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Reducing the Clutter: CDs & Concert T's (WWJD...What Would Jerry Do?)
Recently I wrote a post, a Part II actually: The CD Conundrum: Coasters or Collector's Items (what to do with my 1,000+ CDs). Not only was it a savvy use of the word 'conundrum' in a post title, the resulting conversation proved to be a cathartic exercise well worth taking.
The post was really about two things: my changing music consumption habits and my desire to jettison my physical CD collection. There were a number of comments from faithful 6149'ers on how their own consumption habits are changing (streaming versus buying music is a polarizing topic to say the least). There was also a lot of discussion on what role the physical CD plays now and, if there is a want to shed them, what the hell to do with them all?
The latter subject is the one I want to talk about. It fits in well with a subject I am thinking a lot about right now: "reducing the clutter". What the hell am I talking about here? Reducing the clutter has been a central theme of my life as of late. My efforts to reduce the clutter has been a success from the big philosophical things to the little bullshit-y things. I'm focusing on what what I am most passionate about and interested in, eliminating unnecessary variables from choice and decisions, changing patterns and getting stuck into the new work I am involved in. That is the big picture stuff. I am cutting a swath through the little bullshit, too...like my CD collection.
The (pending) elimination of my CD collection is not the only physical clutter I am trying to reduce. I have a ridiculous collection of concert T-shirts, too. I haven't worn some of them in years. Between my moves from Boston to Florida to Sydney, Australia and to London...that is 8+ years of lugging plastic and cloth all over this big ol' globe. Now that I have potentially solved my CD conundrum, I had to make a move on the T's. I didn't want to throw them away...I just couldn't. Instead, I found a way to, as they say, re-purpose them.
I found this service called UBlanket. You send them 20 of your fave T's and they turn them into a blanket for you. I looked at a number of other similar services and this seemed to be the best. The cool thing is that you send them the shirts and they take pictures and post them online. You get to crop the design to your satisfaction and then you click and drag your "panel" into the frame and decide the layout of your T's / blanket.
I was their first international order. Once we sorted out some logistics, my fave Ts were in the mail headed for the chop shop. Once they were posted online, I designed my masterpiece. It should be here within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here is a pic of the design I came up with:
If you are like me and have an unhealthy emotional attachment to Rock & Roll schwag, like concert T's, that marked seminal moments in your life (and who doesn't, right?)...Ublanket may be a good option for you.
Funny, as I type this I am wondering if I actually reduced clutter or if I just consolidated it.
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Let's step into the way-back machine, circa 1987. I was in high school. I had a VHS copy of "Rolling Stone Magazine 20th Anniversary" special (yes, VHS...this was the 80's). The video was chock-full of interviews with people from the heyday of the mag back in the 60's, straight up to the video darlings of the mid 80's. One of the interviewees was Jerry Garcia. There was one thing Jerry said that struck sparks in my young mind (I am paraphrasing): "we all want to live a clutter free life". That had an impact on me back then as it does now.
I didn't know it at the time, but Jerry was revisiting a comment he made many moons ago when Haight Ashbury was alive and well with the Hippie ideal and the freewheeling fever of Fillmore gigs, free will and fucking. He and the rest of the Dead were being interviewed by Harry Reasoner, of CBS...the straight press. Funny...when you watch this, who looks like the real freak? The interviewer or the interviewee? Truly...one man's normal is another man's strange.
Here is that video: Harry Reasoner's The Hippie Temptation. If you haven't seen it, it is worth the viewing. The Jerry/clutter comment I am referring to happens at 1:20.
Reducing clutter...it makes me think of a song from one of my fave rave albums of the year, 'Brothers', by The Black Keys. The name of the song is, "Tighten Up". Reducing, tightening...yeah, that sounds right. It is a song so fixated in the now, but leans so heavily on influences of the past. It has a deep, sticky, dewey groove with a buzz & fuzz vibe layered on top. I love it. I love the whole damn album. Here is a double-whammy for you: the official video for the track and a live performance on Letterman.
