At What Point Do You Stop Collecting Things?

I mean, really, at what point do you stop collecting things? Is it when you can't even rationalize it to yourself anymore, or is it when the A&E film crew comes banging on your front door? Shit, who is knocking on the door? False alarm. It was just my subconscious mind playing tricks on me in an attempt to make me see how dangerously close I hover to hoarder status. Screw you, subconscious, that ruse ain't gonna work. Right now I'm staring at four turntables in various states of disrepair, heaps of albums and laserdiscs, no less than three typewriters, and boxes upon boxes of comic books, most of which I have never and will never read. There might even be a flat cat under all this mess. *elbow nudge to all the Hoarders watchers (inside joke y'all). Ugh. I've fallen under the spell of the unwanted and forgotten. I have to remember that just because no one else wants this shit anymore, it's not my job to provide it safe quarters. But for realsies, this shit is pretty fucking cool. I got a German made Dual CS-431 turntable that just needed a needle for a measly five bucks. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Another Dual, a CS-1257 that is a fucking mechanical conundrum, for another five bucks. Aaaaand it has an intact Ortfon stylus, I might ad. Gimme that, too. And albums? Yep, tons of 'em. All cheap, all in fair condition, and mostly jazz and big band. I'm in a jazz and big band mood as of late, me thinks it's due to my love of trombones and stand up bass. Daaaaaaaaammmit. I forgot about the VHS tapes. Did you know that they are like $.75 apiece and on some straight up BOGO status most of the time? Yup, rocking some Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, Monty Python, all that back in the day shit on VHS. Fuck netflix. It's too instant. Analog4lyf, son! Anyways, I guess the point I was trying to make was that, to answer my own question from before, you never stop collecting. Never stop until you die beneath an avalanche of pointless garbage. On a related note, you want comics? I got you. Mountains of mid-eighties commons. You pay me for a flat rate box, I fill it with bagged and boarded comics, I send them to you. Free. Of. Charge. (other than flate rate shipping, that is) Holla atcha boy. I'll be in the junk dungeon poking the insides of this Dual turntable with a screwdriver.

Go ahead audiophiles, cry about it. I replaced an Ortofon cartridge with a NuMark. I'm a rebel. 

One day, I'll figure out how to fix this one. Stabbing its guts with a screwgie* ain't working.

I use this typewriter to keep my precious Laserdisc collection from toppling over.

Yeah. VHS. Killin' it with this shit. I'm always kind, and I always rewind.

Ninja Turtles #2-5. Mint. Jealous? Don't be. They could be yours for the cost of postage.

Boxes of this shit. C'mon man, just say you want some fucking comics!

*elbow nudge to all the No Country For Old Men watchers. 

The Seed of Doubt and the Fruit of Disappointment

Well folks, I fucked it up. Fucked it up royal. I had a Sony SL-5400 in my hands, felt its weight, caressed its faux wood panels, popped the tape mech a few times, then I choked. Unwilling to take a chance on this mechanized piece of happiness, I put it back on the shelf of the thrift store with the promise of return. Why? Still reeling from the $3 loss I took on the last Betamax I bought (which turned out to be DOA), I wanted to test the SL-5400 for proper playback prior to purchase lest I get burned again. I didn't have a test tape. I didn't have a test tape and I had the arrogance to think that I was the only dead format collector in town and that the SL-5400 would wait for me. Wrong. Fucking wrong. Now it's gone.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Betamax –
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Betamax –
Nameless here for evermore.
~E.A Poe (from his lost book Lamentation of Dead Formats)

Never again will I hesitate when faced with the opportunity to own a Betamax player. Never again. I sowed the seed of doubt and harvested the fruit of disappointment. 

Oh, SL-5400 you made me feel whole now I exist as an empty husk again.

The Five Dollar Bill and How I Spent It

Five dollars. What does that get you these days? Two Monster energy drinks? A medium fast food combo? Like 53 Arby melts? What if I told you that five dollars bought me a chunk of history? Well believe it readers. Believe with all your heart. I present to you: The Realistic TR-822 8-Track Cassette Player and Recorder aka A Snapshot of the Seventies.

