therecordchanger62279

[therecordchanger62279]

Another perfect fit.

#Youtube

[therecordchanger62279]

I had to get a couple of cavities filled at the dentist today - never a fun way to spend the morning. My dentist also talked me into getting a slight cosmetic repair on one of my front teeth. It bugged her a lot more than it did me, but I got tired of her asking me if I wanted her to fix it, so I finally said, "Sure, go ahead."

Two cavities required a double shot of numbing agent which lasted three-and-a-half hours after the appointment ended. And there was a funny aftertaste in my mouth that probably had to do with the cosmetic fix. So, all things considered, it was an experience I don't care to repeat anytime soon.

But you know what bothered me most? They had some satellite radio station playing overhead, and it played The Beatles Let It Be, but they played the album track with the inferior guitar solo instead of the single track. That was more than I could take. The single track was good enough for radio for more than 50 years, and now, suddenly, the album track has been substituted because nobody is steering the ship. Next thing you know, they'll only be playing the Giles Martin remixed versions of the originals, and once that happens, the world as I knew it will have officially ended. Dentistry might be better now that it was 50 years ago, but radio - any kind - is far worse. You want to punish a music lover? Strap him to a dentist chair and turn the overhead music system up so loud it drowns out the sound of the drill. Next time, fill my ears before you do the cavities!

#The Beatles

[therecordchanger62279]

Jazz record producer, and archivist Michael Cuscuna passed away this week at the age of 75. He worked on some of the best, and most important Jazz records in history. His story is a good one, and he tells it in this 2019 interview on the Vinyl Guide podcast. R.I.P.

#Michael Cuscuna #Jazz

[therecordchanger62279]

When the new Taylor Swift album was released yesterday, I made a mental note to do what I always do with her - sample a few tracks from one of the streaming services, and try, again, to find what it is about her music that captivates so many millions of people worldwide. What I heard on her first ten releases was a very talented singer-songwriter with her finger on the pulse of her young audience, but with not much to say to someone of my age.

Until now.

The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology is a double album (31 tracks) of absolute beauty, depth, and maturity. I sampled all of it, and then downloaded the entire set. I've spent a few hours since becoming intimately familiar with its lyrics, and musical nuances, and marveling at how immediately familiar this album is to me, and wondering how it's even possible that an artist of 34 could make the kind of leap with one album that could so captivate someone of my musical experience, and advanced age. I could go into details, but what I hear in this album is not what you'll hear when you listen to it. This time she has her fingers on my pulse, and she's done something no Pop artist has done in years - delivered the perfect musical statement at precisely the right time in my life. She's at a crossroads in her life, it seems, and she's taken stock of everything that's come before so she can turn the page, and move forward. I understand that most basic of survival instincts, but I never expected to hear it reflected back to me by any artist in 2024 - let alone a woman half my age, and with seemingly little of the same life experience.

I will never underestimate anything she does moving forward, and I'm well aware that I might never again hear a new record like this the rest of my life. But, that's okay because this feels like a gift I can never hope to repay. Her timing was just right.

#Taylor Swift

[therecordchanger62279]

THE VINYL COLLECTORS COMMUNITY

Now that I’ve jettisoned Facebook, I have more time for other pursuits on the world wide web. I live a very insulated life. I rarely go out. I don’t socialize with people at all. I never talk on the phone for social purposes. The few friends and family I have live in other cities, and most of them have not seen me in person in more than five years, and most never will again. If I was famous, the press would call me reclusive. I don’t know if I really am as far as my personality goes. It’s just that I have no reason to go out, and I don’t get much pleasure from being around other people.

But a bit of long-distance contact is something I can usually tolerate for short periods, so I went looking for a new online community to take the place of my now-defunct Facebook Friends List. I still love music, and I have a nice collection of records, so I discovered the Vinyl Collectors Community on YouTube. These are people who spend most of their money, and waking hours collecting records, and making videos about what they buy, and what they own, and what they like to listen to. I seem to fit in. My comments are always welcome, and seem to get a good response from everyone who reads them. The irony is that I’ve sort of joined this group of people at a time when I’ve pretty much decided to stop buying vinyl records.

