Apologies.
On two counts. The lateness of posting this episode & the screw-up with the actual broadcast thereof.
Jesus. I turn my back for ONE day & all manner of shades of shit come falling from the sky.
Let me explain…
I, one half of, am currently in San Francisco (Downtown SF, to be precise, & hoo boy - t’aint nothing like what they shows in them films) at the start of a 3 week gad about the four corners of the USof.
All last week TWoTH & I busted our collective nutsack to get pre-records of TWR recorded & filed in time for my departure for the month long of June. We averaged 2hrs sleep a night for the whole as we pissed about obtaining permissions, recorded the shows (re-recorded when one was entirely wiped off the face of the earth when the over-heating computer - which had been on & working 3 days straight - crashed & refused to blink back into life for 4 hours thereafter), edited the shows, transferred shows from one format to another, & then ftp’d them to the station’s live archive. On top of that we had Proper Job to keep us occupied & I had to arrange & schedule this 3week USof jaunt. Exhausting is not the fucking word. Exhausted is.
However, yesterday, Wednesday, all that stressing was small potatoes compared to the joy I experienced at broadcast time for the first of the pre-records.
The shitty little hotel I was staying at didn’t have strong enough internet access (yes, that’s right - in 2008!), so any access at all to the worldwideinterweb was intermitent to say the very, very, very. Thererfore, tuning in to ErrorFM’s live stream was impossible because it cut out as soon as it began. $30 that cost me & I couldn’t get a refund, no matter how Krakatoa I got on the hotel’s ass.
When I did finally manage to catch a portion of the stream, TWR wasn’t on. This was 10.05pm. So I logged into ErrorFM’s chat to have a word with the controller/programmer to see what the problem was. He wasn’t around. Logged into chat, yes. Around? No. Not until 10.49pm, by which point I was getting furious with the situation as the connection was getting worse & I was barely able to send & receive messages. So when he did finally turn up & express an ‘aghh!’, as a way of garnering sympathy for the lack of TWR, I was in no mood to accept his explanation that the script he had written to auto-select & play the pre-record in the station on-line archive had a glitch in it. He than started the show late, seriously bumping the schedule to shit.
Now, when this ‘auto-play’ idea was first suggested by him I expressed concerns that (a) it wouldn’t work & (b) he wouldn’t be around to fix it. I was assured 100% nothing of the sort would happen. But, of course, we now know different.
I was so furious (a mixture of genuine exhaustion & frustration) with the pisspoor excuse I received for his, & by proxy ErrorFM’s, tardiness (”It’s stressfull here”!!!), I sent a message to the owner of the station expressing my serious disappointment & advised that, following the last pre-record to air (July 2nd: Drunk Covers VII, The Waitsing Room II - a 3hr Tom Waits cover special) I was calling it quits.
This is not the first time the station has fucked me around. I am not one to grumble. I have a solid chin & soak up the blows & get on with it. But, man. This is taking the piss. I (as well as the co-hosts) work my fucking bollocks off doing TWR - for nothing. We don’t get paid. We do all our own publicity, we do all our own networking & media whoring. We don’t have to do this, but we do. We do it because we love the music. We do it because we think you need to hear the music. That some people listen, download, comment, etc. is reward enough.
But.
After 6 days straight of preparing pre-records to ensure the schedule is full, (i.e. making it easier for them so they don’t have to find things to fill the slot), for the programmer to then be so slack like that is just too disrespectful.
I’m too tired to care right now.
By the way, the show in question was a corker for music. We both, on the other hand, were a little knackered.
Get ‘em while you can.
½DC + TWoTH (in absentia)
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I was wondering what went wrong, don’t let the A Holes get you down, once you get some rest it will all look better, we love ya, tuck yourself in , have something cheeky yet familiar and wait for the storm to pass. Thanks for the hard work, let us know what we can do.
talk soon HH
Wait, wait, wait–we review you guys (positively), and a week later you’re done?
Is it something we said?
The Reviewers
HH - Cheers for your kind email & comment, man. Yep, I am aware that by the time I get home the heat will have simmered down & all this may well be a vent for the sake of release.
TR - It was your positive review that tipped us over the edge. Our egos became so bloated it’s little wonder that a little prick spunked our patience up a wall.
:o)
Actually guys, last night I had an exchange with the station owner & even though the apology was a little piss-thin I’ve agreed to look at all this in the cold light of the UK when I’m back home.
Also, last night I saw the San Fransico band “Or, The Whale” & was reminded why music is such a delirious joy. So, you know, we’ll see.