I... sometimes have strange recollections tied to music that make no sense to anyone but me. I am guessing that's true for just about everyone, because that's just sort of how minds work. In this case, it was a Lionel Richie song, which I hadn't thought about in many, many, many years.
Many. So many.
No, I was never a fan, but my dad was. This could have partially been why I was never a fan. Some of the things he liked, I had to question. Lionel was no exception. All told, a reasonable ten year old can only deal with so much "Can't Slow Down", before she starts to pace around the room, ready to throw things. But if we were home, I could at least leave the house, and either swim, or look for rattlesnakes in the hills behind my house. Remember those days, when kids under the age of 15 could actually go do things without their parents?
I do.
Music with my dad was always a trip. He had a wall of nothing but stereo equipment.
A huge wall.
No, really. A huge wall, that was basically an homage to pressed, magnetic, and eventually lazer media. He basically started collecting around 1970, and never stopped. He also never threw anything out. I have no idea how he still had bottles of record cleaner and one of those felted brush implements that you had to run along the vinyl just so, and not cross any of the tracks; all the way into at least 1997, but he did. And he still used it all. He even had an enormous mixing board with wooden panels on each side. He never really divorced himself from broadcasting, or at least playing around with all the things related to such work... well... until he did, but that was a completely different story, and one I won't bore you with now.
He would make these mixed tapes that would start out on vinyl, then Teac reel to reel, and eventually end up in cassette form, for the car. At least he didn't have to worry about losing his music, I guess.
Yes, you read that right. My dad liked his music in triplicate.
And people wonder why I'm such a goddamned freak.
Anyway, someone mentioned "All Night Long", today. I... never really liked that song, but it does remind me of a certain time when my family lived in a spot where we would have to drive past a mortuary every day, as we exited the freeway. I hated that place, once I knew what it was. Gave me the creeps. It would haunt my dreams, night after night. For months. I became obsessed enough that I had to learn all about the process of morgue corpse, to... embalmed corpse. I think I spent about half a year on this. I wish I were exaggerating here. I'm not.
Did you know they stuff things up your butt when you die? I did at age 10. Oddly, this comforted me, as I realized at least my ass wouldn't leak anything into my casket for all eternity.
There was also a disturbing pool of some sort of suspicious liquid in the back of the building. It could be seen, just as you got onto the freeway exit. I was sure it was meant for pure evil, and... you know, not at all a source of recreation for the family who owned the mortuary and lived upstairs from it. I could not actually see the pool, but I could see the reflections of the aforementioned suspicious liquid dance on the side of the building, as it moved. I once asked my dad why that was there, and he told me that it was where they dumped all of the blood... while Lionel Richie sang about partying all night long in the street.
I guess I cared enough about Lionel to think this: "Be careful, Lionel."
I got curious and looked at the mortuary on Google Maps. It is still there, but the pool has been filled in. No more dumping of the bloods. Ah, well.
-H
