I'm Spying on You!

Turner Classic Movies had a neat feature last night. They were spotlighting some of the films of Thelma Todd. Naturally, they showed both of the Marx Brothers films she was in.

I forget how funny Monkey Business is. All four of the brothers get to show their chops. There's a wonderful scene in which they're trying to leave a ship. They steal Maurice Chevalier's passport and imitate him to try and fool the customs agents.

When you see a film multiple times, sometimes you find a gem you missed, or a little aside that suddenly strikes you as the best thing ever. This moment for me comes at about 4:50 of this great scene between Harpo and Chico, who are proving themselves to be tough so they can be bodyguards for a bad guy.



Groucho has one, perfect line in this scene.

After Monkey Business, Horse Feathers was shown. In the film, the song "Everyone Says I Love You" is used frequently and is performed by all the brothers during the film. I love the scene with Groucho and Thelma Todd as the College Widow.



I know Woody Allen did the film Everyone Says I Love You, and used the song as a tribute to the Marxes. What I did not know was that the song was written specifically for Horse Feathers. I always thought it was a popular song of the day. I liked Woody's film a lot.



Back to Thelma Todd, who appeared in a lot of films during her short career. Why was her career short? Because she was 29 when she died under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death was a carbon monoxide overdose. She was found in a locked garage with her car running. There was also blood on her face and dress, she may have already been unconscious when the car was started.



I have a tendency to look back at my journal entries. This one from 2006 is quite spooky. It's a monthly horoscope that, if you push it back a month or two, has some dead on accuracy. Hindsight gives you the opportunity to do this.

"The winds of change are again blowing, and you are about to experience a radical shift in your career. The first week of September will be fraught with tension as unexpected news about a professional matter comes your way...

It looks like destiny has a plan for you. If you have been working long and hard, with too little reward or promise for a sound future, getting out of your current situation will be a blessing. It's time to clear out the dead wood that has weighed you down and wedged you between a rock and a hard place.

It appears your boss or client, most likely a female, is about to announce a surprise departure, and you will be distressed to hear this, for it looks like she was a strong supporter.

Before you get too worried, it's possible that you may have ALREADY seen a source of income dry up over the past few months. Let me show you how this could be by telling you a true story.

Summary:

A major, sudden career change near September 7, the full moon lunar eclipse - a change you won't see coming - will leave you stunned. A top-level woman who protected you may now suddenly depart, leaving you feeling orphaned. Or someone may attempt to harm your reputation, either through gossip or through a false accusation. In the latter instance, you'll soon find out who your true friends are, although the experience may turn out to be quite disillusioning.

While this sounds ominous, all this month will bring is a set of tests, albeit quite a number of them. On the upside, you will get them done all at once. October should be lively and productive, and November will be extraordinarily happy. December should be downright glorious."

I won't say November was happy, and December the opposite of glorious, aside from leaving CML - which was the relief of all reliefs. The crap really hit the fan in January when true, false identities and other craziness were revealed.

My Own Worst Critic

I don’t have much desire to be a touring poet. I feel safer at home and grounded, somewhat. Would I do special features if the situation was right? Sure, and that includes locally at anytime. However, my material is not there yet. Not even close.

I do not think I could put together three decent feature length sets of all different poems. Will I ever be better than mediocre at best? Do I have the time to devote to the craft and the talent to develop it? Good questions.

Maybe I’m being hard on myself. Today though, I’m just a hobbyist, and I’m ok with that.

Scared, in Front of a Crowd

Last night's dream involved my first wife and I doing a team piece at a poetry slam. A big poetry slam. A Nationals type event. Somehow when we printed out the poem, the part she was doing printed out fine, but mine only had the first part of each line so half my part was missing.

(Don't bring up memorization, it's my dream ok?)

So we got up to the stage and after the applause died down, I deliberately woke myself up because I did not want to know what would happen next.

Took the family out to a graduation party yesterday. N's been to this place before but was among a mostly unfamiliar crowd. So he was standing there looking a bit lost. Even enticing him with a lollipop did not get him to move. I took him by the hand and sat him in my lap, where he stayed, very content, for the next two hours.

At one point, I got up to mingle, and he stayed in the chair just fine. I looked over at him and he held his hand up as to give me a high five but when I gave him the high five he took my hand, pulled to to the chair and said, "Do you want down?"

Meaning, sit with me Daddy.

