HiR:tb Toots (@warwalker)
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By junior on August 12, 2010, at 9:36 pm  Ticats Endangered in Hamilton by Stupidity Ever had one of those days where you think to yourself, “Wow, I’m terrible at my job”? Well never fear, you can make yourself feel better in the most human of all ways – by pointing and laughing at someone who’s even worse at their job than you are at yours.
I’m talking, of course, about Hamilton Ontario City Councillors. And the Mayor.
Here’s the scenario: The 2015 Pan Am Games are awarded to the Greater Toronto Area. As part of the deal, the corporate entity hosting the games (“HostCo”) negotiates a deal with the federal and provincial governments, securing funding assistance for the building of certain venues. Among these venues is a multipurpose stadium suitable for soccer events. There’s one important proviso: money will be available from the feds and province for a soccer stadium provided the planned new stadium has a “legacy tenant”, somebody to use the fucking place after the 2 week Pan Am games are over. Hamilton gets targeted for, among other things, some of the soccer events.
The timing of all of this is like a gift from heaven for the City and its professional football franchise, the Hamilton Tiger Cats, because the Ticats currently play in an aging and decrepit facility that is difficult if not impossible to retrofit, and because it was unlikely the City and football team would be able to swing the construction of a new facility on their own. Everything is falling into place: other governments are willing to help build an already needed stadium, provided things can be worked out to get the team that needs the new stadium to play in the planned new stadium. Shouldn’t be hard, right? All that remains is for the City of Hamilton to choose its proposed stadium site.
Cue the lunacy. Ten sites are identified as possible Hamilton locations for the new stadium. One of them – the West Harbour location – is identified as most beneficial to the City in terms of assisting with downtown redevelopment, but absolutely the worst for the Ticats. The Ticats commission several studies, all of which tell them that they will struggle financially – or more accurately continue to struggle financially – if they go to the West Harbour location. The Ticats express the importance of choosing some other location to the City. They express a preference for a location at Confederation Park. The City resists. A facilitator is appointed to mediate the dispute. The facilitator agrees with the Ticats that the West Harbour site is not feasible for them, and recommends an alternative compromise site, something called the “East Mountain” site.
The Ticats are not thrilled, but indicate they are prepared to make it work. The owner of the team even indicates he’s prepared to put $15 million on the table to assist with the funding, and to arrange for $59 million in additional funding to sweeten the pot for the City.
The City still wants its West Harbour site.
The owner of the team says in no uncertain terms that the Ticats will not play at the West Harbour site.
City Council votes and chooses – you guessed it – the West Harbour site.
So Council has recommended the one site that does not meet with the basic funding requirements, because it cannot boast an anchor or legacy tenant. No legacy tenant means there is a very real chance that no funding for the stadium will be forthcoming. No funding means no stadium. No stadium means no Pan Am games events and no economic development of any kind. Aside from the profound embarrassment for the City that would result from a failure of this nature, such an outcome would represent a failure to move forward that is unlikely to be overcome in a generation. City Council has made the one decision that results in the opportunity of a generation leaving town, likely to York University.
City Council has also thoroughly pissed off the Hamilton Tiger Cats and their owner. As someone who’s been involved in a lot of community fundraising over the years, I can tell you this is horribly unjust as the Ticats, under the stewardship of Bob Young, have been tremendous corporate citizens and very responsible and caring contributors to the community. The Ticats have a year and a half left on their lease at the charming, but inevitably obsolete Ivor Wynne Stadium. The hope they had of moving to a new, more economically feasible, modern stadium in this City has been extinguished by the ridiculously short-sighted vote of City Council. There is now a realistic chance that a team with 141 years of history in this city will be pushed out for no good reason.
“But wait, we can get a soccer team! They’ll play at the new stadium!” So sayeth the West Harbour types. Not going to happen. Bob Young, the owner of the Ticats, owns the rights to NASL soccer in this town. The City better not be holding its breath for Bob to come riding in on a stallion to save their sorry behinds.
“But this is a victory for democracy! It’s about city-building, not a site for a football team!” So sayeth the West Harbour types. Terrific and full of lofty principle, but it ignores the fundamental truth that there isn’t going to be a West Harbour stadium. No stadium, no city building. How is an embarrassing failure to achieve any of the objectives on the table a victory for democracy?
Ridiculous. Embarrassing. Ludicrous. Hamilton politics all the way.
