Saturday, November 27, 2010

Costco Rules: Rule #3 - Basically, Get Out of My Way


I could give you all sorts of reasons for the following, but what it really boils down to is that it's much safer for all of us if you just let me by.

Okay, first, write out a damned list.  You don’t have to use it.  Just look at it occasionally so that I don’t think you’re just winging it. 

And get out of the way.  This applies particularly to when you first enter the store.  Don’t stop and stare right at the door.  There are a thousand shoppers right behind you.  Get a move on.  It’s not the Emerald City.  That annoyed looking person behind you is me.

And as long as you’re getting out of the way, remember that cart?  Get that out of the way, too.  Don’t leave it in the middle of the aisle.  Don’t double park it.  Don’t park it next to you while you stare at the shelves.  And don’t, don’t leave it in the middle of an intersection.  If you do any of these things, it means years in purgatory.  (Really.  It says so on your receipt.)  And if you leave the cart there unattended, you are going to hell. 

And if you insist on blocking the aisle, be warned.  I AM coming through.  If you’re there, I’ll say “excuse me” twice, the second time even more sarcastically than the first.  If you’re not there, I will move your cart to another floor, and maybe out into traffic. 

Do leave it right up against the shelves.  If I need something, I’ll move it out of the way.  As a matter of fact, I recommend leaving your cart out of the way at the end of the aisle.  Yes, you can carry that case of copy paper all the way down the aisle.

No wandering aimlessly, and no doubling back with the cart.  If you failed to pick something up, you’re out of luck.  You should have checked your list, which, ideally, is sorted by aisle.  You can get the toilet paper the next time you’re here.  (Okay, you may double back later, but without the cart.  If you can carry the copy paper, you're ready to carry the big screen TV.)

When you’ve changed your mind about something you picked up, go and put it back where it belongs.  Don’t leave thawing bag of chicken wings with the gardening supplies.   Maybe this situation could have been avoided if you had spent a little more time on that shopping list?...

Next: Reading, Riding, Other Stuff

Costco Rules: Rule #2 - Kids and Other Annoyances

Kids:

Strap them into the cart.  No, I don’t care how old they are.  I notice that some of you put them in the basket part of the cart when they’re too big for the seatie.  My preference is that you tie them to the front of the cart.  On the outside.  No, really.  It’s legal.

And don’t let them use the karaoke machine.  Come to think of it, you don’t use it, either.

No babies.  I want to avoid any unnecessary tragedies.  You might mistakenly leave the kid and take home a sack of potatoes.  And we both know that sacks of potatoes don’t scream or go in their diaper.  However, the kids do have more flavor…


Eating Kids:


Sorry.  Typo.

Speaking of eating, if you’re hungry, what on earth are you doing here?  (Oh, I'm sorry, I meant to say enjoy the free food samples.  Just     don’t     block     the     aisles!)  And, for heaven’s sake, show some class.  Don’t take more than one sample.  Besides, do you really need to sample the ice cream?  Guess what?  It tastes like ice cream!  They really should put up a full length mirror near these displays.

And let’s face it, there’s gonna be a line for the good stuff.  If you don’t want to wait, all you’re getting is a cracker or a piece of dried fruit.  And I really don’t want you to wait.  You’re just going to get in the way.  So here’s an option:  DON”T HAVE ANY SAMPLES.  Don’t worry, you’ll make it home alive, unless you run into me.


The Reading Aisle:

If, while in the book section, you insist on actually reading an entire book, at least move your cart out of the way so that some of us can see the odd cover or two.  I know a guy who making his way through Harry Potter this way.  He’s up to Goblet of Fire.


What Dress Code?:
And ladies, don’t dress up.  Especially the high heels.  You're not going out on the town.  You're buying 50 pounds of cat litter.  I know these seem like very similar activities but just trust me on this.  

And I realize that when you actually are going out dancing, men make the opposite mistake.  They/we dress like we’re going to Costco.  But that’s whole other post.


Proper Identification:

And if you’re dropping by after work, take off your ID.  Otherwise, people will think you work there, and ask you where the DVDs are.  (Aisle 7.  And by the way, haven’t you ever heard of Netflix?).


