GPTRN Fans Are The Best

I get emails, letters, photos of a questionable nature, and even gifts all the time; it’s just part of being polka star. I’ve learned to deal with it over the years. I keep my ego in check by reminding myself that if I wasn’t a world renowned polka star, these people wouldn’t care who I am.

Sometimes you get an email or letter from a fan that just needs to be shared. The email I’m talking about started out normal, the usual thank you for making a unique sound; you’re the best band on the planet kind of thing. Then the email takes a turn. Here’s a sample of what I’m talking about.

“There is a Pulaski Park in Cherry Creek and I thought about spray painting “Guy” in front of it and then sending it to you, but I thought I might seem like an overly obsessive fan. I’m not obsessive, I just really dig your music. Like I play it in my car, on my home stereo, on my computer, on my iPod, in the gym, at the grocery store, and sometimes when I’m at the mall, I might, just might insist they play your greatest hits over the intercom. By insist, I mean with my persuasive demeanor, and a sawed-off shotgun. It’s very effective. So what if “society” labels you “crazy”? Some people chop up hookers and put them in their freezers…. I don’t judge.”

At this point, I start to say to myself, now this person needs help. They need help rising to top of the GPTRN fan club. It is this kind of enthusiasm that gets things done. I may even contact this person to see she is interesting in helping manage the band. Imagine the type of contract riders we would get with this kind of energy behind us.

All I can say is keep up the good work GPTRN fans. We love you all.

Pavel

Am I getting Dumber?

I got this iPhone thing because it operates as an MP3 player and a phone. This was very exciting for me. I could have more music with me than I could ever want to listen to. What a great idea. The problem is, I’m not very familiar with Apple’s applications because I’ve worked in a Window’s environment for that last 15 years. This is where the old guy disease comes into play.

The application used to sync the iPhone with your computer is iTunes. In the Windows world the application is called Microsoft sync. iTunes is also an MP3 player. So when I loaded songs onto my phone, I naturally thought I would use iTunes to play the songs. After all, that’s what I use on my computer.

So there I am, initiated iTunes time after time and only getting the web site for iTunes. I’m thinking to myself, how do I play songs on the iPhone? iTunes is not helping and I don’t know what to do. Being logical I’m think that maybe I have to plug in the ear buds to activate the MP3 player. Nope, that didn’t work. I search the web site for clues and find nothing. I’m lost. I’m almost ready to go into the Apple and store and ask for help.

Then, out of nowhere I notice at the bottom of the phone, in the spot that contains the 4 icons that are always present on the interface, an icon that says iPod. “Hmm,” I think to myself, “Could this be the way to play MP3s?”

Of course it is. I was about 10 minutes away from going into the Apple store and making a complete fool out myself.

The worst thing about this story is that I work in the tech business. I’ve been around people with iPods and iPhones for a long time. This begs the question; do people get dumber as they get older? Am I not able to figure out these new fangled tech products anymore?