Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Malady

   I have a weird obsession, maybe even a sickness. It's not healthy, I know this and yet, I don't do anything to reign it in. I allow it happen. I allow it to grow. There are times when it lies dormant, only to come roaring back to life bigger than before. I am an audio equipment addict. Even worse, I'm a vintage audio equipment junkie. The bug had been under control, simmering quietly beneath the surface, for over a year. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was given an Atwater Kent Receiving Set, Model 32 and I could feel the fever starting to rise.


 It's an interesting little piece of radio history and you're lucky that I won't bore you with the details. There are, however, two problems that need to be addressed before I can even find out if it works or not. First, it originally was powered by three or four external batteries, so I need to buy a kit (available online) that will allow me to plug it into a wall outlet. Second, it requires an external speaker. Here's where the fun starts, I've been searching the interweb for something that is (A) period correct and (B) in working condition. They are out there in varying combinations of A and B, it comes down to how much I'm willing to spend. However, before I was properly lost in the problems and possibilities of this nifty little radio, I was distracted by another gift; a product from the RCA Victor Co. Inc.
 
   This is a Model 10K, given to me by my mom-in-law. It came from her great-grandparents ranch. She remembers listening to it when she was a youngster. I brought it home last Saturday and, with fingers crossed, I plugged it in. I had visions of listening to game four of the World Series the way it was meant to be heard. I imagined traveling back in time, hearing the crack of the bat and the cheers of the crowd while the announcer painted a word picture of the action, all coming out of this wonderful piece of furniture. Alas, it wasn't meant to be, despite having rigged up a makeshift antenna, the only sound was the quiet hum of vacuum tubes warming up. Sadly, I had to watch the Giants win, on a TV. I'm happy the Giants won, I just wanted to hear it, with my eyes glued to a glowing dial instead of a glowing flat-screen. Still, it's a beautiful addition to the living room and a duck decoy has managed to make it a home.

   These two recent acquisitions got me thinking about the ultimate score, the stereo console. This piece of equipment is my Holy Grail. I don't even know what brand I want. I do know that I don't want something cheaply made, that's for sure. There are enough great brands that I wouldn't need to jump on the first one. Now, my wife will say that there is no room in the house, but I think I could make room for the right one. I need to start saving my pennies, because I hear the siren song of vintage audio equipment calling my name and the sickness won't go away. I think I could give any of these a good home.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Sausage Exam Party!

Brought to you by freshly brewed coffee and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

   Years ago, I used to choose three random words out of a dictionary and create a short story using those three words in the title. Today I decided to try an online random word generator, the first three words were (in order) sausage, exam and party. Wow, the possibilities were endless.
   Aside from the obvious sexual innuendo,what the heck is a sausage exam party? Is it something that a group of USDA inspectors do on a Saturday night? Each one brings a sample of sausage from a meat processing plant they inspected that week and then they try to figure out which ones passed inspection and which ones failed. At the end of the night the winner gets driven by the loser to the Emergency Room. Everyone else can get there any way they choose I suppose, I haven't figured out all the rules yet.
   Maybe it's where Assistant Charcutiers bring their best sausages to some sort of judging event. They have a chance to become Master Charcutier if their sausage is deemed good enough. Of course, they would have to pass the regional competitions before making it to state and then, finally, on to nationals.  Only the best will move on, but everyone would have a good time because, hey, it's a party.
   It's quite possible that it's a strange political party. I'm not sure what their platform is and I'm not sure if I even want to. Seriously, I really think I don't want to know.
   Whatever a sausage exam party is I'm sure it's amazing! Except for the last one, I'm starting to weird myself out just thinking about it.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Pig In A Blanket (part II)


   Pork Fillingsworth is a moderately successful investment banker.  Normally during the afternoon he would be at work, sitting behind his desk making money for his clients and, in doing so, himself. Today, however, he had spent the afternoon on an exam table at the local VetStop. His neighbor, Mrs. Furter, fearful that he might have come down with Hog Cholera, had insisted he come in and get checked out. She had been nice enough to give him a ride in her car and sat in the waiting room, worrying the entire time about the diagnosis. Pork hadn't been surprised when the doctor came in and told him it was just the swine flu and that there was nothing to worry about, he just needed to keep hydrated and get plenty of rest. On the way home Mrs. Furter stopped at a pharmacy to buy both Day- and Ny- Quil, along with chamomile tea and saltines. Waiting in the parking lot, nestled in the comfort of the 1965 Chrysler New Yorker Town Sedan, all he just wanted was to get home, crawl back into bed with his cat, Applesauce, and burrow as deep as he could into his blanket.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Twelve Years