I do enjoy the give-and-take, however, and I’m still interested in what other people are buying, and listening to. I have subscriptions to 28 channels so far, and I’m adding new ones all the time. It costs nothing. A sub just means you’re able to keep track of your favorites, and get notices when they post a new video. It takes the place of the one-to-one contact I used to have with customers when I was managing record stores. That was one of the best parts of the job – trading ideas, and making small talk about music with people who shopped the store. None of my Facebook pals are even buying records anymore – even though most of them were people I met because I managed record stores.

In any case, it was time to move on, and find new people to interact with, and with whom I had something in common. There’s no commitment. I can watch, and be silent. I can watch, and comment. And when I turn off my computer, I can return to my insulated existence, and not give any of it a second thought until I decide I want another fix. Maybe, I’m learning how to navigate my social life in the 21st century better than I thought.

(Pictured above is a collector named Robert Fithen. I subscribe to his channel because he’s funny, and knowledgeable, and doesn’t take any of it too seriously.)

One week later: After a deeper dive into this vinyl collectors community thing, 19 of the 28 subscriptions I had were dropped, and the magic has already begun to go out of it for me. Many of them are already talking about not buying records any longer due to the expense, and many more had not posted anything in several months. Still others simply have nothing to offer me as a collector. They're novices just beginning their own journey while I'm at the end of mine. I'll dabble now and then just to keep my hand in, but there really is no comfortable fit for me when it comes to "keeping company" with other human beings - whether in person or in cyberspace. My own records, and books are still the best company I keep. How 20th century of me.

#Record collecting

[therecordchanger62279]

Rachel Z's first new album in 17 years, Sensual, is out, and will likely rank as one of the best new records of 2024. Very highly recommended. Click the link to hear the title track.

#Rachel Z #Youtube

[therecordchanger62279]

I'm posting this because I think it's worth preserving. I don't see Steven Wright as often as I did when he was making the rounds of the late night talk shows, but I'm reminded how funny he always was whenever I catch episode 14 of season one of the Ted Danson comedy Becker. Titled "Larry Spoke," Wright played a character named Boyd Crossman who claimed he talked to God, and that God's first name was Larry. The script was obviously tailored to suit his particular brand of humor. It's one of the best episodes of that very fine series, and the list below will remind you of

The Genius of Steven Wright:

1 - I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

2 - Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.

3 - Half the people you know are below average.

4 - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

5 - 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

6 - A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

7 - A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

8 - If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

9 - All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

10 - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

11 - I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ..... But she left me before we met.

12 - OK, so what's the speed of dark?

13 - How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

14 - If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

15 - Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

16 - When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

17 - Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

18 - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

19 - I intend to live forever ... So far, so good.

20 - If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

21 - Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

22 - What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

23 - My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

24 - Why do psychics have to ask you for your name

25 - If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

26 - A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

27 - Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

28 - The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

29 - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

30 - The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

31 - The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

32 - The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

33 - Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.

34 - If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

35 - If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work

#Steven Wright

[therecordchanger62279]

THE LAST MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION

I used to get mail all the time. These days, though, it’s mostly junk mail, and fliers, and credit card offers. A couple of years ago, I attempted to remedy the situation by subscribing to some print magazines. I already had a subscription to Record Collector, a music monthly based in England. And I’d already subscribed to the new print edition of Creem magazine due in Autumn 2022. I liked the idea of some fresh reading material every month, and I wanted to break up my reading a bit.

I added a subscription to a magazine called The Strand, a mystery magazine published quarterly. I also ordered a one-year subscription to Goldmine, a record collector’s magazine. I’d been a Goldmine reader from the 1980s until 2007 when I let a longstanding subscription expire after the magazine underwent some drastic changes, and the quality declined. But, as I’d been away for 16 years, I thought the time might be right to try again, and see if the magazine had regained its footing. Along with Creem, and Record Collector, I’d have four magazine subscriptions to look forward to in my mail.

