#294 - John Huntington

0:01 My brain is exploding. Just had John Huntington on for episode 294 and God, that guy has a lot of information in his brain. And so fun podcast. We talked about photography, we talked about school, we talked about theater, we talked about music, we talked about AI. Of course, we talked about so many different things and it's two hours. There's a lot, ton of information and I think you'll find it valuable. So please enjoy. And if you don't enjoy it, tell Sarah, don't tell me. Well, hello and thank you for coming in here today to join me for Geese of Gear episode #294.

0:46 This episode is brought to you by AVL Media Group. AVL is one of the leading distributors of professional audio, video and lighting equipment in North America. Please take a moment and watch the following video with me. AVL Media Group is an award-winning distribution company that has been established for over 25 years as a trusted brand in the professional audio, video and lighting markets. Our new state-of-the-art facility includes a beautiful showroom space that is available for demonstrations, training and special events. This grants us the opportunity to share our knowledge and provide a unique hands on experience to all our clients.

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2:27 Gear Source continues to evolve the platform for huge global growth, enabling localized currencies, payments held in escrow to protect buyers and sellers, AI powered logistics behind a new global logistics brand which is called Gear Moves, and more. The company has just released massive new features including gear sync and the ability to manage up to 400 listings at once. Plus Need Zone, an automated shopping assistant for hard to find items. And there's some big stuff coming soon too. I will tell you. Take full control over your gear with a visit to gearsource.com today. Hello and thanks for coming.

3:39 Appreciate you being here. And just because I will forget at the end, Please remember to like and subscribe and comment and share and all of those things because it is you and those actions that help us to grow this podcast. We're very appreciative not only to our sponsors, but to you, our listeners. So please like, subscribe, share these podcasts. And The funny thing is it's amazing when I find out how many people there are out there that we haven't reached yet. I talked to people constantly and I see people forward the podcast constantly to someone else who hadn't heard it. And actually today's guest, which I'll tell you about in a few minutes, is one of those people. He somebody shared the podcast with him and said, hey, you might want to check this out.

4:29 You'll know some of these people that are on it and he said he's been on a binge ever since. He's listened to every episode, has enjoyed most of them and it's probably entire entirely sick of my voice. So this podcast today might push him over the limit and he may say I never want to hear geese of gear again. I don't think so. I think we're going to have a great talk today. So as I talked to you, Nam just happened last weekend and with that the Parnelli's. And so one of the cool things is the Parnelli Awards were filled with geezers, guests, former guests on our show, including the MC and host himself, Marshall Bissette. Marshall was a guest on Geez of Gear and hopefully will be again because I really like the guy and I think he's got an incredible story and he's a good storyteller and just a nice guy. So yeah, Marshall was the MC.

5:25 I think he took a shot at humor a few times and I don't know if he passed or failed. Maybe you guys can comment and let me know. One of the show's good friends and also my own good friends, Cosmo Wilson, of course, the the deserved and incredible recipient of so many awards. But he got the, I believe Lighting Director of the Year for his work on ACDC, Very cool. And of course his his acceptance speech, which I've seen through Cosmos Socials and you can see it if you go on his Facebook or Instagram. But he was very grateful, thanked all the right people. And he's such a humble, great guy and that's why he has so many friends. And one of my favourites was John Featherstone accepting again a very deserved Lighting Designer of the Year award. But he was far, far out of town and outside of the country with his great client and good friend Hans Zimmer, who did a pretty funny thing.

6:30 They put a skit together, the two of them and Hans was pretending that he was John Featherstone accepting the award. And again, go check that out on on John Featherstone's Facebook page. It's it's really funny and well worth the watch. But congratulations, John. One of the industry's most talented, but also most incredibly humble and and kind individuals. Just a super kind person, former leading ladies guest and a good friend of my, I won't call her my Co host because she hosts another part of our podcast called Leading ladies. But Sarah, our producer is good friends with Colleen Wittenberg and Colleen got video director of the year. That's a huge, huge accomplishment and congratulations to Colleen.

7:20 Again, from what I'm told, and I don't know you very well except for what I heard on this podcast, but supposedly very well deserved and, and you're a great person and all of that stuff. So congratulations to you Roy Bickel, who officially has never been on the podcast, but will be soon and but was part of the Dining with dinosaurs thing. Roy won the visionary award and you know, Speaking of visionaries, he's one of the originals being the godfather of of rock'n'roll rigging. And so congratulations to Roy and but also I think upstaging one for trucking company, company of the year, as I think they're they win almost every year. They're like a write in on that one. And so yeah, lots and lots of other companies who were very friendly with but maybe haven't been guests on our show yet. But Sarah, get on it.

8:17 Look at that list and find those people that haven't been on yet. And congratulations to everyone. You know, honestly, my personal feelings aside towards some of the management or ownership of the company, I think that these guys do a great job of putting on the Parnelli's every year. It really has become one of the, if not the sort of pinnacle awards show for our industry. And so I'm grateful for the work and effort that they put on and and for the product that they've built. However, I do have a disagreement with the fact that it's at Nam and so do most of the people who go to it. I heard from probably 20 people prior to the Parnelli's.

8:58 I can't believe we have to go here every year. It's so stupid. You know, Nam is not our show. And as much fun as it is to walk around and say hello to artists you know or people you might know that don't really have a lot to do with what you're doing, I just think there's a harder business case to be made for being at Nam. When you're in our industry, whether you're a sound or lighting company or certainly if you're a production manager, a manager, a lighting designer, you know, there's just less and less reasons to be at Nam. I know that Nam have worked very hard to try to bring the lighting community into it and the professional sound community into it where where I think they've had a little better success, but it's just not our show. And the other thing is it's almost like music. Mesa in, in Europe has always been where we're a small part of the show and you got to deal with a huge audience, very difficult to get hotel rooms, expensive rental cars, tough flights, all of that stuff to be at that show versus like LDI or Infocom specifically LDIISE the shows where they are very much our shows, you know, they're, we're their target audience. And those are the shows where I, I think we should have these types of events.

10:25 So I know there's some, I believe personal feelings between PLS NS owner founder and or not PLSN. Yeah, PLSN who, who own the Parnelli Awards. But there's, there's some animosity there, I guess you would call it, or issues between him and LDI. I'd love to see that worked out. And I'd like to see the Parnelli's back at LD. I, I think that's where it belongs. That way I can go to it 'cause I'm not going to go to Nam just to go to the Parnelli's. And, and I think a lot more other people in the industry would like to go as well. So yeah, that's just my personal feeling. Other people can comment on your own, I guess. And my one AI thing today that I wanted to talk about is, is, as I record this very recent news is a Chinese company called Deep, say Deep Seek has started up. They actually started a couple years ago, I think, but they've just really launched in a pretty big way and launched their latest product.

11:37 They are an AI competitor to like the Chat GPTS and Grocs and Clod and all the other companies out there. And apparently it works very well. I haven't used it. I've used it in the background on products like Perplexity, but I haven't used it directly. Like I haven't gone on to their app and and got the look and feel of it all. But their claim to fame is basically that they use roughly 85 or 90% less processing power. And if you've been paying attention to AI, the biggest cost, the biggest challenge, the biggest growth inhibitor is the processing, the compute power. And so they're roughly 90% less compute to do the same thing. So basically they can, in layman's terms, they can do the same thing as ChatGPT, but at roughly, you know, 7080% less cost, 90% less compute power, which also means they're not competing with other companies over this compute. And so that is remarkable.

12:52 And that's obviously probably going to be the tipping point for a bit of a revolution on how things are done in AI. I'm guessing there's some IP there and it'll be hard for other companies to copy, but I'm sure that other companies are now going to have to become as efficient as them. This is going to to be one of those those moments that matters when it comes to wow. That was the point where AI got a lot cheaper and a lot easier was when this company, deep, deep seek came out with their product. And so the immediate impact is that my wonderful shares in NVIDIA dropped by 17% virtually instantly.

13:37 And some predict that it's going to tank that that stock could do much, much worse. And by the way, I'm not giving stock advice, so don't buy or sell based on anything. I'm telling you. I'm just an idiot talking shit. But my stock did drop. I don't own a lot of it. I don't own a lot of any stock. I'm just not a stock guy. But the stock price did drop and it dropped based on the fact that, you know, NVIDIA has been basically ramping up all their production and their ability to build more and more of these devices to power a much larger footprint for these AI companies. And all of these AI companies, Google and, and open AI, ChatGPT and Claude, and all of these businesses really have been investing massively in infrastructure, which now they may not need, or at least they don't need 80% or 85% of it potentially, you know, if, if this continues going down this path.

14:37 So we'll see. But it's, it's a very big thing to watch this deep seek. What a terrible name. It's hard for Americans to say. Maybe maybe in China where this company comes from, it's easier to say but I keep wanting to say deep fake or deep sake or deep stuff but not deep seek. Sorry I got a bit of a allergy thing going today so you're going to hear me sniffle a bit. So anyways, it's a big deal and and we should all be paying attention. And as a funny side note, I asked ChatGPT specifically. This is exactly what I asked. What is deep Seek and why is everyone freaking out? And so I'm using the paid model of ChatGPT. I'm not using a free 1 and I'm using A1, which is their latest. And so the response that it gave me back and I took a screenshot because it's crazy, is that it thought for 17 seconds. And the answer that it finally gave me was, I don't know. And this is crazy because Perplexity, which is one of the competitors to ChatGPT, gave me a very long, very thorough response telling me exactly who Deepseek was, the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. And so I don't know if this has to do with bias or with the fact that maybe ChatGPT is getting

16:08 their ass kicked a little bit right now by this new competitor. They're just a little hostile about it. I don't know what it was, but I used Perplexity. I got a very long answer. Apparently Perplexity also has a partnership with Deep Seek, where Deep Seek is one of the AI models that feeds it with its responses. And but interesting, definitely something that I found to be pretty interesting. I'm guessing that by the end of today, that will be different. And so if you go on ChatGPT and search the same thing, you might get a much better result than I did, but that's what I got. So anyway, today's guest, John Huntington is an entertainment technology expert, educator, author, and photographer with over three decades of experience in show control, sound, and networking systems. Holding an MFA from Yale School of Drama and ABFA from Ithaca College, he's worked as a tenured professor at NYC College of Technology, systems engineer for major productions, and consultant on projects like Blue Man Group and Nike Town. A prolific author, his books include show networks and Control systems, which I did look into, and industry staples. Now a professor emeritus, which I probably say wrong because I've never been 1, he continues to shape the field through consulting, writing, and photography. So this guy's smart is what I get from all of that, but also very interesting.

17:41 I looked into a lot of his stuff, his his photography sites, his just a lot of his stuff. And this guy's done some incredible things. So I'm, I'm pretty, pretty excited to welcome John Huntington to the podcast. John, how are you? Good, thanks so much for having me on. Happy Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? Well, I I've lost track. Sarah just changed up our recording schedule. It used to be Wednesdays and Thursdays. Now it's Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So it completely screws up my whole week. I don't even know where I'm at. I appreciate you, you coming on and doing this. So you're, you're one of the few people that I, I didn't know prior to this and I always really enjoy sort of getting to know someone as I'm doing the podcast as opposed to I already know all of your, where all your bodies are buried and stuff.

18:34 And, and you're just coming on to confess to the rest of the world. So yeah, this, this is going to be interesting. And, and, you know, just reviewing, first of all, so everyone knows John sent us an e-mail a month ago or so and just hold us a whole big long story in this e-mail and, and shared some books with us and all kinds of stuff that he'd done. And then he says, by the way, I for the podcast to be a guest, I nominate me. And, and so that got Sarah's attention and they got into conversation. And so here we are. I'm glad, glad you were able to to come on and do this. Yeah. And I figured we must have met at some point because the I remember you telling and somehow I missed this whole podcast during the pundit very pandemic. Yeah, but I remember you telling a story about that. I think it was the Martin party with Casey and the Sunshine Band.

19:26 Yeah. And I think I was working for LDI or Lighting Dimensions back then. I, I remember being at that party and I just went around that. I think you must have come to Production Arts when I was working there too. So yeah, yeah, I, well, actually, you know, news flash, Mr. Steve Terry's coming on very soon too, so we've been talking about him coming on and doing it, so that should be fun as well. I, I've always just had such a high degree of respect for that company, not only because they were one of the original like call it integrators or whatever, but just because of how well they did everything they did, you know? I think everybody I work sadly, Sky Mike Way just passed away recently, but he was younger than one. He's a little bit older than me, I guess. But everybody from the group that I, I worked there in some time in the 90s for a few years and every single person I think I work with in that group is still in the industry somewhere. And that's cool.

20:22 And that was, you know, Steve and John McGraw that ran that place. And I worked in Steve's group. Yeah, yeah, it was an amazing place to work. And I also, I think I was lucky both there and my whole career. I think I was lucky in just being in the industry at a time where there's like a lot of cool stuff happening and. Just, you know, well and you know, again, going through your pictures and stuff, the evolution that you've seen in all kinds of different things, which we'll talk about, but but you know, back to production arts, like just I remember the very first time I went, there was probably 92 or three or something and just looking around in the white spotless floors and and you know, just like the place seemed more like a medical lab than than a lighting shop.

21:07 You know it was. Must have been in the New Jersey office. And I was. Yeah. 11th Ave. It wasn't. No, I started working at what is still in Manhattan. Yeah. And 11th Ave. At a it wasn't spotless that I mean it was very well kept, but it's just an old building which of course later got turned into a data center like now I think it's a luxury apartments or something. Now, this was maybe even later, like maybe 9495, probably not long before they were acquired. And it was spotless. Like it literally was probably the cleanest shop I had ever been in. And just, you know how intense that company was about just everything being so good to hear cats very active on your desk.

