2011 NOTE: This was taken from my My Space blog about the end of the last decade. It was written 12-26-2010 and gives a better account of the closing of the decade. Does it add anything not really but when I read it, it tends to jog my memories on some things. I tend to bring back some of my best blogs from My Space from time to time. R.S.
We're five days away from the end of a decade that will go down as the worst in music history and so forth. I am just about four years done here at My Space of comment, thought and top tens.
I am watching it snow. Big fluffy flakes, not unlike the cold wet crap that gave us 14 inches two weeks ago, nor the inch and half of rain and freeze of this week but the kind of fluffy flakes to which people dream of white Christmases and hope they don't get into the ditch on icy roads. It's been a strange year, a year that begin with change and still got the same old Governmental runaround. Turns out that Obama wasn't the saviour as people predicted, we forgot the idiots in the house and senate looking after the lobbyists interest and not you and me. And of course the FOX News Fucks kept pointing that out and they're still POed after the Halfwit and Neo Nazi got kicked to the curb. And it turned out that the Neo Nazi was running things.
I'm surprised that I have survived this decade of 8 years of one of the worst presidents we ever had and by far the worst VP the world has seen. I saw greed running rampant even to this day. Crappy movies, crappy albums and American Idol to boot. As I look back on this decade, I don't remember with fondness about anything all that much, in fact the more I forget about this decade the better. Two major ice storms in 2006 and 2007 that wiped power out of here for a week, The dammed Parkersburg/New Hartford tornado that wiped out half of Parkersburg but somehow spared the Honorable Chuck Grassley pig farm. And the tornado made it as far as around Dike to which had another tornado a year ago. And the tornado that rocked through Iowa City and another around Anamosa in 2006 but somehow spared the new Wal Mart. And 2008, the worst year ever in terms of weather, go from 62 inches of snow on the ground in April to a damn wet spring of rain every other day till 10 inches of rain on a swollen Cedar River, ballooned it to 31.3 feet and damn near took out most of the low lying areas in Cedar Rapids. Appently the 1993 flood wasn't enough we had to have a 500 year flood to go with that 100 year flood. And I hope to God that I never had to deal such extreme weather shit ever again.
There wasn't very many highlights in this decade. We bring in the new decade with my best friend and his wife and ex GF Olivia up in Dubuque and spent New Years going to Galena. That was the high point and then things changed. Losing Olivia to the next guy that she would eventually marry, then seeing my best friend getting married to his date a year later. I did eventually start dating another west coast woman in 2001 but once 9/11 came around and a week long trip to Seattle became a wasted time something changed in her or she was too wacked on drugs, we parted on bad terms. Eventually drugs would get the best of her in 2004 and she's into the next world. And for the next 8 years I didn't show much interest in falling in love and basically wrote the decade off by going on bargain hunts to Madison and Phoenix and watching technology bypass the CD into obsoleteness. The Pawnshops quit having big inventories of cds for me to check out but then again we were starting to lose the record stores around here, Relics, Rock n Bach, Ratz, Co Op all started shutting their doors up here, and the chain stores such as CDs Plus, CD Warehouse, Wherehouse Music, Sam Goody, Tower Records and FYE closing them down left and right. In the end Best Buy won out but for the record and cd collector such as myself, I had to pretty much hit the road to find decent music stores.
And we lost plenty of decent eateries along the way. MiCasa in Mount Vernon, best Mexican Food place ever in this state closed up in 2003, Moreno's in 2006, Jimmy Jack's and Taco Time here this year. Shakey's in Coralville was gone too. But I managed to find other replacements to go to, Villa's Patio for one, Marco's Pizza another, El Rancho in IC likewise. Something new will come around and replace the old and the cycle will repeat on and on.
Musicwise, I did okay finding things at Half Priced Books, which has become my second home and a much needed alternative music to find cheap as well as Goodwill and Salvation Army. But after 35 years of reviewing new music and finding most of it wasn't that great, I threw in the towel and starting next year will focus strictly on music of the past and yet to be discovered. We have 80 years to choose from and besides, the major labels don't put out great or even good music anymore, it's all crap and all rap and autotuned pap smear pop. And after years of trying to find what's so musicial about Kid A or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as these critics calls them the best albums ever in this decade, I shrugged my shoulders and said they suck and turned in my reviewers' card. To me the best album of the decade remained The Beatles' 1 or Brian Wilson Presents Smile. Radiohead didn't change my view at all, it just made me go back to listening to Pink Floyd from time to time.
My life is at the crossroads as after the infamous 2008 flood, I found myself three months later at Crookton Pass Bridge, outside of Seligman in late august and listening to the silence of the night and watching stars from above while trains came and gone. I was alone at that time and figure that this was as good as it gets and really didn't want to return home. I was tired of trying to keep the basement dry from all the damn water in the basement due to constant rains in May and June, tired of shitty winters and tired of remembering past realtionships that didn't go nowhere or thinking of past GFs that forgotten me long time ago. Last time i did go out to meet somebody was four years ago and unfortunly two days before meeting up, my wisdom tooth shattered and I spent most of that time under a OxyCondin haze and the worst tooth pain imaginable.
So after that and almost getting scammed by some Russian chick, I became a Solitary Man.
To which my biggest supporter of the blogs took notice of this. Not that I really cared all that much actually I did, but I met her during the 2000 St Louis Mingles Party and we chatted online off and on for most of this decade till she took a shot a courage and asked me out in August. Like Brooksie, Sassy was a contributor to the top ten and little did I know that she was thinking of big plans for being together. And so the St Louis Mingles Reunion Party of 2009 was only me and her but we did managed to see the sights, the music stores and in the end she became mine in the end. Wasn't expecting that but it was planned that way.
So as we close down this decade, it looks like that I will bring in the new year's with my best friend and his wife but also with a new woman that has been here all along most of the ride. I don't know what the next decade will bring, there will be chaos, there'll be tornados and floods and hurricanes and high gas prices to contend with. I may not make it back here ten years from now. I also can't say if I will continue to blog and put top tens together like i have been the last four years here and the last seven at the end of this year. I remain hopeful, thats all we can do.
In 2010 I'm sure the Crabb Music Review will continue onward but with a more eye towards the past and bands that I think should be noticed. Im not here on My Space all that much and sometimes when I do go take a look at some of your profiles that I noticed that you haven't had old Crabby in your top friends list or you somehow booted him off while you added more friends to your list and basically that's your right. Crabby says that the door is always open for you to leave comments and drop by to say hello.
