(TV) Abuse, anyone?

[Joe Hartley <jh@fripp.brainiac.com>]

I know yer all waiting for the release of the disk; I swear to god it's
almost done!  I have had unfortunate problems holding me up, but I am
very close to finishing it up.

How close?  I'm on the 3rd post-production pressing...  but overcompression
is a bad thing.  Trust me.

At any rate, a good friend (and the drummer on my track) has a tale to
tell, and he's letting me pass it along.

Forwarded message:
> So I am going through the Heathrow airport. Rerouted by the Air Lingus strike.
> Going through emigration in a country I don't even what to be in and out of a
> plane full of people I am singled out for the full customs treatment. Bags
> open. Everything gone through. I know that I am clean but there is, in fact,
> much to be examined because I am on a 6 week business trip. What customs
> agent, for example, has ever seen a Roland Handsonic drum synthesizer?
> Questions ensue and there is an uncomfortable moment when she finds the book I
> have been reading by Toby Litt named "exhibitionism". The cover has the
> picture of some young lady's rose-print panty clad butt sticking up in the
> air. You can't really see any of the rest of her but she is wearing black
> heals of a very practical height and one is left with the impression that she
> would be someone you might like to meet someday. The customs lady is not
> amused but given that the book was published in England and there is nothing
> illegal about it she can't really get me on this. But then, But then as I open
> up the suit case. Right on top. In clear view, is the disk that Joe Hartley
> gave me. His tribute disk to the band Television so inconveniently named:
> "When Beauty Meets Abuse" written in Joe distinctive printing style that says:
> this is important enough to label well, but not of sufficient quality for a
> printed label ... it has a somewhat seedy look especially when printed on a
> plain white CD-R. A sort of brown paper bag quality that simply has to raise
> suspicion and again I read the title that I never really took much notice of
> before: "WHEN BEAUTY MEETS ABUSE"!
> 
> And the customs agent gets that special look in her eyes. That special look
> that every guy understands so well. That look that says: "I am going to have
> you strip searched". Somehow I am able to convince her that despite the
> assumptions that she is making about my character, the disk is, in fact, a
> music CD; that it does not contain any embarrassing jpeg files and there has
> been no copyright violation or, in fact, no violation of any other kind
> committed in the production of the disk. She lets me go, my rectum, once again
> unprobed. I have never before been so happy to see a door and I enter England
> to start a whole new round of adventures ...
> 
> England, June 2002
> Jon Franklin Buser


-- 
======================================================================
                    Joe Hartley - jh@brainiac.com
  "Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. 
   I consider the capacity for it terrifying." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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