A Different Kind of Glorious

I have this quote posted on a wall in my classroom. It's from an online article Henry Rollins wrote for Discogs.

“I never had a good time in school, so Friday became my favorite day. Classes were not so bad because freedom was only hours away. In that brief period between school letting out and midnight, it’s like an extra day, the economy version of a three-day weekend. Those hours are the peak of the week for me to this day. This time period is for playing records.”

 - Henry Rollins

I like how Rollins's theory about Friday evenings echoes my own theory about the evenings before summer vacation. I also like how he uses music to celebrate the end of the week. I do that, too.

I often pick out my Friday record on Thursday night, so it's already waiting for me on the turntable when I get home. When Char and I get there, I'll let Ellie out into the backyard, feed our cat Bo, and then coax Ellie back in with a treat. With everyone taken care of, I'll drop the needle, settle into my recliner (or get ready to dance around if it's been that kind of a week), and let the music play. It's glorious. 

Music can serve all kinds of purposes, but for me it's all about making myself smile. This brings me to this post's topic: records that make me happy even when I'm not playing them.

This is a 2010 rerelease of Black Sabbath's first record. I bought this used LP at ZZZ records, and it's in really good shape. This copy is the measurement that I'll use to explain one of favorite records.

Okay, now check out this bad boy.

This record, also from ZZZ, is so awesomely bad (ass). 

According to Discogs, Stereophonic is a “...South Korean pirate label that issued poor-quality unofficial releases of Western artists' music. The records were copied directly from original pressings using a reverse-molding process, and thus will have the same runout information as an American issue (or occasionally a British or Japanese one). Their releases share the same style of using monochrome printed covers (in various colours) on thin card stock.”

Let's look at these two records side by side.

What?! Just look at that record on the right! I don't know if you would call it a counterfeit or a bootleg, but man, that is just awesome. I love how unapologetic it is. Imagine coming to the party dressed like that and just not giving a damn. If this record could talk, it would say, "Yep, I'm a bootleg. What in the hell are you going to do about it?" So sassy.

I love the murky sleeve and how flimsy the card stock is. I also like the typewriter font on the labels. It's not trying to fool anyone. Loud and proud.

But the thing of it is, this bootleg actually sounds pretty good. I'd rate it at VG. The vinyl is also surprisingly heavy. Using our kitchen scale, this LP weighs in at 150 grams. Most records made in the 80's couldn't boast that heft. 

I suppose a non-collector would ask why would I buy a bootleg when I already had a legit and better looking and sounding copy? To that I'd say simply obtaining records is not why I'm in this hobby. I like the legal Black Sabbath record, but it doesn't make me laugh like the bootleg does. This isn't about making sense or saving cents; it's about having fun.

Let's try another. Hmmm... can you spot the bootleg?

I have no idea who the G-Boys are. 

I do like how the Stereophonic company couldn't afford to put a hype sticker on the sleeve, so they screened a circle on the front with "Don't Stop' Til You Get Enough" in someone's handwriting. Notice they put the unnecessary apostrophe after "stop" instead of in front of "til". I'm not judging; I can't write anything in Korean.

I don't mind that my legal copy of Off the Wall was vandalized by a previous owner.

This one from High Stereo Light is fun because they screened the front artwork onto the back of the sleeve by mistake. LPs seldom exit on the left, as far as I know

Typos and an off-center label are things to celebrate.

Here's a bootleg from Taiwan. I bought it in a downtown Des Moines vintage clothing store in the late 90's.

Fun fact: Under the S FL-18668 A you can see a 58 and a 4. 1911 + 58 = the release year (1969) and 4 represents the fourth month (April). This record turns 56 in just three days.

Other fun facts: "First Record (第一唱片) is a label of questionable legality from Taiwan, catering to soldiers (mostly from the US) stationed there. They also did sell to locals... The albums were usually pressed in batches of about 500, with no two batches looking or sounding the same (ie different covers, vinyl colors). Covers were usually recycled, meaning art for a totally different album was on the reverse side of the paper (covers were thin paper wrapped in cellophane)... Pirate pressings outsold legit pressings 5 to 1. They were sold openly in legit record stores alongside equivalent legit pressings...usually for 1/5 or 1/4 of the price of the legit copy (in 1970 a pirate LP cost around US $0.70 whereas a legit Singaporean EMI pressing of the same album cost around US $3.50)."*

*Source= Billboard article 3/14/1970.

