the iron gate equally quietly, when he
arrived at the sidewalk – and started lugging the satchel, heavy with
batteries, up his street. A low-hanging,
un-trimmed branch nearly caught him in the eye – he had never gotten around to
trimming the trees in the direction opposite his walk to work – and his
shoulders and elbows almost popped as he snapped his head away while
manhandling the satchel. But no matter,
a few blocks later he trudged up to the door of the Bootstrapper Lounge.
* * *
It was much too early to go clubbing, so the
Bootstrapper’s normally-sparkly logo was unlit.
Besides the bright logo, the club entrance was almost no different from the
warehouse walls that surrounded it for two blocks on either side. Art noticed the sign with a DJ schedule taped
to the door; the names were like something from a sad-sack movie from the last
Depression: “DJ Downtrodden, 21:30. DJ Revenant, 22:30.” There were a couple more
names, but Art noticed the top line read “Doors at 20:30”. Art also noticed the statuesque, chiseled
muscles of the black-clad bouncer who was frowning down at him from a height
difference of about a foot.
“Club’s still closed,” the balding man said in
a vaguely Midwestern drawl, as he thumbed towards the taped-on schedule. “Scram.”
“I’m not here for the show – well I am here
about a show – what I mean is, I’d like to see the manager. I want to audition.”
“Huh.” The bouncer seemed to take in Art’s fashion
sense and stage presence in that one brief snort. But Art comforted himself that the bouncer
didn’t know about the electronic wonders in his leather bag. “Then you still want to get in. The cover charge’s $45 tonight.”Art gasped.
It seemed shocking that USC students could drop that much money on a
night of drinking and dancing before they even bellied up to the bar. But if the club charged that much, surely
they paid their DJs well, didn’t they?
“But you just said the club was closed!” Art protested.
The bouncer looked at him like he was very
stupid indeed, and began explaining as if to a child. “The manager is in… there. Ask for Bertram. Bertram isn’t coming out here until the show is over. Then he’s gunna be tired and go home for the
night. If you want to get in there, I need forty-five
bucks. And I need to look in your
handbag to see if you’re packin’ anything.”
Well, Art rationalized to
himself, They always say you gotta spend
money to make money. He reached into
his wallet and scrounged up the bills.
After a pat-down and a brief ransack of his leather satchel, the bouncer
checked his I.D. He stuck a paper
bracelet onto Art’s wrist, the kind whose glue is too strong to un-seal. “Be sure and get that wristband stamped at
the bar. There’s a two drink minimum and
I’ll be checking on yer way out.” The hulking bouncer opened the door and
politely gestured him inside.
It took a few minutes for Art’s eyes to adjust;
the club really was built inside a bankrupt warehouse, so there were no
windows, and the management obviously didn’t want to waste electricity on the
powerful stage lights until the performers were ready to begin. A couple of yellowing fluorescents were at
opposite corners of the dance floor, and the bartenders were actually working
by candle-light. For some reason it made
Art want to whisper as if he were in a church.
“Are you Bertram?” he asked a bartender. The man looked Art and his satchel up and
down, and then gave a funny shrug. “He’s
in the storeroom,” he replied, and thumbed a gesture pointing to a corridor
behind the bar.
“Toss ‘em in the trash if they’re dented!!”
somebody roared as Art opened the aluminum door to the storage room. Another tall skinny man, with spiky hair
going thin in the back, a black silk shirt and a tie, was speaking to a couple
of busboys standing amidst a pile of aluminum cans. The cans looked like the latest trendy energy
drink – and had apparently fallen off a pallet – but the man whirled on Art as
he opened the door. A beat, then
“Whodahell are you?”
It took Art another beat to respond, while his
mind wrapped itself around the idea that this club could afford to throw out a
gallon or more of expensive energy drink while just down the street Mom’s
cupboard was so empty they had to check ‘em for spiders when they reached far
back.
He snapped his attention back to the waiting
manager and tamped down all such thoughts, proffering a hand and his best
winning smile. “Errr, I’m the guy who’s
going to save your butt when the brownout hits later tonight!” Art kept grinning and stared down the man’s
unibrow for a moment. He could almost
see the gears whirling in Bertram’s head.
