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I Will Never Forgive Him

My grandfather got rid of it a few months before I started driving—ostensibly because he was having too much trouble getting in and out of the car. I’d wanted to be able to drive it since I was small enough to lay out on the back panel between the seats and rear window and watch the world go by.

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Suburbia, 1973

Lit up like the Poltergeist House

That caption isn’t too far off the mark. We swear—even though it was brand new construction on a former onion field and we were the first owners—the place was haunted.

We’d all be downstairs in the family room (or me in my bedroom which was also on the same level) and doors would slam up in the bedrooms upstairs, even though there were no windows openand noting else to cause a breeze.

Once, on the verge of sleep, I found walking up the stairs that went from the lower level to the ground floor. I looked over my shoulder and saw myself asleep in bed. I turned around and was greeted by what I can only call a shadow figure (gives me chills now jsut remembering it). I knew he wanted into my body. He lunged at me. We wrestled, tumbling down the stairs. I got up the literally dove back into my sleeping body.

After I’d gone off to college, Mom took to sleeping in my bed downstairs because Dad’s snoring had gotten too insufferable. That was, until one night when she was violently shaken out of the bed. “Never again,” was all she said of the incident.

I mean look at all those smiling faces. What kind of entity would bear that family any ill will? (Taken at the grandparents’ place in Sun City later that year (probably Thanksgiving or Christmas).

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50 Years Ago

Navajo Hall dorm room. One month after starting at the University of Arizona.

Oh the places you’ll go. The things you’ll see. The men you’ll love…all of which will ultimately transform you into who you are now.

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In Honor Of Dolly

This record is among the half dozen or so pieces of vinyl in my collection at the time that survived “the great purge” in the late 80s. I never thought it was a particularly good record, but it still held some sentimental value that caused me to keep it back then and even today I remember the afternoon I bought it—and where.

It was sometime in the fall of 1978. As is typical with Phoenix that time of year, it was balmy. The extreme heat was gone for the season but it hadn’t yet turned cold. I’d gone to Odyssey Records on the southeast corner of Camelback and 12th Street in search of something else, but this record was prominently displayed in the store’s 12-inch singles section. Naturally I’d heard it in the clubs by this point, but it hadn’t grabbed me enough to actually rush out and get a copy. It seemed that Dolly—like Rod Stewart—had been pushed in the disco direction unwittingly and it showed.

But then I saw it…the pink vinyl peeking out of the center hole of the sleeve.

I had to get it if only for that one aspect. Finding colored vinyl in the wild back in the day was a pretty rare occurrence. Would I have gotten if it were standard black vinyl?

In all honesty, probably not. This was years before 9 to 5 or Best Little Whorehouse in Texas or Fried Green Tomatoes. Naturally I knew who she was and I was familiar with many of her songs, but Dolly really hadn’t made an impact on my consciousness yet. Of course, all that changed over the next 40 years and while I considered Baby I’m Burnin’ more of a novelty than anything else at the time, it’s become one of my most treasured records.

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Tonight’s CD To MiniDisc Dub Session

Saint Tropez – Belle De Jour (1979)

I’d been a fan of Saint Tropez since their initial release, Je T’aime in 1977. It was sexy, slow-dancing disco, and in fact the main track from that album, Violation was the first time I’d ever slow danced with another man, David Martinez.

Belle de Jour is one of my favorite disco records from 1979 and one of only two album covers I have framed.

After I heard Belle De Jour the first time that night back in ’79, I left the club, gave up my prime parking spot and drove downtown to Circles Records. Firstly because if anyone in town had this record, it would be them, and secondly—well, they were open until midnight…

Sadly, they didn’t yet have it in stock, so I drove back to the club and was rewarded later that evening by the DJ playing the track a second time.

I did finally get a copy not too long after that and—like J’Taime—acquired a copy of its own translucent pink vinyl version via Discogs about ten years ago.

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