zen's journal

I spend another insane weekend with my former friend, Killkenneth, last weekend. I'm holding his crappy Dell laptop computer for 14 cans of beer that he took from me.
It's been reduced to that.

I'm asked, "why do you still hang out with him?"
"Well, try I might, he's no longer the guy I knew. He's not the guy I grew-up with. That person really is dead. I guess I killed him, because I made it known, he's not the same guy."
Now, he's just Killkenneth.

In Love and Lovesense, I posted 48 Hours of Insanity to document the depravity of my childhood friend, now at the pinnacle of his addiction. His story is one of no happy ending.

This time, I've composed not prose, rather a short poem. No longer an issue of love, or lovesense, the best he can be is add him as a footnote, with the rest of the dribble I drool in my journal.

Another Weekend With Killkenneth
Back here
civilization
still lost
to the law of the jungle
We can not escape
monkey
brain
seeks
hold itself
above
below
nature.

If any tale
exists,
ex friend's
exploits
be it one
only of
sadness;
none
any better
for having
heard
his tale.

The more I read, proofreading my post in Love and Lifesense, it becomes clear that it might actually make a nice journal entry, by itself.
Although it's a relatively long piece, I think it really has a nice flow. Either as a narrative, or a tale of a "first date," I'm happy with the feel, and tenor of it.
I'm not going to repost it here, of course, merely direct you there: Update: Actually meeting a female
I also make particular mention of this post especially because, honestly, that first post: "Re: meeting people. Part One: Chicks" ended on such a dour note. I think it's important for me to have a happy ending in relation to finding a female. I mean, even though I'm bi, and prefer guys, I still want to explore the straight part of me.
Even more important may be being with someone who wants to be with you just as much--even if it is for just the one night.

Introduction:
Below is the better part of a letter I sent to my friend Mike, who is working on the West Coast for 3 months, or so. While he's doing his forestry training, I had planned to use his apartment for a little while. I stayed there around Christmas.
This is the story of my stay in mike's apartment.
I'm including it whole cloth (almost) how it appeared in my letter to him. I'm doing this because by the time I was done I thought it was actually a pretty tight, stand-alone kinda thing.
So after a little editing, and filling in a few cracks, looks like it's ready to roll.

My Christmas:
Ok, speaking of talking spaces, let me get back to the apartment, because talking was one of the things that made me decide to leave a little prematurely.
On Christmas eve, I brought out the gaffer's tape, and decided to add a few more uses to its rapidly growing list of amazing uses. I taped up the blanket/door, nailed it in a place actually doubled it over, straightned it out so that it double insulates the door, and cuts down the noise...slightly. I moved the radio so it's not next to the door, to cut down the noise into the hallway...somewhat. It was fairly uneventful. Got lost in town looking for a pawn shop so I could buy a mini-disc, for the little recorder. But I also needed some clothes, so i thought maybe Salvation Army. I did find it, btw, but at 3:30, and they closed at 3. I started at Thayer, hit the army navy surplus, got a new hat socks, eventually getting lost, finding "Sally's" and getting lost for awhile, took some pictures of E Prov, whatever. Get back to the apt with supplies, and make the apt. nicey nice. I had some herb, still lots of booze, got ice/snow out side the window, the chair in front of said window, by myself in piece and quiet. I went to sleep around10-ish.
About 11:30 I hear voices from next door. People are saying unkind things to each other. OK, whatever, I go back to sleep.

Christmas day rolls around. Jo asks me if I'd like to eat with him, and introduces me to his girlfriend. Ok, door 1 meet the contestant behind door 2. We bring a heater into the living room, and Joe starts cooking. I asked him if he wanted any of that Merlot, the present from jeff, still plenty of it left. He tried a little bit. He thought it was a good, and it was good wine. He had a bottle of chablis, I think it was, and his gf had a bottle of melon wine, made by Boone's Farms GAK!! *shudders*
OK, so Jo's cooking, drinking a little wine, I'm drinking a little wine, it's going well. I'm talking with her, Debbie? I think, and just having decent conversation.
He makes a nice antpesto salad, smashed taters, corn, muffins, and a pork roast. All very good. I told him that it was good, and it was.
At some point she says to him, "Joe your feminine side is comin out."
"Well, without my feminine side, we wouldn't have any of this good food. We don't want you to cook, do we?"
"No, we don't"
"We don't want to have a repeat of St. Patty's Day, right?"
I said, "Oh, this sounds like a good story, what happened."
He says,"Well, you know how corned beef and caggage is cooked? Well, she put it all in together, at one time, and dlet it all cook. I told her not to, but she did." So when the beef was done, all the cabbage, and potatoes were..."
"Wait, let me guess" I interrupt, "they were like mush, right?"
"Oh yeah," she chimes in.
"But what did I do with that after that? I saved it, right?"
"Yes you did."
"I froze it, and then brought it out again, when I made split pea soup."
"Wow, the mystery Ingredient," I said, and then told him a little bit about Iron Chef: Prov

This brings us up to about halfway through the meal, and the apple pie bit. Not going into it, but there's a thing going on. She doesn't believe that he ate the pie last night. He brings me into the "frey" cause she's not believing him. This goes on for about 20 minutes, until he comes clean that he was hiding it in the oven. She never looked there for it. Ok, we move on.
Joe waited till the food was done before he sat down to eat. So he was still eating, while I was enjoying my drink. Im mixing-up the remains of that huge tanker of Sprite from last night's 3am run to Wendys; subsequently madeking Wine Spritzers from that. I got seconds on delicious everything. Jo's about 3/4ths done with his meal, he gets a call. It's from his daughter. Things start to shift gears at this point, because she's coming over.
"Things may become a little bit crazy in a little while," he warns. Essentially she's having trouble at home with mom, and wants to spend some time X-mass with daddy. And she's got a brand new boyfriend in tow. He's driving.
It must have been shortly after that call that the wine stopped flowing. Mine was gone, his was gone, and only that atrocious melon dreck was left. I tried some. We tried mixing it with the Red wine, and nothing could redeem that infernal concoction. So, faced with that, I decide to be a good neighbor, and went to get the bottle of Jacquins. At that point, there was still well over half left. I presented arms to my housemates, and Jo was only too glad to help me kill the bottle. The sprite was long since gone, so we were basically do shots, without a shot glass.
By the time his daughter got there, most of the bottle was gone. I reckon there was the equivalent of 8 shot-glass shots left. 8-10 ozs.; not a whole lot but that 1 shot for all 5 of us, or maybe 2 shots for 4 people, whatever.

She and the boyfriend arrive. She's 17, he's 21. She is quite good looking, a proper looker.
Before I get to know her, or him, before even taking her coat off, so to speak, The question posed was "What's going on?"
Her reply was to the effect,"Well, we're not gonna have an orgy and take off all our clothes!"
Not sure what to make of that, then, and even still now.
The boyfriend, josh, i believe, is a nice guy, and good looking. She seems to have found a decent catch; he drives a truck, goes ice fishing, and does a few other things that daddy likes.
She asks for a drink of Jacquins, and dad says yes, gets two glasses cause he's gonna drink too. She pours the rest of the bottle into their two glasses--she thinks it's dad's booze, doesn't ask to polish off the bottle, and now dad's taken offense to this. He's gotta lecture her now. So at this point, the mood's changed. Joe is now officially drunk, as am I, I'm sure. But Jo's not really a happy drunk. Jo's an alcoholic drunk. Not to take another's inventory, but his life has become unmanageable under the influence.
Now he takes this as an opportunity to give her some familial counselling. He gets in her face, literally, not yelling, so much as seriously invading her personal space. He goes into "daddy mode", and it somewhat reminded me of the dysfunctional, abusive way my dad was. He imparts to her that he's an alcoholic (or did he say drunk?), and a substance abuser, and said that she's just like him, and on this goes for a bit. He's kneeling in front of her, she's on the 2-person couch, the love seat, he's so close to her, it's kinda unsettling.
So that display gets over with. Things go somewhat back to normal, to a point.
I'd come to realize that there was now a "New Normal" to the room. The Old Normal has gone away, and will not be allowed back into the room that night, if ever. New Normal came in with Vanessa. This realization came only after he slapped his daughter's ass.
It was the kind of slap that Chris, one of the cooks at the Ground Round when we worked there, would give to the servers. Sure it was all in good fun, and he and the servers made it into a grown-up game, and that's inappropriate in the workplace. But is it more appropriate if a dad does it to his daughter, in front of company, nonetheless. The guys talked about the slap and how to improve on it, and proper technique, and the sound that the right one should make.
I kept trying to not stare at her. She caught me looking at her a few times. She made like she was getting something from the table, and bent over in front of me, as I was going to get my drink, so i had to real quick change the hands I was going to use. that was a little weird, and a lot bit quizzical. I tried not to believe that she was "showing off" or flirting, or that type of thing, but it was hard not to think that the second and third times she would stand directly in front of my with her ass sticking out, that little tight bubble butt of hers, in those very tight jeans....*exhales very heavily*
I'm partial involved in the conversations, partly just trying to observe. But at some point it stopped being a passive thing. By my simple presence there, I've willfully become complicit to this debauchery.

Jo has now polished of the melon wine. All the ginger brandy has gone the way of 8tracks and minidiscs. Being good and drunk, Jo decides to impart more fatherly wisdom upon his daughter. First, he asks Josh what size his feet are.
"Nine and a half," he replies.
Dad says,"Vaness, I told you never to date a guy with smaller than a 10 and a half shoe."
So, can you guess where the conversation steered to? Yes, you guessed it. Drunk Daddy started talking about the size of his cock, TO is daughter. Not like to his gf, and she over heard. No, this was more fatherly advice that he was giving her.
I should've left right then. Said something about being offended, or uncomfortable, and excused myself. That would've been the decent thing to do. That might have even been a Christian thing to do. But i'm not a Christian. I'm actually a fairly twisted individual--especially after all that booze. I couldn't help myself anymore, cause I became captive to New Normal. I got sucked into the vortex of all that momentum now being generated.
I chimed in about my own size. I said, Eventually they get tired of taking the little speedboat, and some point, and you want to take a nice spacious yacht ride," picking up my size 15 foot. I think it would be fair to say that the conversation had seriously degraded by then.
It was about that time that I had to excuse myself, but not because i was suddenly offended. No, I'm of course hardly offended at this point. I'm really just looking to keep thing rollin. We're just starting to get organized, my attled, beleaguered brain is concocting. I put my booties on, so that I could get more beer, from my car.
I kinda needed to clear my head in the cold outside. I really need to start to absorb what was going on here now. The the hell am I doing? I didn't start caring anymore it seemed. I was getting caught up in the tornado of dysfunction.

I came back in, and there had been an argument, and i didn't know it. I gave the three in the room a beer, but held back the other two from the six pack, on principle. Almost instantly I regretful of that decision. Debi came back into the room, resuming the drunken argument. They were supposed to have picked up her son to spend christmas with them. Joe promised, but now, obviously, he can't drive. Had I known earlier, I might have volunteered, whilst he was cooking, to use my car to get him. Wouldn't have been a problem. Instead, my contribution to the Christmas Cheer and festivity was a bottle of spirits.
So of course, this argument over his irresponsibility denegrated into a condemnation of each other as people. His view is that he's blameless, and it's her fault. A planck he took universally in any dispute. I came into the middle of this, with my 16 oz can of Narragansett. The argument and recriminations get louder, and more vitriolic. He's gone through 2/3 of his can. I realize the error of my ways too late, and replace his can with my now empty one--made empty specifically to replace his with. She sees it, and is, I can tell, grateful in some way. At this point, fully regretfull for bringing-out that fateful bottle of brandy.
Having no more booze in the house, she's mad at him, he's decided he's had enough. He's going to the bar. He's fucked it up somewhat, so why not really fuck it up. He asks me if I wanna go with him to the bar.
"No," I say flat and tersly.
He looks at josh, "wanna go?"
"Sure," he replies. I glared over at josh, just ever-so-slightly shook my head, as if to say: bad choice. I rubbed my eyes, and sighed.
Vaness has the good sense of mind to say "Dad, don't leave."
"Yeah," I say, "that's not helping anything."
"Dad, don't go, ok, just stay here, alright?"
"Ok, I won't go."
By this point Deb was back in their room.
"Man," I started, "You really should go to her and apologize. I mean, she didn't do anything wrong. This was just bad planning. If i'd have know, I would've gone and got him, ya know?"
He just sat in the rocking chair, until finally realizing that he should at least make a little effort to soothe his pissed-off girlfriend. He left the room.
I asked them if they wanted to get high. Sure, they said. Got my pipe, and the goodies, and came back. By then, he'd gone in, and found her inconsolable. A promise is a promise, after all--and that was my view, when my opinion was asked for, especially on Christmas. The boy is 12, and that's a major disappointment, not tobe able to spend time with mom, and her family.
He came back out to the living room. Dad's not puffing, so no one's getting high. Shortly thereafter, Vaness and josh decided that they had better get going. I guess the trip served to remind her that maybe things weren't so bad at home. She said she'd be back tommorrow. I said it would be nice to see her again.

Then the day after Christmas. It started this way: Jo and Deb were scheduled to go over to an apartment they were looking at, to put down a deposit, or whatever. At 10 am, he was no no shape to go anywhere and slept through the appointment. So around 11 am the recriminations start. Only this time there's a wrinkle. The boy is over, playing with his Christmas present.
I heard Vaness over there, but decided that i didn't really want to see her. I did, but figured it's for the better not to. I'd been taken over in fantasy all that night, and the next morning. Her body was imprinted on my mind, and I was trying to let it subside, and not consume my every thought.
About 12:30 it starts to get heavy. It all started when Jo wants to lay down cause he's tired. She asks why he's got an attitude, and shortly thereafter it goes into the personal attacks. It's his fault they missed the appointment, and he says it's hers. They call each other bad names, in front of the kid. They tell each other that they don't wanna see each other again, ennumerating the reasons why the other is a shitty person, in front of her son.

There's a lull in the action at ringside. The contestants have gone to their respective corners, and are poulticing their wounds. I have to use the bathroom, and see the curtain across the doorway. Someone's using it. I'm going to the downstairs apt on, and walk past Jo, brooding in the kitchen.
"Where you going?" he asks.
"Gotta go downstairs for a minute."
"Oh."
So i'm downstairs using the toilet, in that very cramped bathroom, with no door...well an unworking door that doesn't want to close, but of course there's no light in there, and it's kinda become an emergency at this point, so I can't hunt one down, if there's one to be found anyway. I took my poop, and find no paper. But there's odd blue spongy, very tough "painter's" rag towel thingy, that doesn't want to tear very easily. I can't reach sitting down cause the room is so tiny. I'm almost finished, and have started zipping up.
He comes in then, to the other room. WTF?! I'm thinking. I'm still standing there with my pants around my ankles, the door wide the f*ck open and starts talking. Thank god I'd already wiped and I was done...dude, that's way uncool I'm thinking.
He says "I have to apologize for all that. I'm sorry, man."
"Well," I start, still a little bit unnerved after the night's performance of How To Violate People's Personal Space, "I'm not the one you have to apologize to." I start walking away, slowly, cause I'm not standing there to chat with him.
I decided that I'd go upstairs right then, and pack my grip, because that was the last straw.
I continued,"My opinion isn't important. i'm not the one who loves you are cares for you. My approval or disapproval shouldn't mean anything."
"I'm not the one who cares about you," i got out, just before I turned the corner.

About 30 minutes later he kicks her out. We're both packing to leave at this point.
"Pack yer bags, tell me where you wanna go."
"I hate you Jo, you are such an asshole."
On it goes, some shit like that. Part vitriol, blaming her wholecloth for his condition, his failures, his humanity; and part apologies to the boy who had to experience all that joy.
"I'll make it up to you, I promise."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, another of your promises, Saint Dad,
... you're such a man when you're putting up your christmas lights. I'd like to crucify you with nails from your well-stocked garage; Saint Dad, father on fire I've come to infect, and infest, and rape you, Saint Dad...
If I hadn't already decided, that would have been the moment there. All my stuff was packed at that point, and as soon as they were out the door, I started treking my stuff to the car. About 4 trips later, including emptying your garbage car, I was on my way down the road. Called cj, told him I was leaving Prov.

I left maybe a day or two early. I was running out of funds by that point. I had originally planned to make a return trip for the 10th, cause Jo was having a family dinner. I was going to use CJ's truck to actually move up there a large table downstairs tht isn't doing anything. it's a perfect size to put at the top of the stairs, right under the stairs. i have a set of matching chairs to go with it. I thought that would've been a nice gesture.
That's what I originally thought.
Sitting back here, in the controlled chaos that is my very comfortable life, I'm not so inclined to want to go back there. I mean, you know about the non-working heat, all the way up on the top floor. I mean, I can work with that, but I just can't go back up there for the 10th, for the sole purpose of doing anything for that dude.

Epilog:
It's now 18th Jan, and I still haven't been back. I still will go back, now that my friend's truck is out of the shop. I have furniture that has to go up there. And it's actually important that it does because it's my mom's stuff, albeit broken. I'm gonna see if mike can fix it, and use it. I know he'll very much appreciate it.
I think the lesson I took from it is that I should have recognized the signs of a fellow alcoholic early on. I shouldn't have been fueling an already tense situation.
By allowing myself to wallow in that mire and dreck of a booze-fueled night of debauch, cum denegrating, decimating, recriminationss, and phrases of disgust and used vacuuous malintentions....oh alcholic....; I am deflied and debasted. A part of me is left there in that common room, mind thinking on it as already happened, it's powerful, fear-frightful images seared into the retina of myne's eye-->I can't go back.
There is now a New Normal in the room.

This post was edited by zen on Jan 18, 2009.

Let's see, where are we...my 40th birthday was alright, never made it to Providence, like I'd wanted though. I did take the day off from work...for principle. I actually love my job, and get paid decent money--which I need lol; so it wasn't an easy decision.
I've been working here since March of this year, after leaving the auto center, after 3 yrs there. After a very short "courtship," I got hired here as The equiptment repair tech/building maint guy; a job I am, it seems, uniquely qualified to perform.
My company produces photographic prints of classes (dance, schools, et al), which our roving packs of photographers have captured into the "cameras".
The "cameras" are actually digital capture systems, complete with a tablet pc, bar-code scanner, cf card reader, and slr-type camera body. All is enclosed in a metal case.
Inside these metal cases is, of course, the expectant spaghetti of wires that come with all computing systems. However, in our case, the cam orientation gets changed, so that that it can get shot wide, or long. That means the camera, and all wires attached to it also pivot and swivel. This of course means that all the wires have to be secured in such a way that they will allow for some travel. And since, by their nature, the capture systems are mean to go traveling all-over with the photographers, whom are oft less-than-careful, I have to look at them from the mindset that it's being used as, oh I dunno, as a battering ram. Everything has to be bolted down tight, and sealed up.
All this expensive photography equipment has to keep going, and
with a minimum of downtime. I also have to keep track of all the serial nos, on the equipment, and keep an updated log of when everything is due for periodic maintenance.
Lots of paperwork, and organization gets my job two-thirds done. The other third is the actual work itself.

One of the first things I did, perhaps one of the more fun jobs, was to review my predecessor's work notes, emails, and logs; in addition to his personal data on the computer.
As far as the work logs, What a waste of space these things are. I've actually printed-up a few of the more laughable of these pieces of fiction. I printed a few and showed one of my supervisors. He asked me not to spread it around too much. Apparently it's demoralizing knowing you had a slug working there for a year and a half, and didn't fire him till he actually stole something.