The manager tried to hide it, but Art felt certain he’d been correct in
his assumption that the club lost business during blackouts. “Walk with me,” Bertram growled.
The two of them trotted down the dim warehouse,
echoes from busy stagehands following their footsteps, and towards the main
stage. Art chatted about his low-power
mixing system as they went, but Bertram was clearly not a “details” man. “Yeah, we got emergency lights,” Bertram
confirmed. He seemed to be calculating
something, but whatever it was, it had nothing to do with the wattage and
amperage figures Art was throwing off. “We
got the USB, we got’cher co-ax connections.
If this thing works like you say, we could drop a Benjamin on a couple
of extra car batteries, keep the music on all night if we have to.”
“I’ve also been working on a solar charging
system,” Art offered, exaggerating just a little. But he wanted to seem helpful. “If you can front me a little cash, pretty
soon we might be able to cut SoCal Gas & Electric out of your balance sheet
completely. With respect to the music,
anyway…”
Bertram smiled a sharp-edged smile. It seemed like he had figured out where Art
fit into his business universe. “Okay,
Mr. Art, let’s see what’cha got.” He saw
that Art was still struggling with his heavy satchel. “Set it up on that card table next to the
switchboard there.” He pointed at a small alcove off the main stage, where a
keyboardist or DJ might stand and work, visible to the audience but not
dominating the stage. “We might be able
to use you,” he drew out the “u” as if he were thinking and
planning. “We might be able to use you tonight.”
Art’s pulse pounded in his temples. The offer hit him like a physical blow. He had mixed songs in his mind all week, he
had made the occasional mix disk for his friends, but it’d been years since he’d
actually stood in front of a crowd and said anything public. I think
the last time I addressed a crowd was to read a white paper on asphalt
compaction in front of a local ASCE meeting! The implications seemed to hit him all at
once, that he had embarked spontaneously on something he should have been
practicing furiously for weeks or months.
He licked his dry lips. “Okay,
sir, thanks… it may take me a few
minutes to get into my groove…” Bertram’s lips curled, so before Bertram could
tongue-lash him onto the stage, Art hopped up the platform and chirped, “You
won’t regret this!”
* * *
Bertram stalked back down the warehouse towards
the bar, but he pointed at Art and tapped his own protruding ears, to indicate
he’d be listening. Art hurriedly started
positioning and plugging in his small devices.
He could control the mix from a freeware program on the beat-up
first-gen tablet computer that he’d bought used from a co-worker, but he
couldn’t make it work wirelessly yet.
He’d have to stand there on stage, behind the card table, plugged in to
his mixer. He threw the equalizer’s “ON”
switch, holding his breath, hoping his first impression wouldn’t be a crackle
of static from the club speakers. So far
so good! Art queued up a trippy
synthesizer number from Gato Blanko, a solo artist based here in Silverlake who
was just on the edge of his first big record deal. It was eerie enough music to command
attention, yet at least a few people in the audience were guaranteed to
recognize it. He figured that’d be a
good way to start off a DJ set…
Working his way through a list of his favorite
House mixes, he could spare little motion except to rock his knees in time with
the music, nod and clutch an earphone to his ear contemplatively, like he had
seen other professional DJ’s do in the past.
Well, stage presence would have to come after Art had spent a little
time on stage. He hadn’t even had time
to think of a stage name yet! He was too
busy watching for the reactions of the stagehands, who were adjusting the
club’s lighting, moving drink tables and setting up decorations. These
people must be pretty jaded to music, he surmised, so if I can get even a little reaction out of them, I’ll be doing well! As Art tracked a Reggae back-beat from Dub
Nation into a Rock song from Big Provider, he thought he was rewarded with a
few toe-taps and head nods from the stagehands – not directed at him, but
accepted into their work tasks, a sign that Art’s selection of mixes was
penetrating their subconscious. After
twenty minutes that seemed to Art like a lonely eternity, up on stage in front
of an empty dance hall with people who weren’t directly paying attention to
him, Art brought his short set to a close with a very danceable song from
Planting Seeds. The final chorus faded
into a screaming guitar solo that didn’t belong in the original, yet
reverberated off it nicely (the final solo was taken from an old surf group
calling themselves Man… Or Astro-Man?)
