Finyl Vinyl?

Recently my family and I acquired a turntable device that play the prehistoric black round 12" platters known as records. As the kids sat amazed watching the record spin around and around and the stylus run in the grooves that emitted the sounds of wonderful vintage music, I began to wax nostalgically about vinyl records.

For over 50 years the vinyl record format ruled. Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, those records played a big part of my life. From my Mom’s Elvis LPs to my father’s Johnny Cash records, to Paul Revere & the Raiders owned by my brother, music was playing frequently in my childhood home. My Monkees and Partridge Family records dominated once I was tall enough to reach the stereo. I totally rejected the 8-Track or cassette formats and spent my money only on vinyl. However, I could never come up with a way to play my records in the car.

Surprisingly, years after it’s death caused by the compact disc, vinyl is making a comeback. Sales of vinyl records has doubled in 2009. Record companies are reissuing classic albums from the past as well as pressing current hits on vinyl. Stores like Barnes & Noble and Best Buy have added record sections. Used records stores are still around. Amoeba Records in Hollywood stocks thousands of used albums and is seeing increased business. (At Amoeba Chris was able to score a sealed copy of an album of hymns from the 70’s sung by Pastor Chuck Smith)

Our kids had purchased some collectible vinyl recordings of some of their favorite artists and were looking forward to having a record party. I’ve been able to get most of my favorite records on CD or MP3 over the years. However there are some that have never been released in a digital format. It has been interesting to listen to some things that I have not heard in close to 20 years. Of course, I had to endure derision from Chris about my musical choices of the past. She had the audacity to greet the playing of my Kelly Groucutt album with the comment of “How horrid!”. This was spoken by the person who owns the disco version of the Theme from Chips and every Donny Osmond album ever released. I don’t need to go into what she said when I put on the Soundtrack to the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club movie.

My kids got a kick out of going through our collection of over 200 old records asking about the ownership of each one. They were able to guess a lot of them. Poco, Dan Fogelberg, America and Eric Carmen is Dad’s. Culture Club, The Motels, Bette Midler and Carole King is Mom's. Questions like who is Dan Peek, Joe Vitale or Randy Meisner came up frequently. The 10 minute dance remix of Dancing in the Dark just bewildered them. Much to her chagrin, Chris’ Mustard Seed Faith was never located. The kids, however, discovered a copy of Thriller that Chris had forgotten she even owned. The enlarged area for lyrics and graphics were intriguing to my son & daughter. They understood where the term “liner notes” came from after this.

It was a lot of fun because we spent time listening to music together. In this personal IPOD, individual earbud age we live in, the experience of communal music listening is often neglected. The pops, scratches and surface noise that used to drive me crazy felt soothing and comfortable. As I joined the kids watching the records spin, feeling the music more, I was a part of the experience. I was involved and not just listening to a sound piped directly into my ear from a sterile, cold and impersonal little 4 inch POD.

Do you have any vinyl memories?

Playing Songs On My Guitar

I’ve worked with a lot of different people over the years. When you stay at one place for a long time you see a lot of people come and go. Friendships are made and work is done and then people leave and someone new arrives. There is always a mix of different personalities and different talents that hopefully will grow into a productive unit. Every so often, I’ve wound up working with one or two special people that fit well and more work and better work was the result. Lately, I have found myself in a situation where the entire staff working under me has been special. The strengths and qualities of the very different people have meshed and extraordinary things have been accomplished. Everyone worked together as a true team to complete the tasks at hand. In some very difficult situations, these co-workers went above and beyond the call of duty. They sacrificed and never complained. Well, they complained a little. Actually, some complained a lot. But the work always came first and they always cared about the quality of what we were doing. What impressed me most was the dedication to our mission. Not discounting the contributions of any other staffers, as a whole, this is the best “team” that I been blessed to work with.

Sadly, I’ve learned that our team is breaking up. Shortly, I will be saying goodbye to these fine young ladies. This is difficult for me. Probably because of the hard work we’ve had to do in tough situations, I’ve grown closer to this bunch than I have most co-workers. Actually, it’s probably because these are very special people that I am talking about. Their work is outstanding because they are outstanding people that I am privileged to know. Frankly, I may just feel closer to them because of Twitter and Facebook and I always know what they’re eating, what they’re doing or what they’re thinking.

So to Brenda, Valerie, Morgan, and Clarice I thank you and I salute you. My tribute to my favorite, your mother hen, Calvary Bird is forthcoming. The Lord used our teamwork in so many ways to reach so many with our efforts. It has been an extreme pleasure to see you guys grow and mature into the young ladies of God that you all are. I will miss each of you, professionally and personally, more than I can say.

Coincidences?

Are there really random coincidences? I’m going to address two recent events that may not be coincidences but then they are Twilight Zone moments.

Saturday night when I was finishing up my tongue in cheek post about missing the Monkees’ appearance on “The Johnny Cash Show“ when I was child, I checked a reference book to verify the date. I was shocked to find out that it was exactly 40 years to the day. Wow!

People have been talking about the phenomenon of remembering where they were or what they were doing when they got news of the deaths of famous people. In my lifetime that would be Elvis and John Lennon. Oh, I do remember where I was when John Kennedy was assassinated. I was in a crib sucking on a blue bottle.

I recall the August day in 1977 when I was across the street from my childhood home. Nancy, my classmate and family friend, was entertaining my teenage crush of the summer and myself . I attempting to charming, witty and suave when my cousin James came speeding up on his metallic blue Schwinn bicycle, pedaling as fast as his legs would allow. “Hey dude, Elvis died!” He exclaimed. As the sky began to sprinkle in the muggy August heat, I bid farewell to the ladies and headed home to break the news to my Elvis fan mother.