Moo:

And it won’t kill you to walk on the down escalator.  No, your cart won’t come down any faster, but we'll all look a little less like cattle.


Next: Common Aisle Courtesy, or, Get Out of My Way

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Costco Rules: Rule #1 – Shopping Carts

First, you will need a cart. Did you think you’d be carrying that flat screen TV on your back?

Next, get your own. Yeah, you. That’s my Nexium you’re tossing out during your attempted cart-jacking. Thought I wasn’t looking didn’t you? Now put it back, and step away from my cart.

Then, to prevent yours from being stolen (I wouldn’t dream of it), I recommend putting something heavy into it immediately, even if you don’t intend to buy it. This will discourage the potential cart-jacker. This is more for the Home Depot crowd where cart jacking has hit epidemic proportions. I had my cart stolen twice in one shopping trip. First, by the lady who removed the (not heavy enough) potted plant I threw in there. She acted all innocent when I caught her red handed. The second time was while I was distracted by a bright fellow who asked if the propane tanks that came with the barbeques came filled. (He was having trouble starting the one he bought the day before.) After I broke it to him, I turned to find my cart gone. I think he was the husband of potted plant lady.

Stores that continue to use carts with broken wheels should be boycotted/sued/burned down, or something equally reasonable. Why, you ask? Have you ever pushed a cart filled so high with dog food, cat litter and beer that you can’t see what’s in front of you? You push and push and push, but since the cart is veering rightward, when you stop to clear any pedestrians from your wheels, you find not only that you’ve given yourself a back spasm, but that you’ve gone in a complete circle? This is a true story. (Well, it should be.) I should send them the bill for my MRI.

Ditto carts that screech or rattle. Beyond the obvious reasons, they are also an atrocity because they announce your presence at the store. If it’s one of the better stores, it’s not so much of a problem. However if it’s K-mart, where start questioning your own humanity within minutes of getting there, meeting someone you know is akin to running into them at an AA meeting. It could be consoling or humiliating, depending on what you think of them in the first place.

The other problem is that I don’t want you to know that I bought the store brand tissues. It screams cheapskate, or financial trouble. It may even cast suspicion on your birthday gift which we put in the Coach box. Okay, it was a knock off, but you didn’t need to know that.


Next: Rule #2 - Kids

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Costco Rules: Behind the Iron Curtain

Well, behind the chain linked fence of the parking lot, anyway.

You’ve been dropped off in hostile territory. All around you are seemingly ordinary people. Yet potential enemies lurk amongst them. And even those who are not outright foes have agendas that conflict with yours. If it comes down it - a choice between them and you - you know what they’ll do. You must be prepared to do the same. The normal rules of civilization don’t apply.

Today, Costco Rules are in effect.

Okay, it’s not quite like that, but you are somewhere you definitely don’t want to be - the local superstore. It could be worse - you could be at the local Pathmark, where it’s every man (the women are worse, and don’t turn your back on the old ladies) for himself. Here at Costco, you can assume a certain modicum of decency, if not compassion.

Strangely enough, there are people who actually like being here. You, on the other hand, harbor delusions of having a life, and so would like to get in and out as quickly as possible. You want to savor those hours of discretionary time you’ve earned, but have somehow unwittingly committed several of them to the acquisition/storage of crap.

And there are also the people who, if they can’t actually accomplish something themselves, are only too happy to thwart your attempts. They wander through the aisles like tourists, wreaking all kinds of havoc. Don’t let their blank expressions fool you. They’re enjoying this.

So next are some of the rules for surviving the mega store. Admittedly, they won’t make the difference between life and death, unless of course, they prevent you from blowing your brains out, if only to avoid the slow torture of the checkout line.

Next: Rule #1 – Shopping Carts

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Secret History: 1971

1971, especially the summer, sticks in my mind for a number of reasons. Before going back and (re)discovering the music of the time, I’m going to look at that year strictly through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old.



All About Me(’ve):

I had just graduated from a Catholic grammar school, and would be going to a public high school, relieved to not have to deal with the Franciscan brothers that my older brother warned me about.