21:49 I. Know she and we woke her up from her nap. So oh. Oh, well, shame on us. Yeah. You know, how dare we do a podcast? And then we love her nap. So yeah. I mean, I don't even know where to start with you. You've done so many things, it's wild. So you, you you went to college? Yeah, yeah. And I think I, I, well, I started because my first concert was Led Zeppelin. And the, that was my dream as a kid that was to go on tour with, you know, the band like that. And it's funny that in my high school, you had to do like a senior project. And I wrote to Shoko and I was, wanted to be an intern there. And I got a rejection letter.

22:30 I was, you know, 16 or whatever. And then years later, I posted that on Facebook. And the woman who signed the letter was actually on Facebook. And now she's like my friend. She's retired somewhere in Florida. But yeah, it's just funny. Small world. And in those days that was, you know, theatre school was only options. So I went to Ithaca College and did a lot of interesting stuff. I don't know, I can just, I can just keep going. If you want to go. Yeah, go. And the when we and we just had a really interesting group where we were, I think we went to it was my first USITT and I'm terrible at dates, so I'm probably going to get these wrong. But like 1984 a bunch of us drove down to Orlando from Ithaca and, you know, did the usual college student thing, but that was like the first time. Like we brought back all this information about theater safety and tried pigment pain and electrical stuff. And, and we, and I remember the, it's just that like just to kind of talk about the time that was there, like I set up a tour, there was NCR cash register factory across from the school and I set up a tour to go look at their CAD system, which was like $100,000, you know, thing with like a light pen and all that kind of stuff.

23:40 Yeah, and that's. We, we, you know, that we didn't have any of that stuff, but we were starting to see it and then we did a bunch of special effects stuff and then on our while we're in school like we did and looking back like it just amazing. We didn't all kill ourselves the the insane things that we did. And then we went on a senior college trip here to New York. And I've been in New York now 3035 years and saw Sunday in the Park with George and we kind of talked our way that which had this Chrome loom in it, which was lasers and Bran, Bran Ferran who I ended up working for. I think he's probably right. He says that's the first image mapping. It was on film. So you can't call it like video mapping because they did all those pre rendered stuff and projected on the sphere and it was pretty crazy. And we kind of like, you know, talk somehow got past the prop guy, you know, mopping the stage after the show. And I wrote down the phone number on the chroma loom and started calling them up like every week. And I'm like, I want to work for, I want to work for you. And I always just tell my students a story. Like I literally had one more week until graduation and they kept like, yeah, kid, whatever.

24:47 And then the last week they're like, can you Weld? And in those days I was a decent welder and I'm like, yeah. And I'm like. And so there was a whole lot of stuff that just happened at the shop and I'm like, can they're like, can you start tomorrow? And I'm like, well, I graduate Saturday. How about Monday? So hilarious. I started there and then I ended up working on with with brand Fair and the company was called Associates and Farren back in those days. Yeah. And we and just, it was just a crazy time. It's really the end of the mechanical effects here. And like I went to the myth Buster shop years later and talked to Jamie Hyneman about like, did you ever hear this place called Socies apparent? He's like, Oh yeah, I applied there. They didn't, they didn't hire me. So it's. Like that's wild. We were in that world because I was watching that show. I was like, that's what our shop was like.

25:28 Yeah. And, and Brandon was just an amazing guy, just the more genius that I've ever been around in my life since then. He seemed to have done some incredible stuff. Just looking through the what you provided to me, he did some incredible stuff and for you to have been a part of that was was pretty cool. Yeah, I was really just a kid with a soldering iron, you know, willing to go anywhere and work 20 hours a day and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And I was just hired as a welder. And I eventually I just went back and I went back at lunchtime every day and talked to the controls people. And then they were like, eventually we worked in this movie called the Manhattan Project. And I actually in as an extra operating a laser.

26:10 And then when that wound up, there was a bunch of layoffs. And I ended up the guy who was laying everybody off. He was gone and I was still there and I stayed there for a few years and got to do Little Shop of Horrors, the other big feature film. Did a bunch of feature films and then we built film timecode control film projectors for Pink Floyd and Rodger Waters and Rush, all these people and doing all that. And again, I'm, you know, I wasn't, I ended up like learning a lot about the control systems and stuff. And that's basically like that kind of thing is what I've been doing one version of that, you know, since then. Yeah. And but yeah, it was a crazy time. And we just, I'm very fortunate. We just got to work on all this incredible stuff. Yeah.

26:54 Do you mind if I share some of these pictures? Oh sure, because I find them to be pretty incredible people. Listening on audio won't know what's. Up No, people listening on audio won't know much about what we're what we're looking at here. But hang on a SEC. Let me just get control over what I'm looking at here. Not that. OK where'd that go? I can't get a hold of the page. That's interesting. One second. So yeah, I just wanted to poke around at a few of these pictures because there's some some incredible stuff here on John's visual resume.

27:47 So if if anyone wants to actually go to this page and look at this stuff, the web, the URL is Control Group control geek.net/visual Dash Resume and so tell us some of this stuff. So this home lighting system first is is kind of interesting. Yeah. So in the, I grew up in a really small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which is it's still pretty isolated. I mean, it's obviously a much different world today. But I like I said, I saw Led Zeppelin and I wanted to do that. And I just sort of like, you know, my mother was, was getting a master's degree from the University of Maryland across the Bay. And I would go over there to the bookstore and like, buy the, you know, the two books that were available. And then I just kind of figured it out. He ended up really, again, all this stuff is incredibly dangerous now, but I end up I made my own little lighting system for my brother's bands and stuff. We would play at the Firehouse now was showed the little set up in our garage there Yeah I just the one thing I'll point out there's three flash pots on the bottom that were run on line voltage which anybody that knows they should be horrified by and I was like 1514.

28:55 I know what I was doing. Well, you know what's really. Funny, John, you were just a much smarter version of me because I had the exact same flash pots, Yeah, that were line voltage as well. And we used a little like a high beam switch from a car like back in the 70s when we had high beam switches, we used a high beam switch as the trigger. And I had a very similar, but not as sexy control box as yours, like almost identical to be perfectly honest, and made-up of switchers. And I think same thing. We had like 1 dimmer. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's hilarious how similar this is to what my first lighting rig was.

29:40 But I just say in the. Flash spots. Being in the east shore of Maryland, we couldn't get any real pyro stuff, but you could easily get black powder. So. So we used to, yeah. It's like just shooting on. Black powder and these things. And it was in the Luckily we did the, you know, the dances my brother was playing out and stuff. We're in the volunteer Firehouse, so if we set the thing on fire, which we luckily did, it's hilarious. They would have just come upstairs and, you know, put it out. But, well, it's kind of funny that. They let you do it. Oh. You know, the 70s, like, everyone's just excited. Nobody really knew any better, I think. Yeah, Yeah. Now, you know, kids today you could buy all this for 100 bucks on Amazon. Yeah. And then the the next photo you have up is the the my first day on the job at Association Baron. I thought, yeah, the brand for some reason had a surplus electron microscope in the trailer, so yeah, of. Course.

30:30 Brand bought all this stuff at Los Alamos. So this movie, the Manhattan Project, was about a kid. And again, you wouldn't make this, you know, post 911, but it's about a kid who makes a nuclear bomb and brings it to a science fair. It's actually a pretty fun movie. So he went to Los Alamos and bought all the surplus, you know, non radioactive, you know, stuff. And that's what became the set. So we would just Weld it into the set. So like, oh, an electron microscope. That's what it is, Yeah. I mean, all of this stuff, it's just like, what the heck, Yeah, you had. No idea what you were. Photographing back then, I mean, or I guess you did. But Fast forward to now. It's like, whoa, yeah. All.

31:11 Of it's a much just I don't. Know and I've written I'm we can talk about this eventually but in 2019 I wrote a couple articles about how the industry is really kind of matured and you know in these days really nobody knew what they're doing so it's like this is 1980 mid 1980s so yeah, if you're going to make a set you just Weld it up out of steel in the backyard. This is on East Hampton, Long Island, which is a crazy place to have a scene, you know, special effects scene shop. But that's where brand grew up, so. I mean, so many incredible pictures in here, but people can go through it on their own because like you said, this isn't so good on radio. But one of the ones I wanted to get to here, I mean, some of these are just incredible. Like this. This touring film projector blows my mind. Yeah.

31:58 And so this was. What's what's being pictured here is it's AI. Think that's just, I don't remember if that was 70mm or 65 or 35. But yeah. So brand and the team there, they they wanted to put, you know, there was no video projector in those days was just like how terrible it's going to be. But film projector is pretty good. It was, again, that was a mature technology. So he took like a, you know, a big, you know, professional film projector out of movie theater, but then put it in a frame that actually he took a truck Air cat, not air casters. What's it called? The air ride cylinders like you put on a tractor trailer and mounted the projector on those. And the thing actually in the basement had a air compressor. And what you would do is you'd when at the end of the night, the end of the show, you deflate these things. They the projector would lower down onto these little airbags, right?

32:52 And then riding the truck that way. And then when you get to the next venue, you run the compressor, you pump it back up because it needs to be stable. And they survived. Yeah, and I, I. Was on tour with one of these once for an Elvis show, and it went, there was an argument with the electrician and the the whole projector went off the dance floor. The truck, people remember what that was like. Wow. That's like a foot off. The thing just fell down because the guy pulled out of the dock and it was fine. You know, things were a little rounded up. Yeah. And then one of the ones I read. Yeah. This. One here was it was Pink Floyd 65 millimetre. So 65 is what you shoot and 70 millimetres is the with the the soundtrack on the outside. So that's what's presented, but actually shoots 65.

33:35 Yeah. So and then the things to a couple of things that he did was very innovative was one, these were all synchronized so you could have multiple rejectors. And in those days, I was sorry, I'm looking, I just saw a control panel that I built looking at this is like 40 years ago now. So in those days you would actually just use synchronous motors and you just line up all the film to the same like a tab on the on the gate of the projector and then you press go and you run them off the same three phase AC drive and then they all come up together. You just can't go too fast. And that way they would stay synchronized. Wow. And then so you could do multiple projectors that way, all frame locked. And then on top of that, then they figured out a way to make these chase time code.

34:17 So they initially put the time code on the film and then that there's a lot of it's audience are like wow and flutter in the projector because you have this intermittent and the film is kind of blasting around. So as a time code source, it's not great, but they so they figured out, I mean, everybody tried that because you're just sticking on the optical track of the film and then the audio would be like, you know, it's quite right. So so that didn't work. So you had to do it the other way around. And they figured out how to do that was on an IBM luggable PC and that thing had like a 7000 Watt xenon lamp in it. And to get those going, that's DC, the lamp voltage of the xenon lamp. But to get it going is like a super high voltage thing to break the arc down.

35:00 When we would strike the lamp, the computer would just reboot itself, even if it was like 50 feet away. So that's wild. But inside the projector. Is actually APLC program a logic controller and that thing didn't care that would just run forever. And that's how I that was the first things I was programming like but you draw the ladder logic out on a yellow pad and then type it in like assembler. That is wild. That's wild. The other one that really blew my mind was, you know, and I I was there for this one. Like it, it wasn't that long ago, but was all this Treasure Island stuff. Yeah. Because I remember when that hotel opens, like, you know, I was probably there for an LDI show or I think I might have sold some lighting to it or something.

35:46 I can't remember. But. But yeah, I remember when this opened. And you look at the pictures now and it's just so long ago, you know everything. Looks. Different. Oh yeah, and you show my picture now looking. Down the strip, like it's kind of hard to believe, but yeah, just to fill in the gap. So I was at Associates and Farren for three years and then I left there and I went to Yale Drama School because I thought I want to be a production manager. Yeah. And it turned out I didn't want to be. Ended up doing a lot of sound stuff and continue to control things and then I my first job, the 1990 I first job in New York was at theatre crafts and lighting dimensions as a technical editor. I think it's the only job I ever got with a resume my entire career with Pam McKay and Ellen Lampert, who you interviewed. I I learned a lot about her and hers. Yeah.

36:32 That I was there for a few years. And that was a great job because you can just call up anybody and talk to them about like, oh, what is this thing, you know? And, and then after that, so one of the people that was an advisor on my thesis from Yale was Steve Terry, who you just mentioned. And then Steve's like, hey, we got a position for you and ended up going out there. And so. Yeah. And then for Treasure Island, that's when they thought that the Vegas thought that they would make it family friendly. So they basically built like a theme park attraction on the front of the hotel. And it was a It's on. You can I think I have a it's on my I found a YouTube video and it's on my blog somewhere that the show cause back in those, you know, the people you have to get a video camera you can just get on your phone. Yeah.

37:14 I think it was David Hersey was the lighting designer for it. I don't remember yeah. And so we so production has got the contract for the whole lighting system. And then I did the the show control part of it. And I was also like, you know, was the one of the few installation people like hanging upside down soldering XLR connectors for DMX and stuff like that. But that was run on an Amiga Richmond sound design. What was the name of their software stage manager? And again, that would take time code in it would spit out. Is that a copulate animator? I think that we use on that? That was an ETC console, but it was spit out taking safety time code and then spit out MIDI to the console to sync it up with the soundtrack. Yeah.

38:00 And then that show went every what, 15 minutes? Thirty minutes? There was a lot of. Flame in it and it was very expensive to run so they I think by the end well it ended up sort of fizzling out but it ran like 4 * a night or something. Oh OK. Because it was a big production that had stunt people in it. And then if you saw the right performance, one of the like high divers was on fire and things like that. So so it was just a simple story like these pirate ship which was sails around the corner. They have this big battle and the British sea captain voice with Steve Wynn, the owner of the casino. I didn't know that. Yeah, you can hear him on the. Video. It's not a great, he's not a great voice performer, but he owned the joints. So.

38:42 Yeah. And then that was a that was show tech, I think we were subcontracted to. And then that was like they went bankrupt in the middle of the thing. So this was in those days. I think they built these projects by getting somebody, you know, bankrupting them during the show. Yeah, construction. And they pay off everybody at, you know, $0.60 on a dollar. And that was their sort of discount program for you, I think, like. Right after it opened. This was probably 92. I was, I was in Vegas with my now ex-wife and proposing to her and I came up with this whole scheme where I rented a limousine and picked her up at the airport because I was there on business and right as the volcano was erupting.

