I’ve been crashing hard on Mondays. It’s been getting worse.
My pattern on cottage weekends goes something like this. Wake up Sunday, clean the dishes, get rid of the garbage, and pack up my things to go home. We usually leave the lake on Sundays around 11:00 AM, arriving home around 1:00 PM. I start feeling pretty down around the time of departure. It is very hard to leave that place. It doesn’t matter what music we pick in the car on the way home. This last trip, we went back to the late 80s with Blow Up Your Video by AC/DC and Dream Evil by Dio. What we listen to doesn’t seem to change the mood.
When we get home, we unpack, turn on the air conditioning, and decide what to do about food. Usually, to cheer myself up, I order something in. Sometimes this causes frustration at home, because Jen and I can rarely agree on food. If she’s craving it, I’m burned out on it. If I want it, she’s allergic to it. We usually end up with something overpriced that neither of us were happy with.
I start to feel down in the dumps by late afternoon, and really tired. I’m almost always in bed before 7:00 PM on a Sunday night.
Through the night, I can feel anxiety gathering, in my dreams. I will dream of jobs. Of work. Of things that I have to return to when I come home from the lake. I can often stop the dream, and think about other things, but these dreams are just symptoms, not the problem.
No matter how much sleep I get that night, I just stay in bed. My alarm goes off; I hit snooze. Sometimes it can be 12 hours in bed and I’m still tired.
Monday is often a trainwreck. I’m usually in a terrible mood, and usually go to bed again without eating that night.
Wildfires are more and more common as the world warms, but this year has been something else.
The sunsets have been alien and unimpressive. The sun appears as a red dot, but disappears before reaching the horizon. You can’t smell or taste the smoke, like you could in 2023, but the visuals are more obvious in 2025. The windmills that dot Bruce County disappear into the distance. The horizon isn’t a clear line, but a blur. The sky is a hazy blue-grey. The water is a shimmery silver. It is like we live on an alien world, or a place from a science fiction dystopian novel.
This is the first chapter I have written since we lost Grandma on July 30, 2025. If she were here, I would show her the photos and videos and ask if she had ever seen the lake like this, in her 60 or so years at Lorne Beach. While I can never ask her now, I feel like the answer would be no. I don’t think she’d ever seen a sky like this on Lake Huron.
Grandma’s funeral will be August 22. I have been asked to speak. I would have wanted to speak even if I was not asked, but now that the task is ahead of me, I am strangely without words. I have things I want to say, but these thoughts are disorganized and jumbled. When I speak at her funeral, I want it to be the best speech I’ve ever given. I have spoken at weddings, funerals, and my Grade 2 English project, but this feels like the most important speech I have had to do yet. What to say?
I wish I could show you the wildfire haze, Grandma. Actually I wish you were there on the weekends like you used to be. I used to drive her to the lake. I would pick the music. She liked my picks. She didn’t even mind Sloan’s 4 Nights at the Palais Royale, which was the exact length that it took to go from her driveway in Waterloo to her cottage. A few weeks ago, we decided to drive to the cottage listening to music she’d like, so we picked the Swingers soundtrack. She loved Dean Martin. She loved Tony Bennett. A lot of our family’s musical inclination came from her side of the family. Though my dad played saxophone, Grandma’s family were the musicians.
I miss talking to her. I used to say she was the only one in my family who understood me when I spoke.
I’m going to have to come up with a heck of a speech for her.
I wrote this over two years ago. We thought she was gone, four or five times since 2022. Now it is the sad time to post it.
For most of my life I’ve only had one grandparent. I never knew Grandma Ladano – she’s been gone over 70 years. Grampa Ladano died in 1981. Grampa Winter left us in 1984. For over 40 years, I’ve only had one grandparent and she’s the best one you could ever ask for.
I was a cheeky kid. Around the time I started highschool, I started calling my grandma “Dolly”. Everybody else called her Dolly (her real name is Doris), so we kids started doing it too. She never quite liked it though. I reverted to “grandma” in more recent years. I can’t remember the last time I called her “Dolly” but that’s what her friends called her!
