The Mayor of BOOMTOWN
The Dead Budell Show!
By Greg Budell
"A true story from the Greg files"
Pardon me while I download my late parents. Not a picture. Their voices. And Alexa will bring them to audio life! You read that correctly. In a matter of form, Alexa will soon "bring back the dead".
IBM Selectric Typewriter
Internet.
Let me explain. I have embraced much of today’s technology. In fact, my track record has been pretty good in that regard. In the early 70s, I was the first kid on my block to own my own IBM Selectric typewriter! It cost me $600, an extravagant purchase for a radio newbie making little more than that per month. In today’s dollars that Selectric would run $4,051(or for me, about 4 good laptops or iPhone). What was so special about the Selectric? It did away with typewriter keys! The letters were on a metal ball that danced like magic with every stroke. The nasty old typewriter ribbon was replaced by a cartridge that delivered a nice, consistent result on paper. With a little help from Liquid Paper, I could correct mistakes while producing ad copy and written radio bits quickly and neatly. I also remember wondering ‘how could it get any better than this?”. I got my answer a couple years later when IBM introduced the Selectric II. It was basically the same machine, but it had a SELF-CORRECT function that did away with that tiny brush of Liquid Paper. Eventually, with great resistance early on, I discovered that writing on a computer
58 BOOM!
July 2022
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was even easier. I sold my Seletric for $40. For a mere $4,031 dollars in today’s money, I purchased my first HewlettPackard desk top computer (with a dot matrix printer!). It would be 6 years before I realized that same HP computer could connect me to this thing called the
I’d reached that point in life where things were moving faster and faster. Too fast. When I finally figured out AOL and realized I could send business and/or love letters to someone in an instant without paper or postage I again wondered, how can it get any better than this? In the late 80s, I was one of the first cell phone owners in Miami because a company advertising on my radio show gave me one. Calling anyone anywhere from anyplace? How can it get better than that? One glance at my iPhone 12 or 13 (not sure) and it’s laughable I ever wondered.
I’ve seen the adorable TV commercial featuring an elderly couple spinning gently on their living room dance floor. The old man says, “Alexa, play our favorite song”. The dark tower that is Alexa immediately begins playing “I Only Have Eyes For You” and the lovebirds resume dancing. It’s a well-produced spot that touches the heart and in fact, made my eyes sting. No sale, however. Why ask Alexa when I have Siri in the palm of my hand? Here's where it gets dark. According to a recent tech story, that same couple could one day soon, be dancing to their favorite song and then ask Alexa, “please have my dead Grandmother read 50 Shades of Grey (or is it “Gray”?). Artificial Intelligence, using a sample of the deceased’s voice will be able to replicate it, and command it to do anything (like reading the aforementioned, bestselling book). As my dentist says, this is a bridgework too far. Technology will soon exist that will “bring back the dead”. In the 80s, I recorded my parent’s voices with my modern Panasonic video recorder (while wondering how can it get any better than this ...lol?). I subsequently transferred those slowly decaying tapes to DVD (assuming again, how can it ...).
I have refused, however, to have Alexa in my house. I spend 6 hours every weekday talking to people I can’t see. I don’t need to come home and Panasonic Recorder talk to a high-tech toy which I really believe is a sinister dataMy parent’s voices now rest in peace collecting device sending my life to our somewhere in the Cloud. The Cloud is a government or China (take your pick). digital cemetery for, well, anything! And They’re both evil. that is where my folks will remain. Oh, I thought about it.
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