The TR-822 with her cover slipped off for inspection

A bargain if you ask me

Now, you might say to yourself: "Where is this idiot going to get 8-track tapes?". Would it surprise you if I told you I had a few NOS unopened 8-tracks in a box in my garage? Yeah, I know, seems like only something a hoarder would keep on hand but, by some miracle, a regular jamoke like me had such a box. So I unwrapped a James Gang tape, popped her in, and glued my eyes to the twin VU meters in anticipation of some jammin'-ass needle sweepage. Wrong. I heard some whirring from the cavernous recesses of the wooden cabinet but no audio output. Time to get the screwdrivers.

Yeah, right. Nice try.

So, it turned out that something very important was missing in here: the drive belt. This is not rare, rubber belts were never meant to last more than a decade or two. I don't have documentation, but style and build wise, I would guess that this piece of equipment was manufactured in the 1970's or early 1980's, putting it at around 40 years old. In that span of time, the rubber belt that turned the drive wheel inside the machine had become goo. Let me tell you in case you have never had the pleasure, removing the goo is a pain in the ass. Isopropyl alcohol is your best friend when cleaning belt goo from the drive wheel and the motor pulley.

There should be a belt somewhere in this picture. Can you guess where?

Belt goo is some nasty shit

Once cleaned, the pulleys were ready for a new belt. Problem is, I'm not going to order a belt for a five dollar 8-track player. Spending twice the amount you paid for an 8-track player for a single replacement part is idiotic. Even I have my limits. You see, even when they were mint, 8-track players sucked. They have terrible speed and pitch control, the tapes are built like shit, and whatever means of signal reproduction these things use is just terrible. The best case scenario with an 8-track is slightly warbled playback. I just bought the thing because it looked cool, not because it was some kind of audiophile wet dream. So the cheap and easy solution was to rig it up with a standard rubber band. However, the funny thing about rubber bands is that when you don't need one, they are everywhere. When you need one, they are nowhere. No matter, rubber bands are cheap, right? Wrong. I am not going to name names, but I went to a big box office supply store to buy a bag of rubber bands under the false assumption that one could buy rubber bands in units smaller than a one pound bag. Therein lies the rub, kids. This office supply store had only bulk quantities at ten dollars per bag. Conveniently, all of the small bags that would normally line the pegboard wall of rubber bands were out of stock. Note to office supply stores: DON'T PUT BULK MERCHANDISE IN RESEALABLE ZIPLOCK BAGS! So, after "finding" some stray rubber bands, I went back to the task at hand.

The liberated band stretched into place

After reassembling the case, I popped in that James Gang tape, plugged the player into my receiver, and fired this mutha up. Ahhhhhh. Just like I remembered. Pure shit. The James Gang never sounded so terrible. But, for some reason, those sweeping needles coupled with the loud echoing clunk of the track selector banging its way down to the next track still makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. For some people, these shitty tapes were a way of life. Jamming out in the car meant cranking up the volume on your in-dash 8-track player and just rocking out to the warbling sounds of your favorite band. Much respect if you lived through that era. I fixed this beast in your honor. I will subject my ears to this mangled mess of sound as a way of paying my dues just like you did. I won't take Hi-Fi sound reproduction for granted ever again.

Adventures in the Land of Thrift: Travel Edition

Thursday 19SEPT2013: The Sad Realization

I stood amidst a bustling crowd of junk herders buzzing in all directions, grabbing, evaluating, and stashing what treasures they could manage to get their hands on into rickety, rusty, reclaimed shopping carts. I fought my way back to the electronics section and lifted my arms in exasperation at the realization that these vultures have picked clean the bones of the collective Virginia Beach thrift carcass. I had combed the same stores again and again, each time noticing less and less new inventory. I realized then that my treasure wasn't going to be found here. It most likely wasn't going to be found anywhere in Hampton Roads. What was the elusive treasure I was seeking? A Laserdisc player. I needed a Laserdisc player so I could watch the Special Widescreen Edition of Andromeda Strain that I found alone and unwanted in a pile of old opera LPs and Firestone Christmas compilation records. If I was going to have any chance at finding a working Laserdisc player, I was going to have to leave the metropolis. I was going to have to take this show on the road.