In his mind, that last number brought
thunderous applause from the dancers – and then he opened his eyes to the dark
and empty club again. My God, I hope I didn’t embarrass myself too
much, he gulped, and wiped sweat off his brow. A couple of the stagehands actually looked
right at him and nodded – which did a lot to ease the butterflies in his
stomach. But Bertram walked back from
the bar, clapping slowly, neatly and pointedly in that manner that somehow
suggests sarcasm. “Okay, kid, you’ve
convinced me.”
Art looked at him quizzically. Bertram’s somewhat condescending body
language didn’t match what ought to be great news. “No really, kid –” the term seemed to take in
Art’s novice status, as the manager probably wasn’t more than a few years older
than Art himself. Art risked a return
smile.
“So you want to start me?” Art wondered, barely
believing his luck. Then the words
tumbled out of his mouth, he could hardly stop them. “You want to start me maybe on an off night,
like a Wednesday or something? Until
maybe I build up a following?” He hoped
he wasn’t negotiating away too much of his position before bargaining even
really started.
“Screw Wednesday,” the manager spat. “We can use you tonight.”
“Really?” All the blood seemed to leave Art’s
head and he felt dizzy. He tried to
visualize whether he had a better shirt at home he could change into; the
sweat-stains on this one must be visible!
“Tonight?” was all he could stammer.
“Tonight,” nodded Bertram confidently. “I want you to leave your equipment right
there. The other acts will set up in
front of you on the stage. But if that
rig of yours is working right now, I ain’t gonna move it until the night’s
over. Leave everything there and we’ll
call you.” The manager gave him a final
nod and turned smartly, heading back into the storeroom.
Art still hadn’t processed the fact that his
first attempt at a non-office job had met with such success. Tonight,
he thought. Tonight! A Friday night? All those other DJ’s must be big names. Friday has got to be one of their biggest
days!
He’d been sweating so much that he was
thirsty. He stumbled up to the bar, hoping
there might be a drink ticket, or at least a tab, for performers. “Could I get a fizzy water, please?” A mineral water was going to taste like
success! One week a City water employee,
the next week successful enough to spend money on water from a bottle instead
of a jug or a tap.“Tenner,” the barman grunted, breaking one off
from a six-pack. The bar was still
setting up, the mineral water hadn’t been in ice long enough to be properly
cold, and the bartenders worked frantically as opening time drew closer. “I can’t stamp your wristband for that, by
the way, I can only do that for alcohol.”
Art grudgingly dug a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet.He sat at the bar, a little disappointed that
no breaks seemed to be forthcoming for performers. An old saying leapt to mind unbidden, There is no honor among thieves, and he
mused that many performers counted themselves as charlatans or deceivers of one
form or another. If he was up on that
stage tonight, that’s what he’d sure feel like!
The stage became a bustle of activity, as
several people of different ages started setting up the other DJ’s equipment in
front of Art’s. These days, everybody
had hard drives or portable computers of one sort or another, a motley mix of
equipment and manufacturers. Art was old
enough to remember when DJs achieved their scratch effects and mixed songs
together with twin turntables. But
nobody had put out a new vinyl LP in several years by now, not for the sort of
dance music that was popular among young students. Finally the main doors cracked open, spilling
cold air and fading dusk light into the club.
As the first clubbers entered, expensive shoes clacking on the concrete
floor, the house lights and the sound system came on in a big tidal wave. Indistinct tracks of music blurred together
and the lights were meant to dazzle, not help people navigate the club. The room was pitch dark except for roving
spotlights that illuminated anyone moving in a harsh circle of white; apparently the dozens of small spotlights
were rigged to automated motion detectors.
When Art searched for the mens’ room, he found the effect hindered his
night vision rather than helped it; that
seemed to be the express purpose.
* * *
As the club filled up and Art’s watch ticked
towards 9:30, DJ Downtrodden appeared out of nowhere on the stage and burst
into a set of cheerful melodic pop songs, seemingly chosen as
ice-breakers.
They got people swaying and nodding, but didn’t
demand too much from the audience yet.
