Tale of the Tapes

One of the oddities about my job situation right now is that there are days where I have nothing do to. This past Friday was spend basically waiting at home for the call to see if I was going to be employed next week (or not). With not much else to do, and finding it difficult to focus on anything requiring real thought, I embarked on one of my many cleanup projects.

I had been working on cleaning up my bedroom mostly - lots of things that need to be organized. Projects already completed include the magazine cleanup (cut out all the articles I wanted to keep) and updating my coin collection (seriously). The project to be addressed Friday morning - the box of mystery!

I'm not sure what was in the box. I put it beside my bookcase many years ago as a temporary placement, to be addressed that weekend. That turned into next weekend. Then the weekend after that. Etc. Whatever was originally in the box, got covered by other stuff. And more stuff. Etc. You get the idea. Anyway, its time had come.

Once I got into it, most of the stuff was useful, but it just needed a permanent home: clothes for glassblowing, wraps and clothing from boxing (I did the workout - I didn't take a punch. I'm not completely stupid), plus mail dated from 2004 (which got tossed - if it hasn't come up by now, it ain't worth reading). Down at the bottom was one surprise - a bag of old cassette tapes.

I have two cases for cassette tapes that are full. I am not buying a third. I had to call for cuts. Approximately 37 tapes would have to go in order for everything to fit. With nothing better to do, I went down the musically journey into my past.

Throwing out the old tapes was fairly easy: anything that I already had on CD, or other electronic version would be trashed, baring any emotional attachment to the tape. Mix tapes were spared, as they represent a unique time and place, or someones music collection that I had raided. Some of the notable mix tapes which I discovered included:

• The "Mother of all Cheese" collection, courtesy of Chippy's vast knowledge of 80's music


• "A collection of really neat songs" volumes 1-3. What GC3 didn't know about naming mix tapes, he made up for in quality of music


• "John 'Sitting Duck' Surles greatest hits" I roomed with a country music fan in college for a year and a half. I used to make fun of his music, but eventually it kinda grew on me. I never admitted this fact, and I made this tape without his knowledge. I guess the word is out now.

Some of tapes that made it were quite surprising. I didn't realize that a bunch of my favorites I only owned in this second rate, plastic format, such as:

• "Chronic Town" by REM


• "Kick" by INXS


• "Never mind the Bollocks here's the Sex Pistols" by the Sex Pistols


• "Sonic Temple" by The Cult


• "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits


• Billy Idol's self titled debut


• Several albums by the Beatles


• Every pre-Hagar Van Halen album


• "Double Platinum" by Kiss (laugh if you must, but you have rocked to these songs, too. Admit it.)

What was left is a sad collection mostly of really bad, no talent, hair-metal bands. I'm quite embarrassed. None of these albums were really worth owning at the time. I'm sure the checkout guy at the record store still laughs at me to this day for some of these purchases. So for your reading amazement, I give you, my own personal tale of the tapes - the regrettable collection of music that in one point in my life I thought was good enough to possess a copy:

• "Stay Hungry" by Twisted Sister


• "Fire of Unknown Origin" by Blue Oyster Cult


• "Dawn Patrol" by Night Ranger


• "Savage Amazement" by the Scorpions (sadly not "World Wide Live")


• "Bat out of Hell" by Meatloaf


• "I'm too sexy" (Single) by Right Said Fred (I kinda want to put this in the surprise category)


• Judas Priest Live


• "90210" by Yes


• "The Stroke" by Billy Squire


• Whitesnakes self titled debut


• The Best of a Flock of Seagulls (yeah - how did they come up with nine songs to fill the tape?)


• "Pyromania", "High n' Dry" and "Hysteria" by Def Leppard


• Roy Orbison: 12 of his best (how it ended up with the rest of this collection, I'll never know)


• "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot (But it only cost me $1 - the price tag was still on it)


• Two Post-David Lee Roth Van Halen Albums


• "Turn back the clock" by Johnny hates Jazz (ummm....)


• "Tribute" by Ozzy Osborn and Randy Rhodes


• "Open up and say .... ahhh!" by Poison


• Six albums by Rush (does it really matter which ones? They all sound the same)


• Three by Triumph (ditto here)


• "No Tellin' Lies" by Zebra (yeah - who??!)


• "Dos" by Gerardo (you know the "Rico Suave" dude. This was his follow up album; it should have been titled "Fin")

And finally, for Tammie and all of those of you who know the story of my first time my car was broken into:

• "Out of the Cellar" by Ratt

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