Look folks � CHEATING is the way of the modern world. It�s called using technology to provide a marketable product which the public will accept at a cost considerably less than �the traditional thing�. For example:

- BILL CLINTON and our buddy GEORGE BUSH: Presidential speeches� they use an electronic prompter (laptop!) to read a speech someone else was paid to write ------- CHEATERS!

- Nightly News �Entertainers� ---- use teleprompters to read news stories someone else wrote ---- CHEATERS!

- Weather forecasters� stand in front of computerized screens � everything is automated�stuff they used to draw by hand on a plexiglass screen� now computerized --------- CHEATERS!

- Airline pilots: flying on autopilot 96% of the route�what used to be a brain drain is now 4 minutes on the controls to take off and 4 minutes to land ------ CHEATERS!

- Commercial jingle writers and advertising people: Use banks of prerecorded snippits to build a commercial. What used to take a couple hours and a studio band now takes 15 minutes and some pre-recorded loops ----------- CHEATERS!

- Photographers: Amateurs can buy a camera now that takes superb pictures equal to the ones the big daddies take with their $10K rigs. The paparazzi crowd has grown from a few �old pro�s� to armies of people using automated cameras to sell the big photos to Enquirer --- CHEATERS!

Guess what? The only ones complaining about the above are the ones who are upset because their (traditional) jobs may be replaced by the use of automation.

In just about any line of work these days, automation is being employed to simplify the job and produce consistently more reliable output products. I�m sure there are a couple hundred old fart pilots out there who all will say �that isn�t the way we flew airplanes�. Guess what? They are NOT flying commercially anymore either. So anyone who doesn�t accept the benefits of automation can complain all they want, but they better stand aside while the guys who use technology move out front.

I played a gig a year ago (and no � it wasn�t the ONLY gig I got all year HA HA). I noticed there were 2 fortunetellers there. There were big lines at both tables with hundreds of people waiting for their turn to have their palms read. When the gig ended, I sat down at one of the ladies� tables. I said �how long have you been telling fortunes?� and she responded�. �about 2 hours now�. I said �You mean you�ve never done this before?� and she said �My mom is the other fortune teller and she told me stuff to say on the way over here�. Right then, a man in his 40�s in a pathetically revealing SpiderMan costume came running by with a dozen kids chasing him with plastic swords. So you see, what people want is entertainment. As unfortunate as that is to the purists, that�s all most of them want.

The big benefit of arrangers is the fact that a guy using an arranger and midi files can provide decent �full band� entertainment at a cost comparable to a single musician without the additional cost of the backup musicians. Unfortunately, the public has grown to expect more from every venue for the same price (or less) than they used to pay. And I can tell you that (unless the guy at the controls is an idiot) all but the purists in the crowd are very very happy with the sounds coming out of the arranger keyboards whether they are �played live� or using midi�s. Otherwise, why would Karaoke bars be packed every night?

My last point: When we all get old and have pacemakers put into our chests so we can wheeze a few more years out of our decrepit frames, won�t we be �CHEATERS� at that too? I mean�. If we were meant to have electronic �beat boxes� in our bodies, we�d have been borne with a bunch of access hatches. So when the doc says �I can give you a few more years with a pacemaker��. Who among us is going to say �no thanks � it�s the real thing or nothing for me�? I profess that the big decision for us (regarding our pacemakers) will NOT be whether what we are doing is CHEATING � but whether our pacemaker should be �Yamaha or Roland�?

R/I


[This message has been edited by Rejected Idol (edited 07-13-2007).]