39:39 Or was that Mirage who? Had the volcano yeah, that was a mirage. She went also, but. Yeah, that's Mirage. That too. Oh. That was a mirage, not the Treasure Island. Yeah, Mirage is the one that I I proposed to her right as the volcano was erupting, which really kind of was a preview of our marriage. Oh, no, yeah. But and it's crazy, but it's it's hard for people you. Go to Vegas now. It's hard to understand The Mirage. That volcano is getting torn out now, right? So it's hard to understand. Like Treasure Islands, gone. Like or being gone. They haven't imploded it yet, have they? I don't remember. No, I think it's the last. Time I was there that the attraction. So it was Buccaneer Bay for 2-3 years or something. Then it became the Sirens of TI, which was just horrendous. Like, yeah, show designed by committee with, you know, it's just awful, but they had all this stuff. Let's do it exactly and then the. Last time I saw it, it was like a Walgreens and a Senior Frogs was the yeah, that's what I saw.

40:36 Yeah, but it's getting, it's getting gone and it's going to be the Hard Rock. Oh, OK, the. Guitar Hotel. It's been a year. It's going. In there. Yeah. OK. So that's happening fairly soon, I believe. And I was actually there. While we were building that thing, they they imploded the dunes. So I have some very blurry photos of that thing going on. We watched from the roof of Treasure Island. So yeah, well and the recent. One was the Trop, right? And they had the the drone show with the pyro on the drones and stuff. That was a pretty cool implosion show. Yeah. It's so wild to see those buildings coming down like that. They're so controlled, like it's controlled violence in a sense, you know, because they're literally blowing up the entire building, but they do it in a way that none of it leaves that little square of property. You know, it's, it's pretty wild. So, so we moved very fast there.

41:31 You got out of school and all of a sudden you're building frigging pirate shows and stuff. One thing I was wondering is did you ever wonder how different your career would look had Shoko said yes to that 16 year old starry eyed kid? Would be a rock'n'roll guy. Well, that's one of the things. In that process, so and when I was in college, we had touring concerts come through and so we had like Huey Lewis and Hall and Oates. And it was funny because this was this is 1983 or 4. And I would get, I was kid pushing Rd. boxes, you know, But it's just, I just think fascinating to see the standard of production has gotten so much higher that like, there was number railing on the stage for the Hall and Oats show, and Oats fell off in the middle of the show. Yeah.

42:15 So you just hear this, like playing. Yeah. Yeah. And I was you. Know the sound. Guys like, oh, the whole crew thought they were getting fired that night, you know, the whole thing. Yeah. But I, I was around that a lot. And I just realized that, you know, I, I just didn't, I didn't enjoy drugs as much as I would have needed to, to go on the road in those days. Yeah. And it just, and I'm, I'm also not like my brain is, is I really love solving technical problems, but I, I'm terrible at running shows because I just not don't have a memory for like sequences of things. And so those two things like that kept me off the road, I think in the end. But I ended up I would like to mention. Just for, for young kids listening to this now because we're we're battling such a perception problem in the, in the concert touring world where that is still prevalent and it's not just not the case at all. Yeah, the drugs.

43:07 And drugs and partying and stuff have definitely, I wouldn't say completely 100% disappeared, but for the most part it's become much more corporate. And you know, the, the perception I think still among many people is that it's just a, a drug infested party gypsy showdown, you know, and it's just a gypsy life, right? And it's just not true. Like now it's a really great career going on the road with these tours, you know, with great companies that are now, you know, $100 million plus companies and stuff. So it's become much more serious. I don't know if you still would have made the same decision had it been right now going in and looking at it and going, yeah, like, would it still be too messy for you or no, I think.

43:56 That I had, so I jump ahead a little bit, but I taught at this college for almost 25 years and I had a lot of students that went into all different types of touring in it. No, it's a whole other world now. Yeah. I would recommend it. It's also much, much, much higher tech. Yeah. Because in the 80s it was really kind of cowboy stuff in terms of the technology. Yeah. And now you, you know, the people on the road, it's like the the problems you have to solve and the level tech, you know, technology and stuff. It's, you know, it's way beyond that. So I think it's a much more interesting job in that way now. Yeah, that's a, that's a good. Point though, is that like I think in the past, most real products from real manufacturers were designed for theater, and most rock'n'roll stuff was either adapted from theater or built in somebody'd garage.

44:47 And I think now that's changed a lot. And now because theaters keep product for so long, you know, I think Rock'n'roll has become much more sort of the the target audience for most of these manufacturers. They're building products to put on to these big mega tours and stuff right when it's a bunch bigger. Market I think the that sort of you know that's huge concert and touring and event stuff is when I wrote the couple articles I. It's been a few years but I ran all the numbers and theater even though theater dominates sort of the educational side and the idea of it the you know the the the money in that industry. I don't know I I'm going to get the number wrong.

45:29 Well, let's say it's 15% of the industry. Yeah, that's changed a lot. Yeah. So I think one of the things, you know, one of the things, again, I feel fortunate have been in this time. But when I was doing these things with Bran Ferran and even at production arts to some extent, we were kind of inventing these things and like these, you know, we build these things and we built these like film projectors. We, you know, Sodom up over the weekend and and send it out and kind of hope it ran. And then over the years, like a lot. And some of the things we did back then, like we had Bran had figured out a way to take a whole bunch of photo big photo studio strobes and make lightning, simulate lightning. And we would do that. And now that's just oh, it's just a strobe, this picture and it's done. So there's so many things that in that period from, you know, 80s and in the article I argued about 2010 is when this like big maturity point happened.

46:21 Yeah. Where nothing there's, there's certainly innovation continues. But, you know, you look at the show between in the article I talk about from, you know, The Beatles and Shea Stadium to 2010, if you look at that evolution, it's insane. You look at a show, you know, and then maybe not the Top End, Taylor Swift or whatever, but if you look at a standard show from today in 2010 to the audience perspective, it looks pretty much the same. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's more of the same, but you're right, I think two 2010 I would say is definitely sort of a maturity point where fixtures had prisms and framing shutters and you know, different control protocols and all this stuff.

47:02 And, and plus, especially with the advent of the LED light engine, you know, when you when you reduce the heat in those fixtures, you suffered so many less problems. The fixtures became so much more reliable. And I think that reliability crossover was really a significant one because you know, if you look back to the earliest verilites where you had to have the curtains up and, and people constantly working on them, even during the show and stuff to now where you know, you hardly ever have to pull a fixture down out of the rig and replace it. It's stuff is just extremely reliable, you know, as unless it actually gets dropped on the floor or something, right, But so you know, I mean, you have an interesting life slash career in that it seems like you've literally covered most of the disciplines, like literally theater, architecture.

47:58 You did some touring, you know, really like teaching photography, film, television. Like you've pretty much done it all right. Yeah, I've been. And I think part of that, I think it's fortunate to come into the industry when I did and pray if you're really like me as a sort of I, you're in the 80s sometime I took these aptitude tests because working at brands, I was sort of like, what's my specialty? I'm working on all these like genius specialists and I'm like, what's my specialty took these aptitude tests like, well, you're a generalist. Like that's what you do. And so in those days, I think it's still true to an extent kind of way. Your resume says yeah, you are a generalist.

48:42 And in those days. You could kind of flip around between the various things a little more and I think I my brain, I'm more of a sound person than anything else. But in when sound was all analog, like I just struggled with understanding it to like a deep level. And then I just got very lucky because when everything went digital, like that came into alignment with the way my mind works. And that was just for some of the older analog kind of wiring, you know, brain wiring people. But for me, it moved into where I am. So I would say in these days, I mean the last, you know, couple decades, I I still around a lot of different things, but I couldn't program a lighting console today. You know, I really could. I mean, I could learn it, but I I haven't, you know, once Gran MA came out and we had that in my school and I looked at I'm like, OK, And then I never sat down and learned it well, and that's me.

49:29 I mean, certainly I'm the same with a grand MA, but more so with, with lighting or with audio. You know, I'm the exact opposite with audio. Like I, I grew up playing in bands and, and I could walk around to the sound craft. I think it was called an SR20 four or something, the 24 channel basic sound craft, rectangular, boring looking console and with a little meter bridge on it, you know, and and I could make a band sound good, but today I wouldn't even know how to turn a console on. And I don't understand Dante and I don't understand all the plug insurance and you know, where's the rack of Eqs and and reverbs and stuff. Oh, well, no, you don't need all that. That's, you know, that's a new plug in or whatever, you know, and I don't get it like A and yeah, but I would say that. The, you know, like a sound console functionally is still, with a few exceptions, is still pretty much the same as it was in the 80s.

50:23 Or maybe not the 80s, but the 90s. It's just that now it's all on a touch screen and buried inside the thing, which is a lot simpler in terms of signal flow and all that. Yeah, you're not inserting 100, you know, compressors on everything. And so, yeah, so many, many benefits to it. But but there has been, and this is not true, I guess in lighting as well, but in audio and video, there's been this big kind of structural change when we went networking or everything went network because it used to be that you could walk up to an analog sound console. And actually this is true in lighting back in the zero to 10 Volt days. And you could put your hand on a wire and trace it out and go, oh, this goes over here, It goes to that thing.

51:05 This is where it goes. Yeah. And then now with networking, we've like decoupled the signal flow from the physical, physical topology. So now you just plug it all in. It goes to. It's funny, I have network switches sitting behind me. Yeah. You plug in a network switch and then the signal flow is all virtual inside the system. Yeah. And that's been something I saw that, you know, I was teaching through that transition. And I can see, you know, the students, even the ones that never had the analog background, struggle with that as well. So that's a new kind of paradigm. Yeah. I think if somebody, you know, you could learn it. I mean I could I could learn a grand M8, but it's so there's it does a lot more than it used to with like a 2 scene preset or you know, but I think a sound console is still taking something and you know, putting some EQ on it. To me it's a whole.

51:51 Different thing, like it's just the whole everything about the whole universe is different. But you know, you mentioned about all the networking and do you know Chris Chalk, Chris Chalky Chalk television film like the guy, he's Australian and he does most of his work in LA. So it doesn't surprise me you wouldn't know him. But he's become somewhat of a networking expert on on lighting controls. And he's a programmer for for movies for the most part. But he said as time went on and networking became a thing, people were just lost, you know, television and and movie people were just lost on, on, you know, because like you said, you used to just follow a cable and go, well, that goes to that light and that's broken.

52:36 And that's what I need to change. But now it's, you know, it's a little bit more complicated. Yeah, it's it's abstract. Now. And so he teaches. All kinds of classes to you know, the union guys out there and stuff because you know they don't understand until they learn right all this networking stuff. So, and it's funny because I. Remember, because I, you know, I came out of theatre school and had worked on some, you know, concerts and I did sound in the pub at school and things like that. And then I went like my, you know, first job working with Bran was on these feature films. And these guys back then in the 80s, like they, there was one where they, I can't remember which one it was, but they had a very, very simple lighting console, probably Electro controls or something like that ended up on the feature film set every all these guys were terrified of it like that. The idea of a queue is like, oh, well, you know, not putting a screen in front of this because obviously they had power temperature issues.

53:31 But but yeah, it was kind of crazy. And now, like I have friends who are, you know, lighting experts here that make money doing crazy moving like rings for, you know, films, even though you might it might not be a concert scene or something. It's just they build that. Well, it's very much an. Expertise that that I don't think everyone has out there you know and like Chris was telling me you know there's like 5 top guys and all the biggest movies are after these five top and these guys are just like hog programmers you know they're it's not even the toughest console for the most part yes some of these movies are using MA consoles now and stuff but you know from from a standpoint of what's going on in concert lighting Oh yeah you know it's crazy out there like you know the expertise levels of some of these computer operator guys that are now running consoles it's wild it's wild it's A and that's what.

54:25 It's a real specialty. Now. There's people, I mean, I have friends that that's what they do. They're moving like programmers. They do all kinds of, you know, big events in New York and that's their their whole career and it's great. But it's that's like, I wouldn't have, you know, I said I'm a generalist. So I, I always sort of, you know, I'm interested in lots of different things. So which is my downfall in some ways, but that that whole. Program or being able to make a living. Like I remember exactly when that switch flipped. It was basically the Hog 2 when the Hog 2 launched in whatever it was 94 or 95. I guess it was. But when the Hog 2 came out, all of a sudden all these like club kids were getting 250 a day right to to program hog twos.

55:08 And it just became they became the most sought after people period. Like the people were lining up for their services. And I know guys now who are in their late 50s who did very, very well at that time, you know, and just that turned into a career, a very good career, you know, And now there's the whole. EDM world with just the most insane program you'll ever see wow see these things on Instagram and like wow it's so I mean that's probably where the cutting edge is these days they're the ones pushing them yeah, I think you're. Probably right. Like they seem to be the largest rigs, the most integrated use of video and lighting together.

55:52 And yeah, I think you're, you're probably right. I mean, although you look at some of the country tours now, like it's insane the size of these rigs. You know, you, it's really country and, and rock music and pop music are all using the same rig now. Basically it's all 1000 moving lights and just loads and loads and loads of gear. And I think we've seen. That yeah, these articles, that's all on my website, people interested. But the, you know, we saw even when I was in doing these feature films in the 80s, they were using twecos for power, which was this welding connector was not rated for the right voltage and had an exposed screw on it. So if you didn't tape over the thing, you'd just get shocked. I remember a movie called Critical Condition on Governor's Island here in New York and I'm running this big lightning rig and I had like 1000 amp three phase generator powering my lightning rig and I'd go to jump on the scaffold for this thing and I was getting blasted.

