THE NEXT 100 YEARS

The most exciting development in the audio arts is the Internet, which is already causing a revolution in music consciousness. For me, the most satisfying aspect of our connection in cyberspace is my ability to make intimate contact with fellow music maniacs. It should not surprise you that the most often asked question of your society editor is..."Where you born this way?", or, "Did you parents accidentally drop you on your head when you were a child?", or, "Are you taking treatments for what ails you?"

Based on these comments I think it is time for me to reveal my "listening" background because how we experience music in our home is determined by the culture that created us: My parents, who were elephant tamers on the estate of the fabulously wealthy Maharaja of Gingapoor, abandoned me as a small child in the jungles of Northern Indian, because with fourteen other mouths to feed, I would have been a burden. Fortunately I was found and raised by a wolf clan. As you know, the first ten years of life are the most formative, and running with my wolf clan, and living in a cave, was much better than going to public school. I was then found and adopted Helen and Henry Rosenberg who loved traveling to India to buy Madras Bermuda shorts, at below wholesale prices, and I was taken back to Brooklyn, where I was initiated into the mystical ways of the Jewish people, which didn’t stop me howling by the light of a silvery moon whenever I ate a lean corn beef sandwich. A near fatal bicycle accident, and a fractured skull, at age thirteen, left me with very sensitive hearing and indications of brain damage. I also discovered that I had strange and unusual psychic powers, and could tell what the future would bring. About ten years ago, I met George Hamilton in Switzerland, and he introduced me to his doctor, who performed a bat ear transplant. Let me summarize all of this for you: Adult Jewish wolf boy with brain damage and bat ear transplant becomes Thermionic Techno-Shaman who can foretell the future, and becomes Society Editor of Listener Magazine. Now that is what I call an "All American Success Story", and explains why my perception of music and the audio arts may seem eccentric to "normal" folks.

So for this, my last article of the twentieth century for Listener Magazine, I am going to tell you exactly what the future will bring.

"CONTACT" WITH DOGS: My early childhood experience with wolves makes me especially sensitive to this vibe. While everyone is trying to figure out how to make "Contact" with those slimy silvery pathetically sad looking aliens, I am certain that some computer nerd son of a professional Arkansas coon hound breeder will figure out how to make "Contact" with dogs. This will happen on April 14, 2007, at 4 PM. Just think about it...dogs communicate with each other, and we all know that dogs have much better hearing than humans and in every way are more loving, spiritual, intelligent and evolved spirits. It shouldn’t be too hard to decode and tap into "dog language". All of that time and effort that was spent on making contact with whales...what a waste. What can we do with whales? Can we take one to a bar and have a beer with it, or go bird hunting with one? Can you take a whale into your living room and scratch its belly?

The benefits of being able to communicate with dogs are enormous, and that includes our ability to make music with dogs, which will happen once dogs learn how to use computers, which will be in a wink. Anyone who can find a buried bone, and operate a PC. This will dramatically alter the music and audio business, and I am sure that very soon we will see our first Super Star dog rock millionaire. Soon we men will learn dog’s wisdom and we will use our noses much more effectively. For example: Does your music smell right to you?

But the greatest benefit of this breakthrough is that soon men will no longer fell guilty about experiencing the uninhibited music pleasures that dogs love, and we can all lie out in our backyard with no clothes on, roll around in the dirt and listen to our favorite country music.

MARTHA STEWART’S NERVOUS BREAKDOWN: I love watching Martha Stewart on television. I read all of her magazines. I own everyone one of her home decorating books, and I follow her instructions on how to give parties to the letter. Before I leave my house I examine every one of my closets to make sure everything is perfectly folded and in its place. If there is a product with her name on it, I buy it. So it makes me very sad to predict that Martha is going to have a massive nervous breakdown on Friday, October 3, 2003, at 3PM, while she is polishing the pasta before she puts it into the pot, but this is not a bad thing. When she recovers Martha will be totally Zen, and will live in totally empty spaces: simple cushions and a beautiful tube sound system, so that her sanctuary will only be filled with the beauty of music, Martha will immediately start publishing an audio magazine for women and once again begin her campaign to enrichen women’s lives, but now she will be on the right track, because that track is the music track, not the chintz track.

