the people's post?

On a day in which i encountered the people's market (frequent), the clark park people's flea market (first time), and the people versus somebody or something (at least once a week), i was left wondering exactly who the people are. looking to my past, i also recall the people's building, which was full of clear channel offices (go figure), the people, a band appearing on several jam bills throughout michigan, and the people's elbow (i have not forgotten that if becky's death involves the rock in any way i am sworn to avenge her with the sword). but all that did was make the notion fuzzier. i may or may not be one of the people, given the context, i guess. i try not to be one of "those people" or the people in "people say" and especially not "one of those people who talk about 'gross'". today, most importantly, though, i was one of the people benefiting from the clark park people's flea market. there was a lot of really intriguing old shit i didn't need or have any use or space for, but for some reason wanted to possess. and lots of cool crafty shit that made me wish i had a girl to buy for; she would have been thrilled, bags, earrings, and so on. most importantly, there was the finest selection of vinyl i have ever had the good fortune to encounter. i didn't measure the time i spent perusing, but it was considerable. i would hate to go down the long list of things i had to pass up given that i could only justify spending a certain amount of money, but suffice to say that some difficult decisions were made. the end result, however, was still quite the haul. after participating in the time-honored ritual of flipping through box after box of used records (and i make no pretense about having seen it all - i would have been there from whenever they started to whenever they left), i walked away a happy man for the time being. i find the ultimate consumer joy in purchasing records; for whatever reason they are a most satisfying acquisition, surpassing other formats of music in some way. i think the size has something to do with it, along with the inherent scope of the artwork and the testimony of durability borne by the fact that i am becoming the owner of functional artifacts which are in many cases more than a decade older than i am. let's see... the band's self-titled record, which is one i've always wanted, even if i have all the songs live on vinyl from bootlegs or official releases. steely dan's countdown to ecstasy, which i am hopeful for, even though i don't think anything they've done will ever approach how i feel about the first side of aja, a constant front-runner in my estimate of vinyl strictly by side. also picked up an early 'best of' for traffic, which contained nothing off of the two records i have, and so i figured that if they had a best of before those albums, it had to be pretty good. and it is. the funny thing is that of the two cuts off of that compilation i was familiar with, i was not really too familiar with their original traffic incarnations. i think everyone knows 'feelin' alright', but the dave mason solo live version is by far more prevalent. the traffic version is pretty cool though, much better organ work, but the lack of backing vocals once one is familiar with them is a loss. dear mr. fantasy is a song i understand via the mydland-era dead incarnation coupled with the 'hey jude' finale. i can see why brent added that bit; the original feels like it is going someplace but left me a little unsatisfied with its fade-out jam at the end; no punchline. still a great tune, but lacks the benefit of a refrain. speaking of the dead, that was definitely in abundance. i got europe 72 for THREE FUCKING BUCKS. that's right, a dollar per record. and the vinyl is immaculate, even if the sleeve has a couple bruises. when i was sorting out my records to give all of donny's back to him, i had to resist serious temptation to appropriate his copy "by accident". i didn't, because i just could never fuck him over, and karma got back to me on this one. when i found these four albums i had walked through almost two-thirds of the set-up and was kind of disappointed at the lack of vinyl which i had been told would be abundant. i got these four for three bucks a piece at the central table, which i believe was sort of the mastermind behind the event and the namesake; the group is basically for solidarity from the white community with the worldwide movement for African liberation. good people. but anyway, i walked a little further, and then i saw it: two huge tables full of boxes full of vinyl. it was simply overwhelming. even though i had europe 72 in hand the dead prospects were amazing. painful as it was, i had to pass up skull and roses, the eponymous debut (what a stupid cover!), historic dead, bear's choice, and dead set, and that was only what i came across, like i said, there was even more to be seen. but the scores were of equal magnitude: aoxomoxoa and workingman's dead. i hadn't heard either of those albums in some time, and had forgotten the poppy joy of studio china cat, the sensible psychedelia of doin' that rag, just how great of a tune easy wind was, and the amazing slide work on dire wolf. but the depth of dead was of equal match to the breadth of other selection. i found a sealed copy of queensryche's operation: mindcrime, and that thrilled me beyond belief. a nearly 20-year-old record, and i had to unwrap it to play it. interestingly enough, that made it the first record i have owned on cd, tape, and vinyl. i think it is worthy of the distinction, really a masterpiece of a record, combines my taste for theme, precision, thoughtfulness and heaviness. if you've never heard it, i'm not going to tell you to listen to it, because if you still haven't heard it, odds are good that you don't give a fuck about some prog-metal concept album. that being said, the story it tells is still pretty interesting and better than one would expect out of some 80s band with hair like they had. i found another can't-refuse record in pink floyd's music from the movie more. just