Friday 20SEPT2013: One Last Sweep

Goal: Laserdisc player and/or laserdiscs. Wing chair for the reading room.

It was decided that before the great exodus, Pops and I would comb the local outlying thrift stores one last time. I could barely drag myself to each successive store as the weight of constant disappointment was beginning to crush my soul. At the last stop, just as I was about to give up all hope, Pops spotted it. "Oh, man! A Tandy 1400. Those were the shit back in the day!". I glanced at the gray plastic behemoth. Rays of light broke through the clouds, shined through plate glass and illuminated the primitive laptop as the angels above plucked the strings of gilded harps. Well, maybe not, but that shit still made my heart skip a beat. I flipped the lid. Dual floppy drives. Monochrome display. A battery pack reminiscent of Tyco R/C cars. Great success. The lady at the counter said she had placed it on the shelf as a joke with the word "vintage" sprawled across the top in grease pencil thinking that people would see it, chuckle, and move on. Jokes on her. Best $6 I've ever spent. Although, missing it's power adapter, it added one more treasure to the list.

Friday 20SEPT2013: Departure

Goal: VB to Greensboro. Minimal stops. 254 miles.

With some clothes, a Chromebook, and the Tandy 1400LT personal computer in hand, we departed VB for Greensboro, NC. Made one stop along the way at a Goodwill somewhere along 58. Added one promising power adapter (later found to be dead), one Roy Orbison CD, and one Van Morrison CD to inventory. This location was greatly lacking in electronics and furniture. Onward we traveled.

Friday 20SEPT2013: Arrival in Greensboro

Goal: Dinner and sleep.

We arrived at our base of operations, unloaded the cargo, and briefed my brother on the mission. He agreed to provide transport and knowledge of local customs on this quest. An initial scouting of local thrift stores lands us a chair which we plan to collect on Sunday. We also spot one of the greatest pieces of electronics that I have ever seen. Walnut case, brushed aluminum face plates, and covered in buttons, knobs, and dials. We stand perplexed and google the model number. It is some kind of machine that blasts your brain with waves of good energy. I want it but fight the urge. No room in the budget. We return to base and comb Craigslist for treasures. Sleep comes difficult as I find myself dreaming of Laserdiscs.

Saturday 21SEPT2013: First Leg of NC Journey

Goal: Motorcycle exhaust. Greensboro to Concord. 72 miles.

Pops had previously made contact with a man in Concord, NC regarding a full factory exhaust for his motorcycle. It was decided that we would chase this lead first while I struggled to make contact with my first Laserdisc player lead. I had texted, called, called again, and left a message. No response. The plan was to travel to Concord and await contact. After traveling 72 miles with no word from Laserdisc seller #1, we added one complete motorcycle exhaust to the inventory. We departed in the direction of my first lead in hopes that they would call and set up a meeting before we arrived. I was beginning to get annoyed with craigslist.

Saturday 21SEPT2013: The Second Leg

Goal: Laserdisc player and laserdiscs. Concord to Cameron. 83 miles.

83 miles goes slow as fuck when you stare at your phone in pure frustration the whole time. The closer we come to Cameron, the more irrationally angry I get. I text one last time, careful to word the message sans venom and spite. I inform the seller that we will head back to Greensboro. In the meantime, I begin to work lead #2 in Chapel Hill. I email (since seller did not provide any real contact info) that I am interested in the laserdisc player they have listed. They email back to say it's still available. I tell them we will be passing through Chapel Hill in an hour and to email a time and place if they are available for the sale.

Saturday 21SEPT2013: Begin Radio Silence

Goal: Laserdisc player. Cameron to Chapel Hill. 46 miles.

We head towards Chapel Hill and lose all contact with the civilized world. Lead #2 has fizzled out as the seller refuses to email me back. By the time we reach Chapel Hill, lead #2 had to be completely written off. I am butthurt. Butthurt as fuck. It consumes me. My day is ruined.

Saturday 21SEPT2013: Back to Base

Goal: Sleep. Chapel Hill to Greensboro. 51 miles.

Fuck Craigslist. Fuck Craigslist sellers who don't want to sell. As I settle in for the evening, I get an email from the Chapel Hill lead. "Had to step out. Meet up another time?" Fuck off. At 9PM just as I was about to give up all hope for this Laserdisc adventure, lead #1 texts me. Hope is restored. Sleep is difficult as I dream of Laserdiscs and revenge against Chapel Hill lead.