   Today a good friend, Terry, posted a picture in memory of another good friend, Chris Whited, who passed away five years ago. The last time I saw Chris was Christmas day, 2002 at Disneyland. I was in line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, with my friends Mike and Kate, when I saw him. He was about a dozen people in front of us and I yelled out, "Whitey!" It came out involuntarily and you wouldn't believe the looks I got from everyone in line, one apparently just doesn't yell "Whitey!" in a crowd. I think people thought someone was trying to start a race riot. Chris looked around, bewildered, saw me and smiled. We hadn't seen each other in a few years, he introduced me to his fiancĂ©e and we caught up as the line snaked back and forth. We said goodbye when he entered the building for the ride.
   I met Chris in the summer of 1986. I was a few days into my short career as a fry-cook at McDonald's in Atascadero when one of the managers asked me if I knew Chris because he was into punk-rock, too. I said I didn't, I went to high school in Morro Bay (just one of the fun things about living in the middle of nowhere, school was 10 miles to the east and work was 10 miles to the west). The manager said I should meet him, he was a cool guy. It would be a few more weeks before we met, he worked days and I worked nights, but we eventually crossed paths. For the next five years, if we weren't at work (unless we were working together) or school, we were hanging out. He was a record collector and I remember we spent many Saturdays sitting in his room listening to all the new stuff he got. To this day there are certain bands that, whenever I hear them, bring me back to that room. When I went to the (Black) Flag reunion show last year all I could think was how much Whitey would've loved it.
   We played Uno with his parents. We spent a year where we would go the movies almost every Friday. I saw Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure with him. We also saw Mystic Pizza, we thought it was going to be about a space pizza delivery place, we learned to read reviews before seeing a movie. He introduced me to some great people, Terry being one. We drove up to the Bay Area countless times where I met his buddy Ace and went to 924 Gilman Street. I got to see a ton of great bands there, including Green Day (still my favorite pop-punk of all time). We were housemates for a year, I don't remember much, that was the year we turned 21. When he moved out, my girlfriend and I got a place of our own and he moved to San Luis Obispo, one town away, into a (I swear to God) haunted house with a group of our friends. We still saw each other at the community college and I partied at his new place, but we slowly drifted apart, life got in the way.
   When I moved to San Francisco Chris would come visit either me or our buddy Scott, who also was living in The City. One time he picked me up from work and, in the ten minutes between parking, getting me and us walking back to his car it had gotten broken into. Someone smashed a window and stole his backpack. We went to my apartment to hang out, but he was so depressed by the break-in that he had to leave before we had a chance to really hang out. I would see him one last time before I moved out of SF and back home to San Luis Obispo. Scott called me up one day and said Whitey was coming over, we should all hang out. The three of us drank beers on the roof of Scott's apartment. It still is one of my favorite memories of the six years I lived in The City.
   It would be five years until I saw him again, December 25, 2002, at the Happiest Place On Earth.

RIP Chris Whited

Thursday, October 2, 2014

There Is No Cuteness, Only Death - A Short Rant

   When I was a kid, in the 19mumblie's, nature programs were, for a lack of a better word, nice. Sure, shows like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and Disney's True-Life Adventures portrayed a sugarcoated view of nature, but, sometimes, that's what I want to watch. Life isn't always pretty, it can be quite messy and sad, however, when I'm watching a documentary on the life of sea turtles you can just tell me that not all the baby turtles aren't going to get off the beach or even make it through the breakers, you don't need to show me crabs lopping off tiny flippers and dive-bombing birds going in for an easy meal. Seriously, it was like watching the beginning of Saving Private Ryan.

   There was a time when a bear cub could safely scramble up a tree and the mama bear would scare away any and all dangers. There might've been a brief moment of suspense, but you knew everything was going to turn out okay and they soon would be back to eating honey and juicy, ripe berries. Today, the baby bear only has a one-in-ten chance of making it to the tree and, once there, still runs the danger of getting one of its arms lopped off by a tree-crab (they're real, trust me, there's no need to do any fact-checking, please). Even on the off chance the cub ends up safe in the tree, the mama bear faces the danger on the ground and may very well leave that poor little baby bear cub a lonely orphan. Left alone in a tree, little bear arms getting too tired to hold on anymore, it cries for its mother as it slowly slides down the tree trunk to a certain death from the danger feasting on the mama bear's corpse. Such is the gruesome circle of life.

   Animals do survive, look around, they are everywhere. Please, bring back nature documentaries where the biggest danger is when the mama animal loses sight of the baby animal for two seconds, only to find it frolicking in a meadow filled with wildflowers. I realize that children need to learn about the horrors of real life, but c'mon, they also need to be able to believe that there can be happy endings. Life is hard enough already.