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In another thread Ariel spoke of recent unpleasant threads and the need to participate in discussion more enjoyable. I have no idea if this thread will go anywhere, but with that in mind...

I have been sitting here listening to old vinyl. 25-30 year old jazz records and non-mainstream bands and musicians from the 70's (and maybe early 80's) who were so inventive and had more talent in their little fingers than 99% of the people who really made it had in their entire bodies.

I remember the old days of vinyl, the hours upon hours spent searching record stores in Chicago and the outlying areas for great stuff no one had ever heard of. I was a disc jockey at one of Purdue's college stations for a while just to get access to their music and equipment. I spent uncounted hours during the middle of the night with the studio all to myself. Of course I invariably missed calculus and Fortran classes the next morning.

My records are older than my children and yet you can't hear a scratch or pop on them today.

So what are the passions of your past?

Transformers.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, SUCKA.

This could be fun. Most of my vinyl disappeared during a garage sale my father had while I was doing my grad programme in Ottawa. Some of it I miss when I am nostalgic but alot of it....well, let's just say it was youthful dilerium. I take it you are looking for obscurities rather than mainstream right? ( mind you in those days anything without an accordian and fiddler would be considered obscure in Alberta- Heck, we only had one record store in Edmonton.)

Captain Beefheart: Lick my Decals Off

Lucifer's Friend: 2 very loud albums

Sparks: Kimono My House and Propaganda

Keith Emerson and the Nice

Screaming Lord Sutch and Friends: 2 albums one was live with Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Noel Redding, Jon Lord (I think) and at least one other famous rocker.

Hawkwind

King Biscuit Boy (?): the album actually had cotton cloth cover like a suagr bag

Its a Beautiful Day

Flock of Dinosaurs: In a Dinosaur Swamp

Nina Hagen: 2 Albums

Heaven 17: one good song "Fascist Groove Thang"

Joe Hall: I think he's still around gigging out of Toronto

I'll probably think of more as time goes by....

This list doesn't include my Blues vinyls which a friend of mine miraculously rescued from the garage sale and that I stll have.

i thought this was a family-oriented web site?

Renauda, this isn't a thread about vinyl, it's about passions of your past. One of mine was records. Yours might be about backpacking (another passion of mine). I know someone will mention a redhead in highschool, but that's not really what I mean.

I've got three Keith Emerson and/or Nice albums upstairs, pre-ELP.

Hawkwind, I've got a story about going backstage at a Hawkwind concert. It's not much, but we didn't feel like leaving so we told the cop we were with the band, and we went backstage with the roadies and pretended we were supposed to be there: passed along messages, asked for people. We didn't think we could get away with acting like roadies and touching any equipment, though. They had the full show, including snake-women dancers.

Okay, I get it. I was always in to music. In high school I discovered classical music after naively applying for a part time job at "the" record store. They asked the classical question "What do you know about "classical jazz?" I answered, "Nothing, but I'll find out" and bought a budget recording ($1.99 I think)of the Best of Beethoven. By the end of high school a friend of mine introduced me to Blues and I never quite got back into rock music. Sure there were a few bands, I listened to but in general it mostly classical, Blues and a bit later, jazz. Since the I have developed a taste for Bluegrass and even learned how to play the Dobro and flatpick a few Bluegrass tunes- I'm no Jerry Douglas or Tony Rice you can be assured.

In my early 30's I did do a lot of equestrian sports. I had a mare (named, Renauda) and a bay gelding. The gelding was a half Arab half Quarter horse that had real stamina and cow sense. On weekends I'd often go cattle penning and ranch cutting with him. It was fun and sometimes miss the exhilaration of the sport. I do not however miss the expense of board, training and vet fees.
I sold both horses when I went to work overseas ten years ago. When I returned, married, I never got back into riding except when we are on holidays and we take a trail ride for a day. Oddly enough, I have never lost my seat or experience any post saddle discomfort even after a full day on the trail.

Hawkwind was a bit too acidy for me although I had one of their albums. Coming from Michigan though I bet you saw Grand Funk a couple or more times. They were the first rock band album I ever bought- "On Time" I think itwas called. Drove my folks crazy with it- it had a tortuously boring drum solo on it.

Trucks. Specifically pickup trucks.

Buy 'em, sell 'em, wash 'em, wax 'em, make 'em faster, lower, taller, louder, prettier, whatever. Put campers on them and head for the hills. Load up surfboards and head for the beach. Put beach chairs in the back and head for the drive-in. Hitch up boats, jetskiis, motorcycle trailers, race cars or whatever, then go out and play!

I was even the president of a pickup truck club (two terms, thank you) when I was in my late teens. 50 trucks we had, and every club member was as passionate about his truck as I was about mine. It didn't matter if it was a shiny new one or one that had to be towed out to events (several of those - the bylaws said nothing about the truck having to run), they were trucks and we loved them all.

We did car shows, charity events, desert runs, river runs, car rallies, movie nights, snow trips, anything we could think of to get the trucks - and the truck lovers - together for an afternoon or more.

