It’s about time that the heat can get shut off for good, but don’t worry, there’s always heat here at Xperience. Featuring author and MVP Arena General Manager Bob Belber, Grammy-Winning Artist Dave Gutter, and rising local country artist Chris Sanders.
Bob Belber – An Xperience Interview – by Liam Sweeny.
If you’ve ever had a good time at the MVP Arena, or any of its past incarnations, you have Bob Belber to thank. He’s the man behind the scenes, and his new book, “Life with the Stars,” takes you there.
RRX: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your new book, “Life with the Stars.” Was it something you endeavored to write on your own, or did someone encourage you to write it?
BB: I’ve been in the business for 41 years. I was the general manager of the old Starlite Music Theatre in Latham for 10 years, and then I’ve been at the MVP Arena, formerly known as the Times Union Center, formerly known as Pepsi Arena, formerly known as the Knickerbocker Arena, for the last 31 years. And you know, I would be at various family functions or social gatherings and people would say they went to a concert. Then I would, you know, mention something that happened backstage that was crazy, whether it was Michael Buble, playing table tennis with him (and by the way, getting my ass kicked), or whether it was Willie Nelson up on his bus, drinking tequila out of the bottle, passing it back and forth, just some really fun and crazy times. And all of my friends and family would say, ‘You know, you should write a book someday.” So I started writing it back in COVID. It took me probably the better part of three years, because I couldn’t just stay at it. I still had to operate the building and take care of all the things. So it was quite a process.
RRX: Take us through a spotlight show, a major name coming to MVP Arena. What has to happen before the lights go on, and in particular, what has to happen that you think people may not have any kind of understanding about?
BB: There are a lot of things that happen before the doors open, and during the course of the day. Let’s start right from the beginning of the day, and load-in. The crews with the tractor trailers – sometimes there are 20 tractor trailers worth of equipment that have to be loaded into the building, hung from the high steel. In some cases, the stage sometimes travels with the artists. Sometimes they use our stage, but at the end of the day, the crews arrive after having been on whatever number of other shows or tours, or tour dates. They might have just done 25 dates, and they’re arriving at your building on the 26th date. And it’s 8 o’clock in the morning, whether they slept the night before, coming from the prior city, who knows? But the first thing that they do when they get off the bus is look for a hot breakfast. And so if your breakfast is not good and hot, it ruins the entire day because that crew then becomes really nasty and not very happy. So every single element that it takes to make a show happen – and I don’t mean just happen, it has to happen in a way so that the artists and the crew feel really good about the building, because you want them leaving your building telling other people how great it was, so that additional shows will want to play here. So you’ll get more bookings, and the agents that represent these artists will feel like Albany should be on the routing because they’ve had so many great experiences with other artists that they’ve represented.
It’s extremely important, all throughout the day, to do everything right. Our crew at the MVP Arena: I have to say, many of them have been there for years and years, and there are new folks as well, but the culture that we have is backstage, front of house, public, artists, it doesn’t matter. Every single person has to be treated as though they’re family. And everything that we need to do or have promised we’re going to do has to be done better than whatever other venues are getting that tour date or that artist. And so, that’s something that I preached to my people, and they carry that out, I think, very well. And we will constantly double-check it. We’ve got ways to make sure that the public can even let us know how their experience was and where we need to make improvements; we try to get those made immediately.
Then, obviously, the night before the doors open up, you want to make sure that everything from a security standpoint is 100%; so that’s extremely important too. We actually button down, lock down our arena, right from the morning on, but before we get to the doors opening, we make sure that there’s not a single person who could get in and out of any doors around the arena without being double-checked, going through metal detectors. And we’ve got Albany County Sheriff’s deputies that are inside and outside the building. They’re taking care of traffic, there are so many things. We work with Homeland Security, we work with the FBI, and there are things that happen that people don’t know about. We’ve got some agents from Homeland Security and so forth that are in on the sellout shows that are in the crowd. They’re just in the crowd, they’re not in uniform. Nobody knows they’re there, but they’re there, and if something ever happened, we’d have people right there ready. So, you know, there are a lot of things that you have to know. You have to know your game.
RRX: Some entertainers are famous for their riders, the details in their contracts that outline what they expect when they get to a venue. Seeing as how you’ve been backstage with so many big acts, what was the requirement that – you don’t have to name names or anything – but what was a requirement that you thought was very difficult to fulfill?