He's a very sweet child, even when he woke up at 4:30AM he's still sweet.

Philosophy, is the Talk on a Cereal Box

I haven't been punchy here for awhile. Or been self revealing in the form of navel gazing. While I'm in a good place, overall - there's always room for improvement.

There are things I'd like to write about, for instance, the Columbus Metropolitan Library levy, but anything I say, as a disgruntled former employee, would come across as me being bitter. So I do not criticize it, even though I'm more for the levy than I am against it. But, as I learned while working there, expressing any opposing view of that place was strictly forbidden.

It's not even that I'm censoring myself. I do not want to be negative. The trauma of being at my old workplace still exists. After three years I've finally found myself not flinching while being around my current coworkers when they talk to me, about anything. Only now am I coming to terms with it to find myself facing their levy campaign head on in the lives of the people around me. And I understand why it should pass, but there are still people there I want to slap with a dead fish. The bad stuff is not something that is easily let go, but this extension of my pain is not good either.

It's hard for me, like Edie Brickell, I don't get too deep. Yet, I do have my own passionate, yet often misinformed, opinions. Problem is, it comes out as anger, rage, a rant rather than anything with any real depth or intellect. Which is more about me than I care to admit but it's on the screen now.

The online interactions have all become a bunch of snarky one liners in lengthy Facebook threads, and they're starting to bore me. What's getting solved there? Opinions are not changing. I'm not going to retreat to this blog, shake my fist and give out links of things that I hate - there's nothing productive or remotely positive about that way of communicating.

The last thing I need, is a cell phone, another electronic addiction. I'm not a gamer. What I do here is the extent of my gaming. I watch very little actual television, outside of sports, and have no clue who these Jersey Shore people and their ilk are. Nor do I care. Why should I care about Heidi and Spencer, whoever they are? I read Entertainment Weekly and see the names and headlines and read that none of these reality people have done anything of any substance, other than making show. I'm not impressed. Television seems very boring now days and I'm better at entertaining myself than shouting old Nirvana lyrics at the world.

Sometimes I think even the poetry has suffered. Feel like it's rehash. Even when I challenge myself the results are mean. I can't even write a love poem. Should be grateful I'm not blocked. Stuff is coming out. Most of it I'd like to pitch. Some of it, I have not read in public and probably never will. Have I painted myself into a corner?

Never watched Lost. Don't watch Mad Men or anything on pay cable. Wish I saw The Wire, maybe I'll borrow the DVD from the library, but the rest seems a waste of my time. My dead boss used to say 'life's too short' before he dropped dead of a crack overdose at the age of 33 - and he was right.

I try not to pay attention to Glenn Beck, the group of inbred Palins or how the crazy folks in the Federal Reserve and Treasury have pushed this country into insolvency. At the same time it's so bad out there we've forgotten how to coexist. No one wants to share the $1,000 pizza though - and why should they? They paid for it. Then tweeted about it.

So do I lay on my deathbed wishing I had not wasted so much time on my laptop, or that I wasted too much time watching Gene Simmons' reality show? Heck, at least I did not do both. Now, if I could put myself in a situation to ditch both of those options for the real alternative - there's your hot action.

I Don't Know What This Means

Our friend Tyrone is leaving town soon. Not only is he leaving town but he's leaving the country. Not only is he leaving the country but he's leaving the Northern Hemisphere.

We're going to miss him.



Put the video together last night. Had to change the music after the first song I selected did not get approved. Darn copyright.

Tyrone is a good man. He can fire back when fired upon and does the shimmy better than any human should be allowed. His competitive eating skills are legendary. Every wedding should have a Tyrone, as long has he's invited and why would he not be?

I wish him nothing but the best.

A Recap

How close was last night's slam?

So close that the last poet on the mic had a chance to win it all.

Congratulations to Vernell Bristow for winning the Grand Slam. She will be representing Writers' Block at the Individual World Poetry Slam in Charlotte in December. She did her best and it showed. Pure class.

There was so much fine work on the stage at Kafe Kerouac. Dain and Marshall were both incredibly solid.

Scott Woods told us how much he dislikes someone's Bedtime Prayers. The crowd loved it.

Rachel Wiley had the high score of the night with a three minute poem that was edited down to one. It worked!

Ethan hit home for me with a piece about finding love away from the computer.

