Rock and Write

Wendall -- every other Thursday

When I was little, there were two things that I lived for—books and the radio. 

 

One of my early favorites with a great cover shot by Henry Diltz.

 

Stevie! Never lower than #2 on my annual "15 Reasons to Live" list.

Whenever we were in the car, I would beg my father to stay on any radio station that was playing Stevie Wonder, The Guess Who, or  “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” no matter how static-y it might get.

 

My most prized possession was the transistor radio I received in second grade. 

 

Remember these? Just small enough to hide under my pillow.

 

As a pre-teen and teenager, singles and albums were my currency. 

 

One of my first singles--Marvin Gaye's "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby."

A blouse worth four albums was usually a no. If it came down to the newest Linda Rondstadt or a pizza, the choice was easy. I often based my purchase of new artists like Valerie Carter or Warren Zevon on the session players listed on the back cover. 

 

Practically every artist I loved, from Earth Wind & Fire to Little Feat, to Linda Ronstadt appears on Valerie Carter's debut record.

 

This record was a who's who of 70s stars and session players, from Zevon's roommates Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham to Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bonnie Raitt, and J.D. Souther, etc.

 

During college I worked at The Record Bar (RIP!) in Chapel Hill, NC and bought three albums a week (they were five dollars then), adding significantly to my collection.

 

Bangles record signed during an "in store" at The Record Bar.

 

I schlepped all my albums to my first job in Massachusetts, to graduate school, cross country in my 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 to California, and to four of my five apartments in LA.

 

Five years ago, with a “media closet” full of not only almost 2000 albums, but just as many CDs and even more VHS tapes and DVDs, my husband requested a consolidation/cleanout. Fair enough, but it still killed me.

 

I had plenty of albums which, in perfect condition, were valuable. Mine were far from mint. I was one of those people who dropped the needle over and over on my favorite song and the constant moves had left the covers less than pristine.

 

 

 

At the time I was going through my albums, this wasn't available on CD and, in mint condition, was going for $195. I still have it.

I promised to donate at least a large stack of records as long as I had backups on CD and MP3. 

 

One of my donation stacks.

 

 

Another one.  Of course I have Randy Newman in all formats.

As I went through them, I kept seeing tracks that hadn’t necessarily been hits, but that I had loved. As a tribute, I posted one of them, Robert Palmer’s “Mean Old World” on Facebook. 

 

The next day I posted “Runs in the Family” by The Roches.

 

Five years later, I have posted a new “album cut of the day” pretty much every day on my Facebook page. So, for this anniversary, I offer up a few covers of albums I adore.

 

 

I’ll keep going with my "album cuts of the day," hoping music and books get us through, as they always have.

And if you want to hear me talk about how my love for music factors into the Cyd Redondo series, here’s an interview on the Aural Mess podcast about it.

 

The creation of Cyd Redondo’s musical taste: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9UhuV9uXJI/

 

Full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcZgSUGehcw

 --Wendall 

Old Media

Wendall--every other Thursday

I thought I'd join Kwei and Sujata in talking about media this week. Well, old media, anyway. 

As I sat last night in front of a friend’s very highest definition television, it reminded me again just how old school I really am.

In case anyone doesn't recognize that thing on top...it's an antenna.

 

Needless to say, they were a bit shocked that, as a film teacher at UCLA, I am still using two analog televisions (one a gift from 1987) in my house and will only get a flat screen when one of them dies. And even then, I’ll probably get a used one that is less high definition, since to me, the newest technology makes all the 70s films I love look like bad BBC/PBS two-dimensional videotaped dramas from that era.

I still have vinyl, of course. That's hip again, apparently?

 

 

One of my LP stacks.

A few favorites, including a signed Bangles release...

I will never abandon Mr. Newman.

Sigh.

I still have cassettes, I still have VHS and DVDs and I still have working equipment to play all these things, along with my true blue old media electrician, Joe at Stone Electrics, who keeps them all working. As he once said to me, after returning a beloved machine three days earlier than promised: “When a woman asks if you can fix a VCR and when you say yes, she says ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ she needs her damn VCR.”

 

Someone told me "reorganizing is hoarding." Too bad.

Of course, I also have a crazy number of physical books, which I guess also qualifies as old media, or old school, or both.

 

And it’s not just media—I still have the original Krupp’s coffee grinder that I bought in 1983, as well as the Osterizer blender I took away with me when I went to college. And a few t-shirts from those days, too.

 

So, that qualifies me, probably, as the worst and most pathetic type of “Boomer.” I don’t know for me if it’s nostalgia, an inability to change, a high tolerance for static, skips, and pops, or it’s because I hate throwing away things that still work. Or fit!

 

However, I recently happened into a video store in our new neighborhood, and found I’m not the only one who is turning back to VHS tapes in all their low-definition glory. After the owner and I compared notes and he took me through his most precious and most popular items, I couldn’t stop laughing because, unless they were horror, I pretty much owned all of them.

 

A section of the "media" closet in our old apartment. Each shelf has a layer of tapes behind the ones you can see.

 

And then, I saw an article about that very video store in the Washington Post just before Christmas called “With VHS and video stores, ‘tape heads’ are fueling an analog revival.” You can read it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/12/17/vhs-comeback-stores-analog-revival/

 

And this followed another Washington Post article and a Twitter flitter featuring Guillermo del Toro and Christopher Nolan declaring people who hold onto old media as saviors of these films for posterity, as so many great pieces of work float in and out of streaming, or have licensing issues and never stream at all.

 

del Toro and Nolan, on my side!

You can imagine how much that bolstered up my case for keeping all my movies with my non-hoarding husband. This is an argument we have been having for so long the picture below is actually one of the anniversary cards I gave him a few years ago. But even he can’t argue too much with two of our greatest living directors . . .

 

 

So, maybe I am not as out of touch as I thought. Or maybe I’m just old enough to know that everything, good or bad, comes back around. So, here’s a cross section of a few of my alphabetized tapes, just in case anyone else fancies a trip down VHS lane, or wants a reminder of something they might want to see again. 

Happy New Year, everyone!

                    -- Wendall

If anyone is looking for something to consider for a Best Humorous Lefty nomination, Wendall's newest Cyd Redondo trip, CHEAP TRILLS, is eligible.