Chicago — The Consumer Electronics Show: thirty-five thousand over-weight, potential coronaries in white plastic shoes not believing for one minute that the people who buy the records are are the people who buy the record players. Circulating through this crotch rubbing, company man crush are several hundred Japanese, the men responsible for the technology that allows the rest of them to keep up on their time payments and fantasy-frustrations of scoring one of the hot pants honies who are spread out across the McCormick Place convention center handing out shopping bags, promotional literature, and an air of desperation. I spent four days wandering through this crowd, alternating between my suit and my bell-bottoms, trying to make contact, to find some common language which would allow me to tell these people that what they�re selling is the future. I didn�t have any luck. The fact is that the people who sell the communications equipment are totally devoid of the ability to communicate.

What their stereos, FM radios, video machines, and other equipment do is of no concern to the men who run the electronics industry in this country. They could give a shit thaLJhe two billion dollars spent on records lasTyear was spent by the people who read CREEM and the other, rock publications. They seem firmly convinced that record players are purchased by some forty to fifty year old segment of the population and if you try to tell them any different they snarl at you. W.C. Fields riffs, �Why doncha go out and play in the traffic, kid.�

The Japs, of course, are the key to this bunch of cattle. They�re the people who made it all possible, but they won�t talk. They�re very polite, answer your questions, but you try to open a rapway and they just stand there and look off towards the land of the rising sun. It may be, probably is, that they came to America and the first Americans they met were the people in the electronics business and that encounter cured them of any real communication with the people of this country. I don�t blame them for that attitude, but it seems sad that two cultures have to meet that way, in the midst of a thousand acres of equipment on display, with the only common denominator being knobs and dials and wattages.

After the first day of this four day event, I went back to my hotel room, toked up, and returned to the show with the determination to ignore the people and concentrate on the equipment on display which is going to allow us to co-opt all of them simply by doing what they�re incapable of: using it.

Let me give you what they call in the industry, a state of the art report.

Calculators: Did you know that electronic calculators were the number one selling home entertainment item last year? That�s the classification they�ve been given by the electronics people. The truth is that the electronic calculator is the first consumer evidence of the home computer. The most advanced calculator I saw at the show was one which told you the time and the date when it wasn�t adding and subtracting. This unit was $200. Soon it will tell you the temperature, phone numbers, and how tall you are.

Quadrophonics: The quad battle is still going on. Mainly between Columbia and RCA. Columbia�s SQ system and RCA�s CD-4 system. Plus the Japanese standard, RM, thrown in for good measure. Most bright Jap firms are simply putting in RM, SQ, and CD-4 on their higher priced amps, allowing you to switch between these systems depending on the type of quad record you�re playing.

Amplifiers: It has pretty much gotten to the point where an amplifier is as good as the next one if their prices are the same. Thus you choose amps these days on the number of features and controls that you want from an amp.

Turntables: Something new is happening in turntables. The Japs have come up with a motor that is much smaller and less complicated to turn the platter. Thus we�re pretty much at the point where a good turntable is as advanced as they�re going to get in the next ten years or so.

Speakers: Like all the other hi-fi items now on the market, speakers have gotten to a point that is close to perfection. Right now the choice seems to be in the type of internal speaker design you choose (or you can just buy what sounds good) and the care with which you match your speakef and your amp in terms of power ratings.

FM Stereo Receivers: Gotta be careful with these at the moment since it is possible that within the next few months the FCC will allow DC-4 quad broadcasting and if you�ve just gotten a high priced receiver, you�ll be up the creek. It is likely that this piece of equipment will go through the most changes in the next couple of years.

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Video: Various video cartridges and video cassettes were on display, some new like Sanyo�s cassette player, others established like Sony/Panasonic�s cartridge player. The big problem is who�s going to make the programs to play on these machines — the hardware manufacturers are waiting for software to happen before they start making hardware, the software people are waiting for hardware to become available so there will be something to play their software on — very confusing. Maybe the video disc will come along within the next couple of years and solve all these problems.

Tape Recorders: Reel to reel tape recorders are becoming more and more like professional home studios with editing, over-dub, sync, and other studio type controls. The 1014 inch professional size reel is firmly established as a standard and many decks run at 1 Sips. Cassette machines are also becoming more sophisticated with a couple of the higher priced models giving you almost ..broadcast quality sound. The only thing that seems to be lingering without getting better or worse is eight-track cartridge equipment which has been equalled by the cassette for quality but is still hanging on simply because they�ve sold so many of them already.