She babysat me when I was really young and I have so many memories of being at her house. Playing games like Mousetrap and Clue. Reading books, watching the Flintstones. Grandma and Grampa took me to Welland to see the big boats at the canal. How exciting that was! I remember those big ships, so long that I could not even fit one into a single camera frame.
She was always good to us. When visiting, she’d serve up my favourite pork chops: in mushroom soup! Or, I’d eat all her Rice Krispies. My dad and I would dig carrots out of her garden. Oh, how she hated us stealing her carrots! Later on in life, I would have dinner at her house every Thursday night in between classes at school. Thursdays were my busy day. I had day classes and night classes. There was a short break between the end of the afternoon class and the night class, and my grandma lived really close to the university. I would eat with her for an hour and head back to school. We always had a nice visit. I remember during exams, I once forgot my pen so I quickly drove to her house, got a pen, and got back to my exam just in time to start! Her house – so many memories! An epic front hill, and lots of fun adventures in her yard.
She always tried to treat us right, though she didn’t know exactly what we liked. One birthday, she wrote me a cheque and asked me to use it to buy “one of your CD records”. Another time she bought me Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard Of Ozz, with him dressed as a priest holding a big cross! I know she didn’t pick that one! As a staunch Catholic she never would have picked that one! She prefers John McDermott to John “Ozzy” Osbourne.
When we travelled with Grandma, she was always a bit slower than the others, so I always hung back a bit to make sure she was OK. “Wait for the grandma!” I would shout as we walked through an airport in Toronto hauling all our bags. “Wait for the grandma!” I would always make sure we didn’t lose sight of her. Calgary 1997 with Grandma and Aunt Marie was one of my favourite trips ever.
In the years following that, I enjoyed driving Grandma to the cottage. I would pick her up after work, and we’ve drive up together. I played the music a little lower for her. She would point out things along the road that I couldn’t look at because I was too busy driving. “Look at the dandelions!” she would say with excitement, not realizing I was too busy keeping my eyes on traffic. She never drove, which we didn’t understand when we were little kids. An adult who didn’t drive? How unusual!
We loved spending time with her, shopping at Zellers or going to one of the restaurants she liked such as the Cedar Barn. She hates this story, but I can’t help but laugh. She wanted to treat my sister and I to lunch at the Cedar Barn, but when it came time to pay, they didn’t accept cheques or credit cards. Cash only. My sister and I scrounged enough together to pay for the lunch. It was funny to us at the time. She didn’t think it was funny, but I still smile. Sounds like a scene from a movie! Grandma invites the kids out to lunch, but then realizes she can’t pay! I think it’s pretty funny.
Speaking of scenes from movies, in 1998 we all went to the theater as a family: my mom, my aunt, my grandma and my sister. My mom and sister came with me to see Star Trek: Insurrection. Grandma and Aunt went to see You’ve Got Mail. Grandma loved it! Coming out, she said “I just saw the nicest movie. It was called There’s Mail Waiting For You!”. A few years later, she was telling us about another movie she liked called Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? She had actually seen O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Most of all, I’ll always cherish how much she loves a visit. The longer the better. Just a visit is all she needs to be happy. As she got older, she had to sell the cottage. She could no longer handle the travel. She sold the cottage to my sister, and every summer I make cottage videos for her to watch. One time I forgot my laptop. She noticed right away! The videos are a highlight of any visit. But all she needs is a visit.
In the end, she got tired. Tired of being tired all the time. She stayed for us, but everyone has their time to go.
RECORD STORE TALES #1201: Reno Schmeno! (What A Song Should Do)
The things we find and re-discover during renovations are exciting!
I was extremely anxious in the months leading up to replacing our windows. As classic collectors of merch (aka “hoarders”), we had to move a bunch of stuff and make a lot of space. We donated a lot of clothes, and we dug up a ton of cool stuff that we forgot we had.
In a box hidden away, I found five sealed Transformers toys (including four 3rd party toys) that were San Diego Comicon exclusives. I bought them years ago, cheap. I just sold the first one for $250. I also dug up some musical treats and memories that are only the tip of the iceberg.
More discoveries included binders full of collector’s cards, and a box full of Jen’s teenage and mid-20s CD collection. Some surefire embarrassments in there that will make for a great video post someday soon. I also found a box full of memorabilia, which I have purposefully not dug into yet, because I want to surprise myself on camera when I open it up.
