We're gonna have a good time
And no one's gonna take that time away
You can stay as long as you like"
I fired up the big rig. I caught up on the latest episode of "Better Call Saul," debated whether to finally dig into "Chernobyl," but then I realized I had to jump on the computer and answer a few e-mails before I did anything.
That's when I decided to turn on the stereo.
I'm trying not to be a hoarder. I'm trying to throw things out. I guess I was building a museum to myself, and then I realized I'd be forgotten anyway. But my stereo equipment, my records, they're never gonna go, at least not while I'm still here.
I've been thinking about sound recently, listening to music on my phone. Sounds pretty good compared to the old AM dashboard radio, but compared to the stereos of the seventies, it's crap. And now everybody's listening to crap, it's the standard. But when the music is reproduced accurately, clearly, it's alive, it breathes, and you're enveloped in the sound and it changes your mood.
The Sonos system didn't work.
But this stuff always works, so I started to troubleshoot. Turns out unplugging the bridge and replugging it worked.
And then I picked out the tunes.
Oh, one of the reasons I decided to do this was because my stereo is hooked up to Sonos, and I've now got Amazon Music HD. But to tell you the truth, I'm afraid to leave my amplifier on all the time, even though it's no longer new, because the previous one burned up, I seem to be planning for a future that will never come. We all run out of runway. And you get to a certain point and you can feel the end even if you can't see it, and that's positively freaky, because suddenly all the stuff that you thought mattered no longer does.
Now when Sonos started, it was all about enabling your stereo system, granting it streaming music. But over the years the paradigm has changed, Sonos now makes speakers, that's what people buy, hell, I haven't heard of someone buying a component stereo system in at least ten years, maybe more, that's just not done anymore. But if you're someone like me, and you still have the equipment...
Just before he died Ed Cherney told me to throw out my Nakamichi 582. It's not worth much, but it means so much to me. I'm worried the belts are stretched out and can't be replaced so I haven't turned it on. Oh, I've turned it on, I just haven't tried to play a cassette, I still have some of those. And I read about myself in Anne Tyler's new book "Redhead by the Side of the Road." One of the characters is afraid to call her landlady for fear of bad news. That's me. Actually, I always think it's bad news. Although I'm getting much better, I can open my mail the day I get it.
So I tested the speakers with Supertramp, "Crime of the Century" is one of the best engineered albums of all time.
And then I decided to switch from the JBLs to the Thiels. The sound was completely different. It was smooth, there was more air, you could hear instruments a bit better. Then I played my standards, like Joe Walsh, the James Gang and Boston. I was evaluating sound, but as time passed by the music stopped resonating.
But before I shut the stereo down, I decided to play "Carolina In My Mind," the original version, from the Apple album, I used to play that every morning at about this time fully fifty years ago, how weird is that, and I wanted to relive the experience.
But I saw "Mud Slide Slim."
"Mud Slide Slim" is known today for containing "You've Got a Friend." And to tell you the truth, I always preferred Carole King's version.
But "Mud Slide Slim" represents the spring of '71, I was in college, it came out at this very time.
And April in Vermont is kind of strange. It's not like California, it's not like the Sierras, where they get feet of snow and you can ski till July 4th, one big rainstorm and rising temperatures and the snow is gone, seemingly instantly. But it's still nippy at night, but winter is over, spring is about to be sprung, but to tell you the truth in Vermont that's in May.
Now when "Mud Slide Slim" came out all the hype was about "Hey Mister, That's Me up on the Jukebox." The articles analyzed James Taylor's sudden fame, they used this song to explain it. But that song never broke through.
And you never hear about the first side opener "Love Has Brought Me Around," but I always loved it.
Still, there are three absolute killers on "Mud Slide Slim."
One is "Riding on a Railroad." That's the one that switched my mood, made me want to continue to listen and write.
And the funny thing is this quieter material sounded better on the JBLs, even though I thought the JBLs were better for bass, which is basically absent here.