I've got a few others, but here's my last First Record for today.

I like this record's cover because Richard Carpenter looks like he's pissed that you're checking out his sister and not him, "... Really? I'm right here." 

Buying Used Vinyl: Free Surprises Inside!

I've written about thrift store records many, many times, so I won't get into any back stories today. I just want to write about vinyl surprises. 

For instance, I bought this LP last weekend.

It's Stephen Stills', self-titled, first solo album, and it was released in 1970. I knew that Mr. Stills was in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I also knew the hit song, "Love the One You're With." I wondered, What else is on here? The record was in decent shape, so I took it home to find out.

What I should have wondered was, Who else is on here? Turns out, quite a lot of people. Jimi Hendrix played the lead guitar on song four, "Old Times, Good Times." Then on the next song, "Go Back Home," Eric Clapton takes lead guitar duties. Ringo Starr, using the pseudonym Richie, plays drums on two songs. Graham Nash and David Crosby provide a little help for their friend with backing vocals, as did John Sebastian, Cass Elliot, and Rita Coolidge. Man, who wasn't on this thing? I had no idea. Talk about this record being a surprise...  

But that's not the kind of record surprise I want to talk about.

Hidden Surprise #1:

This doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I'll bring home an LP with more than the vinyl inside. For instance, I also bought this LP last weekend.

This Neil Young & Crazy Horse record from 1979 is "complete," which is nice. It has the lyric sheet and the original, photo inner sleeve. 

I knew the song "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)," but that was it. Luckily, the record's first owner surprised me by adding the original Rolling Stone review from the October 18, 1979 issue. I didn't have to do any research on this record because RS's record review editor, Paul Nelson, had already done the heavy lifting for me.

I have always needed someone to point out the deep layers hidden within art for me to fully appreciate its complexities. That's why I enjoy music and film criticism. I need an artistic tour guide, and that what writers like Paul Nelson are. 

Reading a RS review on newsprint paper really brought me back to my high school days in the 80's. Rolling Stone was my gateway to a musical world beyond Iowa's rural Sioux county. I learned a lot about Rust Never Sleeps, too. (Note: Side two is now cited as an inspiration for the grunge movement of the 90's, but Paul wouldn't have know that was coming. The last song, "My My, Hey Hey (Into the Black)" is so sludgy it would be at home on a Melvins record.)

Hidden Surprise #2:

I didn't remember much about Charlie Sexton when I took this record up to the register last summer, but the clerk sure did. 

I had brought her a small stack of LPs, and the clerk fanned them out on the counter to get an accurate count. She gasped when she spotted Charle's record, "Charlie Sexton! Woa... I loooved Charlie Sexton!" She then placed a hand on her chest and a patted out a quick heartbeat, "I wonder what I did with my record?" She was then lost in thought for a moment, undoubtably trying to trace her steps back to 1985 when Charlie Sexton was a 16-year-old with a hit song, "Beat's So Lonely", mad guitar skills, and a video on MTV. And hair. He had a lot of hair.

It must have all worked for him, though. When I removed the record from its sleeve, several magazine pages slid onto our kitchen counter. The previous owner of this album was quite the Charlie Sexton fan.

I can tell the page on the left was once used as a poster because on the back side each corner has damage from a tape loop being removed.

There is a little irony in that Sexton's album is entitled Pictures for Pleasure. 

Whoever had this picture of Charlie hanging on their wall was hardly alone. The set designers for the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off placed Sexton's poster on the wall behind Ferris's bed.

That's actually cooler than having your video play on MTV. Videos come and go. Bueller is an 80s icon. Talk about bragging rights.

Hidden Surprise #3:

Here's George Michael's Faith LP. Like Charlie's record, I think an 80's teenager used to own it. But I think this teenager was sneaky.

The previous owner made a poster out of the photo on the lyrics sheet.

Again, you can tell from the tape marks. 

But that's not the hidden surprise. That lyric sheet was supposed to be in the LP's sleeve. This is the surprise:

Okay, let's play detective!