As the kids say, if you don’t do it on camera, what’s the point of doing it?
Finally after several weekends of work, we were ready. New windows going in July 28. I tore down my PC and relocated it to a safe room. I covered everything in sheets. We over-prepared. This caused all my anxiety to melt away and transform into excitement. Our old windows were 34 years old. Last winter, you could feel the draft, and this summer they started to leak.
The window renovations were scheduled for 8:00 AM. I woke Jen up at 7:00 to do the final prep. We set up a nice area in the kitchen to sit and stay out of their way. They would need access to all the other rooms. Four windows in total, including bedroom and en-suite bathroom…and of course Grab A Stack HQ’s window.
8:00 ticked by. No trucks outside.
“Maybe they’re eating breakfast,” said Jen.
8:30. 9:00. No sign of the workers. I was impatient, but knew they would get there eventually.
Finally at 9:30 a truck rolled in. As the workers poured out, a second truck (a foreman) also pulled in.
“You guys have to get here at 8:00 AM!” he yelled.
“We’re trying,” replied one of the workers.
“It’s 9:30!” yelled the foreman. “You’re at the shop at 7:30; it doesn’t take two hours to get here!”
Fortunately, the workers were efficient, considerate and friendly once the work started. I didn’t want to have to move my actual desk at Grab A Stack HQ. It would be easier for me to move the the PC and peripherals while leaving the desk intact. The main worker said “no problem”. They did a great job working around my small desk.
The windows were all ripped out by 11:00 AM. The guys took a lunch break. Gleefully, I stuck my head out the gaping holes, seeing my home from an angle I’ve never had before. I have to admit, I had fun.
The workers were based out of St. Thomas, where I assume country music is the norm. Their truck was backed in close to my open window holes. I got to hear every song.
Every. Damn. Country song.
The one that sticks out the most reminded me of Bon Jovi, but not in a good way. It went like this:
Hell yeah, Me too, Yeah, that’s what a song should do.
I laughed to myself. What shit! I wonder if Iron Maiden would agree that a song should make you go “Hell yeah, me too”?
I asked my buddy Tim Durling, who works in radio and was familiar with the song, who sang this atrocity?
“That guy,” he responded. I laughed. Turns out it is a Canadian country singer named Tim Hicks. Of course he would be named Hicks.
I didn’t hear one single country song that I recognized the whole day. They all sounded like stuff that could have been on Lost Highway by Bon Jovi. Awful, but I looked at it as a learning experience, as I did the whole day.
The guys were done by about 3:00 PM. I set up my computer and started to refresh Grab A Stack HQ around my new window. It went so smooth. We only had two issues. My security camera won’t power up. I guess I must have dropped it. We also needed to get creative when hanging the blinds back up, but they are only temporary. We will be getting new ones to go with the new windows.
Jen and I are thrilled with our new windows and brighter spaces. We can’t wait to continue this project into 2026.
Playing music in my new brighter HQ makes me happy. Isn’t that what a song should do?
RECORD STORE TALES #1200: Birthdays, Castles and Cornfields
My goal when making drone videos is never to invade privacy, only to make cool videos of the things around me. Ever since 2022, Jen and I have been driving past this cool “castle” in the middle of nowhere. We have stopped to take pictures because it is such a whimsical looking place. I have long wanted to do a drone video of the castle we once called Deke’s Palace.
I woke up around 5:30 AM on my birthday. I chatted with friends and enjoyed a birthday steak for breakfast. I thought about driving somewhere to make a drone video. Around 8:00 I decided to wake up Jen and make a run into town. I packed up my Potensic drone and made our way up to the castle. We waited for three cars to pass, and then I was airborne. I saw no vehicles for the entire flight, but I did soar close enough to the castle to see its ramparts, battlements, and three turrets. I also hovered over a winding river, and zoomed low over a cornfield.
I always like to try to accomplish something new creatively when I can, and this counts as a brand new location. I am very happy with the resultant video.
After my flight, we went into the essential hobby store Leisure World, and I treated myself to a birthday gift.
Simply a wonderful birthday, enjoyed in the best place in the world.
