45’s And Under: But as the sun goes down I get that empty feelin' again

Mmm, Player. They get that lonely feeling at dusk, day being done, missing whatever you're missing. 

I'm gonna go look at the August dusk and miss...I don't know what. The ease and possibility of long ago, maybe. Nowadays, I look more forward to the morning than the night. That much I know.

On My "Starburst" Album: To make what life's about

Alright, I've already written about this over twelve years ago (!), so maybe my concerns have not changed in over a decade, okay. Maybe I'm trying to get back to feeling like myself while living solely and literally (forgive me) within four building walls and a 10-block area for the last year (!). 

But Starburst was the first non-child's, non-Disney record given to me in June 1978 (accompanied by the Grease soundtrack, as I noted a dozen ! years ago)--so it's also the first non-soundtrack record I had. 

In other words, this was the first grown-up, adult, on-the-radio music that was solely in my possession, to play as often as I liked and damage as quickly as my small fingers could with the plastic arm of my own plastic-carry-case record player.

God! Thank you for giving me these things! A record player and records! Had I shown interest? Did other kids have these things? My friend Eva down the street did, I think Rosemary did and Ruth, of course, had her brothers playing records and getting her quickly up to speed on Bowie and Warren Zevon at a tender age.

Thank you, whoever gave me Starburst! Two lps of disco, AM pop, funk, a little bit of rock, and...Meat Loaf. Well, let the man tell you what's on it:

This is pre-might as well face it, you're addicted, slick-suited Robert Palmer, coming off of several albums with covers featuring or suggesting women undressed (so maybe there is a theme, okay). Funky, chunky, and heartwarming, though, this one is. Palmer didn't write this track; instead, it was Andy Fraser, who also wrote this song by Free, which I have thought for time immemorial was Bad Company. But then it was the same singer, so same diff. Lord above!

What? Starburst. Being introduced to the idea of "every kinda people" before third grade struck me, and stayed with me. It will pop into mind when surveying some kind of panoply of humanity, the airport, the beach, the L, or someplace that's not these four walls/ten blocks. (The slightly terrifying view of a street-sized tent of white people dining out in the suburbs this summer doesn't count.)

Actually, I've thought a lot how "each and every man's the same inside" over the last year, forcing myself to return to this fact of biology and humanity as both are ravaged by nature and nurture.

Oh, but it's all right once you get past the pain

Put expression in your eyes

React, respond, react all day long, and into the night, too. Click that, swipe here, peck and type and tell. It's no wonder all I want to do is push a needle and thread in and out of canvas. Those rote motions will make a picture, whereas my scroller finger scrolling daylong and thumb swiping "after hours" won't. It just won't.

Is a balanced diet possible? Maybe I need a restrictive diet.

Plant planting season can't come soon enough.

Remember how the stars stole the night away?

Whenever I hear it, I always remember how this felt. 

But it's really not about nostalgia. It's an aid to help you climb to a peak of happiness, way up in the blue sky, every -- single -- time   it plays.

YOW!

Random Play: There was voodoo in the vibes

This is a fine example of what I like to call wide-lapel sleeze rock: you know, where a quick and sleazy encounter is described in great, brandied detail as a satin-sheeted, smoky assignation accompanied by a guitar riff that'll unzip pants, or by shoulder-baring saxophones, or some silken synths. This unfettered, sexy epoch was short, only 1977-79, but that's, what,

What kind of night? It's when you're asked to loosen up that pretty French gown since we can turn the lights down low and be swayin' to the music  til the night closes in (shout out to Richmond, KY!), because you'd rather be a fool with a broken heart than a liar.

Slow Hand, of course, just cuts to the chase. And when it's over, this guy pushes the hair out of his eyes and goes crazy when he sees you. Just make sure that he doesn't still see your face if he's married someone else.

But it's this guy who'll get you in the end. He's been waiting in the hall.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Back when you walked into the room: