More and more these days, it strikes me that I’ve become a decidedly anti-social person. With every passing year, I turn away a little more from a world that leaves me increasingly aghast. I’ve been on earth too long; I can’t help but notice how the pieces are all fitting together. As curmudgeonly as it may seem, as I survey the landscape, I just don’t care at all for what I see. But I still have one thing going for me: I’m not fool enough to expect anyone to believe things were “better when I was a youngster.” I had this point driven home to me just recently when I pulled out an old scrapbook of clips I saved from when I was a teenager in the seventies. Quirky news items I clipped and saved for my amusement back then fill me not with a yearning for days gone by, but with a feeling of dread. It’s all there in black and white: the creeping morass, the “malaise,” our oft-maligned downer of a chief executive, Mr. Carter, warned us against. (He’s still racking up points for his “negativity” — guess I’m not the only nut left in the shell.)
Continue reading ‘Things I Should Throw Out: Omens From The 1970s’
A few years ago, I tried my hand at writing CD reviews for web site devoted to local music. I suppose it seemed like a good idea to have a local celebrity pass out advice to a new generation of “alternative” artists. The problem was, I really had nothing to say to them. Perhaps all the years riding around in limos and sleeping on satin sheets dulled my ears to the “sound of the street,” but the groups all sounded pretty bad to me. Either way, it wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to make light of their earnest efforts (what if one of them found out where I live?), so I struggled to find encouraging and constructive things to say. But even my most diplomatic efforts were probably insulting.
After getting laid off six years ago, I mostly just sat around at home at loose ends, listening to 
Though it may come as a surprise to those among you who find me boring, I don’t actually collect stamps. I never did. However, I am a pack rat, and at this point in my life I’ve accumulated far more stuff than I could ever remember where it came from. Case in point: a couple of very old stamp collections from 1940 and 1935. My wife disavows any knowledge of them, which suggests they must have been left in lieu of rent by one roommate or another from the distant past. To the good fortune of those among you who don’t find me boring, I intend to share some of my favorites. The stamps themselves are probably worthless, but many of them are very beautiful. But our first foray is more concerned with history than aesthetics.