Sunday 22SEPT2013: The Score

Goal: Laserdisc Player and Assorted Laserdiscs. Greensboro to Cameron. 68 miles.

We began the journey to Cameron renewed. Well, I did anyways. I couldn't read the moods of the other adventurers. A fog of lingering disappointment seemed to remain in the air. Hopes were not high among fellow crew members in light of all previous attempts to purchase a player. Despite the odds, the transaction went smoothly. The seller was friendly, had the unit hooked up for testing, had the manual and OG remote, and actually worked for a company that I was employed by years ago. I leveraged this distant familiarity into a $10 discount. We swapped anecdotes about dead technologies, inventoried the movies, and closed the deal. I left Cameron with a Laserdisc player and pile of mixed Laserdiscs. Great success. 

Sunday 22SEPT2013: Triumphant Return

Goal: Pack up goods from home base. Transfer inventory to return vehicle. Cameron to Greensboro. 68 miles.

We returned to home base triumphant. I, myself, was high on success. I had achieved a major goal. I have wanted a Laserdisc player since I was just a wee lad, admiring them on the carpeted shelves of Circuit City during the early to mid nineties knowing that one day I would call one mine. And there I stood, bathed in the light of pure victory, Laserdisc player raised high above the land like a newborn Simba. Dead formats, I love the shit out of you.

Sunday 22SEPT2013: Homeward Bound

Goal: Pick up chair from Goodwill. Return home. Greensboro to VB. 254 miles.

The last order of business was to collect the chair we spotted on day number one. Fortunately, no one wanted it. I barely wanted it but Pops found it to be quite comfortable and at $15, who gives a fuck. We loaded up, strapped down the precious cargo, and headed home. We put miles behind us and grey clouds made way to reveal blue skies, surely a sign from above. "You done good, Adventurers. You done good."

In the end, we covered a shade under 900 miles in our impromptu journey for treasure. I spent some quality time with my brother and Pops and together, we punched adversity in the dick. Nyah, nyah, nyah, Craigslist. I got my fucking Laserdisc player. Go suck an egg. 

Gluing Speakers, The Saga of Intergalactic Strife, and the Great VHS Concession of 2013

So, when we left off with the previous blog, I was in the middle of rebuilding a set of Infinity Sterling SS-2002 speakers. Again, I guess I must reiterate that it's not a rebuild in the strictest sense of audiophile standards since I didn't replace capacitors in the crossover or anything and I merely replaced the surrounds on the woofers, but I'll still label it a rebuild. I'm a rebel like that. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly document the gluing process but long story short, the $8 eBay speaker surround kit worked in conjunction with the recommended craft glue to rejuvenate these thrift find speakers. They sound fuggin' amazing. With really bright highs and a nice low end, they actually sound heaps better than the Fisher speakers they sit on top of. Actually, even at a fraction of the size, they weigh about the same as the monstrous 3-way Fishers. And as Boris the Blade would say; weight is a sign of reliability.

Completed Speakers Sitting Atop the Shoulders of Giants

With that completed and out of the way, it was back to the thrift store for me to find more pointless shit that I can hoard in the reading room. But what would occupy my time this go round? I thought long and hard about that. I considered tape decks, 8-track players, laserdisc setups, outdated encyclopedias, but a quick flash in the corner of my eye from a gold colored VHS box set caught my attention and ultimately sealed the deal. BOOM. The Star Wars Trilogy digitally enhanced and remastered in THX sound on VHS. Ugh. VHS. The fucking scourge of cassette based home entertainment. The absolutely abhorrent asshole of analog audio/visual reproduction. But, since I have all but given up on my Betamax quest, I figured why not just bow down before the VCR gods and concede defeat in the VHS/Betamax format war started decades ago. So, in addition to my $2.98 box set, I had to purchase a $6.98 VCR and my foray into the world of Intergalactic Strife had begun. Oh, did I mention that at the age of 28 I have never watched the Star Wars Trilogy? I know, dafuq right? I'll wait while that little tidbit of information sinks in. Never. Watched. Star Wars. Recently, I had watched an unmolested, digital, OG copy of a New Hope (Ya know, the one where Han shoots first?) provided to me by a friend after much guffaw regarding the fact that I had never watched a single frame of Star Wars. So other than that very recent screening of Episode IV, this was my big leap into the Star Wars franchise. 

