Rang de Basanti from the film Rang de Basanti (2006)
Teri Mehfil Mein from the film Mughal-e-Azam (1960)
Rob Van Dam wins the WWE Championship at One Night Stand (2006)
CM Punk wins the World Heavyweight Championship (2008)
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Steve Zahn and Josh Hamilton in Freak "Talks About Sex"
One of my favorite movies is the Steve Zahn film "Freak Talks About Sex" (known to some by its alternate title, "Blowin' Smoke.") When I first saw it, it kind of made me think for a bit on what I might have become had I not continued to move ahead with my life after high school. Kind of. I mean, as miserable as high school was, mind you. Anyway, the film's protagonist (not Steve Zahn, a.k.a. "Freak" but the other guy, "Keenan," played by Josh Hamilton) is one of those guys who spends a fair amount of time making "mix tapes" for his friends. That particular aspect of the film really spoke to me because I was one of those "mix tape" guys back in high school and college. I usually didn't make tapes for people unless they specifically asked for one. But once the request was made, I put my best effort into it. Sometimes, I even gave mix tapes to people as gifts. Ask Thomai.
I made lots of mix tapes for friends in high school. I was pretty obsessive over the way I edited these things. I had a lot of little rules that I tried to follow, including my insistence that the sides of a tape should be as balanced as possible so that one side didn't run too much longer than the other side. I also hated it when I would run out of time on one side of the tape. If I even lost two seconds of the end of a song because it was too long to fit on one side of the tape, I would go back and look for ways to cut or reorganize material. My folks had a Realistic (Radio Shack brand) record player/dual cassette deck with a volume fader that came in handy for tricky edits involving songs that were close together and sound bites.
A good mix tape needs to start with a bang. It's okay to open with audio clips from movies or television shows (Plan 9 from Outer SpaceandFight Club(another one of my favorite films) are great sources for sound bites), but the first full song should really kick the tape into high gear. One of my favorite openings for a mix CD that I made several years ago starts with Ceasar's final speech fromConquest from The Planet of the Apesas a lead in to Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." In many of my projects, I would often use dialogue clips from old radio or television shows or records from my parents' collection to break things up, inserting short clips between songs. Another thing to consider is how to end side one. It's really good to end with a song that kind of "caps" the material while still keeping a listener's interest piqued enough that he/she will flip it over and continue. On a lot of my high school-era mix tapes, I would end with the "Now turn the record over" messages from old children's book and record sets.
Cover art from a Besslerama-related CD mix circa 2001
Side two of a mix tape requires another "kick start" track to get things going and the last song for side two should be some kind of long, winding track with a fade-out ending, if possible. Including a track listing with the tape was always a must for me, but cover art was kind of an optional thing. It kind of depended on how I felt about a project. Here's a true story about all this: About a year ago, I ran into a guy that I hadn't seen in over 10 years. One of the first things he mentioned to me – after all those years – was a mix tape that I had made for him over a decade ago. The guy used to work in a record store in downtown Dayton (which is long gone now) and right after Kurt Cobain died, I gave him a mix tape of some rare Nirvana and Cobain stuff. I made some special cover art for the cassette box using overhead transparency plastic to create a kind of 3-D hologram effect on a portrait of Cobain. The guy told me that he still has the tape to this day and he still thinks the artwork is really, really cool. It was pretty amazing to have that kind of recognition after all that time.
Following the advent of recordable CDs and related technology, cassette tapes became more or less a thing of the past. These days, I really feel like creating good, old-fashioned mix tapes is now something of lost art. But affordable media, sound editing software and graphics editing packages do make it pretty easy to create some great mix CDs. Mix CDs are just a little different from mix tapes, particularly because you don't have to break things up between two sides of the media. I made several good mix CDs that were tied to our old "Besslerama" web site, including a special compilation that was given out as an award to a regular site visitor who, as part of a contest on our site, had accurately predicted the date and time of our daughter K.'s birth.
I still have most of my more elaborate mix tape and mix CD projects spanning my high school years through to recent years. Each one of these compilations is like a time capsule of sorts and the selection and arrangement of material in these collections always brings out a lot of feelings when I listen to them. Some of the collections I have are about 15 years old, but I still get each one of them out about once a year , playing them through at least once or twice. It kind of helps me remember where I've been so I can gain some perspective on where I'm going.
I think it's probably time for me to make an official mix tape "soundtrack" for greekish.org. I'll write again with some details soon.
I
have yet another addition to the growing collection of “Socialist
Realism” art that graces the walls and shelves of my home library
room. A few months ago, I landed another vintage Soviet-era
propaganda poster from eBay. This poster depicts a group of
Soviet-era Young Pioneers standing before the memorial statue of Soviet
heroine Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya which stands in St. Petersburg (formerly
Leningrad). The Russian caption reads “Let's be worthy of
the heroes' glory!” According to the seller of the item, the
poster was printed in 1969 and it was obtained legally from Archives of
the Pribaltic Military District at the time of the collapse of the
USSR. The poster itself is in great shape with some minor wear on
the edges. I had the item framed by the good people at Hobby
Lobby.
I am now officially out of wall space (for big stuff, anyway...)
On Sunday, I happened to stop by the local Half Price Books store for a look around. After a short time browsing around, I made my way to the checkout with a copy of “Why People Believe Weird Things” by Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine. As I was getting out my wallet to pay for the book, my eye caught a rather surprising sight behind the counter. Leaning against the inside counter of the checkout counter was a massive 2006 calendar featuring the works of Frida Kahlo. Frida is one of my — and if I may be so bold to speak on behalf of the rest of the family, I will say “our” — favorite artists. In the recent past, I have looked around the ‘net for affordable prints of Kahlo’s work, but they are typically more than I am able or willing to pay. So this calendar, which is around 20” x 27” was a great find because it features prints of 12 of her best paintings — for only $15 total. Now much to my chagrin, there was a tag on that particular calendar marking it as reserved for another customer. I asked the cashier if they had any more in stock and she pointed me towards another area to check for myself. I was happy to find they had a few left, all of which were in cardboard packaging which was by itself a good quality reproduction of a Kahlo painting. Fifteen dollars later, I was on my way out to the car with my good fortune in hand. I can say with all honesty that the three ladies who were waiting for me in the car were also delighted with my find.
I would guess that Half Price Books came upon these Taschen calendars as some kind of closeout deal, so it’s possible that you might find one of these calendars at your local HPB if you’re interested. Better act fast, though, because I would imagine these are going to get snapped up rather quickly.
Now I just have to figure out where to hang ours...
