Sam Shovel, Private Eye: A Cartoon Noir

It had been a slow Monday evening. I'd plan to spend it with two buddies. Good buddies. They've kept me company on many a holiday. One's a hang-onner. The other resides in a flask. That's right I was going to burn time with a leftover turkey sandwich and a bottle of the hard stuff — Diet Pepsi.

I had just tipped back in my chair, taken a bite of sandwich and had a blast of soda to clear my palate. Suddenly there was a buzz from my hi-fi. It was an obnoxious buzz, like an angry bee who'd just been told the IRS was auditing his books.

Just then a tall slender dame came into the room to ask if I was recording tonight. I wanted to. How I wanted to. Her eyes sparkled like a crystal decanter in the flashing neon chicken light. How I wanted to, just so's the dame could see how Sam operates. But that buzz was gonna rob me like a crooked lawyer.

As I took another pull off a candy cigarette, I'd figured it out. There was only one conclusion to come to, Eel-faced Ernie Electric had planted a bug in my office. He'd been wantin' to cut in on my territory for years. I poured another shot of soda and looked at that sultry vixen through the smokey glass. Her face was angelic as she pulled her fur coat up against her throat. I told her to relax, I'd handle this.

She left me in the dark and the loneliness of the night. Left me to unravel the dirty tricks. Left me to the solitude of my office and that nasty buzz. Why did fate deal me such a bad hand? Why did. . .

"Michael. . . Michael. . . Honey, wake up. You fell asleep on your keyboard. You've got a bunch of key indents on the side of your face. How can you sleep in that awkward position? I thought you were going to record a song for your blog tonight?"


"I was. . .uh. . . whoa, I've got a problem, Rhonda. I've gotta figure out what's causing this horrible buzz every time I try to record. That means I've gotta trace the signal flow to see what's causing the problem."

EPILOG:
Five hours later, after swapping out different cables and pieces of gear, I found out it was the audio interface I've been using for the past couple of years. Oh well, maybe by January I can get a new interface so I can return to my original intent here. In the meantime, I'll try to keep you entertained with ideas, etc.