BB: There are different types of things that people will ask for, that artists will ask for. In the case of Michael Buble, not on this most recent tour, but on the one back about 7-8 years ago, he required every building where he performed to provide a ping pong table. And so we had to go out and get a ping pong table, set it up backstage, and in fact, 4 o’clock on the afternoon that he was there, he did a sound check and then he went and he started playing ping pong with his crew members. And I just happen to walk by and he was finishing up a game with a crew member, and he looks at me and I’m in my tie and jacket and everything, and he says, “You wanna try a little?” And I had played a fair amount in school back in my youthful days, and I thought, ‘Well, sure.” So I jumped on there and let me tell you what, there’s a reason why Michael Buble asked to have a ping pong table at every venue. Cause the man plays every day and he’s damn good and kicked my ass.
But there are other requirements. I remember when I was at the Starlite Music theatre, Tom Jones’ rider required two bottles of Dom Perignon in whatever venue he played in (mostly theatres, theatre of the rounds). You had to have two bottles of Dom Pérignon. And at the time, that was pricey. It was very expensive. And so the owner of the Starlite Music theatre wanted to take care of it and make sure that we had the two bottles there, just like all the rest of the owners of the theatres did to keep him happy, because he was selling out buildings back in the ‘80s. And so I go backstage. And towards the end of the show, Tom Jones was still on the stage doing his last song, andI see somebody bringing the two bottles of Dom Perignon, which weren’t opened out to a Ryder truck. And I look in the back of the Ryder truck, and the Ryder truck is full of boxes of Dom Pero. And so I said to the guy, “What are you doing?” He says, “Oh, well, we’re boxing these up. We’re driving them out to Las Vegas.” And I said, “So what happens in Las Vegas?” He says, “Well, we resell.” He said, “Don’t ask me where the money goes, but they resell them.” So there are things that happen sometimes that you have no idea, and you find out that they are just crazy.
RRX: Tell me about Lil Wayne. You were able to help him solve a problem and avert a sort of catastrophe, right?
BB: The Lil Wayne story. I don’t know how much you know about that, but that’s in the book. He had a cancellation in Boston. This was only a few years ago, when he cancelled the show in Boston because they wanted him to walk through a metal detector, and he wouldn’t do it. And it was a sold-out show, and they were in the building, waiting for him. And so the show had to be cancelled because he wouldn’t walk through the metal detector. So the very next day, I’m in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, ‘cause I had to oversee that building. And I had a meeting with the client, you know, just like Albany County owns MVP Arena, there’s a municipal client in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, that I was meeting with; 9 o’clock in the morning. I’m in the conference room, and just on the other side of the wall is a hallway and Lil Wayne’s production manager is out in the hallway and our operations manager for the building in Wilkes-Barre is there, and he says to our operations manager, “If you want Lil Wayne to walk through that metal detector back there in the back of the building, you better tell me now so we can stop the load-in.” So, our operations manager’s trained to tell everybody they have to walk through the metal detectors. So that’s what he did. Well, the production manager for Lil Wayne jumps on his radio and says to his whole crew, “Stop the bus. We’re not going to load in. The show’s not going to happen.” So I immediately got up from my meeting with the client, walked out into the hallway, and said, “I need to introduce myself as the regional manager overseeing the building.” And I said, “You know, maybe there’s another way we can handle this.” And he said, ‘What do you have in mind?” I said, “Well, how about if our head of security for this building takes a metal detecting wand and meets Lil Wayne with his girlfriend at a private side entrance where nobody will see him come in. And we’ll make sure he doesn’t have a weapon coming in, and there’ll be nobody watching, and nobody will even know that he came in the building.” So he goes on his cell phone right there, and he tells Wayne on the phone what I just recommended. And so Wayne yells out, “Now there’s a white motherf*ker that gets it.”
The show took place, but come to find out, he felt disrespected because there were 50 or 60 stagehands in Boston that were right at the backstage entrance, and he didn’t feel like he wanted to have other people watching him have to go through a metal detector. I’m not gonna say that I’m gonna defend him and say that that’s OK to cancel the show because of that, but that’s the reasoning why he did it. So knowing that, when I got to the Wilkes-Barre building, I thought I was probably going to have a problem like that. So I’d had an opportunity to think to myself, how could I change that narrative, you know, how could I make a difference, and, you know, maybe make it so he’s not disrespected. So it worked, you know, and that’s in the book; these kinds of things,
RRX: Now, what you do isn’t always just entertainment. You’ve had a chance in your career to make big impacts. What would you say was the most impactful thing you’ve ever been able to do?
