Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for September 22, 2023

Boo Janis!

There’s something in holding the music you love in your hands.

Very manipulative, Janis

Goodbye youth??? Arlo will never not be young! 8^ )

No, No, No Arlo. They might be valuable one day. lol

I don’t quite know how to feel about this one. On the one hand Arlo is right. Goodbye youth. That notion doesn’t come easily as we oldsters embrace a powerful delusion of not really being up there in years. But at the same time, we know the truth. On the other hand, Janis is right. Keep ‘em, no biggie. What I, an advanced septuagenarian have done, knowing full well its merit is questionable, is I boxed up some of those special things from decades past, listed and catalogued the contents, and put them back in the attic. They don’t take up much space, my heirs will be able to quickly deal with them when the time comes, and I know that if I need a warm and fuzzy fix I can go rummage through them for old times’ sake. Then I go back downstairs, sit by the fire with a snifter of Drambuie and smile contentedly. Whether the smile comes from the memories or the liquor makes no difference. It’s a pleasant feeling either way.

Ugh. Tapes often mistracked, or were eaten. The prerecorded tapes cost more, but they were more likely to fail because the record companies were so cheap. Especially CBS. Then 45s died when cassettes became unpopular, so you had to pay for a whole CD for one good song. Good riddance to the old physical media model.

About ten years ago, a friend had some music he wanted me to hear. On cassette. I told him I didn’t own a cassette player anymore. “Not even in your car?”, he asked. Not even in my car.

How sad !! Cassettes are still ok, even now ! You can buy connected CD, cassette players on any vendor online like A..ON ! I had such player for a Christmas gift and had a Walkman for my birthday present. I was so happy to listen to my old cassettes , with songs in the order I had recorded them. Some I didn’t remember till I heard them again. And NO ads ! And you can stop the cassette and play again at the point you had stopped, no playlist to manage ! Just press the « play » button. And if you really want, you can even transfer them to mp3 !Some of my cassettes are 30 years and doing ok ! Quite happy with that. I was fed up with radio, and do not like streaming , both with ads every few minutes.

Noooooo

Believe it or not you can get s tape recorder at Walmart for about $25 made by ONN.

(Off today’s topic)

This is a return to a conversation that I had with another poster about Ringo Starr, and I hope he sees it.

A little while ago, I found a fairly current YouTube analysis of Starr’s technique entitled “The Genius of Ringo Starr.” It’s brief, about twenty minutes. As a former percussionist, I found it to be both entertaining and informative.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=ZDY-YeNTcE4 (Please note that I capitalized “com” to slide by GoComics’ filters.)

(Back to today’s topic.)

Great comments above – liked them all. Three reactions to three of them:

1. I bought a new car in 2015 and was dumbstruck when I found that CD players were no longer an option.

2. A short while ago, a realization hit me with crushing force: For the most part, my generation (I’m 70) is now irrelevant to most persons 50 and below, except when someone wants to blame us for something. I don’t know where this fragmented country is headed, but I do know that what we think is held in little regard. Goodbye, youth, indeed.

3. I suggest reading Heller’s “Closing Time.” It is about the disappearing World War II generation. Its themes apply to us.

My last car had a cd player. My now car only has a thumb drive player. What will my next one have?

God Don’t Own a Car!

I still have a player or two, buried under the dust bunnies under my bed. I think.

The CDs get scratched and the tapes get moldy but they’re still here. Somewhere.

I digitised all of my cassettes. Many were recordings of Pete Fornatale’s weekend morning shows on WNEW-FM. There are services that will do it for you if you don’t want to take the time.

Progress means change…it ain’t always easy!

I have a CD in my 2018 Ford pickup but mostly down load old time radio shows to a USB stick and play them in the truck, I only have 23,000 mile on it so it will out last me. Currently listening to Gun Smoke

Aaaaaah! Noooo! Never throw away Buffett!

I still have a cassette player/radio out in my shop but I only have one cassette tape, my compilation of 40 different versions of George Gershwin’s “Summertime”. Lots of variety from Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong to Janis Joplin. FUN!

get prepared Arlo…you’ll be saying the same thing with more regularity…

Those should be recycled, not thrown in the garbage.

Good Bye Youth?!?!? I still have a working 8-track player and tapes!

Bored of Buffett already. He was okay, but nothing great. I think most of his fans must have had too many margaritas.

The last car we owned that had a cassette player was my 1997 Lumina.

There was a roast for some musician. One of the celebrities said he wanted to listen to the roastees latest album but his car didn’t have a casette player.

Literally going through this process right now. It is HARD to let go!!!

There are tape players which can digitize your old cassettes. Did that. It took a lot of time manually listing the albums and songs. iTunes does not like that. But I am not going to lose all that music.

nope…disagree.. keep them all… ( yep..i do…including all my old 45’s, 33’s… reel to reel… 8-tracks,…. cassetes… and good ol’ apple ipod….and yes… at least the one’s i purchased…).. talk about a personal historical library…..the fist 45 i purchased was the theme to ‘77 sunset strip’…the second was ‘venus’ by frankie avalon… well…at least i’m eclectic… ( or is that esentric ?)…but Arlo and i would get along…heck ..i can still sing ’alice’s restaurant’ complete with four part harmony….

Why is there all ways a big push to say good bye to your youth, act your age seems to be a subtle insult ?

I have about 400 cassettes….I have players but haven’t used them in years

Help my daughter and son in law clear out my late ex’s house about two years ago. Many things she had were an eye opener to me. So much had to go into the garbage and then the religious gift stores. Nothing of mine there except a couple of photos with a red “X” over my face and a half written in diary telling the book how terrible everyone on earth was except her Dad.

My 25 year old van has a cassette player, also a TV set that will play VHS tapes.

Today’s historians are worried 21st century people will not leave any history behind. The electronic era is totally ephemeral. They covet paper documents because it only takes eyes to read them, despite bad penmanship.

I still have a cassette player/recorder on my stereo system that I bought in 1990. That system was state of the art back then and everything still works. I also bought a nifty little gadget that attaches to my computer and puts my cassettes into mp3 format. Eventually I’ll get them all done.

I hope there are no cassette where they recorded themselves talking to each other. I have some and these tapes are among my favorite memories.

Sometimes, a really old song I love will come to my mind. I’ll go to YT to listen to it.

Sad.

Yeah. I get it. Luckily, a friend’s daughter had just bought an older car as her college ride. Gave 95% of them to her, hung on to my mix tapes because I want to make playlists out of them.

When we got engaged the hot thing was the Betamax and I bought him one as an engagement gift. (He got the better the gifts as my engagement ring sits in our bank vault basically unworn since we got married – not that I wear my wedding ring either.) We also have several VHS players (and a second Beta) plus everything which has come out since.

We had bed bugs about 10 years ago. The tapes (and anything else which could melt or explode in heat when the house was treated by heating the air in it) could not stay in the house while it was being heated for treatment. We had to go through and decide which we were going to keep (other than James Bond – all of same stayed for husband). We made a rule – if we had it on VHS the Beta went, if we had on DVD the VHS went.

(And as we sat there deciding what could stay and what would go – it was raining – and the rain started to fall on us in our bedroom – had to also buy a new roof unrelated to the bed bugs. )