Well, there's more I'll have to share about work, but it's 4:20pm, now, and I have to start getting ready to leave.
Which also includes posting this...

30 Aug 2007
That was the date of my last post.
01 Oct 2008
That is today. It is my birthday. I am now 40.
Sitting at my speaker-cum desk, I actually had this feeling of boredom. How could this be...I have so much going on.

My first though in combatting boredom is this thought: if you have such free time, how come you aren't making a post on your online journal?
Well, probably for the same reason it's taken me for forever to write my credit companies to tell them that i'm not working. Actually, I've gone back to work. I was on layoff subject to recall, and got recalled. So of course the bills piled-up.
Just today I mailed out the letters to my creditors that said, well I realize things would've been better had I contacted you earlier, but I'm broke and chronically depressed.

14 Oct 2008
This is the date of my arraignment. I got arrested the other night for possession, and paraphernalia.
I'll go into that story some other time. In fact, I'll save that for describing what happened when I tell my boss at work, tommorrow.

Thursday --tommorrow, 2 oct 2008
I have a "date" with a professional lady. Not the kind I have to pay for. I answered an ad on Craigslist where she named off, like 4 crazy movies, of which I only heard of Choke, based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk, which I've actually read. It's one of the few.
So this is particularly noteworthy because this will be the first date with a female I've gone on in many many mooons.

I think that I have more dates to tell of, buyt I think i'm going to spread those around the the different forums .
There's been a nuymber of things happend in this past year where I've wanted to write and journal about, but I'm such an aweful procrastinator.

So, I'll keep this short so as not to tax my procrastinating head...oh, and Project Runway is on right now...

Still here on the web, looking for love and romance, and a little sanity in an otherwise crazed world.

what have i been busy with these days?
well, my music library. Everyone else is bored hearing about it, so I'll tell you so you too can get bored with it.
I've backed-up my and my sweetie's discs onto my hard drive--actually a number of drives. My library is quite large, literally expanding everyday. I can easily get 150 songs on the average day. a good day is 500 songs for me. I've gotten 5200+ in one shot; that being the complete Billboard collection from '46-05.

To be clear, I'm not using Limewire. I do not illegally download.
I simply get music that noone wants, adding it into the stew. It's amazing what I have got for free, or next to it. Sometimes bartering is involved. Sometimes it's a matter of backing-up a computer-less friend's 50 CDs or so. (There are those who are HARD on their discs, and need an external storage to counter-act their stupidity. [I like to provide this free service to my technologically-deprived friends.])
Not insignificantly, radio is a huge portion of my .wav captures. I digitize my tapes, LPs, 45s, 8-tracks, 78s, and any other electronic sound I can pass through my receiver I've caught. Even CB conversations were taped starting years ago.

I've actually saved alot of songs, good music, from obscurity (musical purgatory) through, well, surreptitious means. Our raids would yield promotional albums. These promos might well be listed in the category of things noone with good sense wants.
One story involves raids on the collection of promos accumulated by my friend's dad, Jimmy. Jimmy worked for record companies for a number of years. The UPS truck stopped by his house at least once a day. Most of the crap that he got was not worth saving, really; although a small slice of it was decent.

This massive store house of 45s, cassette tapes, lp records, cds, posters, teeshirts, ashtrays, paperweights, notepads--all bearing some band or subsidiary of the parent company: B.M.G. (formerly: A&M, Arista, RCA), has come to be know locally as the Jimmy Fund. Technically The Jimmy Music Fund.
All my promos, regardless of the origin, I still credit to the Jimmy Fund.

Did anyone say A&M Records? Yes, that was one of the companies. As I'm sure everyone knows, A&M was the brainstorm of Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. The lable is most famous for introducing the album Frampton Comes Alive to the world. Subsequently, that album sold more than almost any other single album.
That album sold so many copies that Jimmy put an addition onto his house to hold his rapidly growing music, specifically LP collection. This room was dubbed "The Frampton Room." On the walls was hung, among all the spoils was his collection of Gold and Platinum disks he wa awarded with from the company.
We remember, musicals soundtracks can go gold and plat.