Clearly the artistic revolution of the next century is the evolution of the primacy of the dematerial arts...the art that has no chintz cover, or lacquered leg or tasseled fringe. In the same way we look at the clutter of the Victorian home, we will soon look back and wonder how anyone was able to live in the "Martha Stewart" clutter of the last half of the twentieth century. All that is needed to fill our home with an abundance of beauty is a great tube music system...more, is much less.

WOMEN WILL DOMINATE THE AUDIO ARTS: Because of Martha Stewart’s religious conversion women will soon dominate the audio arts. This will be very difficult for many men, because they will discover that women, rather than analyzing micro-dynamics, are into the deep rich pleasure valley of music. Women are about to emerge from a long sleep and will blossom in the first decade of the next century and express their nascent sensuality...and the only way to do that is with music. No longer concerned with fru-fru, petty gossip, leg waxing, cellulite, face hair, eyebrow plucking, hair sprays, make up, panty hose, soap operas, and fashion, women will spiritually mature and become concerned about artistic substance and not appearance. To lead this revolution I am having a sex change operation, and will soon report to you from the other side of the fence.

CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION OF THE MONKEY COFFIN UNION: In the 1960s it was the Teamster’s Union that needed to be purged of its criminal control, and in the next decade there will be a Congressional investigation of the Monkey Coffin Union. Let’s face it, editors, for decades, have known that the Amalgamated Undertakers Union (AUU) controlled the United Federation of Monkey Coffin Makers (UFMCM), and other segments of the audio business. Why else would those boxes you listen to in your living room be called "coffins"? We editors were terrified to reveal that the Mafia controlled the AUU, which gave them control of the UFMCM. We all knew that we if talked about this subject....we would be taking a long walk on a very short pier. This also explains why so few editors talk about the retardation of speaker development in America...with all of those low efficiency/4 ohm speakers. But soon, freed from the terror of criminal reprisal, members of the Monkey Coffin Union, will be able to put their money into quality drivers, instead of payoffs to crime bosses.

I know this may be hard to believe but creating drivers that approach the qualities of Lowthers, or classic Tannoy, JBL, or Western Electric, is related to how much money is spent on magnet structures, and until now the UFMCM was forbidden to discuss this subject with you. Take some time and go to the various Lowther web sites and get an education in magnet structures, flux density, and gauss.. their electrical and sonic properties. These Congressional investigations will be broadcast on CNN, and will change the course of the audio arts. Did you get my message? Pay more attention to speaker magnets and stay away from 85 db/4 ohm speakers.

THE RETURN OF MONO: This may be the most shocking news of all, but once I explain it you will understand. On August 5, 2019, there is going to be a Solar/Lunar alignment that occurs only once every ten thousand years, and it will temporarily raise everyone’s IQ 40 points...for about one week. During this time there will be, for the first time, in the history of the audio arts, an awareness of the eternal ‘WE NEVER GET IT RIGHT RULE". This rule which has always applied to the audio art goes like this.....just before we get it right, let’s move on to the next stage of development, so that we never quite get anything we do right. Which means we never got two channel sound right before we moved to multi-channel sound, right? This means we never got analog sound right before we moved to digital, and we never got the first digital format right, so we move to the next. But the good news is that a new rebellious groups of audio artists are going to start all over again....from the very beginning, because in the arts, it is never too late. These audio bravehearts will start developing a very high quality mono sound...and by the year 2050 maybe two channel sound will be perfected, and then maybe by the year 2099, digital sound will start to sound okay. I am very sanguine about the future. Why are tube circuits achieving such a high degree of refinement? They have been under continuous refinement for almost 100 years, and still have a long way to go.