The first two issues of The Strand arrived on schedule by October. But the third issue never turned up at all. After waiting another month, I contacted them, and requested either a replacement for the missing third issue, or cancellation of my subscription. Two more weeks passed, and I heard nothing, so I contacted them again. They curtly replied that they’d delayed mailing the replacement due to a snowstorm. I live in the Midwest, and there were no snowstorms this winter that lasted two weeks. In any case, when the issue still did not arrive, I asked them to cancel my subscription, and refund the balance. Instead, they sent the December issue – now eight weeks late, and I never heard from them again. I never received the last issue on my subscription, nor did I receive a check for the missing issue. I won’t be subscribing to The Strand ever again.

The situation with Goldmine was more complicated. Three months went by after I bought the sub, and I’d gotten nothing in the mail. Then an e-mail arrived telling me that the next issue had been delayed because the magazine was switching from a bi-monthly to a quarterly. I’d paid $29.99 for six issues, and I was told that I would still receive six issues, but the issues would ship over eighteen months instead of twelve. By October, I’d received the first two. The third issue due in December never arrived. I requested either a replacement copy or a refund for the balance of my subscription. I got a notice shortly after that nothing was owed me. I fired off another e-mail, and demanded they honor the agreement, or refund the balance. I heard nothing back, but a few weeks later, a replacement issue arrived. I assumed we were back on track, but the Spring issue is out, and I never received it either, and there was no refund forthcoming. As happened with The Strand, I was cheated, and probably will never see another issue, let alone a refund. It’s just as well. I don’t like being cheated, but I’d already decided not to renew because, while the magazine has a glossier, nicer design than it had in 2007, the quality of the journalism is just as poor now as it was then. They don’t use many professional journalists, but depend, instead, on amateur “fanboys” to supply them with fawning profiles of washed-up dinosaur bands trading under famous names, but usually with no (or maybe only one) original member. These band’s careers careers were over in the 70s and 80s. But to read the profiles, you’d think they are still topping the charts, and as relevant as ever. No, thanks.

I was very excited to see a new version of Creem. It had been my favorite music magazine growing up, and I was especially excited about having access to the archive of back issues. The first year’s issues arrived as scheduled, and while I liked the magazine’s content for the most part, the design wasn’t what I would call reader-friendly. When I renewed, I decided to take just an online subscription which was easier to read, and considerably cheaper. A month later I got an e-mail telling me all subs would be print-only going forward with continued access to the archive, and that I would have to pony up the difference or lose the subscription altogether, and be refunded the amount. Because I was enjoying the archive so much, I agreed – even though I really didn’t like the print edition, and would’ve preferred to continue reading it online (which I could do while still being required to pay for a print copy I didn’t want).

I read issues five, and six online, and thought the magazine was improving with each issue. But I was really beginning to spend a lot of time reading the archive’s back issues. The magazine was every bit as good as I remembered, and I was reading back issues I’d missed as well. But in January, most of the archive suddenly disappeared. I reached out to find out what was going on, and was told the archive was migrating to a new online home, and would be back very soon just as it was. A month went by, and there was no progress. There were posts, and complaints to the magazine’s Facebook group, and I sent an e-mail telling them that if the archive wasn’t going to be available, that I couldn’t justify $85 a year for a print magazine I was forced to buy just to get access to an archive that was no longer there.

Then I received an e-mail from Creem’s CEO requesting a conference call with me, and the magazine’s marketing director. I was stunned, but was told they’d been impressed with my e-mails, and the feedback they’d been getting from me all along, and wanted to have a phone chat and clear some things up, answer some questions, and let me know the direction the magazine would be taking going forward.