If you have this album and downloaded it...you fucked up. Bite the bullet and go buy it on vinyl. The difference is staggering. If you don't have it already...and don't own a record player...don't be a fuck-up. Bite the barrel and invest in a turntable. Get with it...this is 2010, for Keith's sake!
"Some are building monuments and others are jotting down notes..."
"Some are building monuments and others are jotting down notes...((Tags: mind map, blog posts, Bob Dylan, London, Cafe, mobile, Twitter, Simply Tweet))
via SimplyTweet
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Update: This is a note for all you twitter/posterous users.
I started using a new Twitter client on my iPhone: Simply Tweet. Simply Tweet works well with Posterous (The 6149's blogging platform). It allows you to post long tweets to Twitter that are simultaneously posted on your Posterous blog. The Tweet ends up being the title of the post as well as appears in the body text.
In my first post, I used email subject syntax to add tags to the post on posterous. The tags showed up as I wanted them too, but they also showed up in the body text (see above). I didn't want that.
SImply Tweet responded to a tweet I made about this and gave me a solution...within 5 minutes of my posting this. Here is what they said:
@Judd6149 ah. So you want to set Posterous tags? Use hashtags. #SimplyTweet converts hashtags to Posterous tags automatically so you don't need to use the email subject syntax. The advantage is if they appear early enough, they are included as hashtags in the tweet text.
That solves that. Great customer service from @simplytweet. Give them a try if you need a (new) mobile twitter client.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program...
The picture in this post was taken at a cafe around the corner from where I am staying in South Kensington, London. I was on the way home from the gym and decided to stop off for a double-espresso and some early morning sunshine inspiration.
I mapped out a flew blog posts ideas for The 6149 (do you think my blog knows I am talking about it in the third person?). When I was doing this, I started singing the lyric that is the title to this post. It is from Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn". It is off his second volume of "Greatest Hits".
Dylan in his autobiography Chronicles Volume One (published 2004), makes further reference to the song: "On the way back to the house I passed the local movie theater on Prytania Street, where The Mighty Quinn (film) was showing. Years earlier I had written a song called "The Mighty Quinn" which was a hit in England, and I wondered what the movie was about. Eventually I'd sneak off and go there to see it. It was a mystery, suspense, Jamaican thriller with Denzel Washington as the Mighty Xavier Quinn a detective who solves crimes. Funny, that's just the way I imagined him when I wrote the song The Mighty Quinn, Denzel Washington"
Indeed, Bob. Indeed.
Tune Tags
As mentioned in a 6149 post yesterday, I am introducing Tune Tags. I have dropped in a Tune Tag playlist here for you to put your ears on. This one is chock full of different versions of "The Mighty Quinn".
- The Bob version is really from sessions in the basement of Big Pink with the band. I love the lazy, slurry, jangle-y feel to this one.
- The Dead's version is a reminder of how much fun it was to go to their shows and anticipate what cover they were going to play. Great times at those shows (from what I can recall...I think everyone did dose when Quinn showed up.
- The Hollies? Yes, the Hollies did a folksy version of this, too. Can you hear Gram Nash in there...?
- Speaking of cover tunes...the curators of the cover tune, Phish do their best Dead doing Bob.
- I had to include Manfred Mann, right? There version is the widely know version. Smart move covering Bob & Bruce.
Note: Apologies to @wolfgangsvault. Mate, I'll get the Tune Tags up higher in the post next time (heh heh)
The Goods
Here is another new feature I am going to use on The 6149. The Goods is the section where I will add links that reference the post contents. It will be links, images, footers, etc. I'll give this a go and see how it works in conjunction with Tune Tags. Let me know if it is "Too Much Monkey Business".
- Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (personally, I think this is his best 'collection" of the dozens out there)
- Full Lyrics to "The Mighty Quinn"
- Wikipedia page on the story behind "The Mighty Quinn"
p.s. another technical note: I did not add the Tune Tag playlist via Simply Tweet. I did it in the editing of the post.