Robert Lawson is a friend and authorSolidarity Forever: The Art and Soul of Stevie Van Zandt.* He recently posted this hilarious story on social media and I asked if I could use it. It is good to know there are still new Record Store Tales to be told!
RECORD STORE TALES#1199: The Springsteen Fan that Couldn’t Math
Bruce Springsteen recently released the second instalment of his Tracks box sets, called Tracks II: The Lost Albums. It contains seven albums’ worth of unreleased Bruce Springsteen, and has received critical and fan acclaim for the quality of its songs. Robert recently had an interested customer.
CUSTOMER: “How much is the new Springsteen boxed set, like $200?”
R: “Actually double that.”
CUSTOMER: “It’s $600???”
R: …sigh…
* Solidarity Forever is the definitive account of the musical journey of the music legend of Disciples of Soul, Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and anti-apartheid project Sun City fame, Little Steven Van Zandt. Following Van Zandt’s unforgettable sixty-year (and counting!) career from his beginnings with the Asbury Jukes and Springsteen to leading the Disciples of Soul, from touring, arranging, and producing timeless music to playing an onscreen gangster in The Sopranos and Lilyhammer, Solidarity Forever is packed with a level of detail that will impress devotees and enchant new fans.
Every song, every album, every single, live shows; bootlegs, production credits, covers, activism-everything is covered here and presented alongside fascinating interviews of over forty past and present band members and Van Zandt himself. A stunning work of music journalism and love letter to rock ‘n’ roll, Solidarity Forever delivers Little Steven’s story and the timeless messages of his music like never before.
“This is no time to be fighting each other What we need, what we need is solidarity.”
RECORD STORE TALES #1198: Happy 101st Birthday to Doris Anne Winter
One year ago today, we wished my Grandma Dolly a happy 100th birthday. She was visited by friends, and family from afar. She enjoyed cake and balloons. She legitimately had a good time. She actually had two parties: One for friends and neighbors and one just for close family and friends. She was exhausted by the end of it. Heck I’d be exhausted if I celebrated my birthday over two consecutive days, and I’m half her age.
Grandma is still with us today despite the odds, and will be celebrating 101 years. She doesn’t look the same anymore. The last six months have taken a toll as she has battled time and illness. Something in her just refuses to give in. Back in January, I did a special show with John Clauser as a tribute to my grandma, thinking we’d be losing her imminently. Now it is July.
Today she will just have a few visitors. There won’t be a lot of celebrating happening. She’s just too tired and weak. But she did truck on for another year, hitting another milestone. 101 years. Imagine being there for the roaring twenties, the dirty thirties, the Second World War and the baby boom. Picture living through the rapid advances of the 1950s amd 1960s, when television became the norm and Grandpa worked for Bell telephone, connecting all the neighbours with the latest technology for communication. Grandchildren arrived in the 1970s amd 1980s, and Grandma had a whole new adventure ahead of her, spoiling us. For us, when we were kids, being babysat by Grandma was a treat. She’d let us eat Rice Crispies with lots of sugar.
All this and more. Living through the 1990s when her Grandson learned to drive, and started taking her out on weekends. She’d make dinner for me every Thursday night when I was at school doing night classes. Anthropology 101. I loved that class. I would arrive stuffed full of her famous pork chops in mushroom soup. Onto a new millennium, and finally a global pandemic that closed her in as we tried to keep her safe. She survived two bouts with Covid. Imagine that.
I’m really proud of my Grandma for hanging on as hard as she has. We thought she was gone many times over the past three or four years. I brag about her a lot. A 100 year old is a rare thing, but a 101 year old is even more so. It doesn’t look like an easy existence, being 101 years old, but she lives for our visits. They are the highlight of her week. Fortunately she has lots of visitors. My mom goes to see her several days a week and she has friends visiting on the other days. Where she used to babysit me, now when I visit I sort of babysit her. She asks for the TV to be changed to the baseball game, or she asks for me to find her glasses. She can’t see very well anymore, but she likes the sound of the TV. She still loves her Blue Jays.
You never know what to expect when you go and visit Grandma these days, but I hope she has a good day today.
