Greetings from Covington, KY – home of…that White Castle half-a-block away from the plush hotel room in which I’m currently situated. After a ten-hours-plus drive, I am relaxing on a couch, sipping a bottle of Bell’s Cherry Stout. There’s another bottle of beer (Goose Island Bourbon Stout) on ice, waiting for The Sopranos to start.
A very surreal feeling engulfed me today as I followed the exact same route I took during the first day of my cross-country trip in July of ’05. At times, I could predict the way the roads bent. The names of towns I sped passed were all familiar. I greatly anticipated the Blue Mountain and Kittatiny tunnels, and the road signs pointing to the town of Eighty Four, Pennsylvania. Billboards were the same. Where there is a highway, there is a Cracker Barrel. Somewhere in Western Pennsylvania, I saw my favorite billboard that followed me across the country two years ago: Microsurgical Vasectomy Reversal. Their phone number is 1-713-REVERSE if you’re interested. The bible lovers continue to line their property with signs declaring HELL IS HERE.
It was ten hours of déjà vu, interrupted only by phone calls from Ken and my mother, and text messages from Maddy and Jessica. It was the same cloudless skies, the same hot sun, the same terrible food options (I had to eat Burger King for dinner). The only difference was the cars on the road. It was beautiful, and induced so many pleasant memories. I can’t state enough how much I love the road. It invigorates me.
Tomorrow I’ll be in Kansas City, where three shootings took place today! Here’s your mix tape.
RULES for uninitiated noobs: With 100MB of webspace, I give birth to a weekly Mix Tape to be deposited on your iPods or Zunes or Kingklangs or whatever the industry is currently pushing on you. Sometimes there will be themes that link all the songs together, other times I’ll just throw songs at a wall (not literally) and see what sticks. This is one of those weeks without a theme. The only thing that ties some of these tracks together is that they came up randomly while I was driving today. These songs will be removed if desired by the band or those who represent them. Let me know and I will gladly comply. The goal of this endeavor, as always, is to pique your interest in these artists so you’ll support the artists and buy their albums.
SUNDAY MIX-TAPE NUMBER 64 – “From Cincinnati. Songs Aplenty”
01. Bill Hicks – Purple Vein Dick Joke – (buy this album)
02. John Coltrane – Lazy Bird – (buy this album)
03. Codeine with Bastro – A L’ombre De Nous – (SubPop, 1991)
04. The Velvet Underground – Venus In Furs (Acetate ’66 version)
05. Jackie-O Motherfucker – West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – (U-Sound Archive CD-r)
06. Larsen – Little Nemo – (Enterruption, 2004)
07. Arto Lindsay Trio – Imbue – (buy this album)
08. Bill Hicks – Politics In America – (buy this album)
09. Dennis Wilson – Farewell My Friend – (buy this album)
10. Eggs – Ocelot – (buy this album)
11. F/i – Space Mantra – (RRRecords, 1988)
12. Colour Haze – Solitude – (buy this album)
13. Bill Hicks – Smoking – (buy this album)
14. France Gall – Les Sucettes – (buy this album)
15. Nick Drake – Cocaine Blues – (buy this album)
16. Spacemen 3 – Drive –
17. Jay Reatard – My Shadow – (buy this album)
18. Mahavishnu Orchestra – Meeting Of The Spirit – (buy this album)
19. Ghost – Tempera Tune – (buy this album)
20. Rachel’s – First Self-Portrait Series – (buy this album)
21. Bill Hicks – The Elite – (buy this album)
22. The Books – That Right Ain’t Shit – (buy this album)