We chatted for more than an hour, agreed to stay in touch, and I was satisfied because my concerns and questions had been addressed to my satisfaction. The archive was still in a state of disrepair four weeks later when the new issue appeared online. I read it, and while I enjoyed some of it very much, I was repelled by a good deal of it. I wrote an e-mail offering some constructive criticism, and was disappointed to hear that the things that I’d most disliked would be a part of the magazine’s direction moving forward. In the meantime, the archive finally reappeared in radically altered, and nearly unusable form. Again, I complained, and was told they were aware of the problem, and that it would be fixed soon. It wasn’t (and still isn’t). And, oh, by the way, the print copy I’d been forced to buy had never arrived in the mail either.

The condescending remarks I’d gotten from the marketing director about my criticisms of the new direction did not sit well with me at all, and after two more weeks of no repairs to the archive, and no print edition in my mailbox, I cancelled my subscription, and received a refund.

In the meantime, I’ve been reading the Trouser Press archive online for free, and very much enjoying the new Zip It Up! Book reproducing the best of that magazine’s work in celebration of its 50th anniversary (see an earlier post on this). The journalism is far, far better than anything on the market today. And it’s made me realize that even my Record Collector subscription is no longer necessary. Record Collector is an excellent magazine, but my collecting days are over thanks to the exorbitant cost of music these days. The profiles of artists they cover are the same ones I’ve been reading for the past 50 years. But they’re far more interesting to read when the profiles were done when the artists were young, and the music brand new. And that’s what I get from Trouser Press, and what I was getting from the Creem archive. There’s no revisionist history either. The record reviews are unnecessary because I’m no longer collecting, and if I want to hear something new, I can easily hear it on YouTube, or download it from the web. So, when my sub expires in a few months, I won’t be renewing, and for the first time in 50 years, I won’t have a single magazine subscription. I won’t be getting any mail either, but since our mail delivery is inconsistent, and our mail often goes missing, it’s just as well. There’s really nothing about the 21st century I like. The more time I can spend in the 20th, the happier I’ll be.

[therecordchanger62279]

Dickey Betts (1943-2024)

Even though The Allman Brothers Band carried on for several years after they fired one of their founding members, guitarist Dickey Betts, the band was never quite the same. It was Betts who brought the country element into the band, and when he was gone, they were a blues rock outfit, still extraordinary, but somewhat diminished. Without Betts, Ramblin' Man, Blue Sky, Jessica, and so many other classics were gone from the live sets, and Betts carried on with his own band. I always thought Betts wrote his own eulogy with this number from the 1994 Where It All Begins album. And now with Betts gone forever of cancer at the age of 80, he's free to rejoin Duane, Gregg, Berry, and Butch, and see if maybe they can recapture the magic that happened once upon a time and made The Allman Brothers Band one of the best of all time.

#Youtube

[therecordchanger62279]

This afternoon I took a walk through a car dealership, and repair facility. There were cars parked all along the walkway, and I assumed they were all new cars. But the first few I encountered did not have stickers on the windows, but rather numbered tags on the dashboard. I thought these were probably cars awaiting repair, or cars that had been repaired, and were awaiting pickup. I noticed one of the cars, however, had a crucifix on a chain hanging from the rearview mirror on the windshield. I was reminded of the song by the Los Angeles band X titled “Riding with Mary.”

Exene Cervenka wrote the song about her sister who was killed in a car accident on the way to the church on her wedding day. Exene remembered that her sister had a plastic, magnetic figure of the Virgin Mary on the dashboard of her car. She put it there believing the figure would protect her from harm when she rode in the car.

I thought of that when I saw that crucifix hanging on a chain from that rearview mirror, and I wondered if the owner of that car had ever heard the song Exene wrote. I don’t suppose so.

#Youtube

[therecordchanger62279]

It's worth noting, I think, that there's a new book out that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the founding of one of the finest magazines ever to grace a newsstand, Trouser Press. Zip It Up! is the title, and within its pages is some of the best Rock writing you'll ever read. Given that Rock writing as we once knew it is (like the music) dead forever, the book preserves some of what made it matter when the music itself also still mattered. If you loved Rock music, and if you're fortunate enough to have space in your tiny, over-priced apartment for a single shelf of books that collects the music's history between covers with words that will enhance your listening, make sure Zip It Up! is included. Available from the usual behemoths that sell books, or get it direct from https://www.trouserpressbooks.com/ where you'll find more great books from many of the same writers you'll find in Zip It Up! Music journalism written by people who love music - what a revolutionary concept!