BB: There’s one thing that I can point to that was the best thing that I’ve done in my career. And it’s not in Albany inasmuch as I’ve been here the longest. In my opinion, the best thing that I’ve done was when I was the director of booking for the US for a company called SMG. SMG was the biggest facility management company in the world, with 250 stadiums, arenas, and convention centers that we managed, and was merged about 5 years ago. They were merged with AEG Facilities. And a company by the name of ASM Global was formed. ASM Global exists today, and it has been purchased by a company called Legends. And Legends, as you may know, is owned by the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys owners, and it’s a huge hospitality and food service company. So they have purchased ASM Global, and now there are over 350 stadiums, arenas, and convention centers that are operated by this company.
Back in the early 2000s, when it was still under SMG, I was (in addition to running the Albany Arena) the director of booking for the US, and I was routing shows into 75 arenas at that point. I routed the Vince Gill and Amy Grant Christmas tours two years in a row in the early 2000s. And we had just gone into Iraq. So the country was on edge. There wasn’t even any video coming out of Iraq yet. And the tour – the Vince Gill Christmas tour – was out on the road. And so in San Antonio, which is a really big military town, there were a lot of fathers and some mothers who were in Iraq that were serving, and the families that were going to the Christmas show. Didn’t have their full families, and they were separated.
I wanted to do something special to connect the families. So I went to the general who oversees the Army’s broadcast network, and I said to the general, “You know, here’s what I’d like to do. I’d really like to connect the families and do it via satellite with a big screen on stage and so forth, and do it live.” He said to me, “Well, son, you realize it’s gonna be 4:30 in the morning or so Iraq time?” I said, yeah, I understand that, but imagine what that will look like and feel like? And he said, “Well, I hope you’ve got a big budget, because satellite time is not cheap. And it sounds like you’re going to need a lot of satellite hours or minutes.” And I said, ‘Yeah, I think you’re right, and no, I don’t have a budget. But I think it’s something that your military and the families back home will really appreciate.” So he gave me the number of the vice president of the satellite company. And he said, “Good luck, son,” and you know he didn’t expect me to be able to do anything with it.
I called the satellite company. I explained what I had in mind. Guy said, “I’ll call you back in 30 minutes.” Fifteen minutes later, he calls me back and he says, “We’re in, it’s not gonna cost you a dime.” And so on the night of the show, Vince and Amy Grant performed an incredible first half of the show. The lights come up. Grant goes to the front of the stage, and she tells everybody, “Don’t get out of your seats. I’ve got something special for you.” And she calls seven people, seven ladies, up to the stage with their children. They had seven barstools facing out at the edge of the stage. The kids were sitting on the stage, more or less under the bar stools, and she went to the first lady and asked her name, and she said, “If you could have anything in the world for the holidays, what would you want?” The lady started tearing up, and she said, “I wish I had my husband home.” And with that, the back of the stage completely illuminated from edge to edge with this massive video screen with seven guys in chairs and 400 military personnel behind them in uniform, 4:30 in the morning or so, Iraq time. And they zoomed in on the one husband, and he said, “Hi, honey.” And, oh my
God, Liam, there was not a dry eye. I was in tears. Every single person in every aisle of that arena was in tears.
The reason the army did that was because from the start of the show, through the interaction with the families, and through the end of the show, that entire thing, the show and the interaction, was broadcast to 118 military bases around the world. And the uplifting of morale in the military, from what I’ve understood, was incredible.
Two weeks after the Vince Gill/Amy Grant tour is finished, I get a box, a big box, shipped to me, and it’s a framed gold record from Amy Grant. And the note in the box said that what we did in San Antonio to connect the families was the best thing that Vince Gill and Amy Grant have done in their careers. And, I have to say, it’s the best thing that I’ve done in my career as well.
Margo Macero – Red Hot and Passionate – by Ree Miller.
I had the opportunity to meet with Margo Macero of Glens Falls, New York before her concert at White Lake Studios. We talked, laughed, and shared some life experiences. I found a thoughtful, engaging, driven, personable artist. She started young and has the musical pedigree of Berkley School of Music, competitions in The Voice and American Idol, and a couple of decades of dues paying. All those experiences give her a healthy pinch of seasoning, with an undaunted dash of exuberance leading to a record deal with White Lake Studios.