56:55 And so the guy, the film electrician, I told him. So he went over and he got like a little piece of metal steak and I like a zip cord with two clips on. And that was his ground for the thing. Jesus. And I, that was where it's good to know about electricity because I would just jump onto, I wouldn't, I would never be part of the circuit. I would jump from the ground onto the thing and I was happy to get off of that, but. I mean these days. All these things. Concert, touring, film, the TV production, it's all the powers, all pretty much standardized. Yeah. And then I think the other fascinating part is the, like, virtual production stuff where you see, you know, the video walls have gone back from live performance into the virtual production stuff where they're just driving with a gaming engine.

57:37 And they put some, you know, sensors on the camera to give it the modeling input. And it's, I look back, you know, it's the same kind of ideas. We were doing the 80s, but we had none of this horsepower, you know? Yeah. But it's all kind of come together in that way. Yeah, It it. Really is incredible and that's again, it's one of the things I point to when when we're talking to younger people who are considering whether or not, you know, they want to be in this part of the industry. And again, you look at the technology that's out there and the amount of it and the size of these shows and stuff there's nowhere else you're going to get access to that kind of stuff. There just isn't and I think I I'm. Sort of jumping around the timeline here, but when I was at production arts in the 90s, I I wrote the 1st edition of my book, which back then was the with that's online on my website for free.

58:25 Is kind of hilarious to look back at it. What is your website by the? Way 'cause you keep oh sorry, referring to it control geek dot. Net control, just search my name. That's you'll find me the but yeah. And there so that, you know, the first book back in the 90s anyway, that was much more about like, you know, pin level stuff on DMX and MIDI was in there and there was a couple pages on networking and stuff like that. And then that's evolved now that I, that became this monster 400 page book that, you know, it became just kind of out of control where I renamed it to show networks and control systems.

59:05 And then during the pandemic, I was thinking about this for a long time, but I extracted out the networking part of the book into a separate book called introduction to show networking. And the, the idea that, and the reason for is exactly what you're talking about is the one thing that that that's common and all this stuff. And I think I would argue there's three things actually, but one thing that's common across all these fields now is networking. So you don't really need to know, you know, the what's, you know, the 7th bit of the MIDI message anymore because you can Google that if you need it. But it is helpful to know what an IP address is and how the networks work. And so I think there's three sort of technologies that are universal across all these fields now.

59:46 Networking for data, Ethernet basically for data control, which is not the case in the 90s and 80s, we, you know, Ethernet existed, but there's other contenders. They're all gone now. Yeah. And then I think power is standardized pretty much across everything. I mean, even our, you know, Lex products sells up to the military. So it's like the same thing. And then rigging, like those three things have standardized. And I think those are also the anything you would do in the future if you're going to invent the, the thing I always use for what's the sort of disruptive technology be like the Princess Leia projector from Star Wars, which never existed. It was an optical effect. But if you're going to build one of those, you need to rig it safely, you need to give it power, certainly, and you'd give it data how you do that Ethernet.

1:00:30 So that's why these things. So if you learn any of those three things, I think the techniques and, you know, between the industries are a little bit different, but you know, like we have two rigging tests and stuff like that. But you know, per theater and rigging and, but all those things, I was, I, I helped write the certification exam for the electrical stuff and, and we sat in a room with Broadway electricians and film guys from California and Canada and stuff like that. And it's all the same. You know, that's where I first heard about like land parties and things like that, where you hear these like crazy things, but it's still a bunch of Cam locks and some Transformers and a bunch of cable and that stuff is pretty much standardized.

1:01:10 So I do think I don't know if somebody be able to bounce around as much as I did. But if you're interested and you learn any of these things, I think you, you know, you have to figure out your way into it because it's all much bigger than it was. Yeah. But it's also like, you know, when I I talked about my first USIDT in 1984, there was nobody hiring there. Like if you wanted to work for Cirque de Soleil or whatever, you'd have, well, they didn't exist back then, but the, you know, those kind of organizations weren't there. And now they recruit the USITT and the all of them have tables. Yeah, all of them have tables at the, at the trade shows even, you know, solo tech and PRG and some of the big, some of the big rental houses and stuff have, have HR tables at these trade shows. But yeah, I mean, you're right about so many of those things. And you know, again, like you being the generalist that you are, you, you went to school, you did a bunch of stuff and then you decided I, I need to go teach people how to do all this stuff.

1:02:12 Is that how that went or am I missing about 27 steps in there? Yeah, I think the the. Process Well, what happened along in there? It's funny because like over the years, I can't count how many editions of the books I've done, but I I'm down to I have two two books now that I think are good for a while, but none of that stuff was taught to me in either school and it wasn't their fault. And I have a lot I could talk to you in another two hours about education, but the and the issues there, but is it is the general. Issue in education. Just that it takes them a long time to understand what the real world actually needs. No, it's. Just so there's no money. Is that what it is always?

1:02:53 Yeah cuz you have it seems like on all topics. They're always a bit behind, you know? It's like that's the nature of any. Bureaucracy, but yeah, but you have a lot of very smart well meaning people in there like in and it's used to be I mean I taught at a public college that just the button basically I mean I already retired because it just. I frustrated and fighting it, yeah. And it at all levels of the school with very well meaning people and my colleagues are great. The students were awesome. But I just like I'm like, you know, I don't have kids. I've been saving money. I don't need to fight this thing anymore. Fortunately, it's getting a little better in terms of that, but but it just feels like to me and I might be. Wrong And, and you would obviously be more passionate about this too, but I've always felt because, you know, I, I left school early and became a business person and I hire people who come through colleges and, and all of that stuff.

1:03:43 But whether it's business or marketing or any kind of technology or whatever it is, it feels like people are coming out prepared for something that happened two years ago, but not for what's happening today, right. That's certainly an. Issue because just the nature of academia is it's like a it's a bureaucracy. So yeah, there's nothing. And that with a bigger problem. And I wrote an article about this 17 years ago. The, I mean, again, the school I was at was not like this. So this was City Tech in, in Brooklyn. And there's still my colleague. They replaced me. Fortunately. I wasn't sure they would.

1:04:24 Excuse me. No worries. The so that school is in School of Entertainment Technology. So we didn't have any actors or directors in the program. But we're in New York. So you could, you know, we partner with the Bindlstip Circus in there. We have endless, you know, awesome variety performers and I can I can talk about that forever. But the the in the bigger problem is that like most schools that address this this industry are Conservatory theater programs and those. Yeah, again, I wrote about this actually, I, I attacked the Conservatory model for training technical students and then I actually got an award from US ITT for it. So because you know what that tells you though is the people teaching the technical stuff, they know it, but a lot of those schools are run by directors and theatre, academic theatre people, you know, PhDs or whatever that aren't, they look down on a lot of this stuff.

1:05:21 So the technical people are sort of secondary in there and they get pushed aside. But the, but I would say our school, you know, the, the, a bunch of issues with that. The one, a lot of people are like, oh, we want experts in this console or whatever. It's like, well, great #1 give us the console because we can't afford it because the budget's been destroyed #2 you're taking somebody off the street that doesn't know anything. And like, my school was lots of kids who grew up in the city and a lot of like first and 2nd generation immigrants that are really just as passionate as I am. But they didn't have, you know, the, the, the privilege of going to, you know, you know, I went to a boarding school and all these things and be able to just do whatever I wanted. Like these kids, they got a job, they got to do these things. Yeah.

1:06:07 So you have to, they have to, they were just as passionate as I was. But they started with sort of a deficit already. So you have to make up for that in terms of where they're going to get and then try to teach them stuff. And I think was, so we would focus on was those fundamentals like our school was, is still one of the only ones that has a networking class in it because I, I, you know, developed it while I was there. And so I think in those case, but again, the people they, you know, they have to get experience. So you're not going to just step out and have, you know, the amazing people right out of school no matter what you're going to be. Catching up a little bit, yeah, yeah. But there's I think. There's a lot of problems with it. And the big picture is that one, most educational programs are theatre based, where theatres we just talked about as a tiny part of the market. And I, I have a thing on my blog about, you know, there's a lot of snobbery in that world.

1:06:58 They look down on, you know, rock'n'roll and circus stuff and all this other things, even though, yeah, Oh yeah, that's still going on. Yeah. While the meantime, you know and all these schools have hundreds of acting students that are never going to work while you've got you know all these technical students that are all going to go and work the rest of their career in the industry. Yeah do really well. So that's there's a whole lot of problems with. I could it almost, it almost reminds me of. The back to school, Rodney Dangerfield, the whole thing where he gets up and starts yelling at what's his name? The comedian. Oh my God, what's his name? The guy who yells all the time. I'm drawing a blank. I've seen him live a couple times, but anyways, you know, he's yelling.

1:07:42 That's not how it works in the real world. Here's how it goes. And he, he just because he's a business guy, right? So he, he just kind of goes off on how the real economy works And, and it sort of reminds me of a lot of the students that I meet coming out of school. And it's not, this isn't saying that anyone's stupid or they, they're not coming out well educated or whatever. They're very well educated. But there's just that piece that's missing. And it seems to be, like I said, they're, they seem to be aimed at something that happened, not at something that's going to happen, you know, and in our program, we really. Focused on like the fundamentals and like I think our students come out and they used to, you know, they go right to work for a while out of the the companies all around New York and they go on tour and stuff.

1:08:27 So I think, I think we, the problem is in our case, the whole school was just got the budget slashed and we went through, really suffered through COVID and all this. It's very complicated right now with these, these are kids that were in high school during COVID and you know, whatever the issues are with that, that's what they went through. And it's, they got a long big situation to come out of that. But I think, and I just went up last week, up in Poughkeepsie, there's an old kind of legendary rock'n'roll venue up there called the Chance Theatre, which is an old vaudeville house. And unfortunately the guy who ran the club for many years, he and his wife, they both died from COVID and the place kind of went dark after that. But now there's like people in there and I think it's, I'm going to get the name wrong, but I think it's the Empire Arts Academy or something like that.

1:09:14 They're making like a 10 month non profit and entertainment technology training program that I think that kind of thing. And again, I think you can do this now because it's a trade, Yeah. And if you're motivated, you don't need school for a lot of things now. And this is something by. The way this is not by any stretch a a anti school discussion, you know, from me and certainly not from you who's been a professor for years and years and years. But, you know, I think people do need to recognize when they're just there for the party and, and wasting their parents money and their time. You, you need to recognize that and be willing and, and prepared to step away and use that motivation and, and find a better way to do it. And I won't say that's exactly where I was, but I just was looking around going, yeah, this ain't me. And, you know, that was really all that it was. And I wanted to be on the road with a rock band. And that's what I did.

1:10:09 And so. So, yeah, you know, but I mean, certainly when you've got good, smart, passionate teachers like yourself, you know, that's a killer foundation that I think everyone in our industry needs. And but it's a funny industry because the foundation of the industry isn't that. The foundation of the industry is just yahoos who were sitting at a bar and somebody next to him goes, hey, you want a gig? Yeah, that's right. You know, let's go do this thing. You got to wrap up these cables, carry them from here to over here, and I'll pay you 30 bucks, right, You know? Oh, cool. And next thing you know, they're, you know, the lighting designer for The Rolling Stones or whatever, you know, I mean, it's just crazy how careers are made in this industry.

1:10:52 But I would say in the big. Picture I would predict in the next decade, you're going to see a bunch of colleges are going to close because enrollment's declining, funding's getting slashed everywhere. Both. Yeah, and I hear it not just in the public sector, like my school was all publicly funded, which is great because people graduate with no debt and all that. And I also think I wish, I wish Americans would, would do like many people in the world, take a gap year and go do something else. And I agree with that. Work at McDonald's or something? I had a kid so. Much. Oh yeah, I had a. Kid at school that just a great guy and I, I'm not sure what he's doing today, but I know he's successful. But he worked at the Times Square McDonald's for like 2 years when he was getting out of high school and he's like, should I put that on my resume? And I'm like, hell yeah.

1:11:36 Because anybody that knows anything, like if you can survive two years, even if you've never been to the Times Square, McDonald's, you can envision it. And, you know, if you can work through that for a couple years, you, you know, yeah. Like, you're not going to come. You've got tenacity. Yeah, you're not, You're not going to be running to HR four times a day with and there's some kind of small problem. Passionate and you know. I think he's first one in his family, go to college and things like that. Wow, that's. Impressive. I mean, that's the. Heartbreaking things we had hundreds of these kids come through and then it's not our program was never targeted. It's just that they just the program just they've cut and cut and cut and cut to the point where like, you know, how do you function? And again, it's cyclic.

1:12:16 It was at a bottom before COVID. COVID was really miserable for us. And then now it's, it's sort of on the upswing. I just personally, I was too old to like fight that battle anymore. And we got some great people in after me. So I'm, I'm very optimistic for it for the long run, but yeah, it's a different. But I'd. Say it is a very different world in that like I think if you're you you don't I mean it depends on where you want to be but I think you can as if to get a career in this industry and if you again if you're a self motivated self self learner like you may you may not need college anymore right yeah or something like this well, not even just in our. Industry in a lot of industries, like I, I read and, and listen to guys all the time talking about hiring coders outside of colleges. You know, they're not just going to, to all of the usual suspects to get their, their computer coding guys, tech guys and stuff.

1:13:12 You know, they, they'd rather see a piece of code that they wrote and go, yeah, that's good. I want this person on my team. Yeah. But regardless of where they are, industry's always been that. Way it's always been, you know, a, can you get along with people and be a good part of the team and B, can you do the job and then your credentials don't really matter after that. Yeah, I mean other than safety. And you know, I think the certifications we have now I think are very important because those are all, you know, electrical and rigging and stuff is really important. You don't want to be you don't want the Yahoo's doesn't have any background in that, but you don't have to. You know, we taught that stuff in high school, but you don't have to go to college to. But this is all a bit of a a. Reversal though, because I think for for a long time, you know, maybe it's the 90s and the, and the 2000s, you know, that was it Like you get out of high school, you got to go to college, we need a college degree.

