by Joe Wallace

I’ve lived in Chicago for four years now, and I’ve gotten used to walking almost everywhere and taking the car only when there’s gear to be hauled or groceries and vinyl to be stowed. So hitting OKC and Texas was a blast of ugly–in spite of my having lived in San Antonio for seven years. Too much highway, too many cars. Every trip takes half an hour even if you’re just crossing the street!

But I digress. Today I wound up in Dallas where I encountered the single largest facility for selling vinyl records–and every other form of recorded music including cassettes–I have ever seen. Look for a review of Grand Prairie, Texas’s own Forever Young coming soonish (maybe tomorrow). For now I’ll just use the cliche and say it’s Texas-sized. For real. For completists and hard-core collectors, this is the place to fill the gaps in your collection–but I’ll save the rest for later.

RANDOM NOTES ON THE JOURNEY SO FAR

Vinyl Isn’t Always Fun Department–Most Pointlessly Crass, Ladies-Hatin’ Album Cover So Far:

Dumbass Department

I was desperate need of a hotel on Tuesday night and could find nothing in OKC, but I knew where there were plenty of cheap hotels to drop my bags and score some snore time. So I pulled over and asked a local yokel:

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Me: “Excuse me, which way to Tinker Air Force Base?”

Yokel: “Tanker Air Ferce Baiyuss?”

Me: “Yeah, I’m looking for Tinker Air Force Base, which highway do I take?”

Yokel: “To Tanker Ayair Ferce Bayuss?”

Me: “Yeah, Tinker.”

He gave me the directions, but what an ordeal–how many times can I say those three words before the pilot light in your brain goes on?

It makes me laugh that the Cheech and Chong 8-track tape in this picture is the only one filed upside down. Since this was taken at the store where I heard the two conversations about people trying to beat a urine test by putting mysterious crystals in their pee, it’s doubly funny.

I am writing this in a Starbucks in Grand Prarie, Texas, where The Cure and Randy Newman have played in the mix in the last 20 minutes. This is a bit surreal for some reason.

I’ve had little sleep in the last two days–I keep waking up at 5AM for some damn reason. This post probably isn’t terribly coherent.