#Trouser Press

[therecordchanger62279]

GOODBYE FACEBOOK

After 15 years on Facebook, I deleted my account yesterday. I joined originally because I was feeling isolated, and wanted to make contact with people who’d drifted out of my life, and maybe find a few new friends in the process. Although I didn’t know it at the time, that’s not the way social media works.

I didn’t make a single new friend in my 15 years on Facebook. I lost track of how many old friends I lost because of it, but the number exceeded seven. Many of those fell victim to misunderstandings that probably never would’ve happened if we’d been face-to-face with one another. (I was even forced to unfriend my twin brother because he took some of my comments on his posts the wrong way. It’s very difficult to convey humor when the person can’t look you in the eye. It doesn’t matter how many laugh emojis you attach. When I discovered he adjusted his settings so I wouldn’t see his posts, I thought I’d better unfriend him before it got out of hand. The damage has since been repaired the old-fashioned way – we talked on the phone, and through an e-mail exchange.) The others happened because this social media app allowed people to needlessly, and without provocation abuse me to satisfy some malicious drive in them to humiliate or belittle me for reasons I simply cannot fathom. It’s called trolling, but you don’t really expect trolls to be people you thought of as friends. Rather than try to repair the damage, I simply walked away. I have no time left in my life for people who clearly do not want me in theirs.

I also made the unpleasant discovery that most people are liars or phonies. They’ll pose as friends, but, in reality, you, and the things you do with your life are of no real interest to them at all. You are nothing more than part of an audience when they take center stage to tell of their lives. I often compare it to being in a large gathering of people who are all talking, and nobody is actually listening. I can’t tell you how often I was solicited to give feedback or support on some of their artistic pursuits, but after spending three years working on this blog I’m proud of, and being urged by those same people to permit them access to it because they all said they wanted to see it, I showed them my work, and nearly all of them completely ignored it. They didn’t reject it because they didn’t like what I’d done. They just never bothered to look at it. And yet, they still continued to lobby me for support and encouragement when they made new music, or wrote a new book or a play, or took up a cause.

I was that guy at a party, standing in the room in plain sight that nobody noticed; to whom nobody spoke. I figured nobody would notice or care when I left. So, I simply walked out the door, and I’m not coming back.

I haven’t even mentioned what a trainwreck the site is when it comes to how it’s managed. Understanding their community guidelines regarding posts is like walking through a Bosnian minefield. No matter how careful you are, you’re eventually going to step on one, and you get to spend some time in Facebook jail until you learn your lesson. The news feed is clogged with ads, and an endless stream of suggested pages based on all the data they’ve collected on you than makes them think they know who you are, and can therefore market their products to you, and help separate you from your money. For example, I don’t watch or follow much sports anymore except some NFL during the season. But there were always endless suggestions in my feed that I follow pages about hockey, basketball, baseball, and many more. No matter how many I blocked, they just kept coming. I’m retired, and have been married for almost 44 years. But there were plenty of ads for online senior dating websites. I guess there was money to be made if Facebook could break up my marriage. And don’t you find it creepy when you look up some product online, and suddenly there’s that same product in an ad on your Facebook news feed? Big Brother is watching you 24/7. Don’t kid yourself otherwise.

So, why did it take 15 years to decide to leave? Well, I had come to rely upon it for some news, and weather, and announcements of new products I might be interested in (music, books, etc.). It was like that relic from the past – a daily newspaper. I also told myself I ought to maintain my page so that I would have some connection to friends and family since none of them live near me, and most I haven’t seen in more than a decade. But the light finally went on, and I realized these people were ghosts. I’d surrounded myself with my past. I discovered that once you’re not a part of someone’s day-to-day life (and that includes relatives as well as friends), you never will be again. You simply don’t matter any longer. Everybody has moved on, and nobody saved you a place at the table.