1:14:04 If you don't have a degree on your resume, you're not getting hired by any of these companies. And I think that that's been a bit of a reversal now where companies are much more willing to look past your education at who you are as an individual. And that's a good thing. What skills do you actually bring? What character do you bring? I know I do. I've never, I couldn't care less what school you went to or if you went to school, you know, I'm going to read you as a person and what kind of job you can do for me and, and hire you based on that, not based on your credentials. I don't care about your credentials. For me it was this. Is the 80s a very different time? But when I went to grad school, it was three years in grad school and I, my calculation was that was like 10 years in the industry. And when I came out, and I don't know if that's true today, but when I came out, I was working, I worked at production arts with people that had been there for like 5 or 6 years and I'd sort of so that we're, and again, to me that was a great experience. I learned a lot, you know, for that. So again, everybody still depends on the. Individual though, because like some. People could go.

1:15:07 Into production arts and get 10 years of schooling in in six months at production arts, right You know maybe not six months but 18 months or something. You know, because you do go to a point to be trusted before you get out of just wrapping cables. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you'd also. Have to be doing every night, you know, reading stuff, watching whatever. Of course. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I still. I mean, that's the thing to me is I'm still, you know, I'm, I'm still go to like industry events. I mean, I'm, I'm not, you know, at 61, I'm still just as interested in the business. I am. I go see, you know, four or five shows a week, but I'm out shooting my friend's band still, you know, all the stuff. I'm still doing it because that's what I want to do.

1:15:48 Yeah. And that's the path. And I'm still interested. Like I'm going next month to the England to see the ABBA Voyage show, you know about. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that's like that's my vacation. I'm and I'm gonna, then my friend's band's playing over there. I'm gonna go hang out with them and like, that's fun. I could go to the beach. But I'd rather do that, so I mean that that's what I'm interested in. So yeah, good for you. But you know, going back to like the 90s when you started writing books and, and then eventually teaching as well, or I don't know which one of those came first or whatever. But did you just suddenly desire to like, I need to share this knowledge or, or was it just that you burned yourself out on the other stuff? Or like what was the especially writing? Because writing to me is 1 where not very many writers make money off of it.

1:16:40 You know a very small percentage of of writers make money off selling books. So it's more the ability the the mechanism to share knowledge. How did that all come about? Like, was that a, was that just a passion to teach or. Yeah, I think well. A bunch of things happen all at once in there, but the So I said my first job was this in the day. You know, this is 1990. I work with Pat McKay and yeah, theater crafts lady dimensions and with the guy, my colleague was Carl Ruling, who went on to be the ESTA Carl. Yeah, Yeah. He was the. He's still around. He's he's on sort of phasing his way out.

1:17:21 And it's funny. So Aaron, who's now the executive director of ESTA, was one of my students and Carl wanted a like an assistant. So I sent over there and then five years later she's in charge and the whole thing. Wow. Again. There's somebody. I think I hope she finished her. Yeah, she finished her to agree with us. But that's somebody like had been in school and came this thing. And so. Yeah. So I was at the AES show in it was at the Hilton Hotel as to how long, how small it was, this was 1991 or whatever. And somebody from this publisher came around and said, oh, we're looking for book reviewers. And they filled out this form because I had, you know, as technical editor and the, and I guess because I'd written at Yale, you have to write a thesis.

1:18:05 So that's what I think that was the first big document I wrote like that. And then on the form is like, if you're going to write a book, what would it be on? And I wrote show control. And then they contacted me and then that was, I was working again, talking about like, I think passion to the point of burning yourself out. But, you know, while I was working in production arts, I was writing that first edition of the book and then the so that, you know, and just, it was, it was so hot. And then that came out on a publisher. And then I did, and it's the same one. I can't even remember what it's called now. It's been bought out so many times. But I did 3 editions with them and then they didn't really market the third one very well, I think. And, and then they're like, well, you know, I had lined up a sabbatical at school and I was like, well, you know, they're like, well, we don't really want the 4th addition out of this thing. And I'm like, well, we need it.

1:18:57 The industry's changed. And I'm like, I'd always retain a copyright and I'm like, will you give me back the distribution rights? They're like, yeah. So I'm like, OK, so I always say I was like depressed for one day about losing his thing. But then since then, oh man, that was 12 years ago or something. I've been self-publishing it. And that was like the best thing ever. I really don't know. And now I'm not getting rich on it, but I make basically the publisher, you know, you if for royalties you get 10% of the wholesale price. So if you, I can't, if you have a, nobody has a $10 book, but they sell it. If it's a $10 book, they sell it for six. That means you get $0.60 out of it. Yeah. So and self-publishing, you set the price, whatever you want, there's a print cost, then you keep the rest of the money and then you could do anything else like we talked about. I'm happy to do a book giveaway here. I can just do that because it doesn't cost me much to do, right?

1:19:48 Where the publisher you don't have to go pay them publisher, right? Beg them for promotional. Copies or whatever, yeah, but yeah, I mean, to me, I think it's just been and what happened along the line is I it wasn't getting bored, but I'm most happiest when I'm a learning new stuff. And I think, I think I didn't really understand this at the time, but I started teaching full time in about 2000 or something. And I could, what was really happening was the industry was maturing and I wasn't learning as much. And then by, I think by going and teaching full time, which I've always enjoyed doing, I would need, I'd have to learn a lot of these things that are much, you know, like I learned way more about electricity when I had to teach it.

1:20:29 So I mean, personally, selfishly to me, it was like the learning of it and then writing and stuff. I just, I think explaining stuff, it seems to come easily to me. So I just enjoy it. And I'm still doing that now I'm doing networking workshops and stuff like that. And now that way I could do all the teaching without me to deal with the bureaucracy of anything. But yeah, I think I just always, I just always, I always read a lot of stuff and I just thought it'd be cool to write something. And then my mom was a librarian. I think that was factored into it, you know, in terms of the like, just, that was the culture for me. He was always interested in organization and all that stuff. Yeah. That's that's really interesting. And that turned into a how long was your teaching career? 25 years?

1:21:14 Well, yeah. About 2025 full time, 24 full time. But I taught NYU for a while part time and up at Yale for a while part time. So on and off for I, I don't even know how many years, but while on, you know, while the whole time I've still been doing either consulting work or I fell into this niche of like big outdoor sound systems. So I did this Tribeca Film Festival outdoor system for 12 years, I think. And again, we went through the evolution of blind arrays and all that stuff like during that time. But we had like Elton John played on my system and things like that. And we when you say did the system? System design or or front of house? Not front of house engine.

1:21:56 No, I've never been a good. Mixer, it's the same thing about I'm not good at concentrating, but yeah. And it was kind of, but it was fascinating because, you know, we for Film Festival, I didn't even think about it going in. But for Film Festival, you, you know, if you a music concert, if you can't understand the words, it's OK because everybody knows them. But for a film, they you have to understand the dialogue. So my was, you know, as over the years, as the budgets kept getting cut, like lighting would get a little less whatever. I'm like, OK, what do you what section do you not want to hear the the dialogue in the film? They're like, oh, OK, So yeah. And you have to do. It was in a very kind of crazy originally on a pier in Manhattan. And this was like a friend of mine just called up and like, we do this thing.

1:22:40 And I was like, wow, it's a really busy time at school. I don't know. And then eventually I said yes, and I did that. And then I went on to do things for YouTube and all these things. And then now these were all in like really unusual places. That was the interesting part to me. And then they moved it to, you know, radio, so Music Hall, which is like good friends of mine over there and the crew. But the it's, you know, it's, it's sorted. They have it handled. They don't need for that. So I was like. Some things that were like weird. Yeah. And challenging part, yeah, that's just always, that's been the same for everything I do. So today you don't, technically. Have a job? No, you. Just have lots of different. Things that you get involved in, Yeah. You know, I don't know I. Seem to just be doing all the things I was doing when I had a full time job and I'm without the full time job and I'm I'm busy every single day. So that's all I'm doing.

1:23:27 Some do some consulting work for like rational acoustics and helping on their like training programs and stuff like that and a bunch of other things like that. And I still have some articles I want to write just like I have some ideas that I, and I think to me the writing process is a way to like, I have this idea about like, is this the, am I right about this? Is this the thing? And I kind of go work through and talk to a bunch of people well. I definitely need an audio Blogger for, for my gear source site. We're we're constantly asking because we get really great lighting blogs, but we don't get good audio ones. So we'll take your your hand me downs anytime.

1:24:07 So you know, the other thing is photography. So I, I, when I'm going through your pages of information that that Sarah gave me, I saw the photography stuff. And I mean, that was sort of a career for a number of years as well, right? I never. Really, I made, you know, I made a little bit of money on it, but it's, it's just been a passion, I guess more than. And when I was a kid, I was really into, and I think I probably thought about, you know, being a news photographer or something because I tend to like putting myself in kind of chaotic environments and but which is, and so I did that and then, but I that's a career I'm glad I didn't pursue because there is a world like it's impossible to make a living now.

1:24:49 Yeah. That the and. Then after college, I lost darkroom access in the 80s and I kind of drifted away from it. And then in about I think it was 2009, I bought, I bought a couple little digital cameras over the years and I bought my first real serious, you know, DSLR. And then I started just like taking it to my friends shows here in New York and everything. And so I did a lot of that. And then again, there's no money in that. These people aren't, they're not making a living. So there's no pen to paint in that whole world of anything where you get, unless you're, you know, shooting The Beatles or something like those. Yeah, Bob Gruen or whoever. It's funny because I had. Somebody reach out to me this week saying, you know, I love your podcast. I'm currently a photographer for Realtors. I do Realty photography.

1:25:40 Yeah, and also drone stuff and I'm looking to break into your industry. And tell them to run far away. Stay in. Your lane. Yeah, Yeah, I just said stay where you're at. Like, you know, there are a few real mainstay photographers in our industry that seem to do pretty well still, but for the most part, it's just not something that you're gonna real estate and. Weddings, that's the only place to make money and target anymore yeah, it's. True, it's somewhere along in. There I was always interested in in storms and weather. When I was working for Fran Ferren. I went like we had a hurricane hit Long Island when I lived there and I and we had no radar or anything back then. I like drove down to the ocean and just, oh, let's see this thing come in.

1:26:23 Yeah. Your storm picks. Are amazing. Yeah. So that really. That's one of my bigger passions now, about the last 15 years. I go out to the plains every year and chase tornadoes and that's like, I actually find it relaxing in a way because it's so overwhelming. Like it's processing so much information. Like you can't lightning. Strike photos that are hitting the, you know, is it the Empire State Building or they're hitting something? Yeah, all behind me. There's picture. That's the World Trade Center. World Trade Center. That's it. Yeah. World Trade Center. Wow. And that thing it. Scrapes out every storm that pulls out some bolts. Even after the storm's over, you can. So that's a it's not easy to get the shop, but that's like a reliable place to look because otherwise lightning is like impossible to shoot because I have no idea.

1:27:07 But that one actually sold to it. That was in a weather calendar. And but the, that when that gust front came in my, my entire, I have a huge tripod, but the wind was so strong and blew the tripod over and I made like 300 bucks on the photo and the repair for my camera was like 400. So there's no money in it sounds like. Good economic decision, yeah, but I think. And when I finally saw, it took me a long time to like see my first tornado and I sort of thought, oh, I can check that off the list. But then it's like you're then I'm hooked, you know? So now you want to. See more This year I was. Our last year is 9000 miles in like 3 weeks. Wow. That's the most. Dangerous part is just the driving, but well, last.

1:27:49 Last year. So I have a house in Canada and I live in Florida so I'm really a a snowbird now. Basically I'm from Calgary Canada and I have a house in in Banff and I taught AI taught a workshop. At Banff years ago and I what a beautiful spot that is. It is, yeah. So. I have a house out there that I spend the summers and last summer while we were in Canada, our house here in in Palm Beach, FL got hit by a tornado. Yeah, I, I was. Watching that on radar, that's so so but it. Was wild because my son's buddy was driving down the road the there's a pretty main road not like right behind our house by about a half a mile or whatever. And he's driving down this road and he pulls over on the side because he can see a tornado.

1:28:37 And he starts to video it with his iPhone and he sends it to my son and says is not where your dad lives. And my son goes I think so. And he sends it to me in Canada and he's like dad isn't this by the house? And I look at it and I'm watching it over and over again. It's literally hitting our house during this video that this kid recorded. And so we're still dealing with insurance and all this stuff. And then this. I said that was a. Kind of crazy. My I, I didn't go, but my friends were chasing that hurricane and the But that was kind of nutty because that was a real supercell tornado that spun up way, way east of the sorry.

1:29:19 Yeah, east of the storm because the storm barely made landfall. Yeah, the storm was over. On the West, West Coast of Florida at that point, and this was just, there was a string of tornadoes that came through Florida. And I think the worst ones were in Wellington where we happened to live. And it was just a path. And I mean, you can, you can walk, you know, a mile that way behind me and a mile that way in front of me, and you can just follow the path of the storm that came through. And yeah, I mean, we just got to be one of the lucky ones. Basically, it's US1 house on one side of us and three or four houses on the other side of us. And that's it. That's crazy. Everything else is completely untouched. And so we just happened to be in that little path. Now, hopefully nobody was.

1:30:02 Hurt so I don't think my girlfriend. 'S son Son was here and he he thought. His mother had told. Him, you know, go outside and just pull in some planters and stuff so that they don't blow around in the hurricane, even though the Hurricanes far away. Like just pull in some stuff to make sure it doesn't get blown around. And so he goes outside and he sees this thing coming and he runs back in the house and he's on the phone with his mom and he's an adult, but he he'd never been in a storm like that. And he's on the phone and he's like, I think that there's something going on. There's a hurricane coming or something. And then all of a sudden the house is just going. And so he's hiding in the laundry room like down in a little ball. Because we don't have basements in Florida. Yep.

1:30:49 They say put as many walls. Between, yeah, just an interior. Room with no windows. And so he was in the laundry room. And, yeah, so he was scared to death, I mean, for literally like, 20 seconds or something. And then it was over and he walked out and he couldn't believe it. Like, there were trees down all over the yard. Our screen was ripped out. Half our roof was gone, you know, windows blown out, all kinds of stuff. And he was like, like, in this much time, all that stuff happened. So I can understand your appeal, you know. You never like the, the first one I ever saw in Kansas was out. It was a yeah, four out at sunset in a field. Like, that's what you want to see. You don't want to see in the town. Yeah.