Their attentions were still focused on conversation and Art couldn’t
help eavesdropping on a few of them. Art
felt self-conscious, obviously not part of their social circle, nursing a
twenty-five dollar Rum & Cola on a barstool in the background. But as the club got more crowded, he simply
had nowhere to turn where he wasn’t hearing somebody’s conversation.
“My Civics 260 paper is supposed to be a
privatization plan for a government service that’s been cut recently, but all
the easy ones have been –”
“I was hoping to upgrade to a Ferrari but mom
says she won’t co-sign for an import –”
“Fake leather is soooo last year… the animal-rights people are much more worried
this year about estrogen mimics from plastics in the food chain, so killing a
few cows just isn’t –”
…it was like he was paging through his news
headlines again, back at home on his computer.
The news on the wire was what these people, and their parents, chatted
about over drinks; and vice versa. It
was quite some contrast, to hear this stuff while his stomach was still
rumbling from such a light dinner. It
was quite some contrast to DJ Downtrodden, up on the stage, who appeared to be
a homeless bum taken right off the streets.
He had five-o’clock shadow that looked from this distance like it was leftover
from 5:00 on Thursday; his clothes were torn and oil-stained, and he had
unhealthy-looking blotches on his face and one arm. But he was up there, smiling at the crowd and
rhythmically punching his mixer board, half-dancing as he moved, grinning for
all the world like a schoolkid on vacation at the beach. Did this guy even have two coins to jingle
together in his pocket? How much did the
Bootstrapper Lounge pay its DJs, anyway?
The soundman, hidden somewhere in a control
booth, announced that the audience should welcome a “new artist, debuting at
the Bootstrapper tonight just for your pleasure…” and Art’s heart leapt to his
mouth. He almost sprayed out a swallow
of his drink to make room for it. He
didn’t even have a stage name yet! Would
they announce him as “DJ Art”? Maybe
next time, would “Art of DJ” be a good name?
But the soundman continued, “…welcome DJ
Revenant!”
DJ Revenant began his set. He was dressed as some sort of spook or a
ghost, in a tattered one-piece robe with a pointed hood that concealed most of
his face, all but the mouth. The robe
was gray and rough, as if he’d rolled in charcoal right before coming on
stage. His mouth and arms, when he
reached out to manipulate his electronic equipment, were so pale white that
they must be shaved and pasted with makeup.
They practically glowed green, like a Halloween vampire. Was the previous DJ’s skin condition also
makeup?
Art nursed his second Rum & Cola and crept
around the edge of the room, back against the wall, trying to look like he was
just taking a break from dancing with a dozen people.
Listening to some more of the conversations,
Art had started to think of these young people as “Trust Fundamentalists”. The conversations during this second set
seemed more like religious incantations to evoke long-dead deities.
“…Teacher wants us to calculate the Greenspan
breakeven point for Federal Interest Rate versus employment given inflation at
twelve percent…”
He adjusted his tie, setting his half-full
drink down on a table. At least some other DJs wore ties, didn’t
they? As a sarcastic fashion
statement? A waitress speedwalked past
him and took his half-finished drink off the table, headed back to the bar,
dumped the liquid into a sink and started washing the glass. Art was flabbergasted, and then almost
slapped himself to realize that he’d forgotten to get a wristband stamp for
that second drink. Huh, just as well it got dumped.
He’d have to order another one anyway, to meet the two-drink minimum, and
he didn’t want to be too drunk when he played his set.
He finished adjusting his tie and nervously
checked his watch. It was 11:29PM. To himself, he wondered whether the headline
act would be the one that went on now, before midnight, or the one after
midnight, when some of the patrons would probably be going home or switching
clubs anyway? “Club Bootstrapper! Would you please welcome…” intoned the
invisible soundman, and Art’s face brightened as he faced the stage. “…from Portland, Oregon -- DJ Wastrel!”
True to his stage name, this performer walked
out lackadaisically onto the platform, a baseball cap pulled low over most of
his face, wearing worn flannel, a T-shirt, and sweat pants, like a frat boy who
had slept in his clothes. But he was too
old to be a frat boy… he looked to be about Art’s age. He sauntered over to Art’s mixer setup, while
the house music was still blaring. DJ
Wastrel then scratched his privates like he was just rolling out of bed, and
started fiddling with Art’s equipment.
