End Of Month Thoughts For The Year and Summary

Funny how this year we started out with a foot of snow on the ground and endless cold but as I write this it is a balmy 45 degrees today.  No snow on the ground anywhere, the purist hate it but I enjoy this.  It kinda reminds me of the winter of 25 years ago when my folks said that the weather was nice and warm while I was in Arizona. Despite what Nicole says I don't think I complained about this weather at all.  The fall weather was beautiful and the first  week of winter have been anything but.

It's been a year to remember.  We bitched about the floods of 2008 and the winters of 2007 to 2010 of ice, blizzards and below zero and I figure it was our reward for hanging in there and putting up with the bad weather of yore.  I'm still certain we'll get our share of blizzards in the forthcoming months but for now I'll take this with a smile and a Thank You To God for his blessing of this wonderful weather.

I was in Oxford Junction yesterday, taking the day off after having lunch with Nicole and going to work only to find that they were sending us back out to Packaging again so I asked for the day off and decided to pay somebody a visit.  It took me a while to get there, after all I went on a blind dare and drive and found the place of question.  Oxford Junction is off 136, on the way to the 61 Drive In on the outskirts of Maquoketa and around the banks of the Wapsipinicon.  I found the grave yard and spent about 15 minutes paying my last respects to Mark Lasack, who died last month from a heart attack.  Mark and I go back to the days of Printing in Iowa City before we got moved back to Cedar Rapids and for years was the go to man if we wanted our IBM printers fixed right.  He was a colorful man, we talked sports but like myself he had a explosive temper that probably caused his heart attack at age 60.  I didn't make his funeral but if I had a day off I would go visit his gravesite.  To which I did yesterday.   His resting place overlooks 136 to the west, just like  Glarice Kula's site overlooks the hillsite on her gravesite in the countryside.

The major story of this year here was how many people I knew that died. No fewer than five of them were co workers at NCS/Pearson, beginning with Jim Rogers in May, Patrick Marzen in July, Smoe Pyrick in September and another co worker in packaging one month later.  I hate going to funerals or visitations, seeing somebody lie in state and I break down too, did that when me and Shannon embraced on Rogers' funeral.  But the one that shattered me most this year was Dennis Pusateri's passing in July.  I guess I'll be forever hunted by the fact that I saw him three weeks before at Hy Vee on my way to get some nasty Chinese food and the shits and see him in the cafeteria, bullshitting away and then on my out seeing him get on his motorcycle and ride off to the sunset.  And thinking next time....and three weeks later reading his obit and crying my eyes out the next three days before going to his visitation.  But thankfully he was cremated and they had hard rock music playing in the background, the way he liked it.  Me and Dennis go back to the days of Pell Grant key entry when we were trading cassette tapes and cds while working and basically driving the heads up the wall at that time.

Not only Dennis passed but three weeks afterwards, his mom also passed away and like before I made the drive to visit her gravesite to where she's reunited with her husband and Matt Pusateri, whose murder in 1988 was never solved, the cycle was complete and the reunion in heaven was complete.  But I'm sure on the backroads of the desert rides the spirit of Dennis.

We buried too many good people this year and hopefully that won't be the case for next year but I'm sure death will return in one way or another as people I know go into the great beyond, which probably means that I'll be making another road trip to visit their resting place when the time comes.

On the other hand more things came to an end too.  Beaker Street, the Clyde Clifford underground radio show that was a fixture for many many years ended broadcast on the first week in February and the R Smith Sunday Night Show followed suit in July.   Gordon Anderson leaves Collector's Choice Music and moves over to Real Gone Records.  Sony Music kills off Arista Records, 107.1 becomes a faceless Top Forty Radio station, Mix 96.5 becomes another copy cat Country station.  Adult Contemporary is losing out to New Country and nobody cares about rock and roll anymore.  And EMI gets sold off to Sony Music for Publishing and Universal for music.  And Cumulus and Clear Channel Radio continues to fuck us over with the same old shit and call it something new and exciting.  Only KMRY remains the go to channel although they continue to bore us with fucking Margaritaville every other hour.

For the most part, I did my three trips to Madison,  got to see first hand the hostile union people as they shouted out "recall Walker", the GOP governor they elected and the first thing he did was take away most of their collective bargaining agreement.  So got to see the protestors and had some Ian's Pizza by the slice that they were talking about, then moved on to Pawn America to see if I can find some dollar cds that may have been overlooked by the bargain hunters out there.  Mostly I stayed close by with adventures to Dubuque and Iowa City most and not much anyplace else.  As long as we had our own Half Priced Books, we actually did fine.  On the recommendation of Nicole I did plan another Arizona trip and went out there for a week, spending half of the time in Tucson and the rest in Chandler/Mesa and not much into Phoenix.  I went to Tombstone and for the first time it didn't rain there.  The sun shined 99 percent of the time.  I didn't head up north, but did spend a afternoon at Prescott to familar myself with what Hastings had to offer for music.  This time I paced myself and stayed south and east of Phoenix and not into Flagstaff or Kingman.  Arizona wasn't planned but I did go and glad I went but the time flew by more faster than I wanted it too.  And 25 years ago I moved down there for a better life, now I just visit it a week out of every year to think what could have been.

