CATAGORIES: MUSIC,VINYL — Yarbz @ 9:46 pm

I am sitting here in the basement bar waiting for the little bastards to get the hell out of the neighborhood… We don’t have children in this neighborhood so we get imports. Moms and dads bring them in the car and they collect their sugary, dentist employing loot. If we had kids living close to us Halloween might be fun. However, tonight, I have all the lights off and hope to avoid any contact with the little candy grabbing rodents. Stay in your own neighborhoods!

Maybe it’s just that I gave up on Halloween back in 1967 when I won first place in a costume contest. The town was San Clemente, California and I was seven years old. I dressed as a Marine. I had all the official equipment and my dad’s old fatigues which my mother painstakingly cut down and tailored them to my seven year old frame. After that victory anything else would be a step down so I guess I just quit while I was on top. I wish some of these athletes would do the same instead of continuing until they’re eligible for AARP.

Anyway, I have the music cranked up real loud down here and it’s great. If someone does knock I won’t know it. Right now (2048hrs) I am listening to XTC “Black Sea” from 1980. The album did not age badly at all and sounds fresh and vibrant. It’s quite surprising as most of the music from 1980 blows chunks and sounds dated. “Optimisms Flame” is playing right now and it really brings me back to those days. I was twenty when this came out. Damn! 20. Now I sit in my own home listening to my old but pristine copy of Black Sea and it just doesn’t seem all that long ago. Sure, it’s been twenty eight, almost twenty nine years, but I don’t feel mentally old… I hope that continues. Feste was over here last week and he brought some old XTC vinyl and it got me syked up to break out and fire up my XTC.

The song just changed and now I am listening to “Sergeant Rock” on side two. Yet another great song on this highly-praised slab of vinyl. If you all don’t know much about XTC, “Black Sea” would be a great record to introduce yourself to this unique band from one of the most interesting music eras in the last 30 or 40 years. If interested let me know and I could burn you a copy right off my vinyl. I‘m sure XTC would rather have you hear it for free that not hear it at all… If that makes any sense… Plus, from vinyl, it’ll sound better than the factory CD.

Tomorrow M and I are heading to a friends house to celebrate five couples anniversaries which all happen within four or five weeks of each other. It’s not going to be some lame Champaign bull; it’s an Oktoberfest (in November) which should be a lot of fun. It’ll be a break on the old diet but I’ll muddle through. That is about all for now because my cat Satchmo is head-butting me in the arm trying to get some attention (read: cat treats). I will probably give him one or two after he vacuums the basement and waxes my car… I wish.