Okay. I accept that. But what I found impossible to tolerate was the hypocrisy. When I hit the delete button yesterday, I felt as if a weight had been lifted. There are suddenly so many things I no longer need be concerned with, and people I can consign, once and for all, to the place they all occupy – the past. I wished them well, and some commented I should stay in touch, but I won’t bother because I know they won’t bother.

Cyberspace is the real distance between people in the 21st century. Calling the internet the “worldwide web” is the perfect name for it. Because like a fly, you can get trapped in the web, and find yourself prey to all sorts of predators, with, seemingly, no way out – until you open that door, and the web breaks, and you’re suddenly free to crawl away before you’re trapped again.

If I could go back and live in the last century, I would. But I can’t. So, I’ll just have to find a way to cope in this one. Social media wasn’t helping. I can’t tell you how grateful I am there was a delete button.

#Facebook

[therecordchanger62279]

This Redbeard radio show marks the 30th anniversary of the 1994 release The Division Bell by Pink Floyd. On my list of Top 200 albums of all-time, this ranked #19. That means I like it better than any record released by anyone between the years 1976, and 2012 when the final Beach Boys record came out (and if not for that release, this one would be my favorite album by anyone of the past, nearly, 50 years). David Gilmour, and Nick Mason are here along with a brief clip from the late Richard Wright. There's a lot of the music included here as well.

The last proper album by Pink Floyd, it was a final farewell (much like that final Beach Boys record), and conceived that way. As a fully-realized artistic achievement, it deserves to be called a masterpiece. Almost no one I read that reviewed it heard it that way. They all seemed to miss it completely. I know when someone is telling me goodbye forever. So, it was obvious to me.

If you never heard the album, you have my sympathies. In the bigger picture, The Division Bell begins to ring the day we're born, and when we reach the end, it overwhelms every other sound. And it rings throughout our lives - with every fond farewell, and every final bittersweet goodbye with every person or place we see for the last time. That list is a long one by the end.

#Pink Floyd

[therecordchanger62279]

My favorite Sunday morning listening.

[therecordchanger62279]

MY LIFE IN 10 SONGS

Writing an autobiography is something I always thought of doing, but I’d never see it published because my life is only interesting to me. I would also be reluctant to “name names” or to reveal too much of my personal life to a broader public. Even my friends don’t really know me at all. They all have an idea of who I used to be when they met me, and spent time around me. But now I live a very insulated existence, and none of those I consider true friends (and the list is now very, very short) have even seen me in the past decade, or longer. I have changed in ways they could never begin to imagine or to understand. I have experienced life-changing events, some of them traumatic, of which they are completely unaware because they simply aren’t interested. They never ask about me, never ask how I’m doing. You hear of people dying sometimes in their homes, and their bodies aren’t discovered for weeks or even months. If my wife passes before I do, I’m a candidate for that kind of ending.

But the challenge of putting a life on paper, and trying to make sense of it is something most writers aspire to. So, I started thinking that I might let others do the work for me, and I drew up a list of ten songs that would tell the story of my life as I see it, but in words that are not mine.

Each of the ten songs is designed to convey a sketch of my life as I lived it, and the list as a whole works as point-to-point navigation from the beginning to the end. I’ll list the title, artist, and a brief comment or two that offers some perspective. They are listed chronologically.

   1. Born Under a Bad Sign – Albert King. The first event of my life after birth was that I was put up for adoption. I spent the first two months of my life in an orphanage.

   2. Pleasant Valley Sunday – The Monkees. I was adopted by a middle-class couple. My name was changed, and I was gifted with a mostly safe, and quiet life in the suburbs. The images in this song are very familiar to me.

   3. I Am a Town – Mary-Chapin Carpenter. Lyrically, this is an autobiography of a town. But it is also where I grew up, and what I saw when we travelled. Those images defined, and shaped me through the early years of my life.

