Medecine Hat Studios

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Car Audio, The Mentally Ill & The Cramps

After weeks of delay, my $1000 1986 Subaru GL now has a ripping car stereo and speakers. Oh, it was a lengthy, painful and costly process, and has a funny little story about the installation.

To begin with, the car. A beauty of an 1980s car with only 47,000 original miles. A little old lady owned it and kept it in her garage. I joke, disrespectfully of course, that she died in the car. I paid a grand for it, and so far it gets me where I need to be.

So, music in the car was the next step. After receiving my fabulous tax refund from Uncle Sam, I ventured forward with the audio project. I purchase a cool Pioneer CD stereo with a USB port. I can plug my iPod, hard drive or a flash drive into this beast. Thinking that the Subaru is old and does not take the bumps like all the Lexus and other high end autos in my area, I figured iPod to stereo is better than cds on a bumpy ride. In addition, with the roads are the worst I have ever seen them (the topic of the next blog, I am sure...), I assume I will use the iPod frequently in the auto.

Well, buying a stereo for an older auto is challenging folks. After trying to get it installed and finding I needed three additional parts that would need to be specially ordered, I hit the net in search of the pieces. Two plus weeks later, I have all my parts and become further delayed by bad weather (Notice the snow in the car picture?), my job, my responsibilities and all the other things that bog us all down.

So yesterday (Saturday 3/1), I get the opportunity to go get my stereo installed. After finding I would have to invest more in speakers, new speaker harnesses, etc., I pay for the whole damn thing and try to figure out how I will kill two plus hours in an outdoor shopping plaza. So I wander over to Borders, buy a mocha and a bottle of water, find a seat in a crowded cafe area and begin reading my book, The Smiths Meat Is Murder 33 1/3 Series by Joe Pernice (Pernice Brothers/Scud Mountain Boys).

Given the number of people in the small crowded area, I had to sit across from an older gentleman, perhaps in his late 50s. He was heavily engrossed in his novel, or so I thought...

His first strange action was to mumble to himself several times. I could not catch what he was saying, so I paid it no mind. Then he stopped reading, yet continued to look down, and began singing "I want to be loved by you... by you and nobody else but you..." He sang the whole damn verse mind you.

Hmmmm.... random, I thought. But it progressed to more frequent murmuring and babbling. He somehow seemed to be aroused. Now, I can ignore and even get some entertainment value out of this for a short time, but after finishing another section of Pernice's personal jaunt into Meat Is Murder, I found the sexually charged mumbling at me to be too much and had to move on. Glad he chose not to follow me, as I had to use the bathroom and prefer to do that alone...

To make a long story short. The stereo sounds great. I was attacked by the radio station the installer had left on it upon ignition, but drove home and located my iPod; which is too old to work with the car stereo, and threw the Afghan Whigs on at a pleasant 35 volume. Next into some Primal Scream... and then my brakes died.

Oh well. So in memory of the mentally ill, all years I worked with them and the guy who serenaded me in the Border's Cafe... I give you a video of The Cramps Live at the Napa State Mental Hospital and the even more offensively insane; their appearance from Urgh! A Music War.






Thank you and enjoy.

Hammerin' Hank Steinbrenner

This week, two great quotes and a fantastic glimpse into the future of yet another twenty plus years of moronic, Yankee front office babbling and bull[expletive].

1) "Red Sox Nation? What a bunch of [expletive] that is ... This is a Yankee country. We're going to put the Yankees back on top and restore the universe to order."


Restore the universe to order? There is no order, Hank. Anything can happen. Things such as the Yankees not making the World Series, the Red Sox winning the AL, and the Mets becoming the most popular NY team could very well dispel your theory that the Yankees at the top puts sense, purpose and order in all of our lives. What a schmuck...


2) "Go anywhere in America and you won't see Red Sox hats and jackets, you'll see Yankee hats and jackets. This is a Yankee country."

I am a high school teacher in rural NH. Yes, the majority of students wear Sox gear, but there are a huge number of kids wearing Yankee hats in my school. Funny thing is, when I approach these Evil Empire, swag wearing teens... they do not even like baseball, and they tell me that. So... Hank, shut the [expletive] up.

Oh... and Hank. Be careful not to choke on that cancer stick you ignorant [expletive] you.