Month: May 2006

For a while now I’ve been tracking down digital versions of the songs that used to be in my collection of mix tapes. I haven’t had a working tape deck in years, so when I moved out of the Swanktuary a few years ago I decided to finally get rid of all the cassettes that had been taking up space. That collection included plenty of records that I’d already replaced on CD (and plenty I was happy to forget about altogether), but it also included an incredible collection of about 120 mix tapes that I had made between 1983 and 1999 or so. Most of those were 120-minute tapes, and they charted the development of my musical tastes during an era when my interests kept expanding in new directions. I taped from the radio, from my own albums, from other tapes, from friends’ collections — anywhere I could grab stuff that tickled my fancy. Some of those tapes were carefully cultivated mixes with segues that oozed with meaning, some were just randomly ordered. Most were fucking awesome.

I knew that a lot of incredible music would be lost to me forever when I ditched the tapes, but I keep kicking myself for not at least hanging on to all the labels I’d made, just so I’d have a record of what the collection contained. Not only would I be able to have some lists of what to hunt down now, but I’d also have some very tangible reminders of different parts of my life.

As I try to rebuild that library now, I find patterns emerging that I never would have guessed if I hadn’t been pulling all those old mix-tape tracks together in one place. For instance, tonight it just dawned on me that for a brief period (I’d guess around 1987 or so) I was really into Love and Rockets. Who knew? I certainly wouldn’t think to mention them in a list of my favorite bands, but as I go through their catalogue now, I find that I know most of the songs, and had a fair amount of them scattered throughout my mix tapes. Other bands who I really loved — Devo, New Order, the B-52’s — rarely made it onto the mix tapes because I would just listen to entire albums of theirs instead, and there was little need to introduce friends to their music via carefully chosen tracks on a mix.

It’s also amazing to think of how much mental energy (and cash) I once put into music fandom. That’s waned as other obsessions have consumed me over the years, and various periods of spending freeze derailed my ability to acquire new albums. My collection now is incredibly random, spanning many genres, many time periods, and the waxing and waning of many interests. My digital library has something to delight and horrify almost anyone, including myself.

My adored Teen Dentist has abandoned me. It’s nothing I take personally. After all, we both knew he’d be graduating in early May and passing me on to another student. Now he’s off to work in some hospital somewhere, and I never even got to see the animated music video he produced for the dental school talent show! Oh, the hearbreak…

Even in his absence he’s taking good care of me, though. He told me he was going to find me the best student he could because — as I learned last night from my replacement teen dentist (henceforth known as Teen Dentist 2) — I was the “best patient he’d ever had.” Even though TD2 is already way overbooked, Teen Dentist strongly urged him to make room for me in his schedule instead of passing me onto one of the sophomores, apparently the sad fate of most people whose student dentists graduate. (Sophomores! My god, I’m glad I dodged that bullet. I’ll take every year of experience I can get out of my student dentist, thanks.) I can only imagine what the parade of freaks must be like at that clinic, because at the end of last night’s visit Teen Dentist 2 seemed amazed and delighted by me, and swore that Teen Dentist was right about me being a fantastic patient. Maybe it’s just because I’m chipper and don’t complain, or maybe the student dentists like you to have enough curiosity to get them talking about what they’re doing. Whatever it is, I’ve got it. Apparently, I also got some fantastic work out of Teen Dentist: TD2 was awfully impressed by what he saw.

I don’t know much about TD2 yet, other than he’s Asian, from Alaska, plans on settling in Seattle after graduation, gets teased for having really girly handwriting (frankly, I like a medical professional with legible handwritign like that), and he knows a little about comic books. He’s not all dorky and dreamy like Teen Dentist, but he’s a good kid, and I’m glad I that I’ve been left in good hands.

While sorting yet another batch of old photos this weekend, I realized that I’ve been back in New York for about ten years. Ten years! No wonder I’m dying for a change of pace. Ten years in a place like this is time enough for plenty of ups and downs, but I’m ready to take a break from such a wide spectrum of experience. Although I can say New York itself is more responsible for the ups than the downs, I’ve had enough massive downs during these last ten years that I just want to go someplace more low-key and bury my head in the sand (or rather, in a pile of nerdy typography books) for a while.

Yes, I’ll miss good pizza and Coney Island and WYSIWYG and corner delis and this city’s particular blend of people, and all the possibilities for enlightenment and adventure that brought me back here in the first place. However, I won’t miss subway rush-hour hostility or the crowds along 34th Street or endless commuting or throngs of wannabe “Sex and the City” girls screeching around the East Village or another generic “luxury” apartment building replacing something I loved. I’ll miss a lot of specific people, but I’ve become so isolated through depression-fueled negligence that I miss those people already.

When I left Boston after living there for almost eight years, I felt like I had pretty much finished it. Here, I still don’t feel like I’ve even scratched the surface, which is exactly the kind of endless promise that brought me back in the first place. Living here is damn hard, though, and frankly I need a rest.

When my pal Mark and I snagged that massive loft in Bushwick ten years ago, we were young and full of enthusiasm. The ridiculous misadventures we had living there were only the first of many absurdities that make for good stories but a wearisome way of life. (I keep forgetting that those were the pre-blog years — most of you don’t even know the full wackiness of Junky Alfredo or Texas Trevor or the Crackhouse Stake-Out or the weekly thrift store binges!) Just as Mark has been pulled back to New York over and over again through the years, I’m sure I’ll never escape the event horizon of this place. I don’t think I want to. But it’ll be interesting to try.