All In Favor Say - SHUT UP!

(Roll Of DRUMS)
There's one piece of legislation headed for President Obama's desk all TV viewers want him to sign: Senate Bill 2847 – the CALM ( Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act.

Normally my hearing is pretty good, although it can't beat my dog's. His ears perk up when I'm merely thinking about going to the refrigerator door. But for most purposes, they work fine.

Maybe its a sign of aging but I've recently become aware the background music on television shows becomes thunderous right at the point of denouement.

I might have invested 47.5 minutes listening to a cop show, clicking the MUTE button of the remote when commercials begin their blaring pitch. Apart from shrieking at the screen when a character pulls some dumb-ass stunt: “Whatever you do, do NOT follow me into the Creature's Cave” or “... go down that dark passage...or enter the door leading to the cellar.” These are typical stunts written into the script to carry an audience through a chatty conversation about which detergent whitens Billy's skid-mark skivvies brighter.

The dog is pacing to go out, the digital clock indicates the show's time-slot is running out and denouncement is poised on the lips of the "never-fail to find the culprit" detective and:

“BRRrrrrooom (drum-roll)...Crash of cymbal...Shriek of violins and, for good measure, an electronic tweaking vibrator.”

ALL speech is drowned out!

No matter how many times one stops play, re-winds the action to replay the sequence over and over and over, those elusive vital words drown in sound. The motive will never be known, due to the crescendo of noise at the end of the show.

Unfortunately, its seems to be prevalent in all suspense shows, when the action and background music clash at the cliff-hanger end of a segment. The current crop of mumbling actors doesn't help, either.

I recently attended the latest “Harry Potter” flick. I chose a Tuesday afternoon matinee when the auditorium is normally near empty.

Its safer that way.

The last time I went to the movies for an evening performance, noises in front and behind the seat overpowered on-screen action. A group of late-arrivals who appeared in the early minutes of plot setting, then held a megaphone discussion about which row of seats to clamber through, and whether they had enough popcorn to munch on for an hour-and-a-half, got me so wound up I missed the first half-hour of the movie. I was to busy mind-plotting various imaginary painful demises of the theatre's patrons.

And that was before the ubiquitous cell-phone era!

Nowadays, I either go solo or with carefully selected, non-talking viewers. I may make an annual visit to view in peace, a big-screen event.

However, during the Potter event at the last minute, before the interminable string of previews for films to come flashed on screen, two single moms and their knee-high toddlers, occupied half-a-dozen seats half-way along the center-aisle rows.

Every few seconds their movement; bobbing up and down retrieving items from the diaper and feed-bags, or reclaiming infant mountaineers scaling seat-backs, were a distraction.

Tension build-up, waiting for the first squawk, yelp or howl to burst from the mouths of little children, was on par with a Hitchcock classic scene buildup.

The shrieks, when they came, could not be submerged even under the surround-sound clash and thunder accompanying bursts of energy and destruction from wands waved between friend and foe in the Potter saga.

I don't know why or when deafened sound-engineers turned the volume up to compensate for their physical ailments, but theorize they are all suffering from cell-phone brain-wave meltdown. Or hip-hop headphone burnout, and are compensating for their loss of hearing.

At this stage the antique home-stereo with yesterdays records, cassettes and CD's providing background white-noise, and books, where every word can be “heard”,are beginning to look better all the time.

If I could just get the neighbor's dog to shut up!

Ends...

"We'll be right back..."

“...two officers shot – we'll be right back – after the commercial...”

That's all she heard before her cell phone began its St Vitus dance across the Formica-topped kitchen counter simultaneously buzzing and vibrating.

The landline telephone on the wall, kept just for emergencies like a hurricane or tornado when things flew through the Florida skies ripping buildings apart and blowing telephone and power lines down, begand to ring.

Charlie, in cranky pre-breakfast mode, whined for attention from his highchair, Oscar yapped his high-pitched dachshund yelp, jumping up at the unusual noise from the telephone and the kettle's whistle began shrieking for attention.

“Now is the time to drop everything and rush down to Pals Auto Mall where you can help us help you into the Last Days of Summer Sale gas-saver of your dreams,” shouted the precocious twin teen daughters of the local used car dealership. Sparkling cars draped with patriotic flags fluttering under the stimulus of off-camera industrial-strength fans, filled the plasma screen. A flashing red BREAKING NEWS banner ran across the top segment, a Weather Alert scrolled along the bottom portion warning of a late season tropical storm, riding counter to the ticker-tape plunging stock market prices.

Baby Angelia wriggled in the cradle of her mother's arm, was shifted to hip-rider mode and that familiar off-balance posture known to mothers world wide, before mom reached for and flipped the lid of the cell phone open, while nudging the wall phone loose from its hook.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Blanker? Wife of patrolman Ronnie Blanker,”a male voice came clearly from the landline phone, while a squeaky female voice echoed the same question from the cell phone juggled in the same hand.

Celia Blanker watched the televisions screen dissolve from a flourish of red white and blue bunting with stacks of dollar bills under a flashing yellow SAVE sign superimposed on it, to a scrabble of SWAT team members, cop cars with glittering strobe lights and Emergency Responders clustered around stretchers and a skin-head reporter, hand pressed to earphone while talking into a microphone and cell-phone, looking wide-eyed and earnest into the camera.

The dual shrieking of the unattended whistling kettle and high-pitched feedback from the telephone in her ear drove home the realization she was at the other end of the reporter's question.

“Mrs. Blanker...are you there,” sirens on-screen and through her telephone's earpiece joined the chorus of noise filling her safe place kitchen.

“Ronnie! Is Ronnie alright?”

“Mrs. Blanker. I have some sad news to pass...”

“And we'll be right back after this commercial break.”

A hearty bellowing voice broke in as the screen displayed a bottle of liquid soap and animated suds while the chaotic but comfortable world of Celia Blanker, Charlie and Angelia disintegrated – between commercials.

Ends...