No sooner had we graduated and the summer begun when two of my closest friends – brothers – moved away. And my family would be going to Ireland that summer. We’d be gone for five weeks – an eternity to a thirteen year old. I’d be away from the few friends I had left.

I was also ducking my father’s direct gaze, because it would sometimes be accompanied by a demand that I get my hair cut. After all, it fell onto my forehead and lightly brushed the tops of my ears. I tried to stay one room ahead of him, but since we didn’t live in a mansion, I’d quickly run out of rooms.

While in Ireland, I obsessed over “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Street Fightin Man” – hit singles in Europe at the time. T-Rex was big, and I got to love “Get It On” way before people in the USA heard it.

Upon our return to the States, I found out that my pseudo-girlfriend had tired of our pseudo-relationship, and slipped into the arms of another man. Well, another thirteen-year-old, anyway. Ah, well, the whole girlfriend thing seemed a bit scary anyway. Better to stick to music.

Otherwise, it was great to be back. There seemed to be so much going on.

The Fillmore was closing. I remember hearing about all the great bands that would be playing there that weekend. There were rumors about Dylan and Clapton showing up, but, as my brother told me, “they weren’t needed”. A friend of his was there to witness the Allman Brothers Band close the place down. If the general public was puzzled by the choice of a closing band, everything would be cleared up the next year when the Allmans released one of the greatest live albums ever.

On one Saturday night in August, a local AM pop station played John Lennon’s newly released “Imagine”, in its entirety, one cut at a time. In between songs, they had listeners call in with their reactions. Could you imagine such a thing now?

Alas, it was becoming clear that, in the Good Music Wars, we were losing on the AM radio front. Girl favorites like “Billy don’t Be a Hero” and “Seasons in the Sun” were pushing us boys to the harder stuff on FM.

This might explain the popularity of Grand Funk Railroad at this time. I admit that I was tempted to dip in – they had some good songs, like “I’m Your Captain” - but never did. Looking back, I’m not sure I missed anything.

Aside from the Jackson Five and the Temptations, Motown had somehow lost its appeal, too. I attribute this as much to the audience as to the music. Boundaries – musical and otherwise – were tightening.

My friends and I made a trip to the record store right before school started. Somebody picked up “Who’s Next”. Another got Santana’s “Abraxas”. We heard these records for the first time sitting on his stoop. I had to satisfy myself with Creedence’s latest single, “Sweet Hitchhiker”. (It could’ve been worse. I could have bought the album, generally considered their worst.)

I also picked up a book called “A Child's Garden of Grass” by I forget who, which was a manifesto on smoking pot. It was just like me to read about the stuff that everybody else was actually doing. Earlier that summer, I had gotten Bob Dylan’s first book, “Tarantula”, which I understand even less now than I did at the time.

But enough about me. What have I found in that year that I didn’t notice at the time?


Ringers:

Is there anyone out there who still doesn’t know that Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” is a great record? No, really. (Mrs. Jaybee disagrees ‘cause she can’t stand the voice. I admit it takes a bit getting used to, but it’s worth it.) The songwriting’s top notch: “River”, “The Last Time I saw Richard”, “A Case of You” and my favorite, “Little Green”.

Cat Stevens is in his mid twenties, but sounds a thousand years old on “Tea for the Tillerman”. So he’s a bit of a buzzkill, which explains why he’d peace out and find religion after a while. But man, I love this record, my favorite song being the intensely quiet “Into White”.


Happy Surprises:

When not playing with Neil Young, Crazy Horse managed to put it together for one album. Hey, they had Danny Whitten, Nils Lofgren and Jack Neitchze contributing. All the drugs in the world couldn’t stop one good album from coming out of this. Big brother hated it, though. (link)

The first New Riders of the Purple Sage album is a wee bit lightweight, mostly because of Marmaduke’s vocals, but very tuneful nonetheless. It’s also way better than their subsequent records. Bad records happen when Jerry Garcia leaves your band. But this first one is as good as it seemed at the time.