So go ahead, dear reader: walk in to your job tomorrow, drop your trousers and hop up on the photocopier glass. Make a few thousand Xeroxes of your hairy ass and distribute them to your superiors. Answer your phone by barking into it. Answer each and every customer inquiry with the phrase “Robots. Killer robots from the future did it.” Remove your pants entirely. Do the Stanky Legg every third step you take. Insult a passenger, steal a beer and depart via the inflatable chute at the rear of the aircraft. You can do all these things secure in the knowledge that, as bad as you are at your job, Hamilton’s Mayor and City Councillors are even worse at theirs.
By junior on July 30, 2010, at 11:50 pm  The Watcher is Watching. So Watch Out. Yesterday, Spouse and I drove from Sudbury back to the friendly confines of Juniorvania (nigh on to the ‘burg of Brantford) via Espanola and Manitoulin Island. I’ll have more about our trip, I hope, in a day or two but for now, I am scrambling to get packed because I leave at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning (actually pretty close to later THIS morning at this point) for the annual boys’ fishing trip.
For now, in addition to the friendly fellow up above, please be aware that Spouse and I saw a large sign in front of what appeared to be a roadside commercial premise – it said “FLEE MARKET”. I don’t know if this is financial advice or early warning about imminent danger in the actual building. We didn’t take any chances, we didn’t stop.
We took the M.S. Chi-Cheemaun from South Baymouth to Tobermory after spending the day driving about the island. Our plucky little sailing vessel is pictured below.
 The Chi-Cheemaun Comes to South Baymouth
Oh, I also saw a zombie driving a fish truck. Yes, I know it’s unusual; maybe that’s why the guy up top is watching so intently?
By junior on July 27, 2010, at 10:20 pm Vacation Day Four. After the Ensleepinating, and a leisurely lunch on a fashionable patio, it was time to go to the beach.
Here’s a Panorama photo created by Autostitch, an app on my iPhone. Check out the ghostly looking apparition in the centre of the photo!
 Laurentian Beach
With all those paranormal phenomena lurking about the public swimming areas, I felt the need to concentrate on more earthly matters. Things like the Sand in My Shoes.
 Hot Sand, Wiggly Toes
Okay, so I’m not wearing any shoes. Problem is The Drifters didn’t sing any songs about balding fat men without footwear haunting the beaches of Northern Ontario. Come to think of it, the song catalog of most artists seems a little light in that regard. Further research is required, and effort to remedy this troubling musical lacuna is no doubt underway.
 Eltons John
After the beach, I went to the movies with a bunch of people who had decided to dress up like Elton John. That was fun too.
By junior on July 26, 2010, at 4:43 pm On Saturday afternoon, Spouse and I attended the Rick Smith Memorial Horse Show at Foothills Farm in Chelmsford, Ontario. I intended to practice a bit at taking pictures of horses jumping over stuff, but I had made the rookie mistake of failing to charge any and all batteries prior to vacation departure on Friday night. So confident was I that I was all powered up that I actually removed the battery charging apparatus from my camera bag for the first time in recorded history, in an effort to lighten the carrying load a little bit. You can guess where this is going, I’m sure; here’s one of the six or seven photos I managed to take before the batteries rolled over and died.
 Up, Up and Away Sigh. Not bad for a guy who, in so many ways, demonstrates that he hasn’t a clue what he’s doing. The conclusion you may safely draw from this is that my camera is awesome.
 Kayaking and Swimming at Bell Park Sudbury The scene at Bell Park in Sudbury. Dear Teacher: this is how I spent the second afternoon of my summer vacation.
By junior on July 10, 2010, at 9:46 am Founders Day 2010 is upon us and the Citizens of Juniorvania are preparing to welcome the largest influx of visitors to our little country in some two years. Preparations are afoot all around me, and even Glorious Leader feels a little embarrassed when he’s sitting on his arse tippy-tapping instead of vaccuuming or beer-getting or SOMETHING, so away I go.
Updates to follow.
