Dented and Cemented

Nothing like some fucked up iPod disk to remind one of the glory days of a paper route with nothing more than a beat up Sport Walkman (yellow! waterproof!) and copies of such classix as Sonic Youth's Dirty, Archers of Loaf's Icky Mettle, Fugazi's In on the Kill Taker, and, er, Misfit's of Ska II. I still remember one route customer's name, in particular. Reinhardt Kaufman. Frequently I would see a man, possibly Reinhardt, in an all khaki getup doing some gardening. Sometimes I saw a much older man in an identical getup, also a possible Reinhardt. Which was the real Reinhardt? This will haunt me, I am sure, for years to come... whereas this iPod will only haunt me until I throw it out the goddamn window.

Now that I have vented my spleen and scared Laura off to the bedroom with a little Chi Vampires (which woulda totally fucked with me as I trundled along the route at 6:30am on a Saturday morning, before sunrise in winter... which is probably why I have such a deep love for Doggystyle and The Chronic, come to think of it...) I feel it is safe to start performing unholy rites on this little four button bastard. I know the cycle it plans for me: Perform this disk check, show a lovely little checkmark indicating that everything is peachy. Then, when I add more than 5 fucking playlists to it, it will flag at least one as a random 'mp3 mine', such that when I attempt to play this certain playlist (viz. Afrika Bambaataa's Looking for the Perfect Beat) the iPod will cease operations for some unspecified period of time, sending me to my backups (if I am at work): Galactic Zoo Dossier's Tape of the Month club, vol. 1&2.

And thusly do cassette tapes make a very strong argument in their favor to me. I will hold you close, dear cassettes, and will never dishonor you with the buffoonery of clever-but-unlistenable lowbrow mixtape thematics. I will never put you in my deck if my shit eats tapes, this is my solemn vow.