Singer/songwriters:

Gordon Lightfoot’s “Summer Side of Life” isn’t consistently great but it’s got some real beauties on it, like the title song, which, if it doesn’t make you cry, means you’re not quite alive.

John Sebastian was acting like the 60s never ended on "Live", and more power to him. He and the audience are having the time of their lives. He mixes in Spoonful favorites along with folk and blues classics. Wow, talk about a moment in time.

It would be easy to dismiss Elton John’s “Tumbleweed Connection” as just another EJ album, and a country themed one at that, if there weren’t so many good songs on it. “My Father’s Gun”, “Burn Down the Mission”, “Amoreena”, “Come Down in Time” and "Where to Now, St. Peter" have the greatest staying power for me. If he was a baseball player, he’d get the award for most at bats, and a great on base percentage.

After “Everybody’s Talkin’”, but before he started rubbing shoulders with John Lennon and jumping into the fire, Harry Nilsson made “The Point”, a lovely little fable about a boy named Oblio who lived in the land of Point. It would later be made into a cartoon. It’s right up there with his best records.


Survivors:

The old timers - the ones that were still left, that is - still kept coming up with the goods, if not the greats. No one would call “Surf’s Up” their favorite Beach Boys album, unless they weren’t Beach Boy fans to begin with. It’s too cute by half, but then again, it’s got treasures like “Until I Die” and “Disney Girls”.

On “Muswell Hillbillies”, the Kinks are slowly losing steam, which is ironic since they keep adding the brass. There are some great songs on this record, like“20th Century Man” and “Oklahoma USA”. For a lot of other bands, this would be a career album, but for the Kinks, only good.



The Great Ones:

John Prine’s self titled first album is a quiet masterpiece. The front cover couldn’t be less assuming. There’s Prine sitting on a bail of hay. But the sly devil is actually sitting on a pile of great songs. He may have been the most deserving of those given the title of "The New Dylan". He’d be rivaled only by Neil Young in his ability to churn out great songs using the same three chords

Quiet in a more ominous way, Sly and the Family Stone’s “There's a Riot Going On” let down a lot of people who wanted more of the positive, energetic music Sly was known for up to that point. It’s in the same universe as Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night” and Big Star’s “Third”. Heroin hovers over it like an angel from hell.


New Frontiers:

Man, John McLaughlin (Not my old grammar school classmate. He’s a good guy.) used to piss me off. How could I keep insisting that Eric Clapton was, as I put it "the best guitar player of all time" when McLaughlin was playing like this? The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “The Innermounting Flame” is very intense. There's a bit of dopey violin playing, and Jan Hammer is good for a giggle now and then, but overall this is jazz disguised as hard rock music (or vice versa), if not rock and roll, exactly.


And I feel I have to add a category called

Not as awful as they may seem now:

Does anyone like Emerson, Lake and Palmer anymore? I wonder. C’mon now, they weren’t that bad. There first record has some pretty nice things on it, like “Take a Pebble” and “Lucky Man”, but the rest of it is very pretenscious and thus deserving of some ridicule. As Monty Python would say, very, very silly.

“Stephen Stills 2”’s badness first comes out of sheer boredom, and egregious taste. Did anyone even put the record on before regretting that they got it? (Don’t look at me, I only paid $2.) I guess we all got through the first listen, and then put it away for a while. When you try it out later, having dragged your expectations way way down, it doesn’t seem so bad. And how can you not like, “Change Partners” and “Mary Anne”? I even like the spoken word “Word Games”. But the rest just disappears upon impact. Along with the Kinks, Stills shouldn't be allowed near a brass section. You might enjoy it a bit while it's on, but when it’s over, you'd probably wish you put on a better record instead.

And in case you conclude I’m an idiot, here’s allmusic’s take on the year.

I'll admit they know a thing or two...

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Family Tree

I’ve been buying - I don’t like the word “collecting” - records - vinyl, cassettes, 8-tracks(!), and CDs - for about 45 years now.  And if you do anything like this for long enough, you’re bound to amass quite a stack.
It’s now hovering at around 1,300, which is way more than what a normal people would have, but it is what I consider to be an eminently sane amount.  Any more than that is surely nuts.  Anything less hints at old fogeyism and out of touchness.  Yeah, my number is just right. 

