For me, the single most amazing and influential man-made system I have ever seen is the Juke Box. A robotic arm moves silently to the selected disc, extracts it from it’s vertical storage position, places it horizontally on a turn table and then perfectly positions the needle onto the first groove. All of this, because I deposited a dime and pressed two buttons, one alpha, one numeric that corresponded to the tune I wanted and needed to hear. IF I had put in a quarter, it would allow me to press two more alpha numeric sequences and it would REMEMBER not just the songs I wanted it to play but the order in which I selected them. As others deposited and pressed, it had the wherewithall to hold everyones place in line. Many of these devices contained sound systems so sophisticated that it was many times preferrable to listening to the live music of the day. We needed no training manuals, no Juke Box for Dummies books, people of all ages could work these things. Installation? The proprietor of the establishment just had to plug it in. Maintenance? Periodically your local mafia would send over a technician who would restock with some of the latest tunes and replace any worn out favorites. I ALWAYS wondered what it would be like to have one of these in my house, stocked with my entire collection and ready to play any of my (or anyone elses’) SELECTIONS at the touch of two buttons.
I tell you this story because many of you have asked me to join a side in the MAC vs PC, or more approriatley Apple Operating System vs Microsoft Operating System battle and this is my answer. Whichever tool comes closest to costing YOU a dime and allowing YOU to achieve YOUR desired result by pressing just two buttons is the one YOU should go with.
And remember the defintion of juke is “to make a move intended to deceive” so don’t let ANY of these New Media boxes fake you out!
Juke Box Jumping will continue as long as progress exists. That being said, I must support every word in your September 22 entry. I especially like the No “Juke Box for Dummies.” The only thing you needed other than a dime was the ability to read the titles. Ah, those were the days. . . Actually, my wife’s little white Juke Box cost about 25 cents a tune to buy and set up, but after the first play, she can repeat it for free, over, and over, and over! Today I have a hard time listening to a song over, and over, but I can remember the days I did, and remember WHAT was floating thru my head during those over and over tunes: Love, Passion, Optimism, Hope, and the smell of Sharon’s hair when I danced with her that wonderful Friday at the sock hop.
But this is not what I wanted to share, BL!
The thing your Juke Box Jumping triggered takes me back to 1964, and the first time I became aware of the occupation called entrepreneur. Specifically Ben, a young entrepreneur in my neighborhood who drove his grandfather’s restored 1940 Cadillac Special with the lady on the hood gold plated.
“Why gold?” I asked.
“Because I’ll never have to plate it again. It’s good for at least my lifetime,” Ben answered.
“How can you afford it?”
“I can’t afford not to. It is cost effective, as well as great to look at. I had to modify how it is attached so it can’t be stolen, but that was the easy part.”
“How so?” now throughly listening to every word.
“Have you ever seen the insides of a player piano?”
“Oh, yes,” I answered. “I love player pianos, and the one at the Knott’s Berry Farm that plays the drums and the violin? Fabulous! I think they are great. I love to watch more than listen! So how does a player piano make your hood ornament secure?”
“I repair player pianos, as well as the nickelodeons you love so much.”
“But, I still don’t understand.”
“My grandfather sold players, and learned to repair then after he sold them. I grew up watching him make the parts.”
“Couldn’t he order them?”
Ben paused just long enough to emphasize his point, “In the five years I been doing grandpa’s repairs, I have not seen two pianos alike. It is almost like each was built from scratch, and in the process, the next was changed to make it better, and the next more efficient, and the one after that more durable. I just repaired a player piano Juke box where the rolls are inserted in a revolving drum in a box connected to the keyboard. You dial a number, and when you drop in 25 cents, the inside drum rotates to the number you chose, and the roll is grabbed and pulled across the tracker bar so it can play. Then it is rewound and released to go on to the next. You can shuffled the music rolls in the order you want to listen and drop in more quarters to keep it going. This guy must of had 500 rolls. Some so rare he had them in a vault.”
“Parts, man. What about the parts? Where do you get the parts?”
“I make them.”
“YOU make them?”
“Yep, right back there in grandpa’s shop behind garage.”
Ben never allowed people into the shop, but thru the window you could see there was room for one person surrounded by benches, two small machine lathes, three sizes of drill presses, grinders, saws, and what seemed like a wall of box drawers with hand written labels just under the knobs.
“Mostly extra parts or ones that didn’t work, nuts, bolts, thousands of salvaged parts, washers, rubber hose, and gasket stuff, and you’d be surprised where I have to find this stuff. Every second hand store in the country is on the look out for a full page list of supplies I need. When they run out, I’ll have to modify or invent something else.”
“Are you that busy?” It seemed to me almost a waste of effort. I mean how many people still listen to player pianos, let alone own one of the clunkers anyway? I mean this is the sixties, and 45s had taken the country by storm.
“Lets say I am as busy as people are willing to pay. And you’re right, the golden lady on the hood was not cheap, but worth every nickel.”
Thus began an awareness which didn’t make sense until I started my own company 10 years later. In truth, passionate people who love their old Juke Boxes, whether hand cranked, peddle powered, or just plain plug in, when it breaks, want it fixed at almost any price. Player pianos have almost always been hand-me-downs or give-a-ways, but rarely show up at Goodwill. Ben bought them for parts, if they were beyond restoration. The basement of our church had a few more than most, and we lacked the rolls to play them, but the romance, Ben said, was defiantly alive and well, and he was making as much as the market would tolerate. His best clients were theme parks, arcades, movie lobbies, and restaurants, but when he would get a call from Bel Aire or Pasadena, he would almost drool with anticipation.
About now, 2008, he’d be pushing seventy, and probably still busy. “There is no one else, Peter. I am the only one making these parts, and each one is different. Sometimes I have to invent a part because it was lost during a move.”
I had forgotten Ben until you triggered this memory. I know IPods are repaired somewhere on the planet, but parts are readily available, and other than my color being different from yours, the biggest thrill is to be the FIRST to get the LATEST. While it is easier to throw away an iPod than a player piano, the thought of being able to keep something that gives so much joy in good repair forever, is down right thrilling! And it’s wonderful someone can step up to fill a void, and be “the only one.”
Apple and PC will eventually become obsolete, and recycled into new products. Player pianos? All the parts are manufacturable, and you can even buy rolls by current artists! Someone will step up when it needs tuning, and Ben will be reincarnated. It is a comfort to me!
Thanks, BL. This has been a great memory walk thru the archives of my brain!
Now what was that songe we danced to?
Peter Burt
Soaring Images
Phoenix, AZ
09/28/08