Best part of all? I met my wife at a truck club run to Knotts Berry Farm. It was a blind date arranged by another club member and his wife. SWMBO complimented my truck and I knew right then that she was the one for me! Our matchmakers were the best man and matron of honor at our wedding, and each of my children is named after one of them.

And I still like trucks!

I can relate to that. I can't imagine not having truck- have always had one; even if it was just a junkyard special. Four years ago, I finally bought a real truck a 3/4 ton Chev 4X4 with rubber mat flooring and Goodyear Workhorses all around. That thing doesn't even know its carrying a camper.

You see, gryphon, I said you were an absolute genius at starting threads! I'll bet this one goes on forever - and I hope it does. It's one I am sure I will read and re-read.

And it will be just as much fun to post in. To revisit, relive and share pleasant memories - what more can anybody ask of the Internet (besides *cough* Group Therapy)?

Gryphon, are you sure you want to be an electrical engineer? Instead of, I don't know, a top motivational researcher or something?

Perfect!

(Oh well, for my next thread, I think I'll go with - "What is the meaning of Life?". How does that grab you?...And I'm the one who went to school to be a Psychologist. Much good that did me!)

Renauda, I loved both your posts. I have to go to bed, but just a few words (between hiccupping laughs): "Lick my decals off??" Wouldn't you love your students to log on to your secret identity?

And your posts too were great, Brendan, Steve Miller and pique (without the accent aigu)!



Ariel

What, not Masters of the Universe? And of course, He-Man (who is apparently coming back on Saturday morning cartoons, ee gads!)

Of the things I'm willing to own up to (let's just say a lot of my college and early grad school recollections are pretty fuzzy....)

I was and am still crazy about the Holy Modal Rounders (anyone know who they are? Peter Stempfel, if I remember right, was one of the lead singers, using the term loosely in his case...)and also Graham Parsons were huge. Lots of others that I'm sure I'm forgetting.

As a kid I was as horse crazy as, say, Jodi ! My thing was orienteering or "competitive trail riding." You, your horse and a map, trying to simultaneously beat the clock plus keep your trusty steed in good shape. I had a tough-as-nails gelding from "the Rez," who was the perfect mount for trail riding. I would trust that horse with my life, and he never let me down.

High school and college (and beyond), softball (slow pitch!) and volleyball. I still love both, but can only play volleyball now unless I want to be immobilized for a week after each game.. Also got really into early music for awhile(Renaissance and earlier).

Did some ranch work as well, not as much as I would have liked. Cutting was a blast, but I had a lousy arm and couldn't throw a rope well enough to do much more than get myself in trouble... including yanking my own self out of the saddle. Pretty embarrassing.

Now it's native planting (or xeriscaping in landscaping terms) and desert ecosystem stuff... I'm more of a fan than an expert, though!

Nina

Nina, we've already covered this. Hawkwind had a song and a subsequent compilation album named Masters of the Universe. Sorry, I'm being annoying. Continue...

I keep them guessing as it is. Although I usually wear a business suit in class, I do chill out a bit on Fridays as it is casual day at the school as it is in most businesses here now. I have an outrageous cowboy tie of the Frederick Remington painting of a bunch cowboys on horseback- one of them, front and centre is being shot off his horse.I call it my "negotiating tie". With that I wear cowboy boots, a tweed sport coat and black Levis jeans with a Grateful Dead Skull and Roses belt buckle (I bought it years ago while waiting to board the Vancouver to Victoria ferry from some freak who was selling Dead souvenirs). The kids love the tie and buckle combo.

With that one, I bow to your greatness, oh Bolah Bolah.........

no, no, no... there were super power dudes that were marketed under the name "Masters of the Universe." (OK, perhaps you knew that and I am unbelievably dense.)

It always cracked me up, because we had a family friend who was also a rabbi, his comment was "I thought that name was already copyrighted by someone else"

Nina

I have a pair of hand-painted saddle shoes with saguaro cactuses, coyotes and lizards on them... unbelievably cheesy and the perfect addition to your outfit! Size 8.5, where shall I mail them??

Nina

Thanks for the offer Nina but I'll pass- you just may need them someday. Much obliged

Um, Nina,

Remember how you said (in Sharing Personal Info Thread) something about deliberately making an effort to recall inconsistencies, or simply incriminating - I mean details a person may have disclosed in posts, here and there...for use/reference later?

Well, I certainly didn't deliberately remember this (I would not be capable of it), but when you just said about your college years being..."kind of hazy", I just recalled someone writing something in the Agape Chen/"What is Art" Thread.

Someone refuting pique's contention that her fellow students "drifted off" transfixed when exposed for the first time to "truly great music"(thus showing that everyone can innately recognize artistic greatness when given half a chance)...

Does this ring a bell?

But someone argued that she very much doubted this phenomenon, because in her experience at college, when students drifted off to music, great or not, it was generally...don't remember exact words, accompanied by herbal type aromas?

Hung by your own petard!

(wish I had a better retertoire of smilies!)

Ariel

I think you are referring to apple. It was she who remembered things about posts.

ah, fooey!

Well, you sure do too, gryphon!

Strike the bit about the petard.

(Should I delete the post?)