"Leftoverture"
Funny how music can take you somewhere.
I don't know why it popped in my head to put "Leftoverture" on, but I did.
I have very fond memories of this album. Back in the Dark Ages (the 70's), my Aunt Teddy and cousins Lonnie and Laura lived with my grandparents in Sedco Hills. Back then, the freeways from here (CA-91 and I-15) didn't connect to Lake Elsinore and Sedco Hills, so it was a big deal going there.
My brother and I would spend a few days or even a week there during the Summers. Kindasorta gave my folks a break from us (and us them LOL) and we loved staying there! My grandpartents loved having us...
Anyway, Lonnie is about seven years older than me. We had a special "kinship." We both are redheads and I laughed at his jokes. He also had cool rock'n'roll long hair. I mean LONG!
I dug music at a pretty early age, so that was something he could share. He was in high school then. My grandpa had a few aluminum sheds in the back. Lonnie took one over had made it into his music room. He found an old console stereo (you know, a piece of furnature that played music), fixed it up and moved his records out there. He had a little sofa and come cool lights in there.
Lonnie was always very cool to me! I mean, can you imagine being 17 and having your 10 year old cousin hanging around?
A lot of the music I listen to was influenced by Lonnie. He introduced me to a huge range of music. My Rush thing is totally because of him. I remember him buying "2112" new and inviting me to the shed to listen to it!
Lessee... He was totally into Kiss (and who wasn't?), Rush, Kansas, ELO, Black Sabbath, The Moody Blues, Aerosmith (specifically "Toys in the Attic"), Boston, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd... Well, you get the picture.
So, how did this rambling post start? Oh yeah...
I popped in "Leftoverture." As the opening riff "Carry On Wayward Son" started, I was immediately taken back 29 years. I swear I could smell the dry brush in the hot air, cigarette smoke, incense and the burning dust on the tubes of that console stereo. I could see the small strand of Christmas lights hanging on the ceiling and the old desk lamp he had over the record player.
"Sirius Rocks!"
I drive for a living. Well, I do a lot of driving, I work on large format printers.
Radio in Los Angeles sucks large these days. Yeah, there are a few talk stations I listen to, but most of it is pure crap.
The music stations are so formatted and play the same songs over and over.
Evil Clear Channel rules the airwaves here.
I have hundreds and hundreds of CDs to listen to, but it's hard to rotate them in and out of the car. It's also very hard on the CDs. I've ruined more CDs in the car than I can count.
So... For about a year now, I've been thinking about either getting a mp3 player or a satellite radio for the Kia.
OK, I'll admit... I listen to Howard Stern. Not always, but sometimes a fart is just funny, ya know? This whole ordeal with Howard and the FCC really has gotten me pissed.
The lunatics (religious-right) are running this place now. Scary shit, but that's for another post...
Anyway, I decided on Sirius over XM because of Stern.
I picked up a Sirius Satellite Radio with some Christmas money we got from my mom and dad last weekend. I bought the Starmate Replay.
Now, if you have tried to find a Sirius radio lately, you'll know what I'm talking about... They are almost impossible to find. They were a pretty hot item for Christmahannukwanzakkah this year.
I found the Starmate Replay at (evil) Fry's Electronics. I wanted to get the home kit so Cyn and I could listen at home. You can pop it in your car, or pop in your home cradle... cool...
I couldn't find the home kit anywhere. I tried all of the retailers around here that sell Sirius. Nope, out of stock. Hell, I even went to Radio Shack. The guy looked in their database for me and they are out... Completely out of stock in Southern California!
OK, no problem. For now, I'll just ust the car kit in the apartment and get a 12 volt battery eliminator.
So, I got home, activated the service and plugged it in to the PC.
It sounds pretty good! I had read that both XM and Sirius had kinda cruddy audio. Kinda like listening to a good quality Internet stream. Yeah, there are some digital compression artifacts on the low-bandwidth stations like talk and weather, but the music sounds pretty darned good! It ain't CD quality, but it's pretty good.
So, Monday morning rolls along. I had set the radio up next to my PC and have it hooked to the line-in jack on the PC. I set Total Recorder (I wish they'd port that to Linux!) to record Stern's first show live (3 AM here).
That night, I listened to the recording. All I can say is that Stern should have done this years ago! It wasn't a complete gross-out like a lot of people were expecting, it was very free-flow.
Anyway...
I started to futz around with the new radio. The music channels are awesome! We like this radio so much that I'm going to buy another for the apartment next week.
We listened to the New Age station all day today. Yesterday, we listened to the 60's channel. I've been going back and forth between their three Classic Vinyl stations and some of the world news stations.
Yeah, I'm digging this.
"Paraskavidekatriaphobia"
Today is Friday the 13th.
Big fat hairy deal.
Today is a (mostly) full moon.
Um, that explains a lot today.
So, either the combination of Friday the 13th & the Full Moon caused an unusual amount of idiot drivers, or someone sprayed "Stupid Gas" over the Los Angeles Basin. :X
I'm still deciding which one did it...
