I continued my utter and complete domination (not really) of the hiking trails at Deerfield Park this week with another 17 miles of a planned 25-mile week in my boots as of Thursday.
Speaking of miles, October 19th marked 1 month since I decided to give myself a kick in the ass and get back outside for more than just casual photo creeps. And over that month, I have hiked over 100 miles in the woods, plus a few miles here and there from mowing the vast (not really) estates of the Cul De Sac Shack. Not to mention my head, and my mind, and my brain too, are feeling much better with daily, outdoor, woodsy cardio. [note School of Rock reference, not stupidity.]
This here tooting of my own blubbery micro-horn is all I have for the blog today; the boy is coming home this weekend (YES!!!), and we have some friends coming into town as well, so I got shit to do, soccer to watch, music to put in my ear holes, and beer to drink.
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Later.
SOILED SOUNDS TRACK OF THE POST:
Log into Spotify in your browser, click here, or visit YouTube to listen to the complete track.
Today’s track of the post is an “oldie.” No, it’s not a song from my dad’s long-dormant vinyl collection of the absolute worst music of the 1960s and 70s1; it’s from the legendary post-punk/funk band Gang of Four, it’s called Damaged Goods, and it was released in 19-fucking-78!! When I was 7 years old! Can I get a gahdamn? GAHDAMN!! Thank you!!
I still remember being in my teens and twenties, skulking around the mall record shops of western Pennsylvania looking for Gang of Four albums, eager to buy, even though I had NEVER even heard a Gang of Four song. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s just the way it was back then for a small-town music nerd like me in the late 80s and early 90s.
- Read about a band in a British music magazine you paid too much for.
- Search high and low for their albums.
- Buy the album, and HOPE you like it. If not, you’re out cash.
Sadly, I never did find any Gang of Four albums in those now long-defunct mall record stores. But, as Napster, YouTube, online record shops, and other bandwidth-straining apps started (for better or worse) infiltrating society in the late 90s, I finally tracked down Gang of Four. They were worth the wait, and this track has always been, and still is, a staple in my rotation of “oldies.”
Note: If you’re a soccer fan, you may or may not have watched the 2019 Amazon documentary Take Us Home about now Premiere League team Leeds United, to which the song Damaged Goods was the theme song.
- Outside of some Jonny Cash, my dad has possibly the worst taste in music ever, and most of the albums that sit warping in his basement are from shit artists no one has ever heard of, and for good reasons. Sadly, my dad’s musical tastes have always been tainted by racism, fucked up Catholicism (is there any kind?), and a distaste for “dopers” and hippies. I say “were” because my dad is at the age now (80) where he doesn’t leave the house, listen to music, or watch anything other than Alex Jones-level right-wing “news” or YouTube videos about “extreme grass cutting,” how to perform an exorcism on yourself, and why Satan hates Latin (I’m not making ANY of this shit up!). I’m not sure where I got my love of music, but I assure you it was not from him.