Dear 45 Records room,
One more Interstate 5 story: just outside of Sacramento in a fast food joint, I got into a quick conversation with a couple of bikers from the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club, one of the oldest clubs around. They had just come back from the annual Fourth of July weekend gathering in Hollister, the site of the infamous 1947 riot which was the basis for the classic 1951 film The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin. (Marvin’s character "Chino" is said to have been based on Wino Willie, founder of the BFMC). But while we were talking I overheard this woman at a table behind me say “He's a goddamned freaking national treasure ... I heard he has, like, a closet filled with mason jars of urine.” Anyway?
Here is the song hopelessly stuck in my head, tormenting me as I drove over the Siskiyous Mountain Pass on our way to Ashland, Oregon. And as I drove all night, my hands wet on the wheel, I thought I heard a voice in my head. Oddly enough, at the 4310 ft. summit, around about half past four in the morning, I found myself inexplicably shifting gears ...
Anyway, it's pretty late, say hey to the straight edge records and the 200 or so BRMC records we have stacked in the 45 Records Room. One more thing-- give a little peace, love and understanding to the new Elvis Costello Box, and I’ll see you all Monday afternoon.





record geek on vacation driving a Ford mini-van with my wife and kid on that silvery ribbon of highway. By the way, gas wasn’t terribly overpriced anywhere on the road.
ears doesn’t drive me mad, all the noise I use to cover my tinnitus every single frigging day will. I’d like to blame someone other than myself for this predicament; it is the true blue American, Fourth of July, consecrated right to deny personal responsibility. Could I blame some of the 5000 different bands I did sound for in my years as a live engineer? I was raised in the Catholic Church-- maybe the blame should be directed at god? Then again, what’s that going to accomplish? I’m pretty sure by the sixth chapter of the first book in the bible god was ready to kill off everybody; I doubt my tinnitus could qualify as either a concern of the almighty or the act of a vengeful god ... too simple a scheme. However, according to talk radio rationale, I could and should blame Obama, Pelosi, or Letterman and Franken or a least my college education for all my problems.
Sor. Passy Cemetery in the 16th arrondissement is where Claude Debussy is interred and, for you silent movie buffs, Pearl White, the star of The Perils of Pauline serial. And finally there is the Montparnasse Cemetery in the south. There you can find the graves of playwrights Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco, Dadaists Man Ray and Tristan Tzara and probably the most visited and garlanded grave in all of Paris: Serge Gainsbourg. His grave site is forever covered in flowers, cigarettes, metro tickets, personal notes and odd little objects that derive their significance from his lyrics. Earlier this week we spent two nights in our favorite fleabag-Henry Miller-down and out kind of hotel around the corner from Montparnasse. I stopped by one morning in the snow, said hello to Serge, took a couple of pictures and had a very respectful snowball fight with my son. This may sound more macabre then intended, but there’s nothing like a cemetery blanketed in snow.
There were two things which surprised the holy hell out of me during my two weeks in Paris. First of all, how cheap it was for a doctor to make a house call on my behalf under the French healthcare system … yeah I think I’m dying, but who isn’t … Secondly, and truly the most unusual event, was that it actually snowed in the city of Paris for the first time in years. Its not everyday your six year old son can make a snowman in Luxembourg Gardens, or throw snowballs next to 



agne stored down yonder under lock and key. That’s gold in that cave!