There Are Disasters, And There Are Learning Experiences
(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)
(From the St. Remedius Archives, September 13, 20XX. All rights reserved.)
This is KREG, 88.7 FM, Dallas/Fort Worth/Denton, and this is Call Sign. I’m your host, Kayla Anno. This morning, we focus on the arrival of the Wolfram Tor delegation at Addison Spaceport, the conviction and sentencing of Brandon Michaels, the new xicanxfuturism club Ascodipteron, and a stunning new development in oneiromancy. But first, one of the more intriguing offshoots in temporal scrying is the new Tour of Failure, a micro-touring company specializing in giving its customers the ultimate in past and future experiences, one that most chronal tourists want to avoid.
(Call Sign theme music)
Dallas thaumaturge Jin Aubrey was one of the city’s pre-eminent corporate mages, handling energies infringements cases for a multitude of Dallas multinational corporations. His real passion, though, was local music, particularly the legendary events in the city. The Beatles, the Sex Pistols, the debut of Mandatory Parker: like so many others, he wanted to see the big shows and the famous shows, and he spent years working on a special scrying window that allowed him to view past shows as if he were there. His fascination, though, turned from legendary to notorious, and he now runs Tour of Failure, an immersive scrying window where he and four selected clients get to watch the ultimate in musical and other catastrophes…within limits.
(Prerecorded Jin Aubrey:) Everybody talks about watching the big disasters. The Titanic, the Kennedy assassination, Krakatoa, the Texas Rangers winning the World Series. Those are bad, but it’s the little disasters where history changes. Those little disasters change the culture, teaching us not to take ourselves too seriously, and sometimes giving us warnings about our own hubris.
(Kayla Anno:) Jin’s fascination at first was with musical disasters. Not ones where anyone was hurt, like Altamont or the Station Nightclub fire, but ones like the last Sex Pistols show at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Dallas wasn’t immune to musical disasters, and Jin aimed his scrying window to capture moments missed the first time around.
(Jin Aubrey:) April 1993, the band Don’t Squeeze The Anal Gland was on tour for their sixth album, Botfly Speakeasy, and I was right on the stage, with a fake ID that said I was 17. They were headliners, and the Dallas show was a big deal because most of the band was from Dallas. They had five opening acts before they hit the stage at the Cotton Bowl, four of which were glad to open for the Glands. The fifth, though, just had its single “Velour” hit the top ten while they were on the road, and the lead singer threw a massive temper tantrum about how HE should be the headliner. He went back to his tour bus, held his breath until he turned blue, and refused to come out until he was listed as headliner, including new banners and marquee out front. Telling him “you have contractual obligations” didn’t mean a thing. Five minutes before these guys were supposed to go on, the Glands agreed to “co-headline” that day, our junkie wiped his nose, came out of the bus, and finally picked up his microphone…right in time for one of the worst thunderstorms in Dallas history to hit town. Baseball-sized hail, lightning striking the stage, the works, so the show had to be shut down. A month later, the Glands came back through with a new lineup, with perfect weather and the best sound they’d ever had on tour, and everyone agreed “God really hated that asshole, didn’t He?”
Anyway, years go by, I finish my doctorate at St. Remedius, got into the corporate thing, and got really tired. I got a massive voluntary termination payout when I left Corp, so I started work on a small scrying window to go back and watch the behind-the-scenes on various shows. The Lamprey show sponsored by Geffen Records where the lead singer was accidentally locked in the manager’s office for four hours. The Cepheid Variable show where the restroom exploded in back. The TC McKinney show where he planned to take himself out by shoving a lit stick of dynamite up his ass and blowing up the first three rows, only he got such flop sweat that the fuse went out. The Vesalius show at Minbar where the owner threatened to shoot a vendor in a side room because he turned on a light so everyone could see his table, because “it ruined the ambience,” so the guy turned on a black light and showed the semen stains on everything. Before you know it, all of my friends wanted to see these, too. That’s when I figured I could turn this into a business to pay for window recharging and maintenance.
It hasn’t been easy. Fyre Fest sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but they never had anything like a stage ready. No matter where you go on the island, it’s just shallow people crying about their luggage. The ones everyone wants to see, sometimes the best part has nothing to do with the music. There was a big show in Deep Ellum sponsored by the label for Average Beatniks, where the radio station promoting the show had a DJ going on about how his station really supported Deep Ellum music until he got bottled off the stage. One guy wanted to record the whole thing so he could watch it over and over, especially at the DJ’s funeral.
(Kayla Anno:) Jin’s current system is simple. The scrying window was expanded into a panoramic view, with enough room in front for four seats. Jin sits behind with the control orb and adjusts the pitch, yaw, and volume. Sometimes he lets viewers dictate the move through a room or crowd, but sometimes he takes requests.
(Jin Aubrey:) Oh, the Thickened Red show of 1994 just gets you right in the feels. Everything set up on an outdoor stage in Denton, video rolling, the band getting ready to start, and then the generator blows up. I mean ‘BLOWS UP’. The band dodges the debris, but some of it comes down and sets the stage on fire. Your first show since your first single goes Top 20, and the stage is on fire, and the radio DJ there to promote Thickened Red is so stoned that he’s still explaining the meaning of REM’s “Orange Crush” when the backdrop collapses. Half of the people who watch this are there to hear the band manager chew everyone a new hole, and half want to listen to the DJ and count exactly when he realizes he almost burned to death.
(Kayla Anno:) Right now, viewings are booked a year in advance, but Jin plans to open other scrying windows if he can get enough gadolinium to make them. More importantly, he wants to expand his focus.
(Jin Aubrey:) I expanded to other events about two years ago. DashCon just let people in shock, as did FedCon USA. I mean, people get angry about halfway through the first day of FedCon. The one that gets the greatest number of requests, though, was the last Dallas Fantasy Fair in April 1996, about three months before the summer show had to be cancelled. You can just look at the crowd and feel how badly it’s all going to blow up.
(Kayla Anno:) As for future plans, Jin emphasizes “future.”
(Jin Aubrey:) Playing around in the past is great, but I want to see disasters 100 or 200 years from now. We keep hearing stories about the big blowouts, such as the full-contact polka show that took down half of Chicago, but I heard about a show from the Reconstituted Church of Silvanus about 75 years from now that was so bad that two popes and an ambassador resigned in shame. There’s always the last Targeted Mime Collective show: they’re still going, hitting people in the head with cans of Boohickey soda, and I know I won’t live long enough to watch their last show.
This is Kayla Anno, and this is Call Sign. Next up, Ascodipteron.
Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.
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