can't pass on floyd vinyl, and i actually have always been fond of this one. it isn't exactly canonical in the collections of people who profess to be fans of the band, but has some really cool tracks, especially the unbelievably heavy for its time 'nile song' and the twin tune on the second side. green is the colour and cymbaline are very good too, i wonder what rick wright could have done if roger hadn't given him short shrift for so long. we may never know. the first thing i saw and knew i had to have when i walked up to the bar of vinyl, though, was a tom waits compilation called 'the asylum years'. every record store i've ever been to has had a tom waits section, and it is either always empty or has a copy of alice (which i own) and/or blood money, and never any of the old stuff. well, this was all old stuff, and it rules. the best stuff in my mind, though, is the tracks gleaned from small change and i guess i would have been as well off had i just found a copy of that, but this record has plenty of stuff i hadn't heard and will probably get more into. that being said, it was incredible to spin tom traubert's blues, step right up, and small change itself. it was also interesting to hear waits' variety of vocalization; he's right up there with robert zimmerman himself for having an unstable vocal identity. you would think after all the waxing iv'e already done on this, well, wax, i would be satisfied. and i was. but as i curled through the final tendril of the flea market of the people i ran into yet another giant table full of records flanked by additional tables of records, with boxes of records beneath all the tables. fortunately, i had already put myself on a budget and resisted severe temptation to seriously peruse and purchase, but i was not going to go back to the damn atm. that just ain't right on a fixed income. i am definitely not buying more for a while, especially because i did have a little more money and did give the selection a gander. i once again can't mention the vast amount of reputable records i didn't get, but i walked away with a personal and nearly-universal classic in van morrison's moondance, which i have sorely missed on vinyl, and a beautiful copy of the talking heads' 'stop making sense". the thing is, i already own a copy of that, and a damn good one at that. but the one dude who has taken me to every record store i've been to in this city has been looking for that unsuccessfully for a long time and i saw the guy next to me flip past it and i immediately snatched it with that guy in mind. he got a parking ticket the first time we went to look for records; i felt this was the least i could do: 5 bucks! i swear some people just don't know what they have sometimes. or maybe i value things much differently. performance over rarity; not that the two are mutually exclusive. all in all, a pleasant haul.
thanks for reading me ramble about records. the alternative was to bitch about school, and i just felt that this was more worthwhile, even though i still spent more time with required reading than looking through pleasing cardboard packaging. let's see... the other day i wheeled my cart (sweet donation from my sister) to go grocery shopping for the first time, and it was certainly an experience. have you ever wheeled a cart 10 blocks to go grocery shopping, empty on the way there (awkward to be seen) and full as shit on the way back (awkward to pilot)? i've gotten groceries without it before, but i had to get litter and food for los gatos and fuck if i'm gonna haul forty fuckin pounds of litter and twenty pounds of food back by hand or pay like 50% price increases for smaller quantities, so car hauling it is. there are worse things. if i was that worried about it i would get around to getting a car share thing going and use that. i do miss driving. but i don't know about driving in this city. gun rue it ain't. sweet and ridiculous indeed. anyway, the best pick-up of my shopping experience was a bottle of cholula hot sauce. it makes almost everything better. in retrospect, i'm surprised i haven't gone through a phase of putting hot sauce on damn near everything already, but now is certainly the time. i've recently been getting all of my cheesesteaks with hot sauce, which has consistently proven to be a genius food maneuver. rest assured i've considered crepes with hot sauce. the strange thing about hot sauce is that it must have been invented and developed to make anything more interesting and easier to eat and yet it paradoxically is devoid of caloric content. this is why it is generally considered why it is an element of poor cuisine; it obscures taste to a greater degree than it enhances it when used even in modesty. but if you're just eating a cheap ham and swiss on shitty bread, what the hell, why not? it also has served to perpetuate my longstanding and ever-tiring peanut butter habit. i'm also finally mastering the art of natural peanut butter after a tradition of losing most of the oily part in one sort of disaster or another. i've caved once or twice and gone for that hydrogenated bullshit, and as good as it is i feel like i'ts just wrong. i'm not an exceptionally healthy person or anything, but for some reason hydrogenated oils have outraged me since the first time i encountered chemistry. i will concede, however, that trans fats are necessary. i can't find any internet articles, but the metro the other day had a feature about how some city council rep got a bunch of bakers to bring in a ton of pastries, some of which had trans fats and some which did not, and apparently the reaction was that trans fats made certain things way more delicious, and was i believe deemed necessary and allowable. either way, i like the fact that the city council took up their civic duty to eat a shit ton of pastries. something about that is very old school, kind of typical i guess. i wonder how much beer germanic statesmen consumed in considering the reinheitsgebot. all in a day's work, i suppose. and here i thought i could never come up with a good job for me to have.