BAT EAR TRANSPLANTS: We now have breast implants, penile implants, heart transplants, liver transplants and the use of many different animals organs to replace defective human organs. There is a growing plastic surgery industry that can reshape any part of the human body. Based on my successful experience with my own bat ear transplant this surgical procedure become much more popular in the music industry , and will be a big boost to this industry because so many have defective human hearing.

As you know over a decade ago I met George Hamilton in Switzerland and he turned me on to his Swiss doctor who, for a price, could do anything. I know you are all aware of how different audio critics would like to convince you that they have the most sensitive and astute hearing...but it is human hearing which is very limited. I, on the other hand, with my bat ear transplant have listening skills that no human can approach. And I can catch a moth with my tongue in total darkness hanging upside down. Can any other audio critic do that? Do you think that mere human hearing could come up with the ultra-thin mono silver wire concept that you read about in Listener? Why am I the only human reporting about the gigantic differences in the sound of tubes? Why can I hear the noisy dust balls under your bed, as I write this article, or the annoying sound of pink wool belly button fluff in Harry Pearson’s belly button...and he is 75 miles away?

Once record producers, who are usually deaf, get this transplant all recordings will sound much better. The transplant will also permit audio critics who couldn’t hear the enormous sonic difference between pentodes and directly heated triodes, or can’t hear single-end magic, to finally get it.

NEW TUBES GALORE: This is not the end of the beginning, nor the beginning of the end. It is not the middle of whole tube shabang either. I am not sure we are at in the tube revolution, but this I am sure of...because I know...more tubes, especially directly heated triodes are on the way. In ten years the current generation of teeny bopers who are playing their $269 tube guitar amp and there are ten of thousands of them that want to grow and be like Keith Richards, will grow up and want to use a tube amp for music. Tubes will totally dominate because Coolosity Est Veritas. I see tube tooth brushes, tube food blenders, tube barbecue grills, the return of tube computers, and tube television sets!

POTTY PUBLISHING BUYS PETERSON PUBLISHING: Did you think that tiny Microsoft would dominate the computer industry fifteen years ago? My new publishing company Potty Publishing, which is offering you a free copy of my new $99 action adventure tube manual: UNDERSTANDING TUBE ELECTRONICS II, will soon be so profitable that I will buy Peterson Publishing. Once I get control of Stereophile, I am going to immediately start AUDIOMANIAC CENTER FOLDS, where you can see pictures of naked audiomaniacs (like you) lying on bear skin rugs next to their favorite audio system. But the grand good news is that you can now download my new book, which I wrote for new pilgrims on the way of the Triode. This is a completely non technical explanation of why tubes are the gourmet spread. You can go to either www.positive-feedback.com, or The Triode Guild Web site at www.enjoythemusic.com, and download it. And promise me you will read it in that one place where men find maximum wisdom. If you discover that my book has had a profound effect on your life complete the cycle of Karma...send me some cookies or rename your pet parakeet or turtle, "Gizmo".

LISTENER MAGAZINE TELEVISION SHOW: Art Dudley and Vanna White will be hosting a new television show which will be all about.....listening to music. The first show will be broadcast in the September 2006, because by that time Americans will realize that after you own 10,000 CDs and have unlimited MP-3 music, LISTEN: MUSIC QUALITY MATTERS. After eating one billion 99 cent hamburgers, wouldn’t you want to eat just a few sirloins? This will be the first time in the over 100 year history of the audio arts, this industry, thanks to Listener, proclaims the obvious truth. LISTEN: MUSIC QUALITY MATTERS is such a complex and profound truth that its articulation has alluded the savant of every industry trade organization...but now with Vanna and Art leading the charge...we can all enjoy a glorious future.

THE BAD NEWS: I will die in the 21st century, and immediately go to Triode Heaven. This passing will occurring on November 1, 2078. I have already designed my marble monument which looks like a 300B. It is covered with dancing cherubs with erections, smoking cigars. Across the top of the marble tube is engraved; HE WAS A BAD DUDE, BUT HE MADE SHIT HAPPEN. I will also leave behind a phone number and email address so you can contact me in Triode Heaven. I am planning to be the first human who does e-commerce from the other side.

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