The Flashing VCR Clock Chronicles It was another perfect night in paradise. The temperature had cooled to the low 70's, a mild breeze was blowing in off the bay, Pix, my wife & partner had given me the evening off while she painted the new dog house, I'd just snarfed 6 tacos al pastor and, but for the vibrating cell phone in my pocket, all was well with the world…I fished the cell out of its' resting place and listened. "It's Nando. You've gotta come come quick, everything's all screwed up. I don't know what I did! Manny was over and he got me all confused and when I went to turn it on, nothing happened. NOTHING! You have to come over. I'm gonna loose it, I swear!" Nando was a client and a friend who was special to me; he was one of the charter members of FA: Flashers Anonymous, short for Flashing VCR Clock Owner's Anonymous.
Here's a Quarter, Go Buy a Ticket to the Clue Bus - Part 1
Like most of the members of FA, both current and past, Nando shouldn't have been so technologically clueless. He had grown up in the Salinas Valley in California, the son of a Mexican family that had owned the same large parcel of land in that beautiful valley for over 200 years. He had gone to Stanford on his own merits and his family's money and had returned to the family ranch with a plan. From a converted tool shed he started GARGLE, an internet search engine and wholesale supplier of all things dental. After seven years of being holed up in the shed, he decided it was time to come out. And oh, how he came out!
 Ten days before the dot com bubble burst, Naldo sold GARGLE for 60 million dollars. With his new found wealth, he bid the Salinas Valley shed adieu and relocated to a loft in San Francisco where he "found" his true self, so to speak. For the next 6 years, Nando conservatively invested his money and organized a plethora of gay charities and events throughout the Bay Area. Two years ago, he moved to PV. That's where I came in. He wanted to duplicate the system he had owned back in the states only he didn't want to buy anything locally in Vallarta, much less Mexico. In fact, Nando had a decidedly cheap streak about him that made it very difficult for me to talk sense, a la Mexicana, to him.
Try as I did, he countered with statements like, "...but I can go online right this second and find that component for 20 to 40 percent cheaper! Or I can go back to San Francisco and buy it, bring it down with me, maybe pay some ridiculous import taxes, and still come out ahead!" How to reason with such logic?
"Nando, you, of all people, should have an appreciation for things outside the box. Can you comprehend that multinational companies have set up field offices throughout this great globe to deal with such mundane events as the potential failure of your flatscreen TV? That, in the event of, for instance, a power failure or brownout, your USA-purchased TV will go on a slow bake that will be virtually impossible to resolve (and when I say resolve, I really mean REPAIR) because it was more important for you to save $213.17?"
"If and when you need service on a US-purchased component down here, it's not gonna happen. You'll be SOL. It won't be ME standing in line at a repair shop in Guadalajara making the argument in your behalf, like I was pleading a case to the Supreme Court. You could just let go and purchase this stuff right here, and yes, pay a slightly higher price for the sake of your peace of mind and the comfort that comes from knowing that you are pumping pesos into the local economy. After all, this IS your new home, maybe it's time to start acting like it. Oh, did I mention that these components that I'm advising you to buy locally, are designed and manufactured to actually function correctly on the local voltage?"
Nando was having none of it though, and I suggested that perhaps he could meet a few of my other clients and friends who might be able to shed some light on his situation. We met at Cafe de Luna Negra that first time, and Nando fit right in with the four others; all independently comfortable to wealthy, all recent transplants to PV from the US and Canada, all fans of high tech, and all but one, gay. Oh yes, and the other thing these guys shared- a black hole where sense and logic should have resided concerning their comprehension of and ability to control all things electronic.
These were the guys who owned VCRs with 12:00 flashing on the displays, because there was no hope of ever programming them to actually record anything. And though those VCRs were now in attics, storage units, sealed shipping cartons or 4th bedrooms, their clueless flashing 12 o'clock glow permeated their owners' personnas like the haze that hung over PV after a trash burning frenzy. Yes, the VCRs may have fallen by the wayside, replaced over the years by TiVos and DVD recorders but these guys were no closer to ever having a chance of operating any of them. These were the founding members of FA- "Flashers Anonymous" short for Flashing VCR Clock Owners Anonymous.
It had started out innocently enough, just a few of my friends and clients meeting at a cafe once a week or so to address their control issues; mostly remote control, to be honest. You see, I design and sell home entertainment systems and most of them come either with lots of remotes OR one, very expensive remote. So, the debate in those early days was simply, to plunge or not to plunge, that is, plunge into the depths of technology (via yours truly) or cling desperately to the mistaken belief that all is under control while fumbling six or seven remote controls and a "cheat sheet" that supposedly helps you figure out what to do with all of them.
Then, before I knew it, the group had grown to thirty plus people, and control was no longer the central issue, but technology at large, and more precisely, people's difficulties in harnessing it.
I don't claim to be a techie, and am neither an engineer nor a whiz kid installer. But what I am is a sensible guy who has grown up in the electronics industry; musical and consumer electronics, who has a fair comprehension of how all this stuff works. So, here I was, guiding these poor lost souls through the labyrinth of acronyms: HDTV, DTS, DTV, DVD, VCR (yes, VCRs still vexed all but the less clueless) TiVo, HDMI, you get the picture.
And that's how FA started. No, it's not a REAL 12 step program, although it's a safe bet that most of the members ARE in some kind of other legit programs. But when I tell these guys to get a ticket to the CLUE Bus, there's a good chance one of them will casually rebut, "I OWN the CLUE Bus Company and trust me, those vehicles are not fit to ride on..." Email to a friend
-to be continued
Landon Holander
E-mail: landon5123@mac.com
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Landon Hollander consults, designs and sells audio and video systems (landoplan.com) and handles sales in the Riviera Nayarit for the PVMirror. He can be reached at: landon5123@mac.com. Landon is currently teaching his dogs Spanish in hopes they can assist him with his multiples sales responsibilities.
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