2003-09-17 - 5:50 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack:

Wednesday, September 17

After Kit mentioned her Barbie house (be sure to click on that link), Poindexter and I got to talking about "big deal" toys. I mean, I would've just about died to get a Barbie house like that (unlike Kit, I liked Barbies). And then there are Star Wars toys.

Poindexter: got my big star wars toy, an X-wing fighter, that I paid for myself, when I was about 9.
Poindexter: My memory says it was just under $25.
Evelynne: That's like $60 today!
Poindexter: The kid across the street had a connection.
Poindexter: His parents knew a guy who worked for the company that made the star wars toys.
Poindexter: He had a freaking AT-AT walker.
Evelynne: Yeah, I turn green every time you remind me about him.
Poindexter: And the Freezing chamber room from Empire.
Poindexter: And the Falcon.
Evelynne: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
Evelynne: NOT FAIR!
Poindexter: Nope.
Poindexter: And a snow speeder.
Poindexter: And two tie fighters.
Evelynne: STOP!
Poindexter: Freaking things were everywhere.
Poindexter: Not to mention all the figures.
Poindexter: He let me play with just about anything.
Evelynne: That's a nice kid.
Poindexter: He was a good kid.
Poindexter: He didn't have an X-wing until later.
Poindexter: He liked mine.

I can't remember my biggest big-deal toy, but the funniest toy I ever got was a leapfrog game. You put little plastic frogs in holes in a disk thingie, and wound it up, and as the disk unwound/turned, the frogs were propelled out of the holes into the air and you had to try to catch them in a little yellow net. Flying frogs everywhere. I wonder if my mom still has it in the basement.

So, recently in the Star-Tribune, James Lileks published a reader letter (requires registration), which complained:

OK, maybe I'm being too technical, but there has been a rash of radio ads lately where the announcer would be saying something absurd when suddenly you hear a loud scratching sound -- like the needle on a record player -- only to yield to a more sensible announcer willing to make a deal. Are we supposed to believe they record these spots on LPs and deliver them to the radio stations? Good thing the sensible announcer is on hand to remove the needle and stop that crazy talk. The younger generation has probably never heard a real needle scratch and has no idea where this sound comes from.

Lileks muses about it:

People who grew up with records still wince at that sound. It meant your record was ruined. At best it would click; perhaps it would skip; at worst it would stick. Now the angels wanna wear my redangels wanna wear my redangels wanna wear my red -- and you'd have to get up, cross the room, skip ahead a few grooves. Or, if you were feeling lazy, you'd just stamp on the floor. Or, if you were Elvis, you'd shoot the record player.

We actually still use vinyl records in my family (they do still produce them, in limited quantities), since my father (a "sound reproduction enthusiast", I'd call him) and my music-freak brother maintain that well-kept vinyl on a good-quality turntable and sound system beats CD sound quality any day.

I was not allowed to touch my father's records or turntable until I was 12 years old. Prior to that, I had to use a dinky little portable record player where I spent many a happy hour listening to the soundtrack from "The Muppet Movie". Which I suddenly have a bad hankering to listen to now. ("Can you picture that?")

So it really disturbs me to think that there could be people reading this very journal entry who could hear that sound and not recognize it or what it means.

A few years ago, I gave either my dad or Poindexter's Papa a card that said something like "You're not old; you've just flipped to the B side of life!" And inside the card it said, "Oh, who are we kidding -- you got the B-side reference."

That made me feel really old too.

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