1) Using the words "Parents", "dismissal", and "Inservice" suggest this is a note from school.

2) Faith was released on November 2, 1987. November 1st fell on a Tuesday the next year, so we can assume this note from is from 1988.

3) People were pretty conservative in the 80s. I don't think many parents of a junior high student (the phrase "middle school" wasn't a thing, yet) would let their kid put up a picture of the guy who sings "I Want Your Sex" in their room. This is a note for a high school student.

4) Somewhere a school secretary used a typewriter to write this message four times on a single sheet of paper, photocopied it, and then used a paper cutter with one of those huuuuge swing arm blades to slice stacks of paper into four piles of strips. I'm guessing that this note is from a small, Iowa school with an enrollment under 500.

    a) I found this record in an Iowa thrift store. It's probably from an Iowan donor who went to an Iowa school.

    b) If you handed out 1200 strips of paper for 1200 kids to take home, you'd have 1000 strips of paper all over the floors of the school.

    c) It's harder to get away with making a "mess" is a small school (trust me on this). In a smaller school district, most of the notes would have probably gotten home.

Hypothesis: Some sneaky kid who attended a small high school in Iowa hid this note inside the record sleeve.

This note isn't like a picture of a celebrity crush that you hang onto even after you've moved on. It isn't memorable, so why save it? No one has ever said, "Dude, remember that time when the teachers had that sweet inservice? I still have the note! Check it out." 

I think someone got the note from their 8th period teacher. Then while walking to the parking lot with some friends, they decided that if their folks did not know about the early dismissal, then they would have an extra hour or more to do something their folks wouldn't approve of. (Remember, there was no internet, no email, and no text messaging back then. Report cards were handed out on conference nights. In small towns, snow days were announced by the local radio stations.)  I bet the owner of this note discovered it in their back pocket when they were in their room, and they quickly hid it from their parents in a record sleeve their parents would never open. 

And that's where it stayed for the last 37 years.

I could be completely wrong, though. 

Maybe it really was a sweet teacher inservice. 

The Death of Slang

Spotted outside of our local Kwik Star convenience store:

 

Rest in peace, Rizz. When slang goes corporate, it dies.

Yeah, It's Been That Kind of a Day

I really thought "foyer" was a winner. 

I bet it comes up soon...

Getting "Strand"ed

 I'm not gonna lie. I've been waiting a year for this to happen:

Which 3 movies would you pick?

 Movie Madness is a video store in Portland, Oregon, that has over 90,000 films that members can rent. The knowledgeable staff members display movies on their recommendation shelves. 

Cole selected a nautical theme for his shelf with Uninvited, Deep Rising, Anaconda, Death Ship, and Ghost Ship. 

Ben recommended Battle of the Valiant, Treasure of the Moon Goddess, Short Time, and The Applegates, all on VHS, no less.

Movie Madness also has a state-of-the-art, 18-seat screening room where the public can watch films for free. The employees pick the three different films that they'll screen on Sundays.

We went to see The Pagemaster when we visited Movie Madness, and I was really impressed with the screening room. I was also impressed with the other eclectic movie choices for the day. 

Ninja III: The Domination is about an evil ninja attempting "to avenge his death from beyond the grave by possessing an innocent woman's body", and in Hiruko the Goblin, "Hiruko is a goblin sent to Earth on a reconnaissance mission. He beheads students in order to assemble their heads onto demons' spider-like bodies."

I'm not saying that I want to see Hiruko the Goblin, but I am glad to know that such a film exists, and I'm impressed that someone thought the movie was good enough to share with others. 

Movie Madness cannot advertise on their website what movies they are screening each week due to legal restrictions. You have to sign up for their email newsletter to see what new releases they have acquired, what classes are being taught in the screening room, and what's showing on Sunday. 

I've been receiving the newsletter since May 2022, and I'm always curious to see what's playing each week. The only patterns that I see in the three selections are that the first film is usually a family film, the second film can sometimes be a classic movie like Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, and the third movie might be anything, but it's usually rated R.

I think picking out three films for the screening room would be fun, so let's play pretend!

