The RMS Tour Rider

larry bagina writes "It's no secret that rock stars have riders — provisions on their contractual appearances that require a bowl of brown-free M&Ms or specify the exact brand of bottled water, cocaine purity, etc. Well, Richard Stallman has his own quirky list of provisions." Some of the best stuff is at the end, including: "I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do [for] breakfast. Please just do not bring it up," and "One situation where I do not need help, let alone supervision, is in crossing streets. I grew up in the middle of the world's biggest city, full of cars, and I have crossed streets without assistance even in the chaotic traffic of Bangalore and Delhi. Please just leave me alone when I cross streets."

Comments

Just seems like a well thought out list

[Dr_Barnowl]

It reads like a list of his negative experiences. Especially the bit about parrots.

I found myself identifying with a lot of it - I'm obviously just better socially adjusted than he is when I put up with these things.

It's a lot less ridiculous than some of the riders of celebrities - it actually represents his preferences, mostly his preference to be treated like an independent adult, rather than stupid things that crop up on some peoples riders like a bowl M&Ms with all the green ones picked out.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[merrickm]

The Van Halen M&Ms thing wasn't stupid. It was right in the middle of a bunch of important safety stuff that was particularly important due to the huge crowds Van Halen was drawing. If no M&Ms, they knew the venue hadn't carefully gone through the safety stuff.

Re:Just seems like a well thought out list

[Darth_brooks]

Just for good measure:

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp

Brown Out

Claim: Van Halen's standard performance contract contained a provision calling for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms, but with all the brown candies removed.

Status: True.

Example: [Harrington, 1981]

Van Halen tends to make the news portion of radio more often than it gets airplay. There was the M&M riot in New Mexico where the band did thousands of dollars of damage to a hall when they were served brown M&Ms — their contract said the brown ones had to be removed.

Origins: Rock concerts have come a long ways since the days when the Beatles performed in boxing rings and hockey rinks, and made no greater demand of Van Halen promoters than they be provided with clean towels and a few bottles of soft drinks. As the audiences grew larger, promoters stood to make more and more money from staging concerts, which meant that not only could rock stars command higher prices for their performances, but they were able to demand other perks as well, such as luxurious accommodations, lavish backstage buffets, and chauffeured transportation. It was inevitable that some high-demand acts, all their financial and pampering whims satisfied, would exercise their power and start making frivolous demands of promoters, simply because they could.

By far the most notorious of these whimsical requests is the legend that Van Halen's standard concert contract called for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with provision that all the brown candies must be removed. The presence of even a single brown M&M in that bowl, rumor had it, was sufficient legal cause for Van Halen to peremptorily cancel a scheduled appearance without advance notice (and usually an excuse for them to go on a destructive rampage as well).

The legendary "no brown M&Ms" contract clause was indeed real, but the purported motivation for it was not. The M&Ms provision was included in Van Halen's contracts not as an act of caprice, but because it served a practical purpose: to provide an easy way of determining whether the technical specifications of the contract had been thoroughly read (and complied with). As Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth explained in his autobiography:
Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We'd pull up with
nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn't support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren't big enough to move the gear through.

The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say "Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . ." This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: "There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation."

So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.
Nonetheless, the media ran exaggerated and inaccurate accounts of Van Halen's using violations of the "no brown M&Ms" clause as justification for engaging in childish, destructive behavior (such as the newspaper article quoted at the top of this page). David Lee Roth's version of such events was decidedly different:
The folks in Pueblo, Colora

Strangely inspirational

[Sockatume]

RMS gets a lot of mockery for this, but for all the eccentricity, it reveals him as a man who thinks really hard about what he does, and making sure it fits his moral code. How many of us would avoid long-distance trains, or ask conference organisers to use pseudonyms for hotel rooms, because we were so stubbornly committed to the idea of privacy? I'm too much of a pragmatist to put up with that sort of nonsense but I admire the integrity on display.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[DrgnDancer]