UPDATE – Sunday, July 18th – 8 days later: The “Happy Birthday” Button (pictured below) that I was privileged to receive (and required to wear throughout the festivities) last weekend at the commencement of Founders Day – the one with the flashing LED lights the sustained functionality of which I improvidently doubted aloud? (I think I loudly proclaimed that the battery would be dead “by 2:30 in the afternoon”.) Yeah, just to let you know, I haven’t turned the button off yet, and those little lights are still flashing eight days later. I wouldn’t say they’re flashing brightly at this point, but they are most asssuredly still blinking away. I’m kind of rooting for the little suckers now…
 Much lighter now that I've disconnected the coal-fired generator that powered this thing. UPDATE to the UPDATE: (Thursday, July 23, 2010) – It is with a heavy heart that the Glorious Leader of Juniorvania announces the tragic passing of his Happy Birthday button, at the age of 11 days. The Button ceased flashing peacefully, in the night, sometime before midnight on the 22nd of July. No flowers please. A moment of silence will be observed at 11:59 this evening throughout Juniorvania, hopefully many consecutive and sleep-filled moments, actually – unless the raccoons are on the rampage, in which case all bets are off and I’mma get my Super Soaker after them.
By junior on June 26, 2010, at 10:37 pm A Saturday evening in June; this night, in the City of Toronto, there are black-clad “protesters”, faces obscured by balaclavas and masks, causing damage to the businesses and homes of regular working people. They are doing sensible, thoughtful and pro-social things like setting fire to police cars, smashing windows and throwing feces into clothing shops.
 Disgraceful Scene in Toronto It seems like everybody approaches this event with an axe to grind. There are those with complaints about the international economic order who see the summit as an affront to their sense of justice. There are those on Twitter asking why the police aren’t just shooting some of these people in the street.
Television journalists, somehow apparently stuck for something to talk about in the middle of these extraordinary circumstances , are suggesting that the fact that some windows got broken and some police cars were burned is somehow evidence that the police have failed to discharge their functions properly and diligently.
I am saddened and ashamed by the events I have seen on the television screen today. Canada is a place that should tolerate a lively and spirited debate about our diverging political views. It is also a place where unassuming people who go to work and try to provide for their families can do so without having damage inflicted upon their homes, businesses, streets and vehicles. It is a place where we all should be free to roam in our public places without fear of confrontation and mob violence.
My own view is that the police have done a tremendous job in difficult circumstances. They can’t protect each and every piece of property in the entire City of Toronto; that would be impossible. The officers that were on scene had to respond cautiously to events unfolding in front of them. For tactical reasons (maintaining formations and their own security) they can’t necessarily chase after every idiot throwing a rock through a window. Respond physically to the actions of protesters, and they open themselves up to complaints of “police brutality”; respond in a measured fashion and in a way that preserves both their tactical objectives and their own security, and people complain that they aren’t doing enough to disperse the mobs. It’s ten o’clock right now, and current reports suggest that although there have been some minor injuries to a number of officers, none of them have been seriously hurt. I sincerely hope that remains the case throughout the rest of the evening, and indeed the entire weekend.
Likewise, I wish no ill upon those who, moved by the strength of their own convictions, have gathered to peacefully exhibit their disapproval about the policy choices of the assembled leaders. I genuinely hope those people stay safe too.
In the end, it seems to me that what we have seen played out so shamefully on our TV screens is irrefutable evidence that it was a spectacularly bad decision to try and hold this summit in the middle of the most populous city in Canada. The Prime Minister has released a statement tonight about the violence:
Free speech is a principle of our democracy, but the thugs that prompted violence earlier today represent in no way, shape or form the Canadian way of life
He’s right about that, but this sentiment rings a little hollow in the circumstances. The entire central core of Toronto has been locked down and turned into a no-go zone, essentially an occupied area from which the general public is completely excluded. You know what? That in no way, shape or form represents the Canadian way of life either.
And therein lies the problem: it is an unfortunate fact of reality that hosting summits such as the G-20 automatically ensures that a certain element of criminal agitators and troublemakers will be in attendance, provoking violent confrontation with a police presence that must itself be on scene to protect the gathered leaders. The question must then be asked: why host such a conference in the middle of an urban area, where the safety of innocent bystanders and their property will necessarily be placed at risk? Why do so, when security requirements are such that it is deemed necessary to so radically restrict the freedom and liberty of our citizens? There are reportedly more than 20,000 peace officers and security personnel massed in the streets of Toronto tonight, charged with the responsibility of facing down the violent thugs and preserving order. Each and every one of them is in harm’s way. I can tell you from personal experience that they have friends and family members sitting at home worrying about their well-being very much tonight.