I'm not necessarily advocating for a company, especially not a record-business one. However, in there case i make an exception. They were a very progressive, and fair company. The artists and acts got complete creative control over the finished product, and a royalty rate that was second to none.
The company is a model for all businesses, but the record-business specifically.
They were generous with the employees, and field reps, like Jimmy.

Jimmy had so much promo crap, that he'd give out 45s and cassingles out at Halloween. We'd launch those into the pond at the end of the street every year.
They're all still there, as with all the hockey goals, pucks, broken sticks, no dumping signs, and bikes that were launched into the drink, when we were growing up.

These promos, and imports, cause nothing but problems.
First-off, no one is supposed to actually own them, even though they frequently get sold. They're stamped "company property, returnable upon demand..." or some such language.
Often, the cover is different from the actual one appearing in production.
The order of the tracks is frequently different, and there will be different versions not appearing on the production disk.
Frequently, the songs will not be recognized by Windows Media Player
...and before this gets into a technical issue of which player authenticates through which database, I'll tell you I've tried, and use, a number of players, out of necessity. Believe me, where it comes to these things, there is no "automatic". It's often entering the songs, info, and album art manually.
But that's OK. I love doing this stuff. Even though it's alot of work, I still love this job.
I've amassed a huge collection, for someone who's not a professional DJ. To maintain this thing correctly, it takes alot of work.
But at the end of the day, when I can introduce my friend The Kerbinator, a local dj to the A&M July/Aug. 95 Monthly Sampler, or the Atlantic 1998 Alt. Radio First Quarter Sampler promo I culled from The Fund.

What, one might well ask, was on said 1998 sampler?
Well, the best known of the bunch is probably Poe, with her well-known single: "Today".
Also offered by Atlantic Records that year: David Garza, Glitterbox, Victoria Williams (wasn't that the defunct Ms. America??), Athenaeum (a word you don't want to type baked), Mighty Joe Plum, and of course Kacy Crowley.
Beuhler?? Beuhler?? Anyone, Beuller??
This would have found its way to the bottom of Circle Street Pond Oct 31., I assure you.

I look through dreck like this, or the A&M offering above mentioned, and think to myself, that's alot of crap. Is it worth the effort I have to go through to enter each song info by hand?
Or what about the 5-song EP featuring the same some, 5 different mixes? To be sure, awesome for a DJ, but I don't listen to very many of the average alt. mixes. Madonna perhaps. Underworld, yes. Most though, remixes aren't worth it.
Eventually, I decided that all the 5-same-song EPs will go into my SHARE folder. Hell, they're such a pain in the ass to track, that I gladly share them with the world, the rare occasions I do f-swap online.
Personally, I think that all music should be available to everyone, despite the amount of money in his or her bank account. Why can't I have all the Metallica songs, you selfish, greedy prick?
Last week I moved a log blocking the middle of the road. Everyone could benefit from my work, but do I ask every single person to pay me for that? Society benefits by being non-selfish.
Besides, on principle alone, given the choice to give the artist money directly or through the means of the royalty system, I'd prefer to give it to the musician directly.

But that's a discussion for another time.
I'm talking about free music in this discussion.
Promos are usually given freely, unless they're part of a huge collection, which the caretaker stored they away like a squirrel his nuts. In that case a raid to liberate the crappy promos is usually in order. With the help of the Fund owner's son, it was really fun.

Jimmy has since departed his mortal coil, about 2 yrs ago now. He is eternal. His many boxes, and boxes, and boxes, and boxes of records, tapes and stuff has been split among 5 principles, myself included.
I have thousands of Fund cassettes, most are crap. I'm digitizing the few worth while ones, while they're till playable.
The LP records are the true jewels of The Fund. Many of them never-used, or unopened. All in the Inventory Control bags protecting them till the end of time. Thousands, upon thousands of these things; many to be digitized, many probably never will be, forever lost to time. Perhaps, that's not such a bad thing in the case of some of them...better off a slow painless death.

This post was edited by zen on Aug 30, 2007.