One thing that shines through is Macero’s own distinct vibe. Her M.O. allows her creativity to be open to influences, contributions, and co-writing from old and new artists, like Patsy Cline, Dave Brubeck, Lainey Wilson, and Melissa Etheridge; her friends and family, one of whom keeps numerous notebooks; and record label stablemates, Jocelyn and Chris Arndt. She is a multi-instrumentalist whose favorite is playing lead guitar. In the concert at White Lake, she put that on full display, along with her sometimes stirring, sometimes energetic voice and presence. Yup, she’s the whole package, tied with a red bow!
Her band consists of:
Margo Macero – Lead Guitar and vocals
Ben Zoleski – Guitar, backing vox
Marina Svrchek – Bass, backing vox
Tyrone Hartzog – Hammond Organ, backing vox
David Bourgeois – Drums (of White Lake Studios)
Tucked into a second/last row seat in the cozy White Lake Studios concert room, Macero exposed me and my ride along friend to a fourteen-song set in a variety of genres. A curated number of covers mixed in with her originals that demonstrated her guitar chops, strong vocal presence, and the sweet harmonies of her band mates. Jocelyn Arndt joined her on stage for “Knock on Wood.” This collaborative has a clever call and response section with Macero matching Arndt’s energy, vocal licks, and expertly sustained notes.
Her band of friends, assembled through friendships, found young and serendipitous meetups, supported Macero and still managed to shine, in their own light using properly placed guitar solos, vocal harmonics, and fillips of percussion. Looking forward to seeing them again, just to dissect their talents and contributions.
I don’t want to steal the thunder of the new album release, due out the end of 2025, so I will just list my top songs of the night:
#1 – “There Goes My Heart” – at first, I thought it reflected the influence of Bad Company, those recently RRHOF inductees (how spooky is that!), but thinking more about it, she actually channeled Paul Rodgers from his solo album, “Cut Loose.” Rodgers played all the instruments and vocal parts on that album and Macero mirrors that set of talents.
#2 – “Rest of my Life” – A country guitar flavored song, co-written by the Arndts and puts one in mind of Lainey Wilson. Who knew making eggs would be such an instigation to writing a song!
#3- “Other Side of Good-bye” – Brings me back to the Southern Rockers Rossington Collins with Macero’s vocals sounding like Dale Krantz, before she was Rossington! See if I’m right – go ahead!
#4 – “Hard Hitter” – a song paying homage to a strong mother, encouraging the strong woman to be. Harkens back to old country lesson songs written and sung by experienced women aimed at growing strong women.
Like many of us, Macero has had her brush with adversity and hard knocks. She bent those life events like she bends her guitar strings to her will and talent making them positive opportunities, demonstrating the real strength of a woman, or really any resilient person – turning the blues into her signature color RED for use by people everywhere.
Explore Marcero’s music and videos through the links below. She is also on the usual social media platforms.
Her next show is July 18th at Caffe Lena – tix available at Eventbrite
Official Website: www.margomaceromusic.com
Her videos can be found at youtube.com/@MargoMacero
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White Lake Studio has scheduled another three events in their Upstate Unplugged series – tix available at whitelake.eventbrite.com
Photo by Will Hahn / Bridge Road Entertainment
Jesse Sample’s Freak of the Week airs EVERY WEDNESDAY at 6pm Eastern ONLY on RadioRadioX.com
This is Jesse Sample. When we are young, our brains work at turbo speed. We hear the lady humming in the checkout line at Hannaford or see the dog barking. Our little brains take these things and billions of others and configure the story of our lives. The Nature vs. Nurture question is not much of a question at all. It’s both and what we witness in those tender years is critical in how we will see the world .
What happens when a young person encounters an adult who has some demons? I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have the where with all to say, “That guy has some real emotional problems. I wonder why he never grew up?” Kids are still putting it together and the ground is forming under their feet. They might see an angry adult and assume that the adult is merely reacting to them, and that they’re bad. And sometimes they just go on believing it forever and build their lives around it.
This week’s song is part 1 of a three song Series that was part of my Capstone project for my Songwriting degree from Berklee. Thanks to all of you tuned into
RadioRadioX. This is the Freak of the Week, “Creation Story for Psychos Everywhere.”
An interview with Jimmy Månsson of Blended Brew. Hosted by Justin Smulison
Subscribe to our No MSG TV RadioRadioX YouTube Channel HERE!