Ask yourself what tangible benefit will come from this meeting of the political elites in downtown Toronto. What work product will emerge from this meeting that is so crucial as to justify not only the enormous financial expense involved, but also the outrageous injury to our country’s traditions of liberty and democratic freedom. What exactly will you see in the empty homilies contained in the end of summit communiqué that are of such substance, import and moment that they justify not only these things, but the risk to life and limb for police and (genuine) protesters alike?
The masked idiots who are setting alight police cruisers are misguided cowards. It is difficult to understand how throwing human shit through the broken window of a Starbucks will have any appreciable effect at all upon anything except the poor bastards who will have to clean it up. It is even more difficult to regard anybody who would hide behind a mask and a well-timed change of clothes in an effort to avoid detection as any kind of a thoughtful, responsible or courageous political actor.
Turning the focus to the summit attendees, it is similarly difficult to understand how a series of staged photo ops next to the fake lake or over the Conference Table will have any effect on the global economic order, or “maternal health” or any other issue you can think of. Whatever you may think of the established international economic order, it is difficult to persuasively argue that this physical convergence of the leaders of nations is of critical importance or necessity.
So, on both sides of the barrier: stupid; pointless; unnecessary; disgraceful. In short, an outrage.
There is little that either you or I can do about the violent agitators attempting to dominate the streets tonight. That will be up to the men and women from various police services stationed in the streets of Toronto. The next time you have occasion to be in the vicinity of a ballot box, however, you might legitimately ask yourself why this had to happen at all, and why it had to happen here in particular. If you don’t find acceptable answers to those questions – and I have suggested above that they are very difficult to find – then you might ask yourself why Mr. Harper and his government ought to expect your vote.
By junior on June 25, 2010, at 11:37 pm Okay, Leafs fans, admit it – it was tough to see Tyler Seguin pulling on that Bruins jersey earlier tonight when the Beantowners picked him with the Leafs’ first rounder, courtesy of the Phil Kessel trade.
I tweeted about this earlier today, though. Boston fans got to watch one highlight today that Leaf fans find a little galling. We got to watch 30 highlights last season from Mr. Kessel, with many more to come down the road.
For a while, I thought that was the only way I could console myself about the Leafs’ uninvolvement in this draft. Then I watched as Ottawa GM Bryan Murray crapped the bed. With several highly ranked prospects still undrafted, he traded his pick to St. Louis for David Rundblad. Who?
Well, exactly. No doubt Senators fans – the few that have learned to read, and the rest who’ve heard about this from a friend – are spending the evening with their tiny little heads in the oven. Don’t worry, in a few hours they’ll realize they have electric appliances.
In the end, Burkie’s “nothing” was vastly superior to that bit of Ottawa bedshittery.
By junior on June 9, 2010, at 12:47 pm I’m going to invent a new social media site that invites users to post messages of up to 140 characters complaining about the fact that the Twitter API is down. Based on Twitter’s record over the last couple days, I have reason to believe that my service will be at least as popular as Twitter itself.
By junior on June 8, 2010, at 12:52 am Continuing on with my series of posts about the conversion of some of my old vinyl into mp3s; hey, nostalgia is in short supply in this world, amirite?
 Worst. Cover. Art. Evar. Three Sides Live by Genesis is an odd duck, any way you slice it. This 1982 double album, at least in its North American incarnation, delivers exactly what the title promises – three sides of live concert recordings. A fourth side of what I guess would be “bonus” studio recordings, at the time representing some of the band’s newer material, was included on the American release, whereas the UK version featured a fourth side of rather more obscure live material (see the Wikipedia entry for this album). I don’t know of any other double album that mixed live and new material in this way, at least not off the top of my head.
Evidently recorded by the band at the tail end of their tour in support of the Abacab album, there are points on this album that depict Genesis at the height of their post-Gabriel musical powers. The record has its moments, for sure; the opening track, for example, is a version of Turn It On that almost physically compels me to begin earnestly playing air drums. Similarly, the version of Misunderstanding included on the record is arena prog-rock at its best; I can’t make it through the whole track without belting out the lead vocal, proof positive in my book that a classic rock tune has hit the mark.