Without much pomp and circumstance, I spent the weekend watching the Trilogy on the far superior and unerring format of VHS tape (note the sarcasm). I was truly impressed by the movies and how they hold up after all these years. For what it was, for when it was, the practical effects are fucking incredible. So incredible in fact that I found Lucas' digital enhancements to be disgusting and out of place. I see now why people of discerning taste looked upon me with disgust when I told them, quite proudly and arrogantly in fact, that I had never seen Star Wars. I will save you the hassle of reading a whole diatribe on my full Star Wars experience and I will just point out a few things that stuck out in my mind.

1: Luke is a total crybaby in most of Episode IV. 

2: R2D2 poops a third appendage when it's time to really haul ass.

3: Han is a bad motherfucker who is quick with the one liners.

4: Sand People will totally jack your land speeder up and strip it for parts if given the opportunity.

5: People continuously back talk and sass a man that can Force choke you until your trachea collapses.

6: Everyone got a medal of valor except for Chewy at the end of IV and that is bullshit. Total fucking bullshit.

7: Tauntaun guts are nasty but warm.

8: Yoda loves snacks and flashlights and won't hesitate to bust a droid in the face with a walking stick.

9: Luke is a total crybaby during most of his Jedi training.

10: Han is a bad motherfucker who gets cock blocked numerous times in V.

11: Lando Calrissian is the biggest intergalactic pimp to ever live. He also has the best hair in the galaxy. And that cape, c'mon. No one rocks a space cape like L to the Cizzle.

12: Being frozen in carbonite would suck. Like, ruin your day suck.

13: Being unfrozen from carbonite would suck. Like, ruin your day and vision suck.

14: Slave Leia: super smexy.

15: Ewoks are adorable. Even when they die horrible, tragic, violent deaths, they do it adorably. 

16: The Emperor is a big pile of pale yuck butter. What the fuck happened to that guy?

17: Admiral Akbar, you knew that shit was a trap. Didn't you see the meme?

18: I think I would have given up after the first Death Star. Something smaller would probably be easier to defend and have way less exploitable weaknesses.

19: Ewoks beat the shit out of the Imperial Army with rocks and rope. Adorable. Fucking adorable.

20: I want to party with the Ewoks in those badass tree houses.

And that's it, kids. I watched it, I enjoyed it, and although I kind of regret waiting this long to see it, the wait made it that much sweeter. Now, the true question is: leave it there or watch Episodes 1-3? Can you feel the conflict within me?

"You need some new hobbies," said no one ever.

Well, I guess I found myself a new hobby. Yep, I'm gonna try my hand at restoring speakers. Well, not restoring per se, rather just the process of refoaming the woofers on speakers. But this shit is still gonna be heaps fun, son. You might be wondering what drove this sudden urge to just randomly start refoaming speakers, and for good reason I suppose, I mean it is kind of an odd thing to just pick up out of the blue. It comes part and parcel with a sudden unexplained urge to piece together a vintage console stereo system. I'm talking about a full blown, ballin'-ass, woodgrain cabinet, analog dial, warm incandescent lit 70's era stereo component system. Oh yeah, I know, who doesn't want that setup, right? The only problem with building such a setup is the physical deterioration these components suffer at the hands of Father Time. This isn't an issue with the stereo receivers and components as much as it is with the speakers. A blast from some Deoxit on the switches and rheostats, and most components are good to go, but speakers need a little bit more help. The problem with them is the foam surrounds that serve as the speakers suspension become brittle over time and eventually crack and split. I personally blame MC Hammer. It was Hammer Time that blew out all of the woofers that had the misfortune of living through the early nineties. The end goal here is to buy a set of old Bose 501 floor speakers and restore them for my future ballin' console system. I think that they epitomize the the 70's era floor speaker in every way.

Oh yeah, the Bose 501. Sexy. So fuggin' sexy.