1:31:31 This is always something we wrestle with this like the human causes things, but like, we're not doing it. And I think a lot of chasers will go and help, you know, like if you roll up on some damage, you stop chasing and you go, I mean, obviously you don't want to risk yourself or there's more kinds of crazy situations, but right, you know, call things in and there is a lot of we, there's so many chasers out now. Everything's basically live streamed and reported. But the something like, you know, chasing out in the Northeast or in Florida is very difficult. But in the Plains, it's like you can just watch online, which the Weather Service watches 'cause they can't see the bottom of the storm on the radar. So. But yeah, I think we never e-mail you after the. After the podcast, I'll e-mail you the little short video from my my son's buddy of the one that hit our house.

1:32:15 So I saw some. That was unusual because that's like a super cell sort of self-sustaining storm because usually tropical storms, it's like a one band comes in and there's like a quick spin up like that's the typical one. But that was that. That was unusual. That way, it was very the whole thing, everything about that whole was that Helene, I'm sorry, I think they were. Keep them straight. Yeah, Yeah. I think it was Helene because. It went through Florida and then came back around and went into Georgia and North Carolina, Tennessee, all that stuff. Hooked back around and went and kicked some serious butt. So my friends chased that in. Florida, I think it was that when they chased in Florida and then also in South Carolina, the same storm.

1:32:56 Oh wow. Because. That's crazy. Like I can't believe the damage it did in North Carolina. Like I have a friend who built a brand new house on a huge piece of land with like waterfalls on his land. Like just it's a very expensive, I don't know, 10 or 12 acre piece of land or 20 acre, whatever it is. But it's on a mountain and it's just, and his house is still standing, but waterfall's gone. All the bridges and stuff are gone. Like it's, it's a disaster. It's just like my sister lives in. Asheville. So I went, I went like 10 days and we were actually my father's memorial service when that was all going on. He was 101. So he had a good one, but yeah.

1:33:37 And she had a storage unit on the second floor of a like U-Haul facility down by the river. And you know, I'm this weather geek. Like, I never would have thought twice about that. But yeah, the, the water was so high that it, it went through the 2nd floor, like dumped everything out of bins and it was like a total loss and all that stuff. Wow. You know they had no. They when I was there, you had to go to the Creek to get, you know, water in a bucket to dump the toilets out and stuff like that, so. It's sunrise. Yeah, when that stuff. Happens like I've been here. I moved to South Florida in 1991 right before Hurricane Andrew. Oh yeah. And so my very first. Hello, how you doing, you know, with a hurricane was at that time one of the biggest ones that ever hit the United States.

1:34:24 And between the devastation, like we actually had a cop come knock on our door because we lived on the intercoastal. We had a knock, knock on our door saying I'm sorry, but you have to evacuate. And so, you know, we got on the road, drove to Orlando. It took us like 8 hours to do a 2 1/2 hour drive to Orlando. We get there, we sleep like an hour after watching the news and stuff. I think we slept an hour, turned around and drove back. But seeing the devastation and the mess and the fact that we couldn't even get into our building where where we lived and, and then the looting, like, you know, that here's here's this dumb Canadian coming to South Florida and all I could see on the news was people stealing televisions and stuff out of stores. And I'm like, what is going on?

1:35:13 You know, it just felt like total anarchy to me. You know, I've never seen anything like it. So yeah, it's amazing how powerful some of those storms are. It's crazy. I've been in hurricanes, but I'm more like a tornado guy because part of it is that they're relatively small. And then when it's over, you can get out of the way. So you can help if you can, and then get out of the way because if you're in a hurricane zone and now you're there, you're stuck and you can try to get out afterwards like you. Don't you never want to be a? Burden on the system. So, yeah, same, like if it hits some even, you never want to see it hit a town, but tornado hits the town in Nebraska or whatever, you can look for people and then just get out of the way and you're gone. You know, you go stay 100 miles away. Yeah.

1:35:56 Where? Yeah, that's the. But that's, again, we're not. It's not. And I think it's fascinating. It's really the power that's fascinating because these, like, supercell storms are as big as Mount Everest, and you can see them from 100 miles away. And I grew up, you know, you didn't see any stuff where I grew up. No, it's never. The damage you want to see, it's. Just but they're witnessing that the power of these storms, you know? Yeah. It's that's, I think that's. What they're trying to is. There any? Science to why these storms always hit like trailer parks and stuff well, it's. It's kind of the opposite. They hit all lots of places equally, but the those that's a big sort of controversial thing that they, but those things just are not built well and they're not anchored. So you have one.

1:36:39 Storm more damage? Yeah, normal. You know, structured house, then this is also a problem with, you know, if they don't bolt the house down properly that that whole thing can go away. But yeah, mobile home is just a horrendous place to be because in a storm and the these days the more enlightened places, we'll have storm shelters and stuff for the residents. But no, they just don't. They don't hit them more, but their survivability is very low in those trucks. They just always. Seems like, you know, they're the ones that get devastated by. Yeah, as usual. Except. Where people get get screwed the worst in all these situations, yeah. The other thing like so you talk about shooting your friends bands and stuff and and you know, again on your website, I looked at some of that stuff and there was some weird looking bands on there.

1:37:24 Like these are all your friends these weird people. Oh yeah, no, I. I That's like it, yeah, that's the thing. I think that's kept me in New York so long as I hang out with a lot of musicians and circus people and all this kind of stuff. And really? Colorful people. Yeah, Yeah. And I have. There's one, it was just supposed to be last week, but there's this, it got cancelled by the fire department, but the have some friends that build like crazy instruments that are on fire and everything. And there's, I have one picture on there. It's a friend of mine who now plays with Go over at Ella, which is the big contouring act where she has like a fireproof soon on it sets her whole accordion on fire. And the but those got that was supposed to be last weekend, but they got cancelled. But then the good thing is they're actually going to do it again, but do it legally and and do everything properly with the fire department. So that's kind of interesting, actually interesting. But yeah, but.

1:38:13 Again, I like being. It's sort of like managing chaos. I think that's what though, it's like being on a storm where you're, it's kind of, I just find that it's not relaxing, but it makes it interesting where you just have to deal with a lot all at once. And I think when I do that, I can't think of anything else except whatever it is I'm doing. Yeah. Going backwards a little bit so with audio, you know, one of the things that that I actually learned about on the podcast because I got the founder of the company on, but there's a, a brand of line array called PK Sound, which happens to be made in my hometown in Calgary, Canada. And so he invited me into their showroom to to see the product.

1:38:55 And you know, I didn't know what to expect really. I'm not that much of an audio geek, but the system sounded great. And then all of a sudden he goes, now watch this and he says, let's say, you know, suddenly we've got this problem and blah, blah, blah. And the system starts moving and I just went what you know, it's reshaping itself. And, and I was like, get the hell out of here. Like I had this feeling almost like I was standing in the show Co demo room watching lights move for the first time, you know, and you know, so I don't know, do you have any feelings about that? Because I, I tend to get mixed feelings from people when we talk about it. Some people say it's unbelievable, it's cool, but you know, it adds to the price and weight and therefore I don't need it or like 1 front of house engineer said to me, you know, in in 30 years of doing live sound, I've never once needed to move the rig or to drop the rig to to, you know, re whatever. So yeah, he thought it.

1:39:58 Well, it's interesting because that's goes along with the same thing we're talking about like that. I I lived through the sort of through the early days when that. It's funny because lineries have been around since the 40s or 50s. Yeah, but not in the form that we've used them. Really. It was like V dos was the first one that became popular. Yeah. And we had those when I was when the Metron operator, I think, I don't know if I mentioned that, but I worked at the Metron Opera for three years somewhere in there. That's where I got my local one card. And we did Metron Opera in New York for Harmonic Summer Park stores all around the Central Park and all around the city. And so those days we had like an early days of V DOS come through, which is that's a whole other story. But yeah. And then those days though.

1:40:40 So now though, it's a mature thing. And then what's also evolved along with that is a prediction. Technology is very good now. So now most manufacturers, whether it's Meyer has one called Map D MB, I forgot what theirs is called. Acoustics has 1. So if you know the venue, the you shouldn't really need to reconfigure it, reconfigure it while it's being, you know, while it's there. You just have to pin it properly when it goes up. And I think I, I, I saw that many somewhere years ago, I saw that system, but I haven't seen it use that widely. I think mostly because it's just if you do a prediction on the bus in the morning, you know, especially you've been to that venue before, you have, you have the information. Because these days if you know the throw and, and the, the angles and the the geometry, the space, you put it in the your laptop, hit the button and it tells you what the angles are. And then you go out to the stage hands and go, this box is 1°, this is 2°, this is 3°.

1:41:37 Yeah. So I think it's sort of, it's an interesting solution, but it's probably a problem, you know, it's a you're fixing a problem that. Doesn't exist. Yeah, then it makes a. Little more complicated and stuff like that, but I mean their answer. To that is, is that you know if something changes if the the the barricade gets moved three feet further back or three feet closer to the stage for some reason, right and now you don't have any coverage for the first, you know 5 or 6 rows or whatever like just all kinds of things that don't often happen I guess is their response to it and, and most. Depending on where the P as hung it, if you're downstage of the, you know, the Whiting rig or whatever, even if that happened, it's not that big a deal typically to drop the thing in to repin it.

1:42:24 I mean, it's not great, yeah. It's not fun. But I mean, it'd probably be possible to do that. But I mean, places like that where you, I don't know if you can, you can fix that with some front fills or some other, some other solutions to that. Yeah, yeah. I mean. It it to me, it seems really cool. It's just the more people I talk to, the more unnecessary it seems to be. And how much weight is it adding? How much cost is it adding is really what it comes down to. And there's another I'm. Totally drawing a blank because the popsicle came back. Now the I'm completely drawing a blank in the name of it. But there's a really brilliant guy that made a line array that just always hangs flat and it's all digitally steered. And that's an interesting solution because that every day you just hang it the same and you steer it all digitally. But then the problem is you need, you have to educate people on how to do that.

1:43:13 Where I think now like the, you know, the, the prediction, the rate, the rate prediction and the pinning and stuff is like pretty straightforward now. But if you want to like digitally steer it, it's a whole other, whole other thing. So that wasn't really successful in the market if you had to. Predict the future What? What do you think some major advancements are going to be in audio? In audio, I mean, what's happening? I think it's why don't there's a there's a there's a complicated answer to that, but I think what you're seeing now, I think the most overused buzzword in all of show, everything is immersive. Everything's immersive. It's like, oh, come on, you know, But the speaker companies obviously like anything immersive because the, you know, you can sell a lot more speakers, so you want a lot more smaller.

1:44:01 Speakers right? It's basically there's some really fascinating. Stuff with that, but I have a thing I got to have a talk on my website about this that I did for Purdue couple years ago. But I have a thing I called Huntington's theorem where if something's affordable and it doesn't catch on, it's not gonna. So we, when I was at Yale in 198988, we had a thing called Delta stereophony, which was a all analog steerable sound system thing. And that's basically what everybody has, right. Every manufacturer has a version of that now, which is the big push. Is it? It is really cool, but it's been available for a long time. So that's sort of like steerable movable sound, you know, idea that sort of seems to be the trend at the moment. But I, you know, and again, it's really cool, but I don't know if the audience really notices or if the producers want to pay for it.

1:44:52 Yeah, but I think in in almost everything now it's just it's like aside from that, which again, there's some cool applications for that. Like if you go see like a build big Feld production, the circus or the what's the the marble? I think that's out now, but they have another one. They do these shows, these huge arenas that they use the entire arena, not just the usual concert stage. And yeah, and it's a lot of that stuff is just to track and if the people are paying them up for not the circus forest, but you have no idea where the sounds coming from because there's a character running around on stage. Yeah. And you need to localize it too. So you see some that's finally now you're starting to see them. They use like black tracks. And then we'll drive the localization you through the system back, but again in the bulk. Of the market, which is concert touring, I guess maybe because I'm old, but I like lots of speakers over there and me over here, you know and I.

1:45:48 Yeah, I don't. I want to feel it, you know, I even line array bothered me a little bit. It was almost like the hybrid F1 cars. You know, the sound, the screaming sound where it sounds like it's going to blow to pieces any minute is part of the experience, you know, And so same with same with speakers. Like I like speakers that are operating at their at their limit. And yeah, you don't want to push. Them to work and then they do sound different ish but you can do that today but. You know, so line array I think has gotten to a point where it's so good right now. But the immersive thing, I don't know, like I like, it's like for me, the difference between listening to music from my big speakers over there to listening to music on my Airpods or, or even a good set of Sennheiser headphones or something. Right when.

1:46:36 That's again the, you know, this is Pink Floyd was doing quad in 1970, whatever. And that's sort of that's my theorem. Like, OK, if that was gonna be the thing, it's easily affordable now if people wanna pay for it, it hasn't caught on. So it's still, it's not a gimmick. I mean, it is a legitimate thing and it's cool. Yeah. But yeah, I think, but I think it's just like everything now. It's just about. And if you see it even in the speaker marketing now, DMV just had a new array come out. And what are they talking about? It's smaller and lighter. Yeah. So this is just optimization like it's doing everything you need now. But we can have a lighter truck pack and less reading points, and lighter is important. In all gear, all equipment is eventually gonna be smaller and lighter because again, when you're getting to every rig has 1000 moving lights and and then Taylor Swift has 3000 or whatever.

1:47:25 Like it's just getting ridiculous to a point where it's just like, you know, you're not going to have like my arena that I used to see shows in in Calgary doesn't get most of the shows now because the rigs are too heavy. Or do you talk? About that, yeah, the ceiling can't. Can't. Carry it. So they're building a new arena now. But you know, it's it's crazy how big these rigs have gotten. And so, yeah, I think smaller and lighter is kind of important. But I mean, but I think there's things being tested in in Vegas at that sphere basically. And I'm hearing mixed reviews on the sound. I think I can. Say it. But yeah, I did the consultant on that project to the not on the audio, but the on the show control networking stuff back in 2019 or something.

