On this blog, I often tend to drone on endlessly about chickenhawks, war and Big Government Conservatives to the neglect of other topics. So, let's discuss a subject I enjoy far more – music. As I indicated in a previous posting, I recently changed jobs after seven years at the same institution. As a result, I no longer ride the Metro to work, which offered me about 90 minutes of prime napping time. Instead, I now spend two hours a day in my car commuting to and from the office. While costing me a great deal of time and gas, it has paid off in other areas – more "me" time and plenty of opportunity to play all the music that drives The Wife bonkers. This, as the saying goes, got me to thinking…
Being a generally anti-social crank (see INTJ), I often go inside my head to recharge and as a means of self-preservation. Clueless extroverts often confuse this particular personality trait with arrogance or shyness. Growing up, I often retreated into books and poetry, and when I had the cash – cassettes and records for my much needed refuge. I had probably built up a modest collection of about 250+ cassettes by the time I completed high school including complete catologs of Rush, Styx, and Fleetwood Mac (including solo projects) and tons of classic rock, folk and standard fare alternative releases from Depeche Mode, New Order, Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy, Dan Reed Network, The Smiths, etc. Following high school and happy to be liberated from that Lord of the Flies-esque microcosm, I attended a few semesters at Illinois Central College before deciding I needed a more permanent change of scenery.
Obviously, being an individualist and by nature prone to non-conformity, I enlisted in the USMC.
SIDE NOTE: Please, no perplexed emails. Eighteen years later, I know that the Corps is the last place a non-conformist, individualist should seek out as a means of escape. I was desperate, eighteen, and needed to get out on my own. I made it out of six years of active duty with a clean Page 11, a few medals on my chest, a sense of accomplishment, and the ability to deal more effectively with conformist ass-clownery. Getting back on topic, while on active duty, I was never one to spend every paycheck on booze and strip clubs in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
Sorry, I didn't mean to go off on a rant there. Wait – that's someone else's line. (Please don't sue me Dennis.)
Instead, being the hopeless music nut I am, I would frequent off-base pawn shops and used music stores for cassettes that my drunken idiot colleagues had pawned for quick beer money. After about three years I had accumulated over 800+ cassettes and an impressive alternative and folk collection without spending a fortune or going broke. Of course, I finally switched to CDs in 1993 and continued to build my collection in that direction. This direction was obviously more costly and did not offer the growth and eclectic mix I had been able to enjoy earlier. Then, I got married, had kids and did that growing up thing, which meant I had less disposable income and time. Until recently, most of my music collection had languished in silence and starved for attention. While I had been commuting on the train, I did spend some time listening to CDs (when awake).
Then, Apple decided to help a brother out by releasing the iPod. 🙂 No more loose cassettes and CDs in my bag. Thousands of songs, audiobooks, the ability to make custom playlists and reasonably priced singles and albums available from iTunes. Slowly, I've been replacing cassette singles and some complete tapes with music downloaded from iTunes, in addition to new releases and "Best of" collections – like my recent addiction, Thomas Dolby's Retrospectacle.
Recently, I stumbled across VH1 Classic's The Alternative. Imagine that, a music channel that actually has music programming. Uncanny. For me (and probably many of my readers), this show is a musical time machine. All of a sudden, I'm 19 again, less cynical and my life is an open book. This development has sent me back to the archives to dig out all those lonely cassettes. For all the recent advancements in music technology, I ironically now find my car perpetually littered again with dozens of my cassettes, in addition to my iPod and XM receiver.
I guess I'm going to have to ask Santa for some iTunes gift cards this year. Quite Frankly, I can't expect Mr. Shankly to last forever on tape. He's been wearing a bit thin…