I (Justin Smulison) took my first audio sip of Blended Brew about five years ago, when the Danish rock band released their sophomore, blues-inspired album, Shove It Down. Featuring double organ and the wailing vocals of frontman and guitarist Jimmy Månsson, the album provided me with a bright spot during the dark and isolating times of the pandemic’s early days. I had the chance to interview the band at the time and expected to hear more from them quickly, but between the touring limitations caused by the pandemic and external commitments, the creative process slowed down a bit.
But my hopes for a follow-up were finally realized last month when they released Roll The Dice, through the Danish label, Mighty Music. The album is unique in that it was essentially banked 10 years ago – these nine songs were recorded, but not used for their 2015 debut, Hand Patrones.
As the title suggests, Roll The Dice takes its chances with its eclectic mix of rock tunes to wild success, featuring the wailing vocals of frontman and guitarist Jimmy Månsson. I had a lot of fun talking about what it was like for him to revisit these songs and why he gambled on their release.
Song clips: “Grateful Moment,” “Roll The Dice,” “King Confidence,” “Shove It Down.”
Blended Brew:
Steal and Get Back – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.
The worst thing about having something of yours stolen isn’t necessarily thar you’re out the money, though that may be 90% of the bulk of it; no, it’s the fact that even though you might be able to replace it, you’ll never replace the memories. But in the case of British man Ewan Valentine from Solihull, England, getting the memories back was doable, but a little stupid.
Ewan had his 2016 Honda Civic Type-R stolen, and he was bummed. It had a custom exhaust on it, so yes, it had just a little bit of memory to it. So he called his insurance company and set out to get a replacement just like it.
And he did. But with stolen cars as with monkeys paws, the trick is t to be careful what you wish for.
It wasn’t just “like” the original, it was “exactly” like the original, including the Tesco’s bag that held the bolts for the spare time. Ewan Valentine bout his stolen car back from a different used car place for $26,000.
So is this a new car? If I just got run in for $26,000, I would pretend it was a new car. I might be inclined to hang a pine tree spray bottle of Armor All and just pretend.
You figure you could probably find something cooler in the used car lot for $26k. Unless he’s on of those Fast and Furious guys and at least fifteen thousand of that cost is nitrous oxide.
The garage he bought it out of said that it was one of the best clone-jobs he has seen. Expertly-faked VIN, which brings me to this point: how do you not get the wrappers out of there? That’s the only giveaway was the literal wrapping bags and garbage. I guess it should be said from here forth that you should clean your stolan car good enough to sell it back to them and have them not know.
The Turd: An American Journey – Chptr 4 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.
A ringmaster in a top hat hyped the crowd assembled, each to a one blowing hot air out of a noisemaker in between shouts of “you can do it” and “go Ernie!” Hobo clowns circled around him with big balloon sledgehammers and started hitting each other as they laughed and laughed. A lithe woman in a silver leotard had Ernest’s poop knife in her hand, on fire as she swallowed it, putting it out and bringing it back up to place in Ernest’s hand. An elephant’s trunk protruded from the bathroom window into the room, over to Ernest, and around his waist, squeezing as the whole entire circus shouted push, push, PUSH!
Ernest awoke in a sweat on the can and the jolt of waking knocked him off it, his pants around his ankles.
“You okay, Ernie?” Lysette called from the kitchen on her way to the bathroom.
She opened the door to see Ernest lying there in defeat.
“Fell asleep again?”
Ernest groaned. “Yep.”
“Was it the circus this time or the Olympics?”
“Circus.”
“You can try again later. We got dinner. Chicken soup. Your favorite.”
Lysette’s chicken soup was little more than broth, but Ernest had cut back on solid food since day fifteen. It was surprisingly hearty for a soup just thick enough to not actually be broth.
“Honey,” she said as they sat down. “What do you think of my tweak to the ionizer?”
“It’s good,” Ernest said as he filled a soup bowl from the steaming pan.
“But do you think it’s our ticket out of here?”
“Any one of your inventions in the right hands could be our ticket out of here.”
“But I mean that one in particular,” she said. “Like a piggie had to go to market, and you had to pick, would that be one of the piggies?”
“Babe, I don’t even know what that means.”
“If I had to throw one away…”
“Nope,” Ernest said. “I know what you’re going to say, and nope. They’ve gotten enough.”
“We need a break, Ernest. Some breathing room. They don’t pay that bad.”