I hate going on after Rose Smith. She's too damn good to follow. She performed, using the whole stage. Really fine work.

I was the last poet to read. Thought I was out of it so I did An Obscene Phone Call from Mr. Potato Head to leave 'em laughing. If I had scored a 29.9 I would have won it all. It was not meant to be. Not this year. I did get the only ten of the night from the low scoring but consistent and fair judges.

Rachel Reid did a wonderful job as emcee, keeping the energy in the room up. Joanna was on the netbook, updating the slam live on Facebook.

The young lady whose cell phone went off during last week's slam came back. I was pleased to know I did not scare her off!

It's a bit of a relief that slam season, for me, is pretty much over. I think I'm doing it again at the Upper Arlington Arts Festival. Time to reassess, evaluate and ultimately, get back to work. I love what we do.

The streets is watching.

So Far From Suck...

Going to be a great night of poetry at Kafe Kerouac on Wednesday night. Eight poets are competing in the Writers' Block Grand Slam. What does the winner get? The right to represent WB at the Individual World Poetry Slam in Charlotte in December.

Three rounds of poetry - three, two and one - then a victor will be given the green jacket, or the tiara, the crown, well maybe not.

As you may or may not know, I am the defending champion.

It's going to be tough to repeat. Very tough. Seven of the eight poets in the slam have national experience.

Been working on the poems. Putting it together. The points don't matter but the poetry does.

Right?

Expect fire. Hot action. A great display from Columbus' best poets.

Because You Will Buy Anything

It's material possessions such as the following combined with a dollop of has been pop culture that has me convinced civilization is coming to an end, and soon. Not with a bang, but in a smothering of fleece-like material.

Title Defense

Finally got downtown to check out the new record store. Spoonful Records has been open for about a month and has a very good selection of vinyl. There are also a couple of old pinball machines to play, (for free!) as well as other vinyl related items. The journals that have an old vinyl label as its cover are quite cool.

Brett, the owner, is quite friendly and knowledgeable. He's selling a lot of his personal collection and I hope his stock rotates.

I went in there looking for two records, both of which were lost in basement flood damage. I found George Harrison's 33 1/3 within two minutes. Could not find Warren Zevon's "The Envoy" but I have hope it's going to turn up sooner or later.

He's taking a risk opening in a location that has not been conducive to retail. They guy's a pioneer along with the bike shop next door. I wish them all luck, it's hard doing a niche start up at any time, let alone this economy.

When did movie tickets go up to $9.50? I know it's more expensive in other cities, but that was some sticker shock. We went to see Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World. I'm not a video gamer, and I had not read the graphic novels, but I really enjoyed this movie. Very entertaining with some very sly wit and visuals. I was all set to write off Michael Cera as the Andrew McCarthy of his generation but he earned a reprieve. I really liked Kieran Culkin in this film, he may be the most talented of the Culkin clan.

Wednesday night is the Writers' Block Grand Slam. Eight poets are going up for the right to represent WB at the IWPS slam in Charlotte in December. It's going to be a tough battle. Seven of the poets have national competition experience. All are hungry. It starts at eight at Kafe Kerouac.

Never Found Out Who Called

It was not a teachable moment. Perhaps it was a lesson. At the very least it was a very stern lecture in the form of a rant.

Let it not detract from what was an awesome evening of poetry at Writers' Block's Poetry Slam last night.

Open mic was solid. Patrick did a new poem that had me gasping for air. To heck with zombies, that guy is your Poet Laureate of all things apocalypse.

The slam, which was the final IWPS qualifier, had nine poets competing. I drew second, got on stage and was doing well with a new poem when it happened.

Someone's cell phone went off.

I even asked Rachel, who was hosting, to mention to people to turn their cell phones off. This person was even in the room when she make the announcement.

It was not a short ring either. It was one of those ringtones that never end. It was quite loud, and went two maybe three times for fifteen to twenty seconds. I was told the person just sat there, not realizing that it was, in fact, their phone that had gone off.

Have to admit it messed with my flow. Would have been less distracted if people had thrown some of the tomatoes Joel brought at me.

Managed to finish the piece, and muttered more than a few obscenities as I left the stage. The points do not matter, but I managed to finish sixth in the round.

There was still another round to go and I abandoned what I was going to do in order to use a poem for just this type of occasion.

Earlier this year, I wrote a poem about cell phones going off during poetry readings thanks to being next to one that started blaring Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy" (really, Tyrone? Really?) in the middle of someone's poem.