32 years later, I was visiting the dentist on my lunch hour. My dentist happens to be Nancy’s brother. As I waited to pay, Nancy, an assistant in the office, approached and asked if I had heard that Michael Jackson had died. In my surprised state, I said, “When you say Michael Jackson, you mean Jackson 5 Michael Jackson?” She confirmed this as I felt silly, realizing she would not have announced to me that long time local radio personality Michael Jackson had died. I have seen Nancy less that ten times in the last 25 years so I find it amazing that I learned of these 2 breaking news stories in her presence. So for the sake of celebrities worldwide, I must find another dentist!

Regrets

Regrets, I've Had a Few.

I'm sure everyone has second thoughts about decisions made in the past. Fork in the road moments that we pray about and then ignore any direction we might receive are common. However, there are decisions that impact life changing moments that we live to regret.

I have one that I want to confess. One that I need to get off my chest. It seemed to be the right choice at the time. It made sense from every angle. There was no way on earth that this could go wrong. My decision had "genius" written all over it. It is clear that I could have not been more wrong. Yes, I regret this one particular choice and have no idea what I was thinking at the time. How could I have been so wrong? Why was I so blind?

Picture, if you can, little Jeff, age 7. I was the sweetest boy that you could imagine and I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Saturday July 19th, 1969. My parents had promised to take me and my brother to the Rosecrans Drive-In to view a re-release of the Walt Disney classic "Peter Pan". The day before this momentous occasion, my Mother informed me that The Monkees were going to appear on "The Johnny Cash" TV show at the same time we would be in flight to Neverland. The Monkees were my group. They were my introduction into music. My first album was "More Of The Monkees". Their TV show captured the magic of music, the fun and camaraderie of friends creating songs. It had been off for over a year. This was only their 3rd TV appearance since the demise of their show. This was days before VCRs, DVR's and any timeshifting device. My parents said that we could postpone the drive-in extravaganza until the next week so I could see the Pre-fab 4(reduced to 3 at the time) perform on the Cash show.

Here was the first dilemma of my first young life. Give up the movie that I had excitedly awaited for what seemed like an eternity or stay home and watch the Monkees with Johnny Cash. I debated in my clearly not fully formed mind. In a decision that I have regretted for 40 years, I succumbed to the allure of pixie dust and chose the Lost Boys over the Long Haired Weirdos.

I did enjoy the movie going experience and the Ghiridelli Chocolate Flicks. The next morning the regrets began. My uncle came over to visit my Dad and began recounting the Johnny Cash show from the previous night. He told him that it was classic and we should have stayed home and watched it. Johnny sang a verse of Last Train To Clarksville and then after a great new Michael Nesmith song, he sang a novelty number with them. He said that they were hilarious. I pretended to be asleep on the living room floor because the realization of my horrendous blunder was already causing me embarrassment and shame. I had figured that the show would be repeated. My young mind did not understand that, for some reason, variety shows rarely were repeated.

As the years progressed my decision haunted me. In the Fall of that year, the Monkees series began reruns on CBS Saturday Mornings. This pleased me because I was only 4 when the series started so many of these episodes were new to me. But as each rerun aired, although I enjoyed the shows, I had a weekly reminder that I missed the Johnny Cash appearance. The Monkees began appearing in commercial spots for Kool-Aid and Nerf products. So numerous times each day, I was reminded of my mistake. The Monkees show left Saturday mornings in 1973 but went into syndication in 1976.

As I grew older I realized that Neverland was just a myth, but The Johnny Cash show with the Monkees never aired again and the song they sang was not released until 1987. Peter Pan became available on VHS video and I purchased it for my young daughter remembering my gaffe each time we watched it.

My trauma was exacerbated in 1986 when 3 of the Monkees reunited for the highest grossing tour of the year. I had tickets for the final show of the tour. However the success of this revival, fueled by MTV rebroadcasts, caused the tour to be extended and my show became the next-to-last night. No big deal except at the final show, the next night, all 4 Monkees were reunited for the first time since 1968 and I missed it.

Recently, someone posted the Monkees appearance on You Tube. I got to watch it, finally. The monkee was finally off by back. The flim clip did not seem as spectacular as my uncle's 1969 review but the 7 year old Jeff would have loved it. On the 40th anniversary of my tragic mistake, I feel free.

Do you have any regrets?

Jeff's Jots

• I heard a ABC Radio Network entertainment reporter on local radio talking about a story in New York Magazine about the Eclipsed Celebrity Death Club. She described the basis of the story about certain famous people who did not get the attention they would have when they died because a more famous person died right before or right after. She cited several cases that were listed in the story and mentioned Farrah Fawcett, who overshadowed Ed McMahon for a few hours before her attention was eclipsed by Michael Jackson. Then she went on to say, "When it comes to death, you have winners and you have losers". That would be a hilarious statement if it wasn't so ridiculous. She mentioned former Oscar winner Karl Malden's death was overlooked because he died after Michael Jackson and then admitted she did not know who he was. I've heard the craziest things on radio and TV over the last week or so.
  

• I watched an interesting DVD tonight. It was called "Red White & Blue: A Tribute to America". It featured clips from the Ed Sullivan Show. The common theme was Patriotism. Henry Fonda, Charlton Heston and Carl Sandburg were featured reciting Lincoln speeches. When was the last time you heard a speech recited on network television? Roy Rogers & Dale Evans performed a melody of Patriotic songs. Lorretta Lynn, Wayne Newton, Kate Smith and Joel Grey also sang songs about America. Sgt. Barry Sadler was featured performing the Ballad of the Green Berets which was one of the most bizarre songs to reach the top of the charts. The most surreal moment occured when Irving Berlin sang a version of his God Bless America accompanied by Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownies and Girl Scouts. You jst don't see that kind of stuff anymore!