Art almost spit out his replacement drink,
again. He looked around for somebody to
protest to, but recognized no one. Bertram
was nowhere to be seen, and even the bartenders had changed shifts since he’d
asked that first one for a fizzy water. He
had assumed Bertram would ask permission to use his equipment if there happened
to be a brownout tonight, but there was no brownout – the house speakers were
still going strong – and nobody had asked him anything. While Art hyperventilated for a moment, DJ
Wastrel had already recognized Art’s song-mixing program and selected two songs
from Art’s hard drive. Damn, Art stewed. Now I
have to remember to scratch that Gato Blanko song off of my playlist when I go
on, he muttered to himself sullenly.
He didn’t see what other recourse he had left, but to sit and observe. Maybe Wastrel had had some problem with his
own equipment. Maybe this was just usual
procedure for a touring performer who had travelled all the way from Oregon.
DJ Wastrel skimmed through a set of currently
popular dance songs, and all Art could do was remark to himself that the guy
lacked Art’s musical breadth, (although he did manage to strike two more of the
most popular groups from off of Art’s own playlist). Wastrel seemed to receive the thunderous
applause that Art had daydreamed for himself four hours ago, when Art was on
stage. Art hoped Wastrel hadn’t used it all
up.
* * *
The house music faded to nothing and the crowd
began murmuring softly, anticipating the final performer. Art’s throat went dry, but even if he wasn’t
afraid of getting drunk, Art had run out of cash completely and couldn’t afford
another drink anyway.
“…And now,” boomed the soundman in his lowest
voice.
The crowd murmur went up a notch.
“…For the final performer of the evening,”
Art neatened his collar and tie again.
“…For the first time playing at the Bootstrapper
Lounge,”
He reviewed the new songs he’d have to try out
because Wastrel had taken three away from him.
“…please welcome,”
Art took a few, hesitant, nervous baby steps
away from the bar and in the direction of the stage.
“…please give it up for… DJ …”
Spotlights played across Art’s face, then
quickly moved around to the dancers near Art before concentrating on the alcove
corner of the stage.
“…DJ Deportee!”
Art’s breath whooshed out in a long gust, and
he calmly about-faced and replaced his rear end on the barstool he’d occupied a
moment before.
DJ Deportee took the stage, waving and nodding
to the cheers of the crowd. He was a
tall black man, made that much taller by the comically large Rasta rainbow knit
cap he wore, which failed to contain a dozen dreadlocks that were four- to
five-feet long. The dreads trailed
behind him. Like the others, his baggy
clothes looked like they hadn’t seen a washing machine in many weeks. Unsurprisingly, he took his place behind
Art’s bank of electronics and had figured out where the song list was, within
about two heartbeats. Suddenly a strong
smell of, to put it politely, sensimilla wafted through the whole club. It was such a deliberate and quick change
that Art knew it must have been incense sticks (or the like) placed in front of
the aircon vents on cue.
Art half-swiveled to the bartender and asked,
over the roar of the crowd’s applause, “Is there another act after this one?”
“Nope!” the bartender was mixing drinks and
didn’t even face him. “Noise
regulations. Show ends at 1:30 and the
cops will be all over us if you can’t hear a pin drop by 1:45.”
“Can you give me an icewater?” Art asked forlornly
– soft enough that the young man had to look up at him.
“Yeah, I’m not supposed to,” replied the
barkeep equally softly, “but at least you were a tipper. Not like those grinks out there,” he shook
his head towards the well-dressed dance floor crowd. “Here ya go.”
“LAST CALL!!” shouted all the bartenders in
unison. Sucking on an ice cube, Art had
to admit that DJ Deportee knew his stuff.
He mixed some overlooked Reggae gems from Art’s collection with popular
Rock chart-toppers to produce an energetic sound, yet with the hard edge taken
off by the mellow African beats.