It's a three minute poem I took most of the end of round one to edit down to two minutes.

I still was not entirely sure whose cell phone had gone off, but once I started reading I found the culprit, and made them cower. Read quite a bit of the piece, looking directly at the evil doer. It's a rather nasty poem, but not one that wishes the person to die in a fire or develop brain tumors.

Poetic revenge? You bet your sweet ass it was. As my wife said, I took slam lemons and made slamonade out of them. Ended up finishing in fifth. Made my point.

It was one of those McLuhan in the movie line moments.



But life is not like this, is it? Simply the right poem at the right time.

At the end of the night the offender reached out and apologized. I accepted, and said to not let it happen again. You know how poets are.

Congratulations to Scott Woods, who won. Rose Smith came in second and Dain Michael Down came in third. A new poet named Gus did very well in his first WB slam. I think he's from the Atlanta slam scene and he's going to college up at Ohio Wesleylan. Hope he comes down frequently.

I'm not entirely sure I'm in next week's Grand Slam but I'm leaning toward yes.

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Exploitating for Exploitation's Sake

All this mosque chatter has me in something is wrong on the internet mode. I try to avoid it, but sometimes the temptation to get sucked in is too much.

There have been two functioning mosques in lower Manhattan for years. One has been operating since 1970. What exactly is the no mosques allowed zone around the sacred area that is ground zero? Is it two blocks? Seven? The island of Manhattan? The tri-state area? Are food carts allowed to sell falafel and halal foods while Chinese made trinkets that state "never forget' are sold within the footprint?

America has never met a wedge issue it cannot milk to death.

The tenth anniversary next year is going to be a massive amount of, well, something. Plenty of t-shirts, commemorative coins and crap from the Franklin Mint for everyone.

Most times, I find videos of baby animals and post them to Facebook. It's very soothing.



Blood pressure has dropped already.

What it is ain't Exactly Clear

Summer's winding up already. The last week of day camp is here, and school starts on the 25th. Got his bus schedule yesterday.

We're prepping for the cabin in Nowhere, Ohio and road trip in early October.

Still working on IWPS season. One slam left before the Grand Slam. The big news is that IWPS has been moved from Philadelphia in October to Charlotte sometime in December. Better to be organized than not I'd guess.

The less I say about the Crew, the better. They looked poor against Real Salt Lake last night. A lot of players are not on the same page.

As for Everton losing to Blackburn on a major flub by Tim Howard, it's only the first game.

When the heat clears, it gets me into the back room to play some vinyl. Sadly, some flood damage has caused many records to be pitched.



Luckily this record survived. I have it on the Smash Label, in glorious mono. Did not realized that Scott Walker is from Hamilton, Ohio. A case where the band became big in the UK, but never really broke in the U.S. Scott Walker had an impressive solo career in late 60's England, even had his own television show.

Look at the Lines

The new lenses arrived yesterday. Immediately on fitting I noticed the bifocals, unlike the last lenses I had which were supposed to be bifocals. Not sure if the last prescription I had was incorrect or if there was a screw up at the lab, but something was not right with the last lenses.

New ones are taking a bit of getting used to, but reading is easier now.

My son was looking at one of his picture books a couple of nights ago. He turns the pages fast so it's tough to interact with him. I was asking him what some of the pictures were and he named a few that surprised me. He said words I'd never heard him say, and have no idea where he picked them up.

His vision therapy seems to be going well. His therapist noticed some continued eye contact and excellent following of directions during the last session. It's not hurting him. He also seems a lot calmer and has fewer meltdowns. Good things regardless.

Still trying to form an opinion of the new Arcade Fire album. If I have to think about it so much, what does that say?

This is not an indictment but an observation. Only three posts from Live Journal in the last eighteen hours, and one of them was a digest of tweets.

Road Loss

Writing Wrongs Face Off Slam had me going up againt Izetta in a three round slam. Izetta won the confusing match of Rock, Paper, Scissors and, surprisingly, chose to go first.

She did some good new work, including a piece about Jesus' Twitter page. You know a poem about Jesus, and Twitter is going to please the crowd.

I brought three new ones to the night. One of them being a villain poem inspired by and written during the Encyclopedia Show a few weeks ago. Also did another poem from the ongoing autism series.