What about the Pepsi which he may or may not like to be offered depending on if he's sleepy or not? What I took away from this is that he wants to be a spokesman for Free Software, but not if it inconveniences him in any way or requires him to leave his comfort zone. The whole thing with refusing to speak if there are sponsorship banners, or refusing to interviews if the interviewer isn't willing to "properly" refer to GNU/Linux or conflates Free and Open Source Software... Arguably such people are the ones who might most benefit from his message. Appearing on stage next to a banner might produce the opportunity to talk about why he disagrees with such things... talking to a reporter who conflates "Free" and "Open Source" might provide an opportunity to talk about the difference. Both could be done in a non-confrontational way that none the less shows what he believes and why.

Most of this stuff says "I don't want to talk to you if you don't already agree with me almost entirely". What's the point? It's more mutual masturbation at that point than advocacy.

Re:Strangely inspirational

[Trolan]

Alas, it's also suitable to modify his moral code when it's convenient.

Big Brother has no right to know where I travel, or where you travel, or where anyone travels. If they arbitrarily demand a name, give a name that does not belong to any person you know of. If they will check my ID before I board the bus or train, then let's look for another way for me to travel. (In the US I never use long-distance trains because of their ID policy.)

And yet he's fine with planes...

Re:Strangely inspirational

[ObiWanKenblowme]

He also refuses to have a cell phone because "they are tracking and surveillance devices" and "most of them are computers with nonfree software installed". Except if he needs to make a call, he has no problem borrowing someone else's.

This kinda pissed me off

[Just Some Guy]

I saw a lot of RMS haters posting this and making fun of him for being a demanding ass. In particular, a lot of popular Mac people on Twitter were laughing at him for being a prima donna. I just don't get it. His requests are basically:

1. Don't misrepresent my position by describing me as advocating something I'm not.
2. I'm not rich, so don't make me pay for stuff out of my own pocket because I can't afford to.
3. I'd much rather sleep on someone's couch and hang out with locals than be chauffeured around and entertained constantly.

I don't think any of those are unreasonable at all. And as to the "parrot" part? Dude likes parrots. He goes out of his was to say not to buy one for just for his benefit, but if someone already has one he'd like to talk to it. I can't imagine a personal preference request being more accommodating.

A lot of people disagree with RMS and that's fine. But there's nothing in his tour rider that deserves derision, and I'm not sure why so many people are having fun at his expense when everything he asked for seemed perfectly reasonable.

Re:This kinda pissed me off

[Stone Rhino]

He goes into a level of needless detail that makes it obvious how he can be obsessive and self-absorbed. He uses paragraphs to say what a sentence could. He focuses on little distractions and loses sight of how people actually work. It reflects a lot of problems with the FSF's approach and RMS's shortcomings as a public face.

This is a man who eats things off of his foot while giving a speech. He's shockingly out of touch with the world and sometimes all you can do is laugh.

Van Halen "no browns" explaination

[Le Grande Raoul]

To be fair, the "no brown M&Ms" requirement for Van Halen had a practical purpose. They were finding that a lot of their technical requirements- power supply, lights, venue personnel- were being ignored and problems cropped up when they came to a gig. Sooooo... Near the end of the contract rider- after the technical requirements- they put the 'bowl of M&Ms with no browns' item in as a check. If they found a bowl of M&Ms *with* browns in the dressing room, they directed their guys to go over anything with a fine toothed comb to make sure technical requirements were met because, obviously, the venue setup people did not read the entire rider. And, yes, they found technical problems when they had the "M&Ms with browns" in the dressing room.

Re:First post? I brought up breakfast once

[Dunbal]

Most fatties don't eat breakfast. It's one of the first things nutritionists try to fix. I should know - I used to be a fatty 60 lbs ago. Now I eat breakfast.

Re:Parrots?

[blowdart]

And the pattern for the parrot must be open and free so others can compile their own parrots from scraps of material and discarded belly button lint.

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