We Don’t Have 21 Guns, Ma’am!

Legend has it that in the Victorian era, the eponymous queen was once denied her 21-gun salute. I recall it as being on the Isle of Wight. She was given 21 reasons, of which the last was that they did not have 21 guns. And that, sadly is why my nascent new job with Fast Car online has failed. If you cannot get the units nor communication from a new generation of car audio execs, then what can one do? Sadly, although Google can now tell a real review from a load of made-it-up, the whole structure of sending out units for review has become forgotten by some.

I have been churning out quality educational copy for their site and was lined up to do a huge set of sweeping reviews across all sorts of speakers and head units, having done a major group one of ten single-DIN radios. There were twenty seven of my article credits on their site when I last looked. There are folks who were thrilled to hear from me or at least remembered me fondly enough to send me stuff. That was Blaupunkt, RetroSound and I also made reconnection with the head of PR for the whole of Sony consumer electronics, who took the time to reply to me. Celsus Ice were awesome too, being Kicker, Morel and Caliber and more.

I was sent Sony units and those from top famous brands for the first test. Yet had to drive and collect the Alpine unit, then borrow the connection wires from a different dealer. It was amateur hour but I prevailed. (I even, for the first time ever, bought a unit to test!) But we then had the motorhome show at the NEC and some ranges were changing for some manufacturers. But rather than dare to tell me ‘no’ and why, I had my calls hung up on, replied to by a text about ‘call you back’ that never happened. Perhaps it was because I am so much older? It was never an issue before . We were able to take ‘no’ for an answer and why.. but just shutting off for nine days and more, made a journalist given a commission and a deadline date, simply sink.

Heck, it could be the pressure they are all under, but I have a Marty McFly character flaw about being ignored. Like him going off if you called him ‘chicken’, I have terrible issues with being ignored! Ever since I grew up huge, I worked out it was impossible to miss this much fat bastard in your face. So if you’re ignoring me, it kinda has to be deliberate. Incidentally, while we are at it, there was one exec from who swears I cut him dead while he was trying to get my attention from a few places back in the queue for the Bellagio Buffet in Las Vegas at the CES a decade or more ago! Anyone who knows me, would find that puzzling – more like Shrek’s Donkey than reclusive! He never forgave me, either! That was Pioneer… and the hang up exec was Mr. JVCKenwood, who also attended said motorhome show while infectious with Covid, from what he said. The nurse’s son in my makeup kinda lost respect at that point for ever. The other major one was Alpine/JL Audio. Lucio, the JL Audio boss, sold the company to Garmin and dumped the long term UK company Celsus Ice as their distributor, going with Horn Distribution instead, who also look after Alpine in Europe, these days . They inherited the Alpine UK staff, including the exec who got his job from an advert I wrote on Talk Audio, for Alpine, years back. And he was full of just promises about tomorrow, that never happened, over and over. Like something out of Bugsy Malone!

But you know what? That really was the least of it! There are times when a freelancer ‘sacks’ a publication. I sacked T3 once; I had a story about a jet truck and the snapper they sent would not do the job but took random shots of the car event! I couldn’t work out why, either. I also sacked Home Cinema Choice who figured I would tolerate a second visit to my HOME by an exec from a company who had purchased a subwoofer maker, to try to influence how it was set up for testing. I literally had to tell them that the man was NOT coming into my house again, (it had happened before) and that reviewer’s morals were NOT like that, and sacked them. Trouble was, it was Richard Lord’s company. He of the the inventor of ARM or Acoustic Resistive MAtrix innards for his legendary subwoofers. These died with him for nobody else could d the research. he spent years doing it and the result made bass that unlike any other. I loved him. I went to his funeral. None of the new owners did.) The relationship at HCC hadn’t been working for a little while anyway, and I gather I beat them to it! I used to have an editor I adored, who changed for one that had a resentment for some reason. I put it down to him having a student loan that I did not and my utter dismissal of him wanting to meet my brother, who I cordially detest.

However, there are some other sad bits, which all on their own, even without any suppliers’ executives becoming lower calibre than I am used to over the four generations of executives I have known, would have killed the relationship. There was editing of my copy, that I was ashamed of. Done in ignorance and with that ineffable urge to do as Robert Heinlein, the Dean of Science Fiction called , “pissing in it, to change the flavour”. Or editing to alter STYLE when you hired an actual writer..but it wasn’t you, so you do it out of a slice of minor spite. Then, there were versions published to make shorter sting-stories to launch from, that were beyond awful. I would have done those for free had I been told. How about “good old radio” as a technical filler term? Sorry.. what? And all on top of a reluctance to again, just have a brief word. We were setting up review structure for long term use. It needed a couple of checks going on before I would harass the suppliers for product, and again, it had to be by mail and had to wait a day, or more…

The only properly basic right a writer has is to be credited with their own work, so if you look deeper into the site, you will find my earlier stuff, actually credited to another contributor. Not on.

And then, you could even discount all the above, if you take the last bit into account. For, after a few months of getting paid, my last invoice, for a solid month’s labour, went ignored. I tried to call and the department simply would not answer any messages. It got to the point that the switchboard lasses all knew me! I did get paid, a few days later, but after all the work I had done and been paid for before, nobody had bothered to assign my little email address to their known-accepted contributors. The accounts department were at end of year, and were fabulous when they did connect, but ignoring me was a mistake. I have to do both the creative and the business side and there are some savage rules in the freelance game. The biggest is that it is all meaningless if you don’t GET PAID. Stuff that messes that up is a massive honking Klaxon horn. And that one went, PARRRRP!

So sadly, I have told Fast Car that we have a parting of the ways and binned two grand’s worth of further work. I have to look my mama’s ghost in the eye. I use her medical ethics, which may be a bit much for electronics but it works for me.

Slightly dead, a little bit biased, only partly pregnant? FAUGH! I got limits…