The first poem was problematic. A day old deception of being stalked by a rock band. Think that one has to go back to the lab.

There were three judges, and a simple scoring system. Which poet did they like in the round. The poet with the most votes wins. I had four to Izetta's five votes and there was your finish. It could have gone either way.

Thanks again to Will Evans for inviting me to take part in his night. Thanks also to my wife for letting me go out on a school night. Had a great time.

Laibach is not Maybach

After posting Opus' Life is Life video yesterday, my friend Eric shared a cover of the song.



Have to say I had never heard this band before and was quite amused. If Leni Riefenstahl was around to direct music videos, she would have worked with these guys.

Looking at their other work, I think Dreyer and Eisenstein would have fit right in with their message too.

A reminder that tonight I will be participating in a Face Off Slam at Writing Wrongs. Click on the link for more details. Starts at eight!

There was the Weekend

Gallery Hop remains one of the cool things about Columbus. Last Saturday's had its moments of fun and the unexpected.

We saw our friend Gina selling her jewelry. I had a lovely pork belly Japanese crepe before the Foodie Cart was booted for not having a permit. Controversy, histrionics and internet purity ensue.

It was a fine crepe, despite me getting grease on my shirt. I'm cool with it because the stains came out. Then it was off to Zen Cha to experience an awkward social situation followed by refreshing bubble tea.

We also met with one of the founders of Alt Eats Columbus, a local food blog that explores dining experiences in Columbus that are a bit off the beaten path. I've found some cool places thanks to them. This blog has spun off into a business venture called Columbus Foot Tours in which one can experience guided tours of local taco trucks on the West Side or some ethnic dining on the Northeast part of town. I wish them luck with the plan, it looks great.

Onto Jeni's for dessert. There is always room for jeni's. We endured a very short line, one of the benefits of hitting the hop early, and got back on High Street in no time. The new seasonal is a Peach Lambic Sorbet, and Jeni has gone above and beyond her usual high standards. Very well balanced flavors between sweet and sour, and combined with the Honey Vanilla Bean it is a divine Summer experience.

Ran into a former coworker, noticed there were live models in some of the store fronts this month and called it a night.



Columbus also has a new, nice, and expensive bridge that spans the Scioto River. It's rather pleasant from a pedestrian standpoint.



I'm waiting for the Greenpeace banner moment myself. I have to say it adds a cool vista for the underrated Columbus skyline.



Next summer the bridge will be two way, Genoa and Bicentennial Park will be finished and the waterfront will be a bit for accessible by the public.

Yesterday was stay at home day. Got a lot more water damaged junk out of the basement. Played more vinyl. Life's alright, even though this song is in my head.

The Home Team Won

I watched the National Poetry Slam online tonight (thank you for whoever in NPS organized that!) and was quite underwhelmed by the quality of work being performed.

Sixteen poems were presented and about four of them moved me. There was only one funny poem all night that the judges loved, probably because they were starving for funny after being bombarded with safe poem after safe poem about serious issues.

I do congratulate the Soapboxing team from St. Paul, who earned their win. The judging I thought was consistent. I was quite relieved not to see much score creep and no high scores were given simply for a poet walking up on stage.

The representative of the St. Paul Mayor's office, I forget the dweebs name, in his opening remarks gave mad love to the St. Paul team, while barely giving mention to the other teams from New York, Austin and Durham. Not cool to do that. I understand many poets from the other teams protested and for the night the teams were not identified by their cities, but given letters, ie. A, B...

The team from Austin did three team pieces in a four round slam and one of their poets was in a see through outfit during a poem about sex trafficking - which was mentioned quite often in the chat rooms and twittersphere. What was going on there?

St. Paul, again, earned it with a solid performance by Sierra DeMulder and one of my favorite pieces of the night was a slave marriage poem done by If 6 was 9. He did that one at IWPS last year.

Hard to compare this with the few slam finals I've seen but geez, WoW was so much better and passionate.

If anything, tonight's dull and safe slam has given me confidence. I've competed with a few of these poets, and gotten my ass deservedly beaten. It gives me inspiration that I can improve as a writer.

But You'll Find Out Just Wait and See

After last night's open mic, I was hankering for a snack. I remembered there was a taco truck at Lane and High so I went a couple of blocks south only to find that it was closed. This made me sad.

What Columbus does need is a late night Chippie, or something like this.

It was after I was home and lamented this on Facebook that others gave me options, all of them valid.