   4. I Should’ve Been a Cowboy – Toby Keith. In my earliest days, I wanted to be nothing more than a cowboy, living a simple life, unafraid of a hard day’s labor as long as it provided me with some sense of security, and fed me spiritually. There wasn’t much call for cowboys by the time I had to choose. As it turned out, my original instincts were correct. If only I could’ve been a cowboy, maybe my life would have been what I hoped.

   5. Hellhound on My Trail – Robert Johnson. My working years were gradually overwhelmed by a sense that there was, and always had been a shadow following me, and no matter what I did, no real lasting good would ever come to me.

   6. Is That All There Is? – Peggy Lee. Eventually, the shadow caught up with me, and rather than fight, I surrendered, and made my peace with it. Peggy Lee posed the question. The answer I got was, “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

   7. No One To Run With – Allman Brothers Band. As the places faded into memory, the people all began to drift away, too.

   8. Alone Again (Naturally) – Gilbert O’Sullivan. A lot of people found this song self-pitying when it was released. The rest of us understood it. All the events, and the people who populate a life, fall away in the end, and we, each of us, dies alone. And contained in the song, too, something that most people missed, was the best reason for not committing suicide – nobody would care anyway.

   9. Another Tricky Day – The Who. So, you go on living out the days, one after another. The best you can do is hang on to something to try and survive. I’ll hang on to the music.

 10. High Hopes – Pink Floyd. A final summation of a life lived.

[therecordchanger62279]

The simplicity appeals to me. No sound system. No computer. No subscriber fees. No downloads. No internet. You visit the record store. You buy a record with cash - not a credit card - and you take it home, open the shrink wrap, and put it on a record player with a built in speaker, and you sit on the floor, or in a chair, and you look at the cover, and read the liner notes while the album plays. And when it ends, you turn the record over, and play it again.

#playing records

[therecordchanger62279]

In Dreams

There’s a tool used in law enforcement these days called a Facial Recognition App. Photographs of criminals are loaded into a database, and when a remote camera catches a crime being committed, and there’s a face visible, the app might be able to match it with a criminal already on file with law enforcement. I’m sure you’ve seen it used on the cop procedurals that saturate network television these days. It was used all the time on the rebooted Hawaii 5-0 series.

I have one of these apps in my head. I have no memory of being abducted by scientists working for Thrush or Spectre or even U.N.C.L.E., and having the thing implanted in me. So, I assume I was born with it. (I did not, however get a similar app for remembering names, so if we ever meet a second time, I promise I’ll remember your face, but probably not your name. Don’t take it personally. But I digress.)

Stay with me here. This gets a little strange. In 1986 I was managing a National Record Mart store (NRM) in Dayton, Ohio. The chain was based in Pittsburgh, but had stores all over the Midwest. When the chain would periodically remodel a store (as required in shopping mall leases), they would often send store managers and maybe one additional staffer to assist in the remodel. As it happened, they were remodeling a store in Columbus, Ohio, and they sent me, and one of my staff to Columbus for a couple of days to help out.

While we were there, we met the staff, and we learned that there was another larger store being built later in the year, and that this store’s manager, and several staffers would be transferring there, and the assistant manager would remain, and hire new staffers.

I hadn’t thought of that in 38 years – until last night.

I had a dream last night that I was working for NRM as a store manager, and that I was being transferred to that new store that was built 38 years ago. The store manager remembered me, and wanted me to be her assistant. This was a very high-volume store with a lot of traffic, and a staff of more than a dozen employees. And even though it was a demotion in rank for me, it was a big upgrade in pay. (That’s how I knew I must have been dreaming. That would never happen in retail, or probably anywhere. But I digress.)

My first day I arrived about an hour before opening, as was my custom (sliding under the half-opened gate), so that I could meet the staff, and get used to the store’s layout. The manager, of course, knew me. But here’s where it gets strange. She was the manager of that store I helped remodel 38 years earlier. If I’d been asked to recall her when awake, I never could have. But, in the dream, I recognized her.

