12.4.2020 – buy blank cassette tapes

buy blank cassette tapes
I was 12, whole world was 12
can’t blame the DJ

” My idea of fun was to go – late at night and at my own peril – to Colony Records in Times Square to buy 10-packs of blank cassette tapes to record off the radio. My goal was to edit out the commercials. My dream was to be a DJ. Now you have 1,000 songs in your pocket and it’s all on you; you can’t blame the DJ any more.” says actress Diane Lane in a recent interview.

Ms. Lane continued, “It was an exciting time in America in 1976. We were 200 years old and very proud. We’d got rid of Nixon and we had hubris and joy. As Americans we had a sense of humour about ourselves, so our music had a sense of humour that hasn’t been around since. Everything had this goofy sense of humour, which was great fun for teenage girls to dance to. When I was 12, it was like the whole world was 12.”

That term ‘blank cassette” rang a bell in my soul that tingled all the way to toes.

I remember my Humanities 370 instructor at Grand Rapids Junior College, Chuck Buffam, talking about music and copyright laws and the fact that Musicland in the mall would display the top selling albums of the day next to stacks of blank cassette tapes.

All the display needed was a sign that said, “Make a copy for your friends!”

Who needed to be told?

Ms. Lane’s thoughts also brought to mind recording off the radio.

I had a college roommate who would do that.

He would spend hours waiting for a favorite song with his finger on the record button.

He would also spend hours calling in requests for a certain song.

I think I may have related this story before.

The really funny part of this story was that the refrigerator in our apartment was dying a slow death from old age.

When it kicked on, it would overload the circuits or something and the lights would dim for a second or two.

And it would create some sort of audio interference on our stereo system that would create a bbbbbbwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwapppppp sound.

I can’t remember how many times this turned up on my roommates tapes but it happened often.

Music would be playing and the lights would flicker and then the bbbbbbwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwapppppp sound would come.

My roommate would scream and we knew he was making tapes.

He got so frustrated that he would unplug the fridge when he was creating tapes.

This was bad as he often forgot to plug it back in.

It wouldn’t be noticed until the ice in the freezer melted and water was all over the kitchen floor.

Mop the floor or quick eat all the ice cream?

So the water waited for a bit.

But I digress.

I would make tapes from the radio as well.

I loved to make tapes of radio stations in the summer time of stations like WLS in Chicago with Fred Winston and Larry Lujack and then play them in the winter.

Weather updates would be for hot weather and the songs would all be beach songs.

This could change the mood on any January afternoon in Michigan.

Now I carry 1,000s of songs in my pocket.

I have so many songs that it overwhelms my iPhone’s ability to play them all randomly.

I have songs I want to hear and rarely hear.

I have songs I want to hear and don’t even know it.

I can’t blame the DJ anymore.

I love that whole quote from Ms. Lane.

I can remember the excitement of having a 10 pack of blank cassette tapes.

The freedom.

The power.

Add to that when you are 12, the whole world is 12 and all there is possibilities.

Maybe that is the secret to the fountain of youth.

I don’t mean the fountain but the search for the fountain.

In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane tells Susie he was going to a warehouse in search of his lost youth.

When Charles Foster Kane dies his last thoughts are of his childhood.

I live in a community that does a brisk business in bike rental to old folks.

They offer the chance to be a kid again.

Oh the freedom.

Oh the power.

Oh the possibilities.

When you are 12.

7.28.2020 – what you don’t do, what

what you don’t do, what
you don’t say, games you don’t play
your smile all I need

From the song, What You Don’t Do, by Lianne La Havas;

Heavy words, little lies
Telling everything but the truth, the truth
Three little words over time overheard and overused, used
No sweet nothing could ever be turned into something new
No grand gesture could ever be made to measure you
I know what I got and I know where we’re going
You don’t need to show it, I already know it all
It’s what you don’t do, it’s what you don’t say
I know you love me, I don’t need proof
It’s what you don’t do, the games you don’t play
I know you love me, I don’t need proof
I’ve been saving up my time so I could spend it all on you, on you
Oh, all I need is to see you smile, I’ve forgotten how to be blue, blue

7.10.2020 – All your silver and

All your silver and
all your gold surely won’t shine
brighter than your soul

The unexpected gifts that you can find on the internet, I am telling you.

The voice of Rhiannon Giddens came to my attention lately.

The music of Rhiannon Giddens came to my attention lately.

The work of Rhiannon Giddens came to my attention lately.

You know that feeling you get when you put on a pair of blue jeans that you haven’t worn for a while and you find a $5 dollar bill in the pocket?

Where did it come from?

Don’t know and don’t care but I got $5 bucks.

Where did Rhiannon Giddens and her voice come from?

Don’t know and don’t care but I got a lot more than $5 bucks out of listening to it.

A lot more.

Also got a song to teach to the grand kidz.

Also I have to think . . . who else is out there?

He Will See You Through
Rhiannon Giddens

When your path is full of worry
He will see you through
When you feel alone on your journey
He will see you through

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen, amen

When you think the world’s gone crazy
He will see you through
When it looks like the end of days
He’ll surely see you through

All your silver, all your gold
Won’t shine brighter than your soul
Amen
Amen, amen

All your silver, all your gold
Won’t shine brighter than your soul
Amen
Amen, amen
Amen, amen

6.23.2020 – music heard with you

music heard with you
more than music, without you
all is desolate

Adapted from the Conrad Aiken’s Music I Heard.

I like his work though I had never heard until Savannah attached itself to myself late in life.

Yet the words, Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread, describe life with my wife that it seems like I have known his work for years.