Then, of course, there's "Machine Gun Kelly."
"This is not a time for levity, do you understand what happened to Machine Gun Kelly?"
"I'll tell you about Machine Gun Kelly
He rode along the outlaw trail"
I've been watching all these shows featuring drug dealers. And the gig is unappealing at this age. Oh sure, you could always get arrested, but the gig itself...IT'S BORING! And the people who do it are just interested in getting high, screwing and laughing, and if that's all your life is about, I feel sorry for you. Well, to tell you the truth, I don't really care.
I'm bugged about billionaires, bugged about so much of today's world, but once again, when you're running out of runway, you realize all that you're not going to be, all that you're not going to accomplish, and hopefully you're happy with that. If you hated your job until you retired, I feel sorry for you too. What a waste. Yes, I'm being "judgy" as the kids say today, it's part of my personality, sue me. If I can read, listen to music and ski, I think that's enough to make me happy. Then again, I planned to ski at every area in the United States, that'll never happen.
But back to "You Can Close Your Eyes."
Now 1971 was a very good snow year. I skied the day before my birthday at Stowe and there were absolutely no bare spots. And the very next day I went swimming in the quarry. But shortly thereafter, I went with the Zeta Psis for a picnic by the lake. I had no intention of joining the fraternity, but they had Boone's Farm and I was not legal, and they were nice guys, who brought their girls, and for one moment I didn't feel uncomfortable and inferior. We played a little ball, drank some wine and had some good conversations. And I sang "You Can Close Your Eyes" in my mind. That used to be a regular occurrence, before the days of the Walkman, I spent an entire summer in Europe singing songs to myself, mostly those from Todd Rundgren's "Something/Anything?"
"Well the sun is surely sinking down
But the moon is slowly rising
And this old world must still be spinning 'round"
You can see the stars in L.A. now. You look up and it's a cornucopia of brightness, it's thrilling. And even though we're all on edge, the world keeps turning.
Today everybody told me how they were freaked out. Me too, did you read that story about that doctor in Washington, whew! (lat.ms/2Xx7gsG)
But you can only be so paranoid, you can only do your best, and hopefully that's good enough.
So tomorrow is another day. Just like today.
All the news is about opening the country for business. It's all a waste of time. Bottom line, the people are in control, we had to be convinced to stay home, and we'll have to be convinced to go out. And if one person dies, they're gonna sue the ass off of whomever or whichever entity told them it was safe. You go first, isn't that what they say?
So I'm planning on being quarantined to June 1st. I can handle that. Hell, it's already been in excess of a month.
But what happens after that?
There'll be no mass gatherings, no concerts, no sports, at least with fans in attendance.
But I'm not thinking that far ahead, I'm in suspended animation, I'm in the now.
And if you think about it, if you kick back and relax, it's not that bad. We've got our Netflix, our Kindles. We've got Zoom, and all the other ways to connect online. And today, things slowed down enough to remind me of...
The way it used to be.
I'm ultra-busy, and I'm not complaining about it. But if you're going really fast, you miss things. Who has time to sit at home and listen to the same songs over and over again?
But I pulled up the new Kenny Chesney and Luke Bryan songs, and they were pretty good. Sure, generic, but they were ear-pleasing. And then I played some of the Spotify Hot Country playlist and I realized this is where rock is. Sure, there are a few too many references to church, there's too much pandering, but there are changes and it's not Jason Isbell, but not that much is.
And Jason Isbell is not James Taylor.
You don't know what you've got till it's gone?
Kinda like John Prine. And Adam Schlesinger. And in the not so distant future, all the classic acts will pass, and many won't be remembered.
But it doesn't really matter, because you won't be here either. Those memories are gonna die with you, but they mean so much to you.
"So close your eyes
You can close your eyes, it's all right
I don't know no love songs
And I can't sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song
When I'm gone"
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