If I had to use my own collection of physical media, then what three films would I choose for the screening room? I went looking for films that I think my friends would approve of, and movies that I would want to see on the big screen. I picked out nine movies for each of the three ratings categories: 1) G or PG, 2) PG-13, and 3) R. Why nine weeks' worth? I'm a teacher, and I think in semesters. Also, I tried to pick movies that could fit a theme for each week. I'll keep my comments brief.

Week 1: Time Travel

Char and I had a surprisingly fun time with Cinderella III: A Twist in Time back in the day. It's also fun to watch Tom Cruise being bad at something over and over again in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Mick Jagger is good at being a bad/good guy in Freejack (1992).

Week 2: Going to School

Sky High (2005) is Harry Potter-adjacent with super powers replacing magic. Charlotte and I think it needed a sequel, but that didn't happen. The Skulls (2000) is an action and crime drama that takes place at Harvard, and this movie got two sequels, and that's not fair. The teachers really are aliens in The Faculty (1998).

Week 3: Going to Camp

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987) is a physical comedy classic. If you don't agree, I will fight you. The characters in The Final Girls (2015) find themselves trapped in the fictional cult film, "Camp Bloodbath." This has a surprisingly touching ending. If you tour the real Alcatraz prison, you'll see a sign that reads,“Break the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules, and you go to Alcatraz.” In No Escape (1994), the prisoners who break the rules go to "camp" Absolom.

Week 4: Wheels

Napoleon Dynamite (2004): "Dang! You got shocks, pegs... lucky! You ever take it off any sweet jumps?" I know this is a stretch for a "wheels" theme. Hot Rod (2007): We bought Char a shirt that reads,"I'm jumping the public pool tomorrow. 2 bucks. Tell your friends." She wears her Hot Rod shirt with pride. I scoffed when the remake of Death Race came out in 2008. After finally watching it, I told a friend, "That movie was waaay better than it had to be." He wholeheartedly agreed.

Week 5: Trapped on an Island

I had a student who worked at a video store in 1998. He gave me a 26x40 movie poster for Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island when the store was done displaying it. The poster has been displayed in my classroom ever since.  The Jurassic Games (2018) isn't rated, but since the violence takes place on an island in virtual reality, I'll give it a PG-13 rating. It's a low budget blast. Like The Jurassic Games, Battle Royale (2000) is a "last one alive wins" contest. Think of the first Hunger Games (2012), but on meanness steroids. 

Week 6: Character Development

In Rango (2011), Johnny Depp is a chameleon who becomes the hero he was pretending to be. In Billy Madison (1995), Adam Sandler is a 27-year-old man who acts likes he's ten. By the end of the movie, he acts like he's 15. (Char has a "Rirruto" tee-shirt, but none of her friends "get" it. Makes me sad.) In Avengement (2019), Scott Atkins escapes from prison to get revenge on those who turned him into a cold-blooded killer.

Week 7: M and M and M

My Neighbor Totoro  (1998) is a nostalgia pick. Exactly 12 years and one day ago I showed this movie to a feverish little girl named Charlotte who was tired of feeling sick. It was the right medicine then, and I'll always love this movie for that. Plus, Totoro is awesome, but most people know that. The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) is what a really good modern family movie looks like. The cover for Mindhunters (2004) makes it look like it's going to be a police procedural, but it's really a slasher film. 

Week 8: It's a Race to the Finish

Char and I saw Storks (2016) at Flix together when she was in 1st grade, but this isn't a nostalgia pick; Storks is legitimately funny. I like Breaking Away (1979) so much I wrote a literary unit on internal conflict just so I could show this movie to my English classes. At the climax, fists would be thrown in the air, and once a girl yelled, jumped out of her seat, and danced around in a circle. This story about townies competing against rich college kids won an Oscar for best screenplay, and it shows. The Tournament (2009) pits 30 professional assassins against each other for a ten million dollar prize for the last one standing. The Tournament deserves the R rating, and I deserve to watch this again tonight. It's been that kind of a week.

Week 9: Masks

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm actually had a theatrical release in 1993, but like most people I didn't see it in the theater. I'd like to fix that. This ranks as one of the best Batman productions ever. The Wraith (1986) is a supernatural revenge film packed with some of the most bitchin' cars, music, and fashions that the 80's had to offer. The killer wears a racing helmet with the visor down, so I'm counting that as a mask. The 5 Deadly Venoms (1978)  is a classic martial arts flick ranked #11 in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time." That says enough right there... love that Shaw Brothers' "SB" logo in the opening of their movies. 