Lysette found the IdeaBank the month before, and she braved the 3-star rating. A website that bought ideas, preferably ones with blueprints. Exactly the kind Lysette created in her office. Exactly the kind that Ernest quit being a mechanic to help her build.
“What’ll you get? What did you get last time? A grand? You can get that in a
Funder campaign.”
Lysette dug into her mashed potatoes. “I can’t go to Funder for the rent and the
power bill. And I’m not ready to sell these as products, you know that. I’d need a thousand just to get through trademarking and whatnot. What choice do we have?”
Ernest stared at his soup like it might drown him. “What are we even doing here,
Lys? You need to be recognized for those three pounds of electric jello between your ears. That IdeaBank doesn’t even give you any credit, not even in the small print. We can do better than this. You can do better than this.”
They ate with nary a word passed between them. Lysette was probably mad that Ernest wasn’t supporting her, but she had to know that he wasn’t supporting her because he was that proud of her. She caught glances at him in between bites and chews of lemon-pepper chicken. Ernest finished his soup like he was drinking it on a hundred mile highway cruise. He wiped his mouth with a Christmas-embroidered napkin, used year-round just like the Thanksgiving turkey salt and pepper shakers.
“I can take a couple cars,” he said. “I know enough people with classics they’re trying to restore. I can make fifteen hundred a month on the side, easy.”
Lysette’s dark eyes pierced his, her hurt a vapor swirling through her irises. He tried to look away, but she was a lion tamer.
“You want to give this up, don’t you, Ernie.”
“No,” Ernest said. “Hell no. The opposite. I want you to be Hedy Lamar.”
“Hedy Lamar didn’t get credit for Wifi until a couple of years ago.”
Ernest picked up the napkin, destination forehead. “I’d rather you get your due late than never get it. But we need money, and not like that. I’d rather give blood than see you lose your inventions.”
“Well, what in the hell good are we gonna do? I got a closet full of blueprints.”
“So what?” Ernest said.
“So what? What do you mean, so what?”
“Why can’t I go fix a couple of cars while we figure out a way to make bank on all this? Maybe that Sponsor account you set up? We could shoot videos of us building the stuff for the Platinum subscription?”
“I did a video, and all I got was twenty guys wanting to see my tits,” she said. “My old gym teacher, too. Gross. No one sets up Sponsor accounts to do anything clothed.”
“So we’ll figure something else out. I believe in you, Lys. It’ll just be a couple cars a month.”
“What happens if you have an emergency with your shit situation?”
“That could happen anywhere,” Ernest said.
“I don’t want to be the last person to know you’re in the Emergency Room.”
“If I see someone else about it, will you let me do cars?”
Lys got up and went into the dining room, pulling a business card off the top shelf. He returned to the kitchen and sat down by the soup bowl. Ernest picked it up.
“Moriah Bloodstone,” it read, “Holistic Healing, Reiki, Essential Oils,
Acupuncture, Aromatherapy – walk-ins welcome.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” he said.
“It’s that if you want to be waist-deep in engines,” she said. “Considering you ran from real medical care.”
“He was going to molest me with a robot, right?”
“Sure, Ernie. Go to her please?”
Ernest looked at the card again. The top right corner had a dream catcher in metallic rainbow ink. If Moriah cared that much about her cards, maybe she’d be better than a par three sawbones.
“Tomorrow, Lys.”
***
The basement smelled like everything that ran the twenty floors above. Iron, copper, industrial cleaner and mold. Were one to pull apart the walls of any of the floors, mold would be a perfume on the skin of the plumbing pipes and junction boxes. Jasen didn’t hate it, but they were cautious friends. Ophelia didn’t seem to care one whit.
One thing Jasen hadn’t considered in his deal with VidYou, aside from the fact that he hadn’t considered anything at all, was how he planned on depositing ten thousand dollars cash in a bank. It would draw red flags and get suited men to ask questions he didn’t know if he could even answer. It had been years since he was a working hacker, and he never made enough money to worry about red flags. In fact, most of his hacking only paid in satisfaction and bragging rights.
“How are you getting your pay in the bank?”
“I’d avoid banks,” Ophelia said. “You ever do anything with Crypto?”
“I know there’s a coin with a Doge on it.”
“Yeah, stick to Bitcoin. I can get you set up.”
“What can I buy with Bitcoin?”