Sportwise, all my teams sucked.  Chargers, Cubs, Orioles, Arizona State, Iowa Hawkeyes, sucked.  The Sun Devils did the biggest collaspe in their career and it cost Dennis Erickson his job and his reputation. Chargers underachieved which means that Norm Turner will be going bye bye and hopefully AJ Smith whose done nothing but tear apart a team that could have gone to the Super Bowl.  And trading away Drew Brees forever made me hate Ass Jack Smith forever, whereas Brees rewrote the passing record mark set by Dan Marino, Philip Rivers was being sacked time and time again by a offense line that was patch work at best.   The Cubs stunk from the word go and would not win 2 games in a row till July and while the Orioles were in first place the first week of the season, somebody forgot to tell them to play the rest of the season.  To which they return to their familiar surrounding of last place again.  And the Hawkeyes?  The Basketball team is still rebuilding, the football defense was subpar and Minnesota kept Floyd Of Rosedale for another year.  So it goes.

The biggest news of the year had to be Nicole moving down here.  She came down in May and moved in for a bit before getting her own place a month later.  To which I split time there.  Love is a work in progess, and yes we do have our good and so so moments.  I'm sure for next year I'll be moving some of my inventory down to her place for a feel of home, but as I have found out the hard way, I do have a lot of crap and clutter and her place is bit more neat and tidy.   Unfortunately, the place that hired her was a joke that kept changing the rules and regulations and eventually she got let go before being there three months, another slap in the face from a worthless company that doesn't care about their employees.  Home Choice Care sucks and I do not recommend them for anything, except shitting in a paper bag, setting it on fire and leaving it at their front doorstep and having Kolleen stepping on it and getting a foot-full of poo.  Nevertheless, Nicole paid a big price for coming here but when you're in love with a person obsessed with music and blogging about music, she made the ultimate sacrifice.   But when she flashes her big pudding grins, you can't help but love her too.

As we look forward to a new year and a new beginning, there is no idea what I will be doing blog wise or struggling through like just like the rest you do.   Or deciding what to do on the future of the RS CRABB MUSIC REVIEW ETC, or wonder if keep doing a top ten is worth the effort, or to comment on some forgotten band that isn't the Beatles or Stones or Led Zeppelin.  Sometimes it's a obsession to get Universal to reissue The Brains album but knowing we probably failed since that asshole label doesn't want to reissue it but they'll reissue Motley Crue ten more times or Elvis Costello or rebuy the Rolling Stones output.   And Life does overrule music anymore.   The past fall we been stuck with lying assed Republicans trying to get our vote and wishing we can keep Newt Gingrich or Good Hair Rick Perry out of here.  After the 4th, we can be done with them, till spring when we'll get attack ads again as they try to replace Obama.  I'm not impressed with Obama but at least he got Bin Laden.  I think we are all tired of the lies and BS that the Speaker Of The House Boehner said if elected he was going to create jobs and all he and Eric Cantor done is create headaches for everybody.  And the price of gas continues to go up everyday.  Basically music isn't as it used to be, the new stuff while okay isn't for the ages and I doubt if I'll be playing Bon Iver or Fleet Foxes or Iron & Wine and even the new Wilco a year from now anyway.

The new year will probably see me do my usual in terms of finding bargains and whatever is found in the cheap bins.  Dubuque did lose Borders but the replacement is Books A Million or BAM and basically musicwise they're not a lot different from Borders.  In fact when you go there in Dubuque it is still the same atmosphere in a way but it's really not the same.  But it does keep me going there a bit more often than say, Davenport.  And they still have Moondog Music and CD's 4 Change to which the owner gave me a box of records without covers.  I did have a talk with him about saying that someday, there won't be a record store, we'll probably be sitting at home listening to it all of what we found over the years and he agreed with me.  There's not a lot of us still around, but they're out there.  I've seen a few of them in the bargain section of HP Books.......

This month has been the best viewership with over 1,600 views from y'all out there.  I like to acknowledge some of the ones out there for at least commenting over the years, Tad, Drew, Rastro, my three amigos from Blogspot.  Jeff Higgins at Groove Sandwich for adding a link and commenting from time to time on Twitter.  Starman who from the old Roost at About.com and later MSN who continued to support his favorite music and his comments are always welcomed.  The Vinyl King, who hasn't been online much since being married to Connie earlier this year but remains very music know how.  The musicians that stopped in, Mike Eldred for the support and the T shirt to his latest album and of course Tom Gray of Delta Moon who used to be The Brain for The Brains but for the past decade part of the roots rock blues boogie of Delta Moon.  If you're reading this Tom, I'm going to do my damnest to get that Brains album back in print, if it's the only music contribution that I ever make despite being the leader of The Townedgers (from 1983-2008).  To Dennis Pusateri, from the great beyond, miss you brother, we never know how we miss our friends till they're gone.  Live for the moment cuz tomorrow you might not be here.

And to Nicole, the woman most likely to drive me insane, make me smile, laugh and cuss at the same instant.  A definite version of love that isn't perfect but a perfect love isn't perfect but perhaps  last a lifetime.  And to which has survived longer than any of Sinead OConnor's 4 marriages and whatever Kim Kardashian passes for love.  My love isn't perfect but I do love you Nicole.

And to the rest of y'all, thanks for your support, see ya next year if and when the moment arrives.....

"You're On Your Own"....Mark Lasack  1951-2011