The record also contains some foreshadowing about the direction the band would travel in the future, propelled by the force of Phil Collins’ will. The (North American) fourth side’s opening track, Paperlate, is catchy and horn driven. It could easily have been included on Collins’ solo album Hello, I Must Be Going (also released in 1982). I happen to have a soft spot for that record, but there can be no doubt that Motown-influenced bounciness and gentler rhythm and blues grooves represented a significant reinvention of the band’s identity, and not ultimately for the better. Genesis was on its way to becoming virtually indistinguishable from Collins’ solo act. It would only be a matter of four short years before Genesis would – in the wake of Collins’ mid-decade solo megahit No Jacket Required – inflict the abomination that was Invisible Touch upon an unsuspecting record-buying public. Shell-shocked, confused and still wondering what the hell a “Sussudio” was anyway, most of us would never be able to feel the same way about our relationship with the Collins/Genesis monolith after those unfortunate episodes.
For me, this record recalls the summer of 1985. My parents and my two brothers were travelling in England that summer. I stayed at home to work, earn some cash for my upcoming first year of university and – it must be said – to drink some beer with my buddies. I turned 19 in July of that year, and one of the things I did was move my enormous stereo – Kenwood amplifier and turntable, a sixteen band stereo eq and two humongous Koss speakers – down to the basement rec room. I set the unit up at one end of the room on the tile floor and pointed the speakers directly at the pool table. I remember clearly playing this record a number of times that summer, and I remember that Three Sides Live was the record that revealed the fatal flaw in my treasured audio system: the speakers couldn’t handle the juice the amp cranked out at high volumes, causing fuses in the speaker enclosures to trip and cut the sound entirely. I was devastated; the system I had so carefully selected at age 16 or 17 with money carefully scrimped together from my job busing tables had been revealed to be incapable of dealing with the demands I placed upon it.
Now, to be sure, from a purely objective standpoint – presently twenty-five years removed, with the benefit of the wisdom and experience bestowed upon me by age – it must be noted that my setup, flawed as it was, nevertheless remained quite capable of creating an enormous fucking racket. That is to say that the technical limitations discovered in this way lie somewhere near the extreme end of the tolerance of human hearing; it wasn’t that the thing wouldn’t play loudly, for it surely did that. I am fairly confident that the unfortunate neighbors, if you were to speak to them about it at the time, would have drawn deeply on a cigarette to soothe their jangled nerves, then sworn upon a stack of Bibles that my system roughly approximated the sound pressure generated by a moderately powered jet engine. I was upset, though, because I wanted to hear three or four jet engines at the same time.
What followed, in that time period, was several weeks of highly experimental exploratory work to determine the precise outer limits of the system’s technical capability, with Phil Collins’ drums serving as the test track, and numerous cases of beer supplying the nutrition and motivation. Several evenings featured extended sessions of minute volume-knob manipulation, with Collins’ kick, snare, toms and cymbals exploding over and over again in the darkened basement, all in an effort to discover the absolute highest level at which we could run the amp without losing sound entirely. We were beer-soaked test pilots of a sort, courageously exploring the boundaries of a sound barrier of our own, all in the name of science. There were crash landings, to be sure, but there were also a great number of successful missions flown that thunderous July.
When I set the record on the turntable tonight to record some .mp3s from this album, it so happened that Spouse was away from the residence. It akso happens that I have the USB turntable hooked in to my mixer, which is in turn connected to a Behringer EP2500 watt power amp and two humongous Elite loudspeakers. I couldn’t help myself; when the thrum of Turn It On began to pulse through the speakers, and my arms succumbed to the overwhelming urge to twitch spastically in a grotesque approximation of a rock drummer, I turned my current system – which suffers from no such technical limitations – up just a wee little bit.
I am reasonably certain that the resulting vibrations were detected by seismologists around the world. People in Hawaii: that tsunami warning is almost certainly my fault.
By junior on June 5, 2010, at 8:31 pm Yes, I understand. You’re upset with me.
Like the man said, “it’s been a long time since I rock ‘n rolled.” Things have been more than a little busy at work over the last month or so. I know you don’t care about the particulars, so I just erased a whole bunch of crap that I typed, the sum total of which boils down to this: over the last little bit, I’ve felt like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, and between things going on at work, groundskeeping chores, a series of (most welcome) house guests, and some other new developments here on the home front, I have been unable to devote any time whatsoever to you, my virtual friends. Pity.
Please feel free to sue me for failing to provide you with your usual level of comfort and support.