They are wood veneered, they have the beige/brown cloth covers, and they just look the part. But before I commit money to a set of 501s and fuck them up beyond belief trying to "learn" on them, I'm gonna experiment on a more modern set of Infinity Sterling SS-2002s that I bought from the Habitat store for $4.99. I am currently waiting on my surround kit to arrive from the nether reaches of eBay, but here is how the project is starting off.

Infinity Sterling SS-2002s. $5 for a pair. A good starting point.

Here is the separation of the foam surround on the woofer.

The 6.5" woofer was carefully coaxed from the speaker.

The old surround was removed from the basket and cone and a bit of isopropyl alcohol was used to remove the old adhesive.

I removed as much adhesive from the cone as I was comfortable with. I was scared to go gnat's ass on it for fear of damaging the cone.

Well, the saga will end here for now. Hopefully when the parts arrive in the mail, everything will go together like it's supposed to. My only fear is that I have to complete this task without shimming the voice coil because I am scared to cut the dust cover from the voice coil. That is the proper way to do it, cut the dust cover off, shim the voice coil so it is perfectly centered, then adhere the new surround. Right way, wrong way, my way. Guess which one I'm gonna choose. To be continued.........

Why Am I Trying To Restore A Beta Player?

What am I doing with my life? I just spent an hour carefully tearing down a Sanyo Betacord VCR that I found at the thrift store in an attempt to figure out why the tape loading mechanism and playback drive are FUBAR. All of that effort was put forth just to find out that a belt had melted on the counter assembly and made a real fucking mess of things inside this unit. On top of that, I just found out that this particular model video cassette recorder is near impossible to find a belt kit for. Seems that every other Sanyo Betacord unit going all the way back to 1979 has a service parts kit available, but for some reason the VCR 4200, made in 1982, does not. But that's not the worst part about this whole purchase/repair/obsession fiasco. The worst part was the sudden realization that for some reason, I am actually dedicating time (and contemplating spending money) trying to repair a Beta tape player made in 1982, just so I can watch recorded episodes of Wishbone and possibly some Ghostwriter. Also, when I consulted YouTube for some visual instruction on disassembling the tape load mech, every narrator and/or Beta enthusiast seems to be, well, to put it nicely, a socially awkward basement nerd. Fuck. I am becoming one of them. One of the Beta enthusiasts. The scary thing is the fact that the $450 professionally refurbished Beta players I found online don't even seem like an unreasonable option to me at the moment. The cost to awesome ratio calculations keep coming back highly favorable of the restored Betamax. So, for now I am going piece this 4200 back together, put it away until I can weigh my options, and then immediately freeze my credit card in a block of ice, lest I end up with a crisp, mint condition, fully refurbished, fully warrantied Beta VCR. Hey, loyal readers, do you have a Beta player you want to get rid of? If you don't, maybe you want to raid your older family members' houses and find me one. Yeah, that seems like something you want to do, right? Find one. Please? (I currently have one pending lead and am scouring EVERY thrift store I can find)

case open

drive motors and belts

I'll never remember how all this shit goes back together anyways

Beta Tapes: How Shall I Play Thee?