I'm sure I've written a bit here about The Knack. That band from the late seventies who had that one big hit, a couple of small ones, then vanished into a VH-1 special. They did some great covers too, and I found this a couple of nights ago.



This Buddy Holly song is blistering. I love the "Oh Wow" out of Fieger at 1:10. They had no idea what was coming. Their debut album had not even been released yet, nor was My Sharona, when they played Carnegie Hall in March of 1979.

Get the Knack was a big hit and expectations were high for the follow up. But the Little Girls Understand was a rush job, and the first single, Baby Talks Dirty was a My Sharona sound alike that paled to the original.

In 1981 their third record, Round Trip, was released. I think it's one of the most overlooked records, ever. At it's worst, a failed experiment. At best, prime examples of power pop, new wave and psychedelia.



Find this if you can.

The band broke up, got back together a few times, made some records few listened to, toured the nostalgia circuit. Their drummer, Bruce Gary, died of cancer in 2006. Then, in February of this year, lead singer Doug Fieger, died of brain cancer.

Doctor, My Eyes

Went to the optometrist for the first time in three years yesterday. A long overdue visit. Being in front of a computer screen all day and too much of the night means eye strain has taken its toll on my vision.

Went to the same place that is giving my son therapy so I knew most of the people examining me.

I'm still reeling a bit after my optometrist said he could find no indication on my lenses that they were progressive no line bifocals. It took three optometrists to see that they, in fact, were, but very poorly made. Makes sense, since the bifocals really did not seem to make any difference in my vision. Not sure if I can go back and complain, since the place burned down a couple of years ago.

I really do not think I've had a decent prescription that sharpened my vision dramatically since the late eighties. I had an amazing pair of glasses in Fredonia which allowed me to see the prices on the shelves the whole length of the liquor store. Those were two inch high numbers. Best pair of lenses I've had in my 44.5 years of wearing glasses.

Unfortunately, they looked like this.



Ah the eighties. Yes, I've kept most of my old frames going back to high school!

Since then my prescriptions have not been quite right. I even had one company change the size of my frames without my permission. Nice job Tuckerman Optical. One of my former customers at the Holiday Wine Shop was an optometrist and he came close in the mid nineties, but not quite. He's dead now. Then there was the quirky but very cute girl at J.C. Penney at the old Northland Mall...

So I get to hand over my current glasses this afternoon as they'll get sent to the lab. I'm keeping my current frames as I like them and they have the wonderful clip on sunglasses. Should be a week of minor headaches and blurry vision using the last pair of frames. The new lenses should arrive by the middle of next week. They're high index, anti-glare, rolled and polished and the bifocals damn well better work as I'm paying a lot for these!

Confused by Hooves

Did something yesterday I'd been putting off for far too long. The turntable and stereo have been set up in the back room for years. I rarely sit back there and use them. Once in awhile I'll turn on the radio. Saturday was the first time I put on a album in months.

But Sunday, that was the time to bring up the 45's.

For a couple of hours it was a nostalgia trip, dropping the needle on singles I forgot I had and wondered what the hell I was doing with.



A case in point.

My son joined me for a good amount of the time also. Not sure if he was grooving to the music but he picked up a 45 and put his lips in the opening. We peeked at each other through the holes in record sleeves and smiled at each other. He sat in my lap and took in my shuffling though the records, and they were, after all these years, still in alphabetical order.

My wife seemed to like me pulling out a few things also. But I had to take the needle off Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Bronski Beat.

A big surprise was finding this song. It was quite humbling to see that it is thirty one years old.



This was a huge hit on WLIR back in the day. Didn't John DeBella play this all the time?

I remember playing some of my parents records and joking that they were old. Those songs were only about 10-15 years old. I have 45's that are older than I am.

The two songs that got me the most were a couple of George Harrison B-Sides. I Don't Care Anymore is a drunken goof. Then there's this one.



The phone number at the end allegedly belonged to Mr. McCartney.

I'm hoping it will take me more than a decade before I break out the singles again. There's a tactile pleasure to playing records that goes so much more personal and deeper than simply clicking on a song in iTunes. Plus the whole sound fidelity issue. The warmth and depth you get out of vinyl that is not there in digital sound, even when the record crackles and skips. Man, Revolution sounded so dirty and distorted on the 45. The Fabs could be so nasty, or at least be mixed that way.