Karl Cable's fascination with the media of all forms began at an early age. The object of his affections was an ancient Voice Of Music tape recorder. It was gigantic; it looked like a piece of luggage. The young Cable would haul this massive brute around with him, to friends' houses, family gatherings. Just about the time that nearly every adult who knew little Karl began to despise him virulently, he made a wondrous discovery. Karl found, to his abject delight, that by pounding repeatedly on the side of that old VoM, he could encourage the huge motor inside to accelerate, thereby speeding up a tape on playback with side-splitting results! Conversely, pounding on the recorder at the start of recording would produce a slowed-down playback that was nearly as much fun. Further hilarity could be achieved by once again pounding on the tape recorder during the playback of the slowed-down recording. How young Karl's eyes sparkled as he heard the voices waver and quaver and never quite get back up to the right speed, giving everyone that sort of half-awake sound.

A brief sidetrack was taken when, for quite some time, Cable found that pounding on drums was nearly as satisfying as pounding on that long lost Voice Of Music. Karl had a brief bash at being some sort of rock and roll musician. Slowly, he came to the realization that the vast majority of people can't distinguish good music from squirrel's eggs. And it was at this moment that a Curmudgeon came into being.

Now, gleefully condemned to a life of staring into glowing cathode ray tubes (and whatever successor to that there may be) Cable vents monthly on the business he both loves and fears.

E-mail to karl@cosmik.com.