In the meantime, I have a few moments right now, during which I’ll share with you one of my latest projects. I went out today and bought a USB turntable. I am converting some of my old vinyl records into digital format so that I can load ’em on my iPod and rock out 1980s style while I’m cutting the lawn. Also, Spouse and I have become very tired of the music we’ve been listening to over and over again in the car recently. It is hoped that the new (old) music may provide some much needed variety, being as it is the spice of life.
I have crates and crates of records in the storage room downstairs, and this conversion project will take some time. In the interests of generating some posts around here (especially in the absence of Maple Leaf hockey), I thought I’d try writing a little post about some of the records I’m converting. The only rule I’m making for myself is that I must write the post while the record is playing.
Today’s entry: The Cars – Heartbeat City
 A Scantily Clad Chick, A Green Duster and Some Crappy Music Look, first of all, I don’t want to hear about how it’s an outrage that I chose a mediocre album by a band that you don’t like as the subject for this first post. I know, The Cars weren’t exactly as talented as the Beatles, and 1984’s Heartbeat City , although no doubt the band’s most commercially successful effort, does not represent their best work.
But seriously, I had to learn where to do this conversion stuff starting somewhere, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to start with some music that is truly meaningful to me. Actually, that last sentence is more than a little disingenuous; this music does matter to me, in a way. As I sit here and type, I’m finding myself sorely tempted to separate myself and my musical tastes from this record; I know it is crap, and I guess I do not wish to be judged by you for being associated with it. Nevertheless, to be honest, I would be lying if I did not admit that listening to this record is, to me, highly evocative of a certain something.
A quick contextual review: The Cars burst on to the “New Wave” scene in the late ’70s . Their stripped-down, straight ahead and vaguely techno sound was a part of a whole reactionary movement in music, an attempt to answer some of the serious excess that had become part and parcel of mainstream rock in the middle of the decade following sprawling and epic works from artists like Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Peter Frampton, etc. By far the best part of The Cars’ oeuvre comes from their first three records: their eponymous debut, Candy-O and Panorama, all three of which were released before the seventies were over. By 1984, The Cars had definitely jumped the shark and had ironically become in many ways a mid-80s version of the very thing they had started out opposing. Case in point: John “Mutt” Lange produced (and produced and produced, and yes, I’m saying “over produced”) Heartbeat City. Edges are polished, everything is musically letter perfect and there are harmonies that pop and sparkle. All of the edges, though, have been softened. Don’t believe me? Listen to “Good Times Roll” or “Touch and Go” from those early records and then follow it up with “Drive” from this album. If you want to move right past “unbelievably saccharine sweet” and go straight to “diabetic coma”, check out the version of that tune that the band performed at Live Aid in the summer of ’85.
Anyway, my point is that I know: this record ain’t exactly Dark Side of the Moon, or anything monumental, meaningful, or even necessarily “good.” By 1984, Ric Ocasek was more interested in trying to figure out, like everybody else, how the hell he managed to hook up with a 19-year old Paulina Porizkova and why she would ever be interested in a – let’s face it – homely fucker like him. The band’s performance at Live Aid was proof positive that its best years were in the past, and established without a doubt that sappy, synth-driven pieces of dreck like “Magic” would remain popular forever because God essentially hates human beings.
I know all of that. But some albums (look it up, youngsters – we had them before iTunes came along) just evoke certain points in time and space, and for me personally, this is one of them. The second I put this record on the turntable, I was transported. It was 1984 again and I was in the basement of my parents’ home working on some program or other that I was (forever) writing on the Commodore 64, occasionally dumping the code out in printed LIST form on the dot matrix printer. True story: when typing this post, I knew what year this record was released without even looking at the dust jacket. I spent a lot of time in that basement, as my pasty skin in any period photographs will attest, typing away on that little keyboad, trying to fix my little electronic creations with 10 REM FILE HANDLING PROGRAM comments and switching between this album and David Bowie’s Let’s Dance or Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense on the turntable, or (if I happened to be rocking the cassette deck instead) the Violent Femmes‘ or Specials‘ debut. Truth be told, though, although I prefer the music from any one of those other albums, when I close my eyes and think back to what it felt like to be loading a 5 1/4″ floppy disc in to the dogshit brown disc drive* of that computer, the music I hear is The Cars’ Heartbeat City.
I suppose there’s some justice, then, to that music being the soundtrack as I sit here 26 years later, still tapping away on a keyboard on yet another summer day, starting another epic digital project.
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*the technically advanced 64 had a disc drive instead of cassette tape storage. The discs held 360 KB of information
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