So let’s say that your name is Ken Schaffer. Let’s say that somehow, luck smiled on you throughout your life where you had a real sweet fucking job, like the Autotune guy. You know what he did? He blasted the ocean floor with sound then listened to the sound come back. That was his fucking job, livin’ high off the hog, probably never had to lift a fucking thing.
You don’t have to lift a thing, either. You know what your job is? You’re a publicist for Jimi Hendrix, Lips McGee from Aerosmith, whoever the hell Todd Rundgren is, the Nuge, Alice Cooper, and a fucking comet.
You heard me right.
Your job is the oh! so arduous task of writing a damned press release for a space snowball. When you aren’t busy hanging out with Hendrix and Alice, you’re doing press on a snowball. Then all of a sudden you have the gall to think you’re too good for that job. “What? I get paid insane amounts of money to schedule Jimi’s interviews and write about a snowball doing eons-long laps around the sun and have an incredible amount of free time and disposable income!? Well, fuck that!!”
Now, any sane person would figure that you’re quitting this job because you’re moving on up to, I don’t know, say Blow Job Factory Quality Control Supervisor. What do you do instead? You put your amateur radio skills to the test and invent the wireless microphone system. This sounds like a bullshit life choice to me but, Kenny (remember, your name is Ken, now), you must know what you’re doing right? I’ll trust your judgment. So will NASA.
You see, NASA had this little problem with talking to people in space called “we can’t understand a goddamned thing they’re saying” so they decide to use your design. That you invented. As an amateur radio enthusiast.
I don’t know which I fear more: The people responsible for hurtling people into space at 24,900mph* trusting amateur technology or that “amateur” actually means something much closer to “pinnacle of professionalism” than the meaning I’ve been operating under for my whole life. I suspect it means the latter (in which case, my whole life is fucked) because after designing shit for NASA, Ken, you pulled some straight spy shit in the 80s and hacked Russian TV. Yeah, some other guy was there, too, but fuck him. We’re talking about you and Cold War Damn Russia. You went ahead McGyvered a 30ft satellite dish and not for some CIA shit, either. No. You just wanted to watch their TV. Was this a covert op? Hell, no. You said, “Hey, Columbia University! You ever watch this shit called Three’s Commie-pany? It’s fucking hysterical!” and proceeded to pump that shit into the student lounge.
Why? Because you didn’t give a damn, Kenny. You were the one-man Wu-Tang clan of science: You weren’t nothin’ to fuck wit’. Your idea of a good time was using radio waves to infiltrate a country with nukes aimed at us just for shits and giggles. I bet when you get bored, you go outside and start smacking your dick on a beehive just to remind them who’s in charge up in here: Kenny “What Are You Going To Do About It, Bitch?” Schaffer.
Along with wireless microphones, you also invented the wireless guitar system. It’s important to include the word “system” because if you Google “wireless guitars”, you get these things:
Stop showing up everywhere!
It’s not really your fault that the wireless guitar system became synonymous with 80s shred masters, Kenny. You were too busy making Russian security your bitch and showing the US government what little pussies they were for never manning up and pulling off the sort of stunts you were pulling off as a private citizen. If I was showing two countries at the same time how a fucking man does things, I’d give a rat’s ass about who was giving my decade old invention a bad name, too.
Now, of course, I have to find a reason to hate on the wireless guitar system because when I think of wireless guitar systems, I think of people who consider themselves too good for a fucking cable. So I went on a Google spree and tried to find ads prominently featuring shredmeisters doing their big-hair thing so I could scribble all kinds of derogatory jokes about them in MS Paint (you know how I do).
So then I just go looking for lists of people that might use your invention regardless of brand. What do I find? A bunch of Swedish death metal guys. So I’m fighting a losing battle with you, Kenny.
Until I find Geddy Lee.
This is probably the only time I’ll ever say this in my life: Thank God for Geddy Lee.
You see, Kenny, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me on this one, Geddy Lee has it really ass-backward.
Here’s what he does.
He uses a wireless system so there are no cables.
He uses a DI box (meaning he plugs directly into the board) so there are no amps.
Instead of amps, he has dryers, snack machines, and chicken rotisseries behind him. Hahaha. Big boxy things that could symbolize any boxy thing. Haha. What is the point of the boxy thing when just any boxy thing could be back there to satisfy the visual whims that an audience is used to and make them confront that sound has nothing to do with vision. Haha. A prog rock joke. Haha. How funny.
Geddy, you’re a fucking asshole. (Yeah, I’m talking to Geddy, now. You’re fine Kenny. No, no, there’s no way you could have known about this horse shit.) You’re an asshole because you’re making your roadies haul big heavy boxy things that under normal circumstances would be the things making the sounds. But you decided to skip those things, Geddy. So you could have let the roadies handle Alex’s four hundred guitars but no. You still wanted to have the big boxy things behind you. Big boxy things of equal weight compared to the big boxy things that would make the sounds, but these big boxy things don’t do anything. Yeah, you pay these guys but they probably resent having to haul in useless boxy things when they could be hauling in useful boxy things.
I hope they piss in your beer, Geddy, you fucking prick.
Anyway, Kenny, yeah, it’s OK, I told Geddy to screw so now we can look for flaws in your shit again. And let me tell you, Kenny, that’s becoming an exercise in futility. Didn’t you put the bone to that Russian bird with the one leg from The Sopranos? It’s not enough that you steal cable from the Russians, you have to bang one of them, too. That’s basically like sticking your dick in the beehive after you slap it on there a few times, you know that, right? But, no, you’re all about “Let ’em try to sting my ass, see what happens.” I bet you like to take nature hikes, too, for the sole purpose of finding grizzlies to kick in the balls. You just don’t give a fuck, do you?
You know? I mean, what if I actually had the nerve to, right in front of my neighbor, run a goddamned coaxial cable (yeah, I know this is supposed to be a “wireless” post) into his house to my TV? Just right in front of him. Then I fuck his daughter while I stare him right in the eye? Isn’t that essentially what you did, Kenny? You’re just a mad pimp, dawg.
And you didn’t do a damned thing to ruin music for people.
Way to ruin a perfectly good guitar for the sake of making it into a fake guitar, you twat. You already had a real guitar. Why are you working backward? Why am I still in the caption? Help me, Kenny.
Does anybody have anything they want to add to this? Is anybody going to try to knock Kenny down? Look at his life:
In the 60s, he worked for (and by “worked for” I mean “got high with”) Jimi Hendrix. And we’ve been over Jimi Hendrix and drugs. And you know what? He got paid to get high with Hendrix and talk about fucking comets. If there is one conversation you could have with Hendrix while you’re higher than giraffe pussy, it’s going to be about comets. Fuck you.
In the 70s, he decided to, you know, just in his off-time, teach NASA a damned thing or two about radio communication. Kenny was all, “One small step for what, one giant what for what kind? Y’all nillas** need to get hi-def!”
In the 80s, Kenny looked at Reagan, looked at Gorbachev, looked back at Reagan, shook his head and said, “Y’all nillas is trippin’. Let me show you the real shit.” Climbed on the roof of a college and used some pencil lead shavings and a foil gum wrapper to pump some Russian TV into the student lounge.
He promptly went up to Reagan and said, “Now tell me about Star Wars program bullshit, punk.” At which point he threw the Wu-Tang “W” and went outside to get his mail order bride catalog from the mailbox. That’s how he was livin’.