Finally Deportee’s set ended, a few minutes
after 1:30, to raucous applause from the crowd. The DJ took a nearby mike to thank the crowd,
but he’d only gotten out one word “—thank – “…
…before the still-invisible sound man stepped
on Deportee’s toes. “THANK YOU ALL FOR
COMING OUT TONIGHT,” the deep voice boomed from the house speakers. Art was sure it was audible even in the
restrooms, and DJ Deportee knew a dismissal when he heard one. He vanished behind the stage. Meanwhile, a line of treelike bouncers had
formed in front of the bar, pushing Art gently but implacably from off his
barstool as they closed ranks. “We hope
you have enjoyed our first DJ Dance quadruple-header,” the soundman
continued. The line of bouncers advanced
a couple of steps, herding people towards the exit. “Be sure and come back in a week when DJ
Deportee will make a second appearance!
Meanwhile, we ask out of consideration for our neighbors, that you put
down your drinks and make your way quietly to the front entrance…”
Art loped a couple of steps towards the stage
and started up the platform steps, heading towards the alcove with his
electronic equipment. Fast as lightning,
the balding muscular bouncer from this afternoon had stepped up from behind
Art, blocked his path, set a meaty hand on Art’s shoulder and was starting to
spin him around. “Just whatinell do you
think yer doin’?” the man groused, mostly a rhetorical question.
“But that’s my gear up there! On the table,” protested Art. “You remember, searching my bag?”
The bouncer seemed to remember no such
thing. “Look kid, that equipment belongs
to the club. Open mike night is the last
Tuesday of the month.” Art noted that
the bouncer actually had a night-stick, and his hand, once off Art’s shoulder,
was moving towards its holster. Art
started back a step from pure surprise. Didn’t know this was such a rough place,
that the bouncers are actually armed…?
he wondered. The big man all but
frog-marched Art down the platform steps.
“But…” Art pleaded again; however, once on the
dance floor, he was swept up with the crowd of exiting patrons flowing out
towards the door. He had to move with
them or fall and be trampled. He pointed
above the younger kids’ shoulders at his equipment in the alcove, and the
bouncer pointed menacingly right back at him, gesturing towards the door. Before he knew it, a stunned Art was standing
on the curb, surrounded by chatty USC students, most lighting up cigarettes or
drinking from flasks. Several seemed to
be waiting for valet attendants to bring their cars around from some secret
parking spot out of sight.
Art felt on the verge of collapsing to sit on
the curb and put his face in his hands.
But he knew if he did that, it would feel too much like a defeat.
This
isn’t over, he swore to himself.
It couldn’t be over. That was half his entertainment system,
sitting on the card table back inside. He’d
bought that stuff over a period of years; it would take him years again to
squirrel away the spare cash until he could afford replacements.
The police might be on their way to eliminate
the public noise nuisance, for all Art knew, but he suddenly realized he
couldn’t bring this up to the police even if they arrived immediately.
There were so many people selling
black-market movies and audio disks on every street corner, that the City
police had started chasing “Intellectual Property” violations. The first thing the police would do in a case
like this, where there was music involved, would be to confiscate Art’s hard
drive (and any other drives they could find inside the club). They’d scan Art’s drive for licenses, discover
that half of his music came from pirate sources, and then whoever wished to
claim the hard drive would be subject to multiple thousands of dollars’ worth
of copyright-violation fines.
Art had heard rumors that the reason they
prioritized I.P. crimes above others nowadays, was because the police were now
cash-strapped – after losing a century-long immunity to the budget cuts that
plagued all the other public agencies. The
R.I.A.A. (the Record Industry) was giving them a piece of the fines collected,
like a commission. Art didn’t want to
believe that things had gotten quite so bad as that yet – but he certainly
didn’t want to put the whole idea to the test.
It was time to retreat to his cave, lick his wounds, and try to ignore
the loss of half his entertainment system.
But it won’t end here, he
thought. Tomorrow it’s a different day, he swore.
# # #
Thanks for listening and following the story of Art Chupke, and we’ll
meet you back here – whenever Justin and I can put together the next chapter!
This story has been produced with a Creative Commons Attribution
Non-Commercial No Derivatives License, which is legalelse to say please
download it, copy it and give it to all your friends. The police won’t even charge you a fine! But don’t change this recording, don’t take
our names off of it, and don’t charge for it.
As if.
Until next time, all we’re going to ask is to think about what you’re
going to do when the Apocalypse comes to _your_ basement. See you then.
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