On the fourth day of Gheorghemas, the swarthy Romanian gave to me:
Four reasons to save 68 CDs
Three balls a-rainin'
Two more automotive wormhole websites
And a bald guy and some random hor-seys
You all have heard me cyber-whining about our ongoing/neverending renovation. We are approaching the ninth inning of the project. And while I wonder if it's a fifteen inning game, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. A point of influence to my wife amid this project was the need to purge objects as we prepare to settle into a wildly different home. I am an anti-pack rat, but my wife likes to hang onto things. We hit a purge groove last w/e. When we were both under the influence of wine, I got her to part with some stuff. I strongly urge you all to use wine as a lubricant to get the wife to purge items with little emotional value. And to get her in the mood for sexy time.
I decided to lead by example (again) last w/e. I made the hard decision to get rid of my CDs. They are stored in many (very) heavy boxes. I have moved them many times since burning them to a hard drive about a dozen years ago. It is inconceivable to think I will ever need ALL of them ever again. Removing boxes creates space. Everybody wins, right?
I decided I should hold onto a select, manageable group of the CDs I own. I gave myself no limit on saving. I just went through every one and kept each one that checked some opaque box in my brain/heart, keeping the hurdle rate pretty high. I looked at the keepers pile as I was almost finished sorting and became excited in an immature way, given where I thought the total might land. So where did I end up? 68 CDs. 68. Sorry dudes. I would love to have serendipitously landed at 69, but a CD had to meet some emotional threshold to be kept. No Korn. No MC Serch solo album. No POD. No Pietasters. No Rave 'Til Dawn. And no Dee Lite. Little Feat didn't make the cut either. Is it fun as hell? Yes. Yes it is. But is it an emotional anchor? No. But they did play at Jazzfest during my bachelor party. The reasons are entirely personal. Some I could explain and some I couldn't.
So here are the four reasons why I saved 68 CDs:
1) My kids may want the social equity from a robust collection of "old school" music, much like I gained with my hippie-ish mother's classic rock vinyl collection. So they now have a stack to choose from.
2) If I die one day (which some folks say is possible), my kids can play some of these and hear a lot of the music that influenced me as a kid and young adult. This was a key (and largely irrational) reason behind my decision to stash some tunes. My kids already like some Beatles, Rolling Stones, White Strips and Widespread Panic that I play them. So those are layup keepers. McCoy Tyner, Velvet Underground and Terrapin Station may take a bit longer to resonate, but they're still building blocks, at least in my warped view.
3) It hurts too much to be so clinical and toss all of it away. This is the soundtrack to my days as a young buck, when I was bird-dogging chicks and banging beaver, after all!
4) Adding an element of emotion to the process of decluttering makes my wife think I'm a normal human being and lets her know I'll give a bit of an emotional cushion when it comes to chucking crap into the garbage. Happy wife, happy life.
Here are the 68 CDs I saved. They skew towards rock for obvious reasons. Metal made it in the mix a bit (Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Iron Maiden). Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet is my lone hip hop album. The collection might have been bigger had I not lost so many CDs along the hazy days of my youth. I'd bet a couple of you out there have a scratched-up CD w/ "TAR" scribbled on it.