“All kinds of stuff,” Ophelia said. “Computers, cars, missile systems, assassins, maybe?”
“So I’m thinking of bills.”
“If you don’t put more than six-hundred at a time in the bank, you should be good.”
A knock at the door announced the mail girl, who dropped off a manila folder with Jasen’s ill-gotten security badge. He pulled it out and held it up by the lanyard.
“Now we can get going.”
“What do you mean?” Ophelia said. “Where will that take us? If we’re going up to some office, probably should have a game plan.”
Jasen hung the security badge from his neck. “I’m thinking we just go down to the other end of the sub-basement and give Jim Barner a visit.”
“Didn’t he just print you that thing? Seems kind of reckless to stay on his radar, no?”
“You are playing checkers right now,” Jasen said. “I’m playing Mahjong.”
Ophelia chuckled. “Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of an asshole?”
“My therapist said I didn’t get enough love as a kid. That was until we slept together. You know, she was kind of a shitty therapist.” Jasen got up. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Jasen and Ophelia went down the hallway, Jasen wearing the security pass, Ophelia clutching a small slate gray spiral bound notebook. They passed a bank of servers behind a glass wall. Jasen pressed the glass and it was ice cold. There had to be a thousand servers, which was a drop in the bucket of how many servers VidYou had in farms all over the world. They passed janitorial and maintenance offices, down a room-bare hallway with an artery of pipes and cables. At the end of that hallway, Jim Barner’s office.
Jasen rapped on the door.
“C’mon in.”
Jasen and Ophelia slid their way in, past Ethernet cabling and computers, the landscape of a perfect thigh-level labyrinth.
“Can I help you folks?”
“Yeah,” Jasen said. “You got me this badge the other day, I called, said I was moving positions.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “I’m sure that’s true if you’re saying it. I get a lot of those calls, sorry for not really remembering.”
Jasen took off his badge. “Bad news, bud. I don’t work here. Just got fired. You should’ve checked the personnel records. I got fired that morning.”
“What morning?”
“Tuesday.”
“Yeah, personnel changes don’t come in until Friday. So how could I have known?”
“You’re supposed to call an employee’s supervisor to make sure they have the right information,” Jasen said. “I could’ve had the wrong building I needed access for.
Point is, you screwed up.”
Jim let out a breath. “So okay, I screwed up. Are you going to tell my boss?”
“Not if you cooperate,” Jasen said.
“Cooperate? Is this blackmail?”
“I guess it is.”
“What the hell do you even want?”
“I-,” he said. “I’m not sure. Gimme a second.”
Jasen let the security badge dangle from his fingers. Blackmail was a good idea.
But he found himself the dog that caught its tail.
“You didn’t plan this out at all, did you?” Jim said.
“Right?” Ophelia said. “Look, Jim. We’re trying to figure out how to stop the viral turd. I’m trying to disable the video, but I can’t get through all the security.”
“Of course not,” Jim said. “Whole countries can’t break through VidYou’s security. Ever notice VidYou never goes down for longer than a couple of hours?”
“We have to get that turd off there,” Jasen said. “My amazingly hot girlfriend wanted to engage in shitplay. Do you two know what shitplay is?”
“Oh yeah,” Ophelia said. “It’s the most popular category on SexNet right now.”
Jasen and Jim looked at Ophelia.
“What? I have a life.”
“I’m with you on down with turds,” Jim said. “Hell, at this point we can go into the server rooms with fire axes and have fun. But it won’t do anything. This isn’t a coding issue. It’s in Profiles, it’s in PicFeed, shit challenges are on 15Min. People are keeping pieces of shit in alcohol in Mason jars like they’re family heirlooms. My neighborhood smells like a third-world country on purpose. It’s people.”
“So we change people’s minds,” Jasen said. “I know how to get things viral, small ‘v’. I did it from the Nipple Factory. How do we get into the system to do that from the outside?”
Jim took out a pen and scribbled a name and a number down.
“There’s an algorithm I heard about called the Piss Algorithm. Powerful enough to hook someone in their seat till they piss their pants.” He handed the slip of paper to Ophelia.
“Colby Ferris,” Jim said. “He’s the one that I heard it from. He worked on it, I think. But he is a weird, paranoid fuck. You might not want to blackmail him.” He pulled a badge and lanyard off a rack of them, and handed it to Ophelia.
“I’ll set that up for you when you leave,” he said. “I wish you luck. I’m tired of smelling crap with my morning tea.”
