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 |
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