Happy birthday Grandma. We all love you. We just want you to have a nice day today, and we’ll see you very soon.
RECORD STORE TALES #1197: Moose Sausage & Mental Health
Summer is well on its way. I’ve waited a long time to get here.
I love doing live broadcasts from the cottage. This weekend was going to be packed full, just like our bags and boxes that we loaded in the car for our first trip of July. We hit the road at 4:30 on Thursday. Preparing for Friday’s live episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden, we played all of Live at Donington on the way to the lake. Not necessarily the best album for a lake drive, but Jen liked it, and it helped me prepare a little bit extra for the show.
Thursday night was peaceful, but hot. There was not much to do but play music on the porch. I cued up Tonight At Toad’s Place by Blotto, and started working on some show-related writing. Dr. Kathryn came over for a quick visit. We gossiped a bit about people we used to know, and after dark I shut it down for the night. Friday was going to be a fun day for us.
I began my Friday morning by cooking up a delicious moose sausage, and editing a new episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden. I wanted to do minimal editing, just to fix a couple spots with issues, but I ended up having a little more fun with it. At 8 AM we left for the butcher (The Beefway) and bought two steaks, a chicken breast, some lamb chops, and the best bacon I’ve ever cooked in my life. This extra thick cut bacon was so soft and sweet. It led me to an idea.
Canadian breakfast: moose sausage & mayo on a bun, with coffee.
We were going to do roasted potatoes on the BBQ. Jen likes to stuff hers with butter, but I had a different idea. I sliced up some fatty parts of the bacon and stuffed my potato with that. The end result was a delicious potato that tasted like a Smokey Bacon BBQ potato chip. The bacon pieces inside were soft and melted like butter in your mouth. A new masterpiece, but one that I feel I can only do with the exact right bacon. It has to be cut thick with lots of fat. And it worked beautifully.
The lamb, chicken and steaks also turned out really well. I did up some stuffed peppers with cream cheese, green onions and more bacon. The chicken breast ended up being the best one I’d ever made. The Beefway simply have the best food, and I have to admit I’m not too bad a chef myself. I used about half a bottle of BBQ sauce on one chicken breast, but that’s because I wanted it perfectly and completely coated. It came out so juicy and flavorful. Grocery store chicken seems to have a weird preservative taste these days. Not the stuff from the Beefway!
Friday night’s episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden went really well. It was our first live episode in quite a while, but I am glad that Harrison and I still have the skills. A surprise came that night: a donation! Our very first donation! Viewer Ryan Potter had this to say:
Thanks for this series guys! I’ve been enjoying revisiting these albums and going through my Maiden Collection with each episode.
Thank you Ryan for this first-ever thank-you. If we ever felt like we were not doing as good a job as we want to, Ryan’s comment will remind us that we’re doing just fine.
Friday was a difficult episode, because we had to review four CDs of Iron Maiden: A Real Live One, A Real Dead One, and Live at Donington (2 CDs). There were also two CD singles with an additional three bonus tracks to tackle. It required a lot of listening and a lot of notes, but Harrison and I managed to cover it all between the two of us. A proud night.
Friday night’s broadcast location for 50 Years of Iron Maiden.
But that was just the beginning for our live streaming adventures on the weekend.
Jex Russell, my “other” main co-host for many moons in the past, has been dealing with life lately. He recently had some free time come up, and said to me, “I’m ready. I want to do a live show. I want to tell people where I have been and what I’ve been up to. Let’s call it Ask Jex Anything and we’ll discuss mental health.”
I loved this idea.
We discussed when to go live. I was pushing for 8 AM Saturday morning, based on a past show we did in that time slot together. Mostly though, I didn’t want to do two live shows during prime cottage hours. One was fine. Two would be spending too much time on a screen during the best time of day. Jex was hesitant. What’s the point of an “Ask Jex Anything” episode if there’s nobody watching to ask? I crossed my fingers and set up the broadcast from my favourite spot: fireside. I gathered the firewood and a Canadian flag for an epic backdrop. I waited for 8 AM to come.
