In any business you have to get yourself noticed.  You have to make yourself known to the people.  You see some places like restaurants and music stores with small speakers outside, playing music, letting people know, “Hey, we’re open!”

We attempted the same thing, but less successfully…I hated that damned speaker.

Somewhere we dug up the biggest oldest speaker from the 1970’s.  It was ancient, massive, and weighed a ton.  It also sounded like garbage, but was hooked up to a 5 disc changer playing the top 40.  That part was OK, because it was always better for me to have top 40 playing outside, not inside!

We all hated the speaker.  It was heavy as hell so some people had trouble putting it in and out each day.  But that was only one issue.  We also had the other problems:

1. “That speaker is too damn loud!  Turn it down or turn it off!”  We’d get this complaint from other tenants in the plaza.  
2. We had also our fine neighbors, restaraunts and pawn shops and so on, complain about the lack of variety.  Could we please hear something other than Big Shiny Tunes this week?  Stuff like that.
3. Just like our sidewalk sign, it took up half the sidewalk, meaning people would occasionally walk headlong right into it.
4. “Hey, what’s that song you were just playing outside?”  Not a bad reaction, getting people to buy a CD that we were playing.  Problem:  I couldn’t hear the outside music.  So I’d have to take a look at what discs were in the player and take a guess.  And when it’s all top 40 crap that sounds the same, well, that could take a while!

I hated polluting the quiet mornings with Much Dance, I just wished one day somebody would have stolen that damned speaker.  Hah, fat chance.  Not only was it huge but who the hell would have wanted it?

That’s our speaker right there dammit!