But seriously, I'm not very proud of it.  These records seem less like and accomplishment and more like evidence of an obsession or that got totally out of hand.  At least drinkers throw away their empties.  I keep (but get to replay) my records.

Now 1,300 may say “collection” to you, but it's not.  The word “collection” has the aura of completeness about it.  And collectors tend to fill the gaps in what they’ve already gotten.  They have most of Neil Young’s albums, and plan on getting the rest.  I prefer to just get the ones I want.  The gaps I want to fill are of music genres I’d like to get to know better.  (I know, hooray for me! Right?)  So if I don’t have a lot of country music, I might try to find some that is both great and representative.

I do this for the selfish reason of wanting to enjoy more types of music than I currently do.  This broadening of my horizons might sound like a chore, but in the end, it enables me to enjoy that much more music.  A win, win, I say.  The other guy is busy getting “Landing on Water” but I’m getting what I hope will be George Jones’s best record.  The other guy has all of Neil Young’s albums.  I only have the good ones.

But that’s me.  And this semi-aimless wandering has, over the long haul, gotten me part way into a lot of types of music and a whole lot of great music, some of which I'd never hear if I hadn't wandered a bit.  So I rest my case.

But I sometimes pretend that my record library - another word I don’t like, but it will just have to do for now - is something pure, original and mine alone, built up slowly and methodically over the years.  A life’s work, if you will, to make up for the lack of an actual life.  But this is a load crap.  One’s music library rarely grows from scratch.  It branches off from one thing and may combine with another.  It’s more like a family tree.


Roots:

First, there’s the library I was born into.  It was made up of lots and lots of Irish music.  Bridie Murphy, Paddy Noonan, and a lot more where they came from.  These records were pretty hard to take, especially with the British Invasion breaking out all around us.  A little easier on the ears were the Clancy Brothers, and individual songs like “The Patriot Game” - the inspiration for Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side”, and simply one of the greatest songs ever written.  At least these tunes had tunes, and energy.  Oh, and guitars.

In a previous post (link), I related how I struck the first blow against this monopoly, by dropping a stack of records on the floor.  It was the mid-sixties, and vinyl LPs were heavy, thick and brittle.  So just like that, I took out at least three of them, and all I got was a verbal reprimand.  Nothing personal, Mr. Noonan.  It was an accident.  I swear.

But there were some records from this time that we all loved, like “The Sound of Music”, which was played endlessly, and the “Bing Crosby Christmas” Album, which we’d play even in July.  I’ll even throw in a shout out to Larry Cunningham, whose record - the last of the great Irish albums - got a ton of plays even as this period was ending.


A Tree Grows in Brooklyn:

One friend specialized in getting Beatles albums.  Another built up a nice stack of 45s.  But even after a lot of begging and pleading, we only managed to amass a couple of  singles that never played all the way through without skipping.  We didn’t get our first albums - “Revolver” and “Meet the Monkees” – until 1966. 
But that was a start.  There would be more Monkees and Beatles albums to come, and each birthday and Christmas brought with it at least another album.  After a few years, we had about fifty.

In 1974 or so, a neighbor decided to give me his old albums.  “About a thousand”, he said.  I was flabbergasted, and couldn't fathom where I'd put them all.  But alas, I was new to the world of adult bs, and he showed up with about forty of varying quality.  But there were some great ones in there, and we now had almost a hundred.

Things picked up considerably when we got part time  jobs.  We fell into a payday oriented buying routine, my brother specializing in the Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, and all of those other bands from California, and me straying off to the odd corners of things.  By a weird coincidence, the country was celebrating its bicentennial right around when we were celebrating our 200th album. 

And by we, I mean me and my brother.  I wonder if we would have intermixed our records if we didn’t share a bedroom.  We sure didn’t intermix our two younger sister’s records.  One of them was at least in the ballpark musically, with Linda Rondstadt, but the other was dipping into disco, and the Beach Boys, which we were having none of at the time. 