So, I have this pile of Beta tapes that are begging to be played. Ok, wait, before I get too deep into this nonsensical story of failure and regret, let me address the readers who may not have heard of Beta tapes. Once upon a time, in a much simpler world, two formats of home video were locked in an epic struggle to become the dominant force in home entertainment. In one corner we had VHS, the bloated, oversized cassette of inferior quality. In the other, we had Beta, a sleek, high quality cassette system capable of near Bluray quality video reproduction. For some reason (most conspiracy theorists blame it on the porn industry's silent endorsement of the VHS format) VHS won the battle and rendered Beta all but obsolete in the realm of cassette based home video.  It was kinda like the Bluray vs. HDDVD format battle of the early millennium but set in the eighties. Got it? On the same page? If you are still lost, consult wikipedia, I have it set as a drop down feature at the top of the page. Ok, so as I was saying, I have all these Beta tapes and no way to play them. This hasn't been an issue to me for neigh on 15 years now. These Beta tapes were filed away deep in my memory and all but forgotten. But, as it so happens, I wandered upon a Beta player at the Habitat for Humanity store today. I walked out of that bish with a Beta player for $3. Three 'murican dollars, y'all. I was so fucking hyped that I sped right home, right past several other thrift establishments, because I was ready to set up this wood grained abomination and watch some Beta tapes. Let me preface this by saying that these are no ordinary tapes. These aren't some stupid movies that I could find on Netflix and load up instantly, these Beta tapes contain elusive programming that are all but extinct. We are talking about Wishbone, dammit. I have nearly every episode of Wishbone recorded on Beta tape, ripped right from WHRO 15. I am dying to see this Jack Russell Terrier give me synopses of books I am too lazy to read. Ever see a dog battle a windmill a la the Man of LaMancha? I have. And I want to see it again. But, as fate would have it, this Beta player is FUBAR. It ate my copy of the Color of Money, too. But I will just write that off as a sacrifice to the gods of video cassette. However, this whole situation has me irrationally upset. I mean, yesterday, not a single fuck could have been given about these Beta tapes. But today? That shit is top priority. I will have a Beta player. And I will have it soon. Get Beta or Die Tryin'. New album me and Fiddy 'bout to drop. Exclusively at Best Buy. Beta tapes: how shall I play thee?

Urban Archaeology: Granby High School Yearbook, 1948

The strange thing about thrift stores is that they deal exclusively in merchandise second hand in nature. Each and every item in a thrift store has a story behind it, whether you realize it or not. You wander among shelf after shelf of items once treasured but which eventually lost luster and were relegated to the donation bin, cast out of memory and gone forever. But who owned this stuff? Who held these items in treasured possession until they were surrendered to unknown hands? The fact of the matter is, you rarely get a chance to put a name or a face to these artifacts. More often than not, you don't even give the chain of ownership a second thought. I mean, who cares who owned this copy of the Hardy Boys or who decided that they no longer had need for this Polaroid Land camera? Most things in our lives are meant to be transient, they are impersonal by nature. We own things until they outgrow usefulness then we cast them away. But sometimes as you dig through piles of these cast away objects, just sometimes, you stumble upon something that was meant to be held on to, something so personal that it is almost a tragedy that it would find itself on a shelf nestled among heaps of this transient garbage. Such was the case with something that I found on the shelves of Thrift City USA. It was a Granby High School yearbook dated 1948. What struck me about this yearbook was that between the pages, among the notes personally addressed to its rightful owner in such painfully careful cursive, were newspaper clippings detailing the lives and exploits of the people who inhabited the pages of this archival record. Wedding announcements, scholarship announcements, engagements, and so on. The owner of this book had painstakingly tracked her classmates as they moved along in life and, by assembling these clippings, had documented the finest points of their lives. But the care it took to do this stood in stark contrast to the neglect that this book had fallen into and ultimately led it to being classified as "unwanted". It almost hurts to think that this book has been separated from owner and/or next of kin. This is not a transient object, it was never meant to be. It is an assemblage of memories, an archive of achievement that should be in the possession of someone who would treat it as such. It is now in my care and it is now my mission to find this book a proper home. There has to be a place for this book even if it tucked away in the dark reaches of a local library or in the care a community archivist. The transient life of this book is coming to an end.

If you want to help the search or know of a good home for this book, please feel free to contact me. Just shoot me an e-mail at theliterateidiot@gmail.com and share some knowledge with me. What I know so far is that the book was owned by a Dollie Tarrant of Norfolk, VA. She had a brother named Frank Tarrant. So, if you are an OG Norfolk resident and know of the Tarrant family, please, please, please let me know. I very much want to get this book into proper hands.

Were Babies Sturdier in the Fifties?

