--I made my very first iTunes purchase earlier in the week, and
I’m excited about it.Yes, I
know it’s 2007.What of it?
There’s an article in the new Rolling
Stone, you see, about how music labels are beginning to make
out-of-print albums available as digital downloads.It’s a cash cow for them, because there’s almost no
monetary investment.They own
the rights to the music already, and don’t have to do any
manufacturing, or warehousing, or handling of product. It’s just
pure profit, and plenty of people enjoy pure profit.
I liked the idea for other reasons, and logged onto the iTunes store
prepared to go on an Easter egg hunt.I
carry around a mental Rolodex of rare CDs I’m always looking for
(doesn’t everyone?), and gave that search box a workout.
Yeah, but I didn’t find much.Maybe
it’s still too early in the game?I
don’t know, but I had to go pretty deep into my list before I came
across an actual out-of-print CD that
I wanted, available at iTunes.It
was 2x4 by Guadalcanal
Diary, and was priced at $14.99.And
I didn’t want it that much.
So I was fairly disappointed.Then
I remembered that a new album by Ray Davies was coming out soon.I didn’t remember the street date, and went over to Amazon
for information.And only the
import was listed, for $34.49.They
didn’t even have a page for the domestic release.The heck?
Further research revealed a lot of conflicting information, and I
didn’t know what in the pan-fried hell was going on.Then, on a whim, I returned to iTunes – and they freakin’
had it.The whole thing, all
twelve songs, for $9.99.
Now, I’m an old fashioned kinda guy, and don’t really understand
the appeal of downloading music.If
you want a hard copy of it (which I do), you’ve got to burn it onto
some cheap-ass disc, the modern equivalent of the TDK tape, and they
always have those flimsy thin cases and whatnot…I’m just not a fan of such goings on; it’s a half-assed
approach to music procurement.
But Ray Davies is in the upper echelon of my all-time musical heroes,
along with Paul Westerberg, Nick Lowe, Randy Newman, Paul Weller, and
a few others.And his new,
critically acclaimed album was right there for the taking – before
it was even released to stores in the United States.
So I made my very first iTunes purchase earlier in the week, and I’m
excited about it.Because the
album is incredibly good, and I’m one of the first people in the
western hemisphere to hear it.Pass the beer nuts.
--Yesterday afternoon I was at
the library doing some writing, when the place suddenly filled with
teenagers. Apparently the high
school, or the middle school, had just adjourned for the day, and a
quarter of the students made a beeline for my musty-scented sanctuary.
Right behind me, at roughly seven o’clock, sat a group of girls doing
that real loud whisper-talk.You
know, it’s where someone speaks at a normal volume, they just change
the tone to roughly resemble a whisper?Same level of sound, just whispery...
I twisted my torso all the way around and gave them a look. They took
the hint, but only temporarily. For the next three to five minutes
they whispered in the accepted manner, but it gradually got cranked up
again.
So I put my headphones on, and started listening to a Top 40 radio
broadcast from 1966.It’s
hard to write with Winston cigarette commercials blaring in your ears,
but it’s better than all that whisper-talk.That’s almost as irritating as the female creaking-door
voice.
I was struggling along until I noticed a loud pounding noise, and
turned to find an inconceivably ugly girl seated in front of a
computer monitor, typing real
hard.I mean she was
hammering those keys.And she
had an underbite so pronounced you could hang a bath towel on it.
I slipped my headphones off, and couldn’t believe the cacophony.If someone had been hollering about personal dryness products into an
amplification device, it would’ve sounded exactly like a Wal-Mart.
How come nobody gets sssshhh’d anymore in libraries?I was constantly being sssshhh’d when I was a kid.Now everyone’s getting a free pass.Wotta rip-off.
--The small town of Canyon Country, where we lived in
California, is apparently burnt to the
ground.Is that correct?Nothing remains?It’s
just black dirt, porch steps, and toilets at this point?That’s what I’ve been led to believe.
--And check this out.Surf Reporter DarkDarkBlue believes we’ve been jacked by the Sarah
Silverman Program.Here’s a
video clip he provided as evidence.Is
it merely a coincidence that I brought up the baffling disappearance
of white dog shit, then a few months later it’s discussed on a
national TV program?Well, I’ll
just leave that up to you.
--When I was a kid my Mom would sometimes yell at me and my brother to
quit rampaging through the house because, she said, we were going to
make her cake fall.I never
understood this, and wondered if it had something to do with a
mysterious female-related medical condition.Can anyone shed light on it for me?I’m still not getting it.
And if Sarah Silverman discusses it, I want to be notified straigh’
away.
--I have lots more, but this
thing is flying off the tracks…Luckily
we’ve got something new and good from Buck, and you can read it
right here.
I don’t have a real question for you today, so please feel free to
discuss mandatory gym showers, based on Buck’s column -- or whatever
else you feel like.