I think I had pretty much the best broadcast desk of any music show on YouTube today. You can get Pete Pardo with his wall of CDs behind him, or a “Hair Metal Guru” with loads of memorabilia, but nobody else in music had a backdrop like mine. A roaring fire, a Canadian flag, and nature. A few people walking down the road were wondering why this guy was out at 8 AM, talking on a laptop, at a computer desk in the middle of a beautiful green enclave. Why? Because it’s awesome!
Saturday’s office.
I had confidence that we would do a good show, viewers or no viewers. We always do.
It didn’t take long for the viewers to show up, and for Jex and I to open up, about mental health, music and balance. The questions began pouring in, and I could not keep up with the comments. Some people woke up early just to watch this special episode of Grab A Stack of Rock. Johnny Clauser and Tim Durling joined as surprise guests to share their own stories. Confessions were made, and I told a chapter of my story that I have never revealed before. Not even in Record Store Tales.
I believe that Satuday’s show, Ask Jex Anything: Music and Mental Health, is the most important episode we’ve ever done. Much to Jex’s relief, we had great views. Even exceeding the previous night’s 50 Years of Iron Maiden. We are very, very proud.
It ended up being a very good decision to go live in the morning. Black Sabbath were playing their final concert that afternoon. Everybody would be watching that, had we decided to go live later on. The morning show was a blessing.
From that point on, Saturday was ours to enjoy. It got hot – very hot. Eventually we went into town to get some air conditioning and soda pop. Staying cool was a challenge, and it prevented me from doing too much that day. No writing completed.
Droning on.
I did get to fly my drone a bit. I chose to fly my original drone, the Potensic. It is the better drone for stunt flying, and I made a few great videos. I still have to edit these. I managed to get one uploaded, which is “Nothing At All” by Deep Purple, to the visuals of a Lake Huron sunrise.
Sunday morning was time to pack our bags and head home. My mood crashed that day. It was an uncanny feeling of autumn; of “back to school”, even though it was only July. I could not shake that depressed feeling. We listened to April Wine on the way home because I wanted music that I was less familiar with. “All Over Town” is my new favourite song, but the crash hit me hard.
We tried to cheer me up by ordering in a nice dinner (The Burgers Priest), but failed. I woke up Monday morning unable to get out of bed. I lay there for hours, tired and worn out. I worked from home on Monday. In the old days I would have gone to work and felt worse and worse as the day went on. This time I managed. It is nice to have those options to work from home. It saved my Monday.
A beautiful weekend was had, despite the crash at the end. We’ll be back for my birthday. Close yet far!
RECORD STORE TALES #1195: No Smoking? No Second Date!
Disclaimer: I have never held it against anyone, be it a friend or girlfriend, who smoked. Very rarely, I expressed my distaste for the habit, which was met with angry rebuttals, but I never practised any kind of discrimination based on smoking. I even allowed smoking in my car. We’ll get there, and you’ll understand why when we do.
Working at the Beat Goes On, lots of the employees smoked. The breaks were frequent, but I let it slide. It did bite one of my employees, Matty K, in the ass one day.
Matt’s parents were British, and his mum had the most lovely accent. She called for him one day while he was out having a cigarette.
“I’ll go get him, he’s just outside having a smoke,” I informed her. She thanked me, and I went outside to hand Matt the phone.
After he completed his call with his mother, he told me that she didn’t know he smoked. Until now.
Hah. That’s still funny. I don’t know what happened at home after that, but I can say that it was I that outed him to his mother.
Truth be told, I can’t remember who smoked and who didn’t, but it seemed like all of them smoked with the exception of a few. OK…I admit to one thing. I was always jealous that they got to go outside for a break, a seemingly pleasurable experience, and I didn’t. I felt like pretending to take up the habit just to get breaks when I wanted them, but knew I couldn’t fake it.
T-Rev was a smoker, and I lived with him for six months. I couldn’t have hated smoking that much. I lived in a smoking house. I did have to clean out his ashtrays myself.
In 2000, the Kitchener-Waterloo region banned indoor smoking, in a test project that would be adopted province-wide in 2006. I thought it was a great idea, though some of my co-workers sure didn’t. Bingo halls and bars saw a temporary decline in sales, but the bounce happened quickly. Now it’s so natural to see people smoking outside, we don’t even think of it anymore. In 2000, however, it was new and unique to my region.