1:48:08 OK. And yeah, I think what's more interesting, that's it. I mean, I give Jim Dolan a lot of credit. There's a lot of things I won't say on here about it. Yeah, but I give him credit for making that building happen. Like I thought when the pandemic hit, that was going to be the end of it. Yeah. The. But it's. I'll tell you some stuff off here. I know I can't say about it. Yeah. But again, I think that the the sound in there and I have. I've only seen the movie. I haven't seen a concert in there, but me too. And. The movie was. Terrible and that I'll say yeah, but the the sound in there is it's interesting, but I I'm not sure I'm trying to choose my words carefully, but mostly it's a giant video experience.

1:48:53 Yeah, it's incredible the the scale that always. I still am baffled how it's successful economically. Do you know about the Cosm COSM. I think so. It's a new. Thing that they have one in I haven't been yet, but there's one in LA, one in I think in Detroit, one in Dallas. So that's a sphere kind of venue, but like 1/3 of the size. And then they sell sports stuff in there where they put a special camera like on the end zone and then it's they sell food and drink and you can you're there with your buddies and you go see the thing like yeah, like that to me that sort of scale makes much more sense. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I think, but as from the audio side, I don't think what those speakers do, the Holopod speakers do. I mean, it's a that theory, the way the hypersonic theory that that they're based on that's existed for a long time. And they still, I asked them at a demo, they still have, you can't steer low frequencies with that technology. So you can't the way Wing's too big. So I they were like, Oh yeah, we're working on that. Well, no one solved that in 50 years. It seems unlikely.

1:50:01 So I think a lot of the power of that system is not really used on a concert. Like the whole point of it is that you could have one, you know, Japanese audio and seat A, and then English and seat B and German and seat C That's a really interesting application, but you don't want that if you're going to see the Eagles or something, right? Yeah, yeah. And otherwise a big. Spatial sound system. We've been doing that for, you know, it's funny. You you seem to have a similar attitude towards this sphere as I do, where, you know, I'm impressed with what they spent. I'm impressed with how much shit they stuffed into it. You know how they like they went for it and and I got to give him an attaboy for that.

1:50:42 Oh, yeah. But like I I keep going back to if I was going to get the opportunity to see The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, 22 bands that I wish I would have seen, I wouldn't want to see them at this fear, right? Neither one of them would just. Be Yeah. Well, I don't know if, like I said, Zeppelin was my first concert in 1977, but the. Yeah, anywhere, anywhere you'd see them today, they'd be on a massive screen somewhere. Yeah. But I think in that place, there's the the stage is so far down. It's like this little tiny thing down there would just be about this amazing video experience. So. Yeah. But my, my sister's a big dead head. She saw the dead 30 times or something. That's one good example.

1:51:23 Yeah, she said. And I saw the dead once when Jerry was still around at Madison Square Garden with her. But she said the that she went three nights. She's going back next time. Yeah. She said it was the best dead experience she ever had. I can see that. That and fish, you know, I can see that making a lot of sense because those are visual, you know, Pink Floyd would would probably make some sense in there, you know, but it ends there. The list ends there. You know, like what I think they're doing. EDM things in there now. So I think, you know, there's potential in there, but it's it's what is a 17,000 seats? Like that's a fundamental issue to me where there's cosm idea I think is really kind of fascinating because I think that's a few 100 maybe a little more. Like I said, it's on my list to go like that's a scale that makes sense sort of economically where you can run a football game and make, you know, make money and you sell out of beer and you're good, you know, but for 17,000 seats, I guess I don't know.

1:52:20 And it's so you can't it's such an unusual building and they have that previous space and I think it's a Burbank. You can't just be on tour and like, oh, we're going to make a stop there. You have to make a show for that place. And again, I think it's interesting, but it is just it's a really incredible video experience. Well, and the other. Thing that I was talking to a good friend about the other day is is, you know, the Vegas weather is brutal, right. And what happens when all the video panels start failing? Yeah. You know, like, how complicated does that place get when everything starts failing? And and also it's Seiko. It's it's not like you know, so I don't know, like to me, to me, it's a ticking time bomb.

1:53:05 And the idea. Was they were going to have one there, one in New York, 1 in LA, one and then, but I think I don't see that happening. The economic model just can't possibly work. They'll probably build one in Dubai. But that's all subsidized, you know. Yeah, I think that's where they're talking about next. But the well those guys got. A few money, you know, the the Arabs, they don't care like a billion dollars to a billion 5 billion. Let's do it. You know, they they have all those big indoor ski hills and just all kinds of business models that don't make any sense just because they want it, You know, I want it. And the other big issue. Is that just the music industry is so fragmented now that the, you know, all the old acts are dying out, so that generation is going away. I mean, of course there's always a Taylor Swift and people like that, but there's not ten Taylor Swift. So yeah, I'm not sure what you'd put in there in 10 years, you know?

1:53:55 So yeah, that's a good. Point because I think you know Taylor Sift the Taylor Swift you got to kind of clip that off because that's sort of a weird phenom, but you get away from that what pop acts are people gonna pay right you know eagles money to go and see or U2 money to go and see and yeah I don't know cuz I mean the. And again, the EDM stuff is like that, you know, but that's not, I don't know. I mean, the visuals be pretty cool in there, but you're you're stuck in your seat except on the four. So yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, they've done it, but I can't, you know, I, I yeah, that's the wrong model. For that place. In deep in Brooklyn, I can see in the distance from my window here called a Von Gardner and they have every week and they have 3000 people in there and they have this insane laser light, you know, movie light thing and a DJ and the you know that that's the stuff that's where like the you know that's that is going to be very.

1:54:54 Expensive planetarium, you know, is, is really what it is. And but like UFCI saw in, I saw the pay-per-view and I thought it was crap. And I thought, you know, if I had tickets to be in there, the money that they spent for, you know, you know, off visibility, like not great visibility. The one that I thought was kind of cool was actually the NHL, the draft. Oh, that's interesting. The NHL did their. Draft in there and it was cool because you could see all the player stats and all the different players available. The screen was put to use and it was very well designed for what it was.

1:55:35 That's so the player. Draft, I wonder, kind of. I can't imagine how much they paid too. Like what did the what? Could the NHL possibly pay? I mean, in there, Well, the NFL. Which is based in Manhattan, but they used to go on the radio. I'm not sure where they do it now, but they used to go Radio City and remove all the seats, which the prop guys love. But it's like, you know, at some point, what is that, the best usage of your money? Like Proscenium theatre building. It's the same thing with that. Like, were they putting 17,000 people in there or was it ATV event? Yeah, you know, I'm sure it's somebody kind of a deal for the first time, but is that something going to do that over and over? Yeah. What's the novelty? Wears off? Yeah, Yeah, it'd be cool, but that's an awful expensibility for that. So it really is.

1:56:18 What about you? Got any AI thoughts? Oh, I know you talk. About it a lot. So it's fascinating. I'm kind of, to me, I think it's interesting. I look at it like, and I've written a little bit about this, but you know, I saw VR stuff in like 1993 or something like that and I had a lot of people. I was at some conference with Jaron Lanier back then and he's like, this is the changing everything, the whole world and he's a guy that's he's totally changed his mind on it. So I thought then that wow, this has fantastic applications. Is it going to replace everything? No, and that's sort of how I feel like AI that it's there's some really cool stuff you can do with it. I'm I don't feel very threatened in our industry with it because I think, you know, I always say that if we were going to not have live events like the pandemic would have been it like we would just be doing everything, virtually everything on zoom. But people want to be in the same building as each other and rub elbows and read the same error and whatever, like that's been going on for thousands of years. So what about the idea?

1:57:19 Where systems designers are going to go away because AI can do it much better or or or console programmers can you know, AI will be able to do it much better very, very soon, by the way. Yeah, I think that the. I don't know. The thing is that the if for an artist or whoever that's going to talk to the person who's going to program it, they want to talk to AI mean there'll be somebody that wants to do everything themselves. You know, Bjork or whatever wants to do something on her laptop. I think she's yeah, ante I whatever, but I mean what it's about is a relationship with the person with the designer you're talking about. The designer might use it as a tool set to do. I know like you had Bob Boney on here, like he had a fantastic explanation of it. And I think in audio, like there's lots of things that existed over the years for this, but the the mixing stuff is still a human thing and you still have to have somebody there every night anyway.

1:58:14 So I don't think that's going away because I don't think what why do you have to have somebody? There every night, because in the end, the art. Well, mixing monitors, the artist needs to go talk to somebody and also the management has to be like, well, there's a problem over there. If there's some AI mixing it, somebody would have to program it somehow. And it's very I can't AI do that. Like this is this is my argument is, is that like even having that conversation? So, you know, I don't know how deep you've got into it at all. You seem like a guy that if you were working a full time gig right now, you'd probably be incorporating AI because there's so many things that it can do that make your job easier. But like, for example, I go for an hour and a half walk every morning or whatever, and I I will talk with ChatGPT. I'll actually have a conversation. Hey, I've got this problem.

1:59:04 You know, what do you think? What are some options that we can fix this problem? Oh, well, have you thought about doing this or this or this? Well, yeah, I thought about that. But you know, like I'm conversing like you and I are talking right now and it's answering. You're also giving me. Feedback, yeah. But then you're also. Hosting a weekly podcast where you talk to humans all around the world every week yeah, I think it doesn't replace that it's just an augments that and it's a way it gives you ideas and helps you do think I think it's great yeah but I think and I also to me there's I mean clearly you can spew out some AI music video, whatever you can make some slop video that will replace the bottom tier on Netflix or whatever but I don't know me I don't think people are interested in looking at that stuff because not there's some people what if you don't know the difference because. You're not gonna Yeah, but the the issue. With that is like look at the like gossip industry what people talk about as movie stars and whoever and who's you know Jlo broke up with whatever yeah if it's meaningful yeah if. It's some.

2:00:05 So they care about the people involved and they want to hear that person goes on, you know, Instagram and wait, show whatever talks about working on this thing. It's about their experience and the people connect with that relationship. Human. Yeah, yeah, Relationship I. Mean there's a big controversy. Right now with the movie about the architect or people, what's, I forgot the name of it, the Brutalist, that there's a whole big controversy because they apparently used also AI is sort of like immersive, like, you know the difference. But there's a lot of people are calling things AI that are not AI. Yeah. So but they use some techniques right now. Yeah, yeah. They use some. Techniques to like clean up some dialect or like Hungarian dialect or something and people all bent out of shape about it.

2:00:47 But like, you know, I know about the movie because I saw the actor get interviewed on TV about it or whatever right. That's what so I think the human aspect of it never goes away. So I'm I have no interest in watching some computer generate anything. And again, why we could have done that? No, but why? If it's really really. Good and the storyline is good and the is that what the characters? That it builds. In the movie, you know, but here's the here's the next thing that's going to happen. Like Marlon Brando's family will will sell the likeness of Marlon Brando and you can see a Godfather Five with Marlon Brando in it or something, you know? But yeah, that would. Have to be you'd have to get Copa or somebody to direct it to make it, to make it interesting to look at. But I would say, you know the same thing now there. I mean, that's what you're seeing now with like it's not AI, but this ABBA thing I'm going to see next month, like that's like licensed by the band because they're all in their 80s or whatever.

2:01:42 That that's a way to leverage out this music that people love and have an experience with that. But it's still like people and people are getting together to see it and people came up with that idea because I'm, but I think the other thing about if, again, AI aside, which is good, is more powerful than things existed. But it wouldn't, we could have already made animated movies with computer generated dialogue 10 years ago. But look at every I'm, I'm not a big, I'm not a Marvel guy or whatever, but the look at all the animated movies. They're all filled with big actors doing voice over and they love it. They go and sit in the studio for a day, do their lines and they're out. But then that's what people go to see, like, oh, it's so and so is in this movie. And they're connecting to that person as a real person, you know, the younger.

2:02:29 Generations. My son's 20 and he couldn't name an actor for for the life of him. Yeah, he. Watches movies. All the time on Netflix with unknown young actors who are like insert new guy, insert new guy, insert new guy. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm a little more call it either pessimistic or optimistic depending on your viewpoint. I do believe that we're going to see full Netflix series and and Apple series and everybody series that are 100% AIAI generated. Is it in the next couple of years, right. But in that. Case, how is that happening? Is the AI deciding to make a movie or is there some person telling the AI what to do?

2:03:12 I mean what I believe. Is going to happen. Is old directors, old writers, old even actors are going to sell out. And so a director will basically train an AI model and say, here's my style, here's how I do things. I'm signing off all of the basically directorial rights to my my package of movies or whatever. So you can go look at my skill set on all of those. I'm giving you permission to do that and to basically copy my style verbatim. And so now there will be a John Huntington and there will be a John Huntington slash AI or whatever.

2:03:57 And so you'll know it's done by the AII. Forget which director example you used, but yeah, you'll know it's done by Coppola or whoever, by an AI version of Coppola. And then I think out of intrigue and and curiosity and stuff, people are going to go see it to and then compare it to the original Coppola. You know, the real Coppola is better than this Coppola or whatever, but it's going to be better than the real Coppola. Yeah, that's the problem. Well, I think it's interesting because I think that if you're correct, which would be a very depressing future for me and time to go live in the woods at that point, but the we're all going to end up there in the woods. Yeah, yeah. But the I think that's also, I think it's if you think about like a hit song and I, there's a great podcast I listen to history, Rock'n'roll, 500 songs.