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.
Now that I am without you, all is desolate,
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved:
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes.
And in my heart they will remember always:
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise!

Like Johnny Mercer, the poet Conrad Aiken was known as Savannah’s own.

Mr. Aiken, according to his entry in Wikipedia, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, taught briefly at Harvard, and served as consultant in poetry for the Library of Congress.

Somehow, he was also largely responsible for establishing Emily Dickinson’s reputation as a major American poet.

Yet, in Savannah, he might be best know for recognizing a word combination in the daily newspaper where one day under SHIPS – ARRIVALS – DEPARTURES, he saw the notice;

Cosmos Mariner—Destination Unknown.

Mr. Aiken took notice of the notice.

Mr. Aiken recognized the pure accidental poetry of the words.

He like the arrangement.

He like the rythym.

He liked it so much you that can read to this day as he had it carved into a marble bench.

A marble bench that sits next to his grave in a Savannah.

A bench where anyone can sit and watch the ships come and go from the port of Savannah.

Maybe one of them might be the Cosmos Mariner.

And its destination might be unknown.

Maybe I am the Cosmos Mariner.

Going out through the Cosmos.

Destination unknown.

6.18.2020 – state of nonchalance

state of nonchalance
can be respectedly cool
on the after beat

Can I return to that state?

That State of Nonchalance.

Right now, it sounds so … so … so .. right.

I am not sure of the first time that I heard the name, Duke Ellington.

I am willing to guess that it was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs goes back in time and takes on a Knight.

Bugs asks the Knight if he has ever heard of Bugs’ friend, the Duke of Ellington, Count of Basie and Cab of Calloway.

“Rogues and upstarts all of them.” replies the Knight and the two fall to battle which Bugs win when he trips the Knights horse and the Knight is catapulted by his own lance into the next shire.

The house were I grew up was filled with records.

Everyone bought records.

Even my Mom, which I covered in an earlier entry.

I played them all.

Some of them maybe once.

Some of them maybe less than once.

Some I played a lot.

At some point I discovered my Dad’s big band records.

And at some point I discovered Duke Ellington.

On Saturday afternoons in the fall at my house, you could count on my Dad tuning in that day’s Michigan football game.

My Dad was a HiFi (not wifi, HiFi) or High Fidelity nut and wired our house for sound,

You could hear the game in any room of the house.

This of course was back in the day that there was one, 1 … ONE college football game on TV for the entire country.

There was also a rule that any one college could only be on TV twice in a given season with special dispensation that any school could be on three times but never more that 5 times every two years.

We listened on the radio.

We listened to the University of Michigan Radio station, WUOM, and the deep voice of Tom Hemingway.

It was the background sound to fall at the Hoffman House.

I mention all this because after the football game was the UOM Radio’s show “Music of Big Bands” with the wonderfully named Hazen Schumacher.

Schumacher was another of the great voices you could hear on this radio station.

I would sit and listen to the music until someone noticed the game was over and turned the radio off.

On one afternoon, the show featured Duke Ellington.

No one noticed or maybe everyone enjoyed the music because I listened to the entire show.

When the show came to an end, Schumacher played Duke Ellington’s sign off song, Satin Doll.

Side note: It was years later that I found out this tune had lyrics. It was even later that I found out the lyrics were written by Mr. Johnny Mercer, Savannah’s own.

It was a trademark of the Duke to close by talking to the audience, thanking the audience and reaching out to the audience on how to be cool.

I can hear it now.

The deep deep deep voice of the Duke saying, “I see I don’t have to tell you; one never snap one’s fingers on the beat, it’s considered aggressive. Don’t push it, just let it fall. And so by routining one’s finger snapping and choreographing one’s ear-lobe tilting, one discovers that one can be as cool as one wishes to be.“

I was about 10 or 11.

A 10 year kid trying to be respectedly cool.

I tried it.

I tried it and tried it.

I stood in the bathroom and I tried and tried and tried.

I had some problems.

Some more obvious than others,

One I didn’t discover until much later, that I had no natural sense of rhythm.

Not making that up.

Another problem was that I didn’t understand half of what he was saying.

But the sound.

The richness of that voice.

The love in that voice.

I felt like he was speaking to me.

I only heard it that one time and I never forgot it.

And I never forgot the Duke.

Named my youngest son after him.

Got his music in my heart,

He was very beautiful, very sweet, very gracious, very generous.

As Alistair Cooke wrote is his obit of the Duke, we have his music, all of it.

I loved it all madly.

PS: Here is the text of the Duke Ellington Sign Off – through the magic of the internet, I also included a clip of of the Ellington Band -It is a short short clip and worth the time)

Thank you very much, ladies and gentleman; you’re very beautiful, very sweet, very gracious, very generous.

This is Satin Doll [band playing behind him].

We use it for the purpose of giving background to this finger-snapping bit, and you are cordially invited to join in the finger-snapping.

Crazy.

I see I don’t have to tell you; one never snap one’s fingers on the beat, it’s considered aggressive.

Don’t push it, just let it fall.

And if you would like to be conservatively hip, at the same time tilt the left ear-lobe.

Establish a state of nonchalance.

And if you would like to be respectedly cool, then tilt the left ear lobe on the beat and snap one’s finger on the after beat, thus.

And then you might be as cool as Inez Cavanaugh.

And so by routining one’s finger snapping and choreographing one’s ear-lobe tilting, one discovers that one can be as cool as one wishes to be.

With that, we certainly want to thank your for the wonderful way you’ve inspired us, and remind you that your are very beautiful, very sweet, very gracious, very generous, we do love you madly.