One by one, the staff began to arrive, and introductions were made. None of them seemed to know or remember me, but with the exception of a couple of teenagers that had been hired, I recognized every face I met. And all of them were the faces I remembered from 38 years ago, and had never seen again.

They began to warm up to me when they discovered where I’d come from, and they could tell from my demeanor, I think, that I was a nice guy, and would not be some pain-in-the-ass s.o.b. come to ruin their jobs.

As it was almost 10 a.m. – time to open – I noticed no one had bothered to turn the lights on. The store was huge, and two full walls were glass, so there was plenty of light coming in from the mall corridor. But nobody had turned the store’s lights on. So, I went to the backroom where I had not yet been, and went immediately to the switch box, opened it, and began turning all the lights on. A girl came up behind me, and said, “Oh, I had the same idea. I guess you beat me to it.” I turned around, and startled her because she didn’t know me. So, I said, “In case you’re wondering how I knew where the switch box was, I’m your new assistant manager, and those things are in the same place in every store.” We shook hands, and she welcomed me, and, again, I recognized her. I went back to the sales floor to start work.

As I said, this store was much larger than any NRM store I’d ever seen. The cash registers (two of them) were located next to one another at a large circular desk placed in the center of the store. There was a Phonolog (look it up!) on the opposite side, and a pad for taking special orders next to it. NRM stores were not laid out that way. So, I assume my subconscious substituted one from a Borders Bookstore where I once worked. All the Borders stores had a line of cash registers by the entrance doors, but there was always a circular desk in both the bookstore, and music store that was a customer service kiosk, and it was staffed all day with employees taking turns in shifts. (This was back when retailers still tried to actually provide customer service. The bookstore desk was nicknamed b’info - book information, and the music store m’info, naturally. But I digress.)

When I went to the desk, I saw two more familiar faces. To the left behind the counter, but barely visible because he was short, was Mickey Rooney in a standard NRM shirt and tie, dress pants, and a name badge. I have no idea why Mickey Rooney turned up. I can’t remember the last time I even thought of him, but there he was.

To my right, I saw actor John Karlen – again, dressed for work. Startled to see him, I said to him, “It’s Willie Loomis from Dark Shadows! What are you doing here?” And he replied, “I work here.” When I asked him why, he just laughed, and said, “It’s easier than acting.” (I know why he turned up. I watch Dark Shadows reruns all the time, but last night right before bed, I pulled up Cagney & Lacey, the cop drama from the 1980’s, on the search engine on Roku because I wanted my wife to see what Sharon Gless looked like 25 years before she played Michael Weston’s mother on Burn Notice, which we’ve also been watching in reruns recently. And one of that show’s co-stars was John Karlen. But I digress.)

That was it. I woke up. Dream over.

I lay there absolutely dumbstruck! How in the world had my brain called back the faces of several people I had worked with one time over a couple of days 38 years ago, and then concocted a scenario in my subconscious that manifested itself as a dream? How much information is stored in our brains over a lifetime, and what triggers the brain to do something like what mine did last night?

Once awake, the faces I remembered in the dream were gone again. I wonder if I’ll ever see any of them again in some future dream? It’s not at all uncommon for me to dream myself working in record stores. I spent 25 years doing that for a living. Each time I dream of one, it takes a different shape or form. They’re always similar to places I once worked, but there are always variations. Some are slightly changed, but others are almost unrecognizable. Co-workers I remember well just come and go. But I’ve never had one quite like this. My sense in the dream, too, was that it was taking place in the present day, but none of us had aged at all – not even Mickey, or John.

I was sorry it ended. I was really enjoying myself, and looking forward to working with a great staff in a busy store turning people on to music. I wondered if when people die in their sleep, it’s because they’re having a dream so good that reality could never hope to compete. So, their heart stops, and they get to keep dreaming. If so, I hope that’s how I go, and I’d be just fine if it was a dream just like this one.

#Dream