| Artist | Album/Box Set |
| Allman Brothers Band | Live at the Fillmore |
| Beatles | Rubber Soul |
| Bob Dylan | Blonde on Blonde |
| Bob Dylan | Blood on the Tracks |
| Bob Dylan | Bootleg Series Volume 1 |
| Bob Marley | Songs of Freedom (Box Set) |
| Broken Social Scene | You Forgot it in People |
| Bruce Springsteen | The River |
| Bruce Springsteen | The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle |
| Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds | Live at Luther College |
| Dave Matthews Band | Crash |
| Elton John | Greatest Hits |
| Elton John | Greatest Hits Vol II |
| Grateful Dead | Reckoning |
| Grateful Dead | Shakedown Street |
| Grateful Dead | Terrapin Station |
| Guns n' Roses | Appetite for Destruction |
| Iron Maiden | Live After Death |
| Jane's Addiction | Nothing Shocking |
| Led Zeppelin | Led Zeppelin I |
| McCoy Tyner | Blue Bossa |
| Metallica | Kill 'Em All |
| Metallica | Master of Puppets |
| Michael Jackson | Off the Wall |
| Michael Jackson | Thriller |
| Mooney Suzuki | Electric Sweat |
| Motley Crue | Shout at the Devil |
| My Morning Jacket | It Still Moves |
| Neil Young | Decade |
| Neil Young | Harvest |
| North Mississippi All Stars | Shake Hands With Shorty |
| Old & In the Way | Old & In the Way |
| Pearl Jam | Ten |
| Phish | Live 10/31/98 |
| Phish | Rift |
| Public Enemy | Fear of a Black Planet |
| Rage Against the Machine | Rage Against the Machine |
| Rage Against the Machine | Renegades |
| Robert Randolph & The Family Band | Live at the Wetlands |
| Robert Randolph & The Family Band | Unclassified |
| Rolling Stones | Let it Bleed |
| Rolling Stones | Sticky Fingers |
| Rusted Root | When I Woke |
| Sly & The Family Stone | Greatest Hits |
| Soundgarden | BadMotorfinger |
| Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble | Greatest Hits |
| Strunz & Farah | Live |
| Styx | Grand Illusion |
| Talking Heads | Stop Making Sense |
| The Band | Music from Big Pink |
| The Band | The Night They Drove Old Dixe Down |
| The Doors | LA Woman |
| The Doors | Morrison Hotel |
| The Doors | The Doors |
| The Samples | No Room |
| The Strokes | Is This It? |
| The Word | The Word |
| Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers | Greatest Hits |
| Van Morrison | Moondance |
| Velvet Underground | Peel Slowly and See (Box Set) |
| White Stripes | De Stijl |
| White Stripes | Elephant |
| White Stripes | White Blood Cells |
| White Stripes | White Stripes |
| Widespread Panic | Ain't Life Grand |
| Widespread Panic | Don't Tell the Band |
| Widespread Panic | Everyday |
| Widespread Panic | Space Wrangler |
Posts
42 comments:
Love this post. Very solid list.
I just moved yesterday. Had the movers haul 1800 CDs in plastic racks up to the 3rd floor. Got some sideways glances for sure. I can't help it.
I purged my CD collection long ago. It’s pretty much all digital now save for a select few dozen.
where did you move, whit?
typical whit with his generic "solid" half-assed compliment. what he meant to say was that this list is absolutely awful (of course) as no two humans could ever agree on which 68 CDs are essential. many years ago, i threw away all my CD cases and shoved my CDs into binders-- totally stupid. should have sold them all.
i wrote about this kind of thing two days ago at SOD: http://sentenceofdave.blogspot.com/2017/12/putting-it-on-wax-museum.html
anyway, you should have chosen "some girls" from the stones and most of your other choices were imbued some level of retardation but i love the fact that you let us look at it . . . one of my favorite things that has vanished is the moment when you get to first look at someone's shelf full of CDs (or albums or cassettes) and judge the person accordingly. now that things are digital, there's no cost to keeping everything so people don't have to make hard choices like this and be judged for them (and then there's whit, lugging around 1800 CDs because he likes everything!)
Fuck Dave. This is fantastic. Next Thanksgiving let's go through this list with Schpfeckt so he and I can guess why you kept each CD.
I moved into the house I lived in from 7th grade until I moved out. You've been here, Dave. My folks are Sunshine State residents now so they encouraged me to move into the old homestead.
And Dave is an aggro-opinionated idiot. Anyone who assigns good/better/best and bad/worse/worst to art is cerebrally stunted. There's just shit you like and shit you don't. If I want to go over to TR's and rock out to "The Bitch Is Back" off Elton's Greatest Hits Vol II, that's my personal taste and it needs no valuation. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
Where’d your parents move to in Florida, Whitney?
This is aggressive: “most of your other choices were imbued some level of retardation but i love the fact that you let us look at it . . .”
The Elton John CDs were actually my wife’s, but I kept them in with my stuff. I asked her to slim down her CDs. She struggled to keep up. So we now have a few dozen CDs that will never see the light of day. Lots of Annie Lennox, Sara McLachlan and 90’s romcom soundtracks.
You can blame her for the Rusted Root and Deep Blue Something CDs that I know you secretly held onto.
Dave’s funeral is going to be awesome. A time to gather together and celebrate unique man that we all loved and tell stories about him being a complete dick sometimes.
Who am I kidding? Dave will outlive all of us passing aggro-opinionated judgment on us all.