My parents would fight back, and half heartedly get a Wolftones record here or there, but who was kidding whom?  The tide had turned and they knew it.


Branches:

But then I moved out when I turned twenty two, and took “my” records with me.  Figuring out which ones belonged to whom was easier than I thought it would be.  It was kind of like figuring out who wrote which Lennon-McCartney song.  You kind of just know.

Roommates Mike, Bob and Tom each in turn brought their own records which occupied the same bookshelf, but were never intermixed with mine.  And when they left (they always leave, don’t they?) they took their records with them.

Then I got married.  And if I thought my sister’s taste in music was questionable, my wife’s had “irreconcilable differences” written all over it.  It took until several weeks after our honeymoon for me to break down and intermix them.  To be fair, she had a decent mix of records (they broadened my horizons just as much as I ever broadened hers) with only the occasional abomination (Bobby Sherman, Salsoul Orchestra).  Looking back, it’s hard to see what the big deal was, but at the time it was traumatic for me to be sliding ABBA next to the Allman Brothers.  But I’m a man of the people and did it.  Intermix accomplished!  That’s love for you.

When the kids came along, we’d get the occasional album for them.  Never actually kids music, per se.  More like “For Our Children”, an AIDS benefit album by various artists, which sort of slipped into our collection, but by rights it belonged to our daughter Theresa.

After that, Tess went her own way and ended up as a huge fan of Broadway music.  Along the way, she ran the pop music gamut from the Spice Girls to the Backstreet Boys.  I’ve not yet coveted anything from her collection.  Well, there is that Blink 182 record…

My son Michael’s taste in music is much closer to mine.  He’s always had his own CDs, though.  Until this year, when the lines got really blurry.  Michael turned my wife and I onto Vampire Weekend, and he was the one pushing to get "The Suburbs" by Arcade Fire.  And yet, he considers this latter record to be mine "because you turned us on to them”, rather than my wife’s, who drove all the way out to Best Buy to get it.


Autumn Leaves:

Now that my mother has moved out of her house, I’ve inherited the Irish music.  And you know what? It’s not half bad.  I might even intermix them with my records.....

And now I can’t help wondering who’ll get my albums when I’m gone.  I even have a list of names.  A list, but few illusions. 

There are plenty of records that my wife and I grew old together with, and I hope she cherishes them.  But I don’t think she’ll want all of them.  How is she going to handle that, I wonder?  Will it be like my clothes?  Will she hesitate to get rid of them out of loyalty or guilt?  What about the ones I loved and she hated?  Will she give away anything she knew I liked?  I guess I should tell her that she need only hold onto the ones she likes, and give the rest away.

I began to think about this at a ridiculously young age, and continued to develop the scenario as my life got more complicated.  And now I can imagine this big stack of records getting passed around from wife to kids, to siblings and friends until there was a much smaller (hopefully) pile left.  What would happen to them?  Would they end up at some garage sale?

That thought really bothers me, because I rarely bought records from garage sales.  My thinking at the time was, why buy an album from someone who didn’t want it anymore?  It wasn’t like shopping in a record store, whose owner could care less what I bought.  A garage sale record was one that someone consciously bought, listened to, and ultimately rejected.  How good could it be, I thought?  Now I know better. 

What a sad thought, that something so valuable to me – a small piece of my life, really - could end up on a shelf or in a box, ignored by everyone.  Hopefully, someone smarter or more open minded than me will find and enjoy those records, and add them to his or her family tree.

Ah, so what?  Dead leaves on the dirty ground, and no one else around.


New Growth:

I’ll always regret not enjoying music more with my parents.  Aside from Julie Andrews and Bing Crosby, they had theirs and we had ours.  Such was the generation gap at the time. 

My wife and kids do not share my exact taste in music but we do share many more enthusiasms than I ever did with my parents.  I'm very thankful for that.  And as much as I hope that my records will end up with the people who would like them the most, I also know that some of the stuff I love just won't resonate with them.  And it may never.

That's okay.  My kids can take it from there.  They've got their own music to listen to and their own trees to grow.