2:04:48 I love that. One, Yeah, this guy Andrew. Hickey and again, again, I think about that he's on Blue Sky like he he's, I think of him That's a personal expression of his. Could you have had an AI like write something like that? I wouldn't. It would have been very dry and whatever. But the point I was going to make though, is like, and also there's another guy in music, Bob Webster, who has some really interesting stuff, but he writes a lot about his too. Yeah. So hit. Again, that's a guy, you know, like I'm not relating to him as a person through his material. And but anyway, like think about a hit song. If it was possible to just sort of come up with the formula for a hit song, then it would have just it would have happened.

2:05:33 There's some sort of like human unknown thing in there that I, I just seem I'm very I'm doubtful that that's going to be achieved in AI probably in my lifetime. So we'll see. We could wager on some Ha fair. We'll make a little. Friendly bet on that one because I I believe exactly the opposite. I think all hit music is going to be AI generated in the future now. This is why. It should be interesting to read the lab sets about this because like go look at the Spotify top part of it's me being old, like I don't relate to it. Yeah, none of these. You look at the longevity unit, those acts and some of them there, there is AI slop on Spotify and you see the whole controversy last year with the like they would take, you know, Frank Sinatra's, you know, fake Frank Sinatra and play these old standards and somebody just sort of listening to background music.

2:06:25 But they're they're recreating what it was and it's sort of background music for them. But that's not getting popular. That's sort of the like the low end, the sort of, you know, I mean, I. Hope you're right, by the way. So I'm, I'm not advocating for any of this. I just believe it's coming. Yeah. And things like that Will. Happen. I just don't. I think in the end, and maybe because I just like, hang around with like we're saying like weird, you know, the artists and musicians and circus people are players. Yeah, yeah. And I I'm. Somebody that's worked this business forever, like I don't really go to big stadium shows unless I'm working or I have a connection or whatever. I go see and these are still you know, live music is fizzling out in the big picture, but I go see my friends play in small venues in New York. But even again, while this is another good example, I just talking about these like this avant gardener. There's a bunch of these places in New York where there's 1000 young kids in there till 4:00 in the morning with a DJ, but they're there's still a stage and they're looking at the DJ in the in the front a person.

2:07:26 Half the time they're not doing anything Yeah, but that some could they use some AI to generate something. But again, the kids are there because they are waiting to the Yeah, so no, but so there's. DJ, there's DJ software, right, that creates your set based on who you're playing to or whatever. And it's, there's original music. Yeah, there's not 3000. Kids going to see the AI play live that's when that happens then I that's when I'm like well yeah cuz I mean at the end of the. Day, like you said, how do they know that the guy in the mouse head right is actually dead mouse? The guy was actually, and he's a. He's a really interesting technical guy. He is on the very podcast, Yeah. But but, you know, they don't actually do anything.

2:08:08 They just go like this and they touch knobs and they pretend they're doing things and then they go like this for a little while and then they touch knob. So are the people there for the atmosphere? Are the people there for the actual music, or are the people there for the guy who's standing there going like this? And I think it's it's the. Community, I think that's what they're there for. Yeah, I think. And there's another place here like my friends at Rational Acoustics, they did a which makes smart software. They did a training class here in a little like underground club and I'm like, I went and helped out my friends of the class and I'm like, that sounds. I've never heard of this place. You know, I, I pay attention to all this stuff and it's a little tiny, like underground place called it's hollow, but it's with zeros instead of OS.

2:08:52 And they have they spent a lot of money, very Spartan looking place with a lot of money on the acoustics of this building big sound system. And what's kind of interesting is not very big, but they put the DJ in the center of the room. So interesting thing. And I'm always and this is what fascinates. I think about this all the time, like why does everybody do that? This does kind of make sense. When you say. It and I also think you're talking about the sphere. When I finally sat in there, I'm like, wow, this should have been a planetarium. Because if you put the artist in the middle, everybody would have had that view and everybody would have had the video view instead of people on the floor see the human thing and everybody else sees the video with a little tiny specks. Yeah.

2:09:32 Yeah, that's a. Really good point, really good point and this place. Runs 48 hour weekend parties and they fly DJs in from Berlin to do it. But I think it's, again, this is the like kids are going to see like, oh DJ so and so from Berlin is coming this weekend. It's not like the DJAI laptop software is going to play. We're going to go yeah, that'll be the background music. Yeah, you know, which is fine, you know whatever. And that's sort of where it, it just drives artists even further out of the financial equation. But the but I think it's the community and that idea again, this ABBA thing I I can talk to a lot more about after I see it because I stopped researching anything on it. But this is like 3000 seats.

2:10:14 It's been running for two years and they do six or seven shows a week in there and it's kicking. Yeah, you could watch. That online, but it's not people go because they want to be in that room and they want to be, you know, even though they know they're watching a video, they don't. And I, my friends have told me it's pretty, you know, like it's a remarkable achievement in terms of the integration and stuff. That's why I want to go see it. But it's it's about being in the room with all that and identifying with these humans of the span. Well, we. We have a, we have a, a new podcast coming out. Actually the first episode is in three days on Friday and it's called Gears of Gear Future, Future Tech. And basically what it is, is is when new product is coming out in our industry still to this day, the only way to really learn about it is to go on to one of the magazine websites or whatever or get on a mailing list and to read a long press release.

2:11:14 And So what we've done is we've created an AI podcast, OK, that I heard you tell you about that. Yeah, it tells you about the new product coming from whatever company happens to be the one that sent us that information, right? And it's two hosts and they talk back and forth. It sounds incredibly natural. It might not fool you now that especially you know that it's an AI podcast, but give it a listen just because, because like the logo that we created for it was done on AI. The, the music was done by AI. The, and the podcast itself, it's entirely AI. And even there's a part where I speak at the end, which is AI. It's just basically copied and pasted text into an AI copy of my voice. And so The thing is 100% AI, except for Sarah who clipped in and put some things together.

2:12:05 But aside from that, it's 100% AI. And I think we're on to something because I would rather listen to two people talk about a press release then then read a press release. And so we'll see, you know, we'll see if we get an audience for it or not. We're not trying to trick people. We're not going to create like this would be the bad thing, I think, is if, because I've had people tell me you got to go create personas for the two hosts and and give them Facebook pages and names. And now we're just deceiving people. And I don't want to be deceptive. I'm telling people right up front. It's it's AII mean. Are we going out and and telling people in the audience full on this is an AI podcast. It's not unless they figure it out or they hear this podcast. You're talking about it.

2:12:52 Yeah. So not trying to dupe anyone, but. And I think you just. Reminded me of another example where Facebook made these AI people have been floating around to start. Conversations and keep conversations going. It tanked like nobody. Well, it's a terrible. Idea well, but then again. I don't want to interact with a virtual. I mean, there, there are people that do this. I, I just personally have no interest in interacting with a virtual other than like you're talking about, you're talking to, you know, chat, TBT or whatever, like it's helping you on something you're doing. But to interact with a like virtual person that doesn't really exist. And I think too, like podcasting obviously is a huge, as you know, huge thing, but you have a thing at LDI, like in person, like every podcast I know does in person events. And like there's one political when I listen to where they had a thing in DC and I went and met the woman that's on a thing. Like that's what I remember is like the human interaction I had with this podcast host.

2:13:48 Yeah, you make a good point. Yeah. So I mean, is it useful again? This is right VR like I wouldn't. I saw it what, 40 years ago and they were doing Arkansas, they were doing like virtual drum stuff. And I'm like, this is really cool. Has great applications, gaming, pre vis architectural but I don't think it replaces that live experience or the human experience anyway. So I think it's. And that's so it's the same way you've. Got that right? Like, so I don't think AI is going to replace theater. I don't think it's going to replace live music. I don't think it's going to. But when you talk about a movie, right, you know, a movie, unless I really want to stuff Tom Cruise's pockets full of more cash, right?

2:14:30 You know, do I really care if he's the next Maverick or if it's an AC version that's the next Maverick. That's whatever you think. About it, like, he's a good case because that guy has a complicated past. Yeah, a lot of very problematic, Yeah. I mean, people, he's a movie star. And being a movie star is not the just the screen stuff. It's all the other things that come about knowing him. And like, I saw Tom Cruise in this thing. That's the thing. That sort of interaction, I think is what people value. Yeah, we'll see, man. You make a very valid argument, and again, I'm not advocating for AI. I'm not hoping that it takes anyone's jobs. I think I'm just being very realistic and, and preparing myself for the fact that it's, it's trying to to, you know, bypass me and I want to do everything I can to, to use it to a point where I'm harder to bypass. Right, You know which I.

2:15:27 Think that strategically it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I'd say one other thing I think that informs my thinking on this is writing about show control since I've been doing it since 1980, whatever, and writing him since the mid 90s. Yeah, over the years I've had people call up with, you know, like, oh, we want to have you come in and just, you know, get rid of this crew and automate everything and do that. And that's certainly a way to do it. But in my experience, what happens with most these new technologies and maybe AI is different, but the what happens is that people do more for the same budget. Like you just have more and you think about like a theme park is a good example like that. Theme parks basically exist because show control technology exists.

2:16:12 Could you do it? Like we, when we first started our we did a haunted house at my school for 20 years. We used to have 6000 people a year come through this thing. The first year we didn't have any budget. So we had some kids like, you know, when they come through drop the spiders, you know, pull this rope that is horrible job. Like they needed it, but. Machines are very good at that. And that makes it affordable, and that's why you go see, you know, Rise of the Resistance or something like that. Yeah, Yeah. Which is. That makes sense, but that means but. These technologies basically leverage and rise Resist is a good example because I don't think they invented anything for that. They just integrated all this stuff really well. Yeah. I think to me, AI is another tool where we can do even more stuff for the same budget or more, you know, is there somebody that gets for, I mean, coder you mentioned before, like that's a job that's at risk customer, sports specialists, that kind of thing. Those are not growth areas.

2:17:04 This is an interesting one. Because right now like if you're a decent coder that hasn't has knowledge of coding AI. You've got jobs. Out though hoop, I mean there's just thousands, millions of jobs out there for AI coders, but you're basically creating the thing that's gonna do that's gonna put you completely out of work Yeah, they're probably. Using AI to like, I don't wanna write this complex syntax, this thing, but they're replacing yourself. Yeah, you're literally creating the product that's gonna kill it. And again like. If I'm somebody business that needs some software and again, our business is a good example of this.

2:17:46 Like I was working, I, I think I didn't even mention I worked for this company called Thoughtful Designs for this guy George Kindler. And I was sitting in the New York offices when PRG was happening. So you know, that financial guy was like in our office. So I would hear all these conversations and the oh man, I just completely lost my train of thoughts. Sorry, what were you talking about? Replacing jobs. Oh, right, yeah. Wow, no, I stock whole design. I'm just going to make a point about it and the the PRG was. Overtaking the world and yeah. And what's I talking about though? Wow, I don't know, replacing. Jobs. Us being replaced. Yeah, that's all good coders.

2:18:27 Wow, sorry, I completely it happens. Yeah, when you know, at 50. I I think things just start going. Yeah. You know what? You need a little more space for other stuff. I'm just going to leave now, you know, but as soon as we. Hang up all week. Oh, I wanted to make that point about the things. Yeah, send it to send. It to Sarah, she'll she'll edit it now. That's right. She'll probably AI me to like make the make the thing. You know what 1. Thing that was very gracious of you you offered to give away your books to listeners and so instead of us posting a link I think what I would like to say is that if you're hearing this podcast and you want copies of these books for free from John which I think is a very kind offer send an e-mail to producer@geezersofgear.com or post a comment on wherever you're listening to the podcast and we'll respond to you on that comment and John will provide us with with links to get those books yeah so I'm.

2:19:35 Just not. It's not unlimited just because I'll go broke doing that. But yeah, I can. I can. I have an ebook version, which I can. I have one, I have two books, one introduction to show networking, the other introduction to show control. Yeah. So I can do one ebook of those that's anywhere in the world. And I have one print copy of each one, which is just US for shipping to make it easier. Perfect. And I guess Sarah. Pick one of those. People and ran so whoever will. Just first come, first serve. So, OK, there you go. And when people come in, Sarah will grab them and give those away. And we appreciate that. And yeah, I mean, other than that, it's been a great two hours. I can't believe we've been on for two hours here already, so just getting started on some things.

2:20:18 Yeah, I know. Well. Jeez, and my brain is like melting because you're too smart. Like most of my guests aren't quite as quite as educated. So but I think it just being being the well, I I'm going to screw up the quote, but Bob McCarthy, who's another person you should have on here. He had a great quote about something and you just comes back to where you're talking about before. But why do you write and everything? But it's, and I'm going to mess up the quote, but basically the idea is like, if you share an idea with somebody, like you get something in return and now two people have the idea and that's really interesting. Where if you just sort of keep it to yourself, like you have the idea and it's not as interesting. So it's, I think it's the sharing part is what makes it all interesting.

2:20:59 So so. True. I like that one. Yeah. Well, cool. I appreciate you taking the time today, John. It's been it's been very educational and I think we could actually do it again at some point if you'd like to and we can get into even more crazy stuff. But then we and we should make. Some kind of AI wager at some point, so. Oh, absolutely. I'm ready to think of the terms, though. I'm ready. You tell me what the terms are you. Tell me because I think it's. Going to supersede whatever you come up with as those terms. Well, that's like in many. Fields though, it just the day we're recording this, yesterday a Chinese AI came out and crashed the market. So yeah, I talked about it. I talked about it in the intro DT Yeah, yeah. So lots of things can happen, roughly 80. 5 or 90% more efficient than NVIDIA and are then sorry then ChatGPT. So Nvidia's selling less chips basically is what it comes down to and I've read somewhere.

2:21:57 It's, I don't know if it's true or not, but their their model had trained on the other models, which I think is hilarious. Yeah, yeah. Eating their children eating, eating your competitors come. Yeah, it's amazing. They took lots of other. Copyrighted stuff to eating their model. So it is literally the. Wild, Wild West, because laws are being created that didn't exist before. And, you know, it's just such a new world that's so crazy. And I think by the time we figure it out, these models are going to be sentient and it's going to be too late. So yeah, that's the problem. Yeah. Hi, John. Thank you. Have an amazing day. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.