Observations: Mr Music Head, Norman, the single theory

In my place of work we print about 9 month a year and then get farmed out to the tenth level of Dante's Inferno we call Packaging to which we join the other zombies down there of fixed breaks, forced exercises and the grueling task of hearing Pauly or Tandy bitching about how late we are coming back from walking around the building during break and missing these important exercises that aren't fun and moreorless takes us back to the era of slavery.  Sad to say we'll be down there most of the end of the year unless I can break my arm or get a heart attack from the stress levels down there.

We have characters of note down there.  Brad the main guy from days is super nice and always takes time out to say hi to you whenever he can.  Pauly on the other hand would had fit in well with the GOP or better yet the Nazi's of Germany fame.  And Tandy tends to bitch at the slightest thing, I think we had a row with him on my earphones that drowned out the noise down there and not the ones I listen to on the discman.  But then again if you were a guy and named Tandy perhaps you too can be pissed at the world for your folks giving you a girl's name, or perhaps hanging too much at Radio Shack. Enough of them.

Norman is an interesting person.  Mention his name around town and you hear things like asshole or dumb SOB but he is a gruff dude but he hasn't had much luck in love  I used to know him from the Rock n Bach days when we both hanged out there but at time he was dating and eventually marrying (and divorcing) the owner's daughter to which I kinda had eyes on but never really made much of an effort to go after her (much to Norm's chagrin, J/K).  His latest GF worked up there but then got let go due to department issues and lately they haven't been seeing things eye to eye.  He's a big Chargers fan, more so than I, he likes Philip Rivers enough to wear his jersey, I think Rivers is overrated myself and hate the new Chargers uniforms.  He is a person that needs the companionship of a woman whereas I myself are more into my own company and where the road leads.

Bob is another co worker in packaging that I knew offhand from a record store he used to own in Coralville years ago, Mr. Music Head was the name of it and me and Thomas was trying to remember it via our conversations of decent music stores around the area.  I know I been to Mr Music Head a couple times in the 90s but wasn't called a regular but Bob's store died along the time that Napster came about, the internet came about and the reality record stores were beginning to closed one by one.  Another dude that owned Sweet Living Antiques also worked at my place of work for a time being as well, as well as Gayla Drake Paul, one of the best female guitar pickers in the area.  Bob is more cynical than I am, he speaks up his mind in town hall meetings at our workplace and really gives it to the braintrust.  He's 58 now, gotten past a heroin addiction and we got to be talking about tunes and music since we are both the same type of person that likes much music.  He's more in the DBs, a band that I never got much into myself, he likes their early stuff, I like the Peter Hosapple era and it's kinda funny to see Bob hop around dancing and playing air guitar to Soul Kiss.  However he did lend me a bunch of Julian Cope stuff, another artist that I never gave much credence about although the Skellington EP is Cope at his weirdest fun.  Another interesting CD was P, the bizarre band with Gibby Hayes and Johnny Depp playing songs in a Butthole Surfer way, some good, mostly bad and some unlistenable squawk noise that I hit the next button on the car player.  But for fun stuff like The Deal or I Save Cigarette Butts, we get the usual F bombs like Mr. Officer or White Man Sings The Blues.  In this day and age it still amazes me that Capitol even put this out as well as couple of Butthole Surfers albums in the 90s but you had to be there.

Bob mentioned that he's moved back home to help out with finances with his ex and seeing his children on a day to day basis again and invited me to check out what he had for vinyl but in the future I might do that.  But for the most part at least I owe him My Nation Underground by Julian Cope (it's the only album on biz torrent that isn't on there he says, reason was that Cope disowned it since it was produced by Ron Fair, hack producer for Pink or Liz Phair later on). Although Mr Music Head is still listed on the online yellow pages it isn't there, Bob closed it down about a decade ago but where he used to have it was where the old Coralville Post Office was at.  Like the majority of folks today Bob doesn't buy CDs, he enjoys the the internet Biz Torrent and most of the time just dances away to DBs or Beck playing on his I Phone.  Myself, I have yet to come over to the Iphone or IPod or I anything but maybe perhaps it's me in my twilight refusing to come abroad to the great jukebox in the sky.  As I sit here and plan for my vacation and looking for more of the outdated CD and album format I tend to be set in my ways in a era to which the things I grew up are now becoming a thing of the past and have no idea what to expect to find on the AZ/Vegas trip.

In the meantime, I still have a couple more Julian Cope CDs to get through before it's all said and done.