Looking through this set of Popular Mechanics DIY Encyclopedias I found at the thrift shop sure makes me think so. In contrast to today's world where baby safety products comprise a $66 billion market, back in the day you could apparently just toss a baby in a metal basket made according to Popular Mechanics plans, strap it to the front seat of your car, and just buzz around town without a care in the world. Moms in the fifties were on some straight up DGaF status. This collected volume of awesomeness even offers up a set of plans to make a beach cage for your toddlers. Yes, you read correctly, a beach cage for toddlers. Just toss 'em in the cage and go about your beach adventures. No padded stroller with SPF 100,000 shades, fans, and iPod dock for a fifties baby. Nope. Lumber and chicken wire, complete with sharp edges and plenty of opportunity for splinters. But injury builds character so that's a good thing, right? The question that comes to my mind after looking through all the baby related plans in these books is whether this disparity of concern reflects poorly on the fifties or the roaring two-thousands? Were fifties babies neglected? Are today's babies coddled too much? To those questions I have to say, I don't know. I think that there must be a whole generation of lumpy headed fifties babies running around who are better suited to answer them. I personally just think kids should have more opportunity to hurt themselves and grow from the experience. However, I don't really advocate putting babies in homemade basket car seat contraptions. That seems like a bad idea.

Looks legit, right? Easy on the brakes, Mom. This basket has some low gunwales, I might roll overboard.

Nothing says love like tossing your baby in a cage while you go walking the dunes with ol' Muscly Joe over there.

Adventures in the Land of Thrift

Venturing out to the Land of Thrift has pretty much become a weekly ritual for me as of late. On the weekends, when I find myself with little else to do, I wander the aisles of my local thrift stores looking for ancient treasures to rescue from the threat of mistreatment and annihilation. I often find myself on little tares for specific goods, focusing my searches on singular items, blinding myself to awesome treasures that do not fit the criteria of my present mission. In this regard, I always find new and exciting things even after visiting the same thrift store for the umpteen millionth time. So, now that I am on a quest of renewed literacy, I have been searching for books that pertain to the act of improving one's writing skills, are listed on the ALA banned books list, look generally bad-ass on a bookshelf, relate to obsolete trades or crafts, are published before the 1970's, or hold some sort of nostalgic value to me. Today, I happened upon a few books that held a great deal of nostalgic value to me. Hardy Boys novels published in 1985.

It may sound stupid, but I grabbed every copy I could get my greedy little mitts on. Unfortunately, that was only seven copies. But at a buck and a half each, plus the fifty percent off blue tag sale, it only came to a grand total of $5.51 after tax. I would have paid the full price, probably even more because honestly, how can you put a price on nostalgia? These are the books I cut my teeth on, the very first novels I read religiously. I can just picture little me, standing in the youth reading section of my local library frozen in awe of the giant (or seemingly giant to a young child) walls of shelves towering over me, brimming with books of all varieties. Choose your own adventure books, Tom Swifts, gripping tales of heroic youths and child detectives, tame mysteries, they were all begging to be plucked from the shelf and read. But as I scanned the vast sea of literature, it was that block of blue spined novels that caught my eye. I carefully slid one copy from the ranks and reviewed the cover. You see, as a youth, I was not aware of the adage discouraging the act of judging books by their covers. To me, that was business as usual, you know, my modus operandi as they say. And what a cover it was: two brothers just being total bad-ass mofos (me and my brother were bad-ass mofos so I could relate to this) checking out clues and solving mysteries that adults couldn't even piece together. I pulled two more copies down and headed to the check-out desk, chest out, strutting my literate little butt up to the counter with a look on my face that said "yeah, I read novels now, don't act like you aren't impressed". It was an amazing feeling. As it came to be, I returned to those towering shelves again and again pulling three books at a time until I had read my way through the Hardy Boys series, then I was on to the Encyclopedia Brown series, then a short tryst with Choose Your Own Adventures, then Goosebumps, then for some reason I got really into the Vietnam War and read a lot of non-fiction pertaining to the atrocities of attritional warfare (I never claimed to be a 100% normal child). But at the age of twenty seven, seeing that block of blue spined nostalgia on the thrift store book rack rubbing elbows with Reader's Digest Condensed Classics, that feeling of excitement I had as a budding reader came washing over me again. As I carefully slid a copy from its ranks and reviewed the cover, I had no other choice but to grab them all and strut up to the register with a look on my face that said "I'm twenty seven and read Hardy Boys, don't act like you aren't impressed". Now those books have found themselves a home on my bookshelf, folded into the ranks of some serious heavy duty literature. I know the Hardy Boys won't be scared, they are two bad-ass mofos that I consider just as timeless and culturally important as the Grapes of Wrath or the Lord of the Flies. Welcome home, boys. Welcome home.