Okay, that's a wrap. It's time to take these movies down to the basement and put them back on the shelf. This was fun, though.

Still curious. Which 3 movies would you pick?

We're with the Band... and with anything else she chooses to do

"Well, if you like burgers, give 'em a try some time. Me, I can't usually get them 'cause my girlfriend's a vegetarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian." Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction

I like how Samuel L. Jackson delivers that piece of dialog, and I quote it quite a bit when people ask me how things at the high school are going. I'll say, "Well, you know that line in Pulp Fiction when Sam Jackson says... ? Well, Char is in marching band right now which pretty much means we're all in marching band right now." I'm usually talking to another a parent, and they'll know exactly what I mean. 

When your kid is in an activity, then you're mostly in it, too. 

Daphne and I aren't on the marching field, but we are with the band. 

If Char marched at the Friday night football game, then Daphne and I watched the half-time show from the sidelines. That's because we volunteered to pull and/or carry something on and off the field before and after the show. We also pulled and pushed multiple things back to the band room. Daphne and I did this at some of the Saturday marching band competitions, too. We even spent six hours in the concessions stand the Urbandale Marching Invitational. 

Volunteering is a big time commitment, but it's worth it because Char loves marching band. She has said so many times. 

I was discussing this with Charlotte's Japanese teacher when he said, "Yeah, about that time commitment. You know we have the Japanese exchange coming up, and I'm still looking for host families..." 

To make a long story short: Char is a student taking Japanese, so Daphne and I all took in two Japanese students for a week. 

My challenge is posting about their visit without showing pictures of their faces. (I didn't ask for their permission because that would have been weird.) So, we'll see how this goes. For the purpose of this post, I shall refer to the Japanese students as "the girls."

The students from Owa High School arrived via a bus from Chicago on a Tuesday afternoon. 

The Japanese students were 16 and 17 years old. I don't normally take pictures of shoes, but I liked how the girls lined them up when they would get home from school. Char's shoes are on the left.

Here the girls (including Ellie) are taking a break from carving pumpkins. They're watching Spirited Away. Char's head is on the left.

For two girls who had never carved a pumpkin before, their results were quite impressive. Char's pumpkin is on the left.

The girls wanted to experience a high school football game, so we moved movie night from Friday to Saturday. We checked out a couple of Blu-rays from the Urbandale Public Library, and I was impressed  with the number of languages that were available on each release. We watched The Lost City in Japanese with English subtitles. I think they liked it. It was hard to tell because they were so polite.

School activities for the girls included touring our state capitol and spending a day at Living History Farms. We took them to a Spirit Halloween store, Char's church youth group, Char's evening percussion party at school, a volleyball "tournament" where the girls got to play, a Leo Club tailgate, the football game, the Downtown Farmers' Market, the Pappajohn Sculpture Park, the Jordan Creek Mall, Sunday morning church, and the Hurt's Donut Co.  

The girls liked the doughnuts, but they later admitted they wanted to go for ice cream instead. That was an easy fix. We hit up a Baskins-Robbins on Sunday after church. I really like the retro VHS design on the Hurts Doughnut Company's boxes. 

I'm pretty sure the box's slogan, "It's a Jelly", is a reference to the movie Strange Brew.

Wow. Bob and Doug MacKenzie. That takes me back. But I digress...

Daphne bought a Halloween Witches' Tower Cookie kit for the girls to assemble.  Here are the parts for the kit.

And here is how they did. Looks good!

The girls were with us for six nights, and to be honest, it would have been okay if they stayed a few days more. All three seemed to become more and more comfortable with each other as time passed. By the last night, they were really having fun just hanging out and playing online games.

That went on for an hour and a half. Good times.

Hosting was a big time commitment, but it was worth it because Char loved having the girls stay with us. She has said so many times. I think the girls liked being with us as well. They both wrote very nice thank you notes in both English and Japanese, and Char has heard from both of them since they returned home.

High school activities. You don't pick them when you're a parent. They pick you. 

It's okay.