And, for some reason, I couldn’t seem to find a local girlfriend. They were all long distance. As an added bonus, most of them didn’t drive. However, I did have one date with a girl from Toronto who drove. I was working at our Cambridge store at that point in the story, which was T-Rev’s store. Meanwhile, T-Rev was in Ajax building a new store. With hindsight it was a pretty messed up way to run your staff. You had a perfectly good store manager in T-Rev, who was familiar with the layout and the clientele, but they shipped him off to a town two hours away to work with his hands. Trevor was made all kinds of promises about how he wouldn’t be working behind a counter anymore, and he’d be building 10 new locations a year. Yet they hedged their bets, and didn’t hire a new manager for his store. Instead they had me manage two at once. I was exhausted, but this girl from Toronto was willing to meet me after work and go out for dinner. She drove! How could I say no to that?
I remember being a little freaked out, that for all I knew, she could be a dude, but I decided that I was just being paranoid.
She was not a dude. She was taller than me, with black hair in a short bob. She was definitely out of my league. She had a black leather jacket. It was spring, and it was still warm outside. We met up in the parking lot of an East Side Mario’s nearby. We did the customary hug and headed to the restaurant.
She turned to me and asked, “Can we get a table in the smoking section?”
“No such thing!” I told her. “Indoor smoking is banned here.”
“WHAT.” I’ll never forget that. Just a totally flat, unimpressed WHAT.
To make up for the lack of indoor smoking, I joined her outside when we wanted a cigarette.
It didn’t help. There was no second date. And I blame the no smoking, despite being out of my element.
Of course, we all know the happy ending to the story. I married a smoker, but Jen eventually quit in 2008. Her dad was very proud of her. She hasn’t had one since.
I’ll tell you a secret that I’ve never shared with anyone before. My parents do not know. This is new information for the world.
When we were dating, I got sick and tired of the frequency of her smoke breaks. I remember putting her through Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and she smoked every 15 minutes, I kid you not. Every 15 minutes.
Driving to the lake, she wasn’t so bad. She could go 30 minutes. We stretched it to 45, but eventually I got so sick and tired of having to stop for smoke breaks, that I just let her smoke in my car. My new car. My new leased car.
RECORD STORE TALES #1194: You got exactly two words of that right.
I have a soft spot for Ian Gillan and Roger Glover’s Accidentally on Purpose. The Deep Purple Pair had a writing partnership dating all the way back to the 1960s and a band called Episode Six. Before Ian was fired from Deep Purple in 1988, he and Roger emerged from the sessions for The House of Blue Light with an excess of stifled creativity. These lighter, more summery tuned formed the basis for their only duo album. I found it on cassette in the mid-90s, right when I was seriously collecting Deep Purple for the first time.
It’s not rock. There are some songs that do rock a bit, but it’s more like fun pop with roots in rock and prog. There’s saxophone, and loads of programming. Very 1980s. It took a couple listens to adjust to this distinctly non-Purple album, but once certain songs like the floaty “Clouds and Rain” and the funky “Evil Eye” started to hit, they stuck. Programming aside, you’ll hear some cool instrumentation and musicianship on this album. Eventually, I grew to like it. As soon as I found out the CD reissue had three bonus tracks that were not on the cassette, I upgraded, as I often do.
The bonus tracks included a song that would have worked on a corny 80s Beach Boys album, called “Cayman Island”. It also had a sax-heavy cover of “Purple People Eater” which is the definition of guilty pleasure.
Shortly after I bought the CD, a used copy came into stock at the Beat Goes On. It always happened that way. If you bought something new, you’d see a used copy a matter of weeks later. It was eerily inevitable. Of course, when that used copy came in, I threw it into the rotation for store play one afternoon.
A guy walked up to the counter, intrigued by the music.
“What’s this that we’re listening to right now?” he asked.
I was thrilled to have someone ask!
“This is a side project by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover from Deep Purple,” I answered with inner glee, but also some trepidation as I’d personally prefer to keep listening to it!
He responded, “Roger Waters from Pink Floyd?“
What…? No! No! You got just two words of that right: “Roger” and “from”!
He sulked away upon learning it was not Floydian music. No sale that day!
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