Sometime in 2069:
“Mrs. Whitney #3, I’m very sorry for your loss. Whitney was a great man and an even better friend, except for the fact that he liked early Jimmy Buffet. What an idiot. In fact, I’m not sure how you could marry someone like that.”
He'll only be on #3 in 2069? So he found a winner?!
I like Rusted Root, or at least the idea of Rusted Root as the band I saw open for the Alan Brothers at that open air venue in Richmond one summer. They probably made TR's cut as the opening act for a Widespread show circa 1995.
Hey--want to say thanks for car advice! It helps. Actually talked to Reynolds dealership (I know him!)--Subaru might be in our future. Question--why shop Feb 28th?
Whit--living in old house sounds cool! Enjoy!
Glad to be of help. Car dealers have monthly quotas so the shorter the month the fewer days they have to make their quota. And people don't usually buy cars during or soon after snow storms so those days are bad for dealers. This combination of factors makes February a perfect storm (pun!) for buying a car. The 28th is the last day of the month so by then dealers are often desperate to get closer to their quota and potentially likelier to give you a better deal (especially if you show up looking to buy two cars).
aggro-opinionated is a sublime coining. we'll all remember where we were when we first heard it.
They're in Sarasota. My grandparents got a place down there in the 80's and now it's theirs. Not a bad gulf town.
TR, your 69th cd is one you haven't bought yet. You'll have to round out the collection at some point. And you still have some disposable titles in there in case you make new acquisitions.
I'm with Whit.-have loads of cds, vinyl and cassettes on hand. You never know.
WSOB on the ESPN.
USA vs World! We've got some rollers on our squad - Kyle Troup has the best Caucasian afro of all time. Matty "ice" McNeil on fire.
Will throw in learned bowling phrases as I hear them.
"Lots of wood on that deck!"
"more revs on the ball"
"rub it more"
Sounds like bowling terminology is second only to golf for innuen-tial.
"Mauling the pocket"
Through 28 minutes of play in Bills/Colts both QBs combined are 2/6 for 20 yards and 0 TD or INT. I guess that's one way to hide your shitty quarterbacks.
They're playing in a blizzard. That makes more sense.
and that is not an exaggeration.
i'm at a cheerleading competition. my daughter's first. it's in richmond. we'll drive five hours round trip to watch her perform for three minutes. she's lucky we like her.
I went to one of those for my niece one time. It was awful. Drove three hours round trip. Hung out in an arena for another 3-4 hours waiting for her team to perform for 3 minutes. Awful.
Speaking of awful, why would anyone live in Buffalo?
I think people live there because they were born there and their families are there. It certainly isn't because of the weather or job opportunities.
That checks out.
My wife moved to Rochester shortly after her first marriage and I mock her for this decision on a regular basis. I mean, who in their early 20s chooses to leave the beach in Florida for Rochester? Fucking idiots. That’s who.
Rochester, Troy, Albany, Binghamton. NY State has a lot of ass towns.
Staten Island is like Buffalo. It's not like people choose to be there. It's just that they were born there and don't have the wherewithal to choose something better. And I say this with some distant relatives who were born in Staten Island, have lived there their whole lives, and will die there.
Which is to say it's like north Jersey.
You forgot Oneida, Syracuse, Watertown, Canastota, Utica, Rome
I'm guessing the Rams/Eagles ending probably among the worst bad beats ever?
Was wrong...Philly was favored by 1.
I beg to differ, Zman! North Jersey has lots of ass parts, but it is a (somewhat) convenient suburb of one of the greatest cities in the world. NJ offers a lot of high paying jobs and excellent food options. Staten Island does that to some point, but it is so inferior to other suburbs in so many ways: traffic, massive landfill, etc.
I just perused the over the air channels and saw a commercial for a stuffed bear with familiar hair called 'trumpy bear', with a little flag that comes out of a pouch. It's endorsed by an elderly army vet and a badass marine.
I thought it was a joke for about 30 seconds, but nope. It's yours for two easy payments of 19.95, payable at thetrumpybear.com.
TR, you forgot Clifton Park, NY. Home of Doubel Vision.
That’s the Belgian version of Double Vision.
It's as if you've completely forgotten about Bergen County, TR.
Port Authority - sweet. At least I don’t go there much. Haven’t parked there since...last Friday.
Post a Comment