Thursday, October 25, 2018

Hi There!


Hi, I'm Cary. I am 49 years old, and live with my girlfriend in Florida. This blog is going to be about myself and any bit of randomness I feel like writing about in the moment. I love horror, science fiction, and all things pop culture. I am also a big music fan. My tastes run from The Ramones to Barry Manilow and everything in between. I do not believe in guilty pleasure music or movies. If you like something, you should own it.


Friday, March 31, 2017

8-Tracks and Cassettes



My father had a lot of music on vinyl, but there was one other format that my father truly loved, and that was the 8-Track tape. I have fond memories of sitting in the living room with him while he made 8-Track tapes for his car from the many records he had. I would make up cassettes for myself when he played a song I liked. I wish I still had some of those cassettes, because they would be interesting to listen to now. My father had an 8-Track player in his car well into the 80's and long after it was fashionable. It had to be one of the worst music formats of all time. The tape was on a continuous loop and divided into four tracks on the tape. If a song happened to be between two tracks there would be a click sound in the middle of the song. I remember the first album I ever asked for was Billy Joel's Glass Houses. I thought it was obvious that I wanted the cassette version, but on Christmas morning I unwrapped an 8-Track. I was really disapointed, but that did not stop me from listening to it a lot. The coolest thing ever involving myself and this format actually made me some money. While out thrift shopping, I found the 8-Track tape for Gary Numan's Pleasure Principle album. It cost me a dime. I found out that some 80's 8-Tracks were quite rare, so I listed it on Ebay, where it almost made a hundred dollars.



The cassette was my main format up until a few years into CD's being around. In the 70's and early 80's I would make mix tapes by recording songs off the radio. (I also wish I had some of these) My favorite time to record would be the weekend, when the radio station would play the top 40 songs for the week. I would sit patiently with my finger on the record button of my boom box, waiting for a good song to play. In my early teen years, I also built quite a collection of pre-recorded cassettes. 


I loved my cassette collection until I decided to upgrade to CD's. That was pretty much the end of listening to music on tape for me. 

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

What Movies Mean To Me


Movies have always been a big part of my life. One of my favorite things to do in the world is watch movies. I love escaping into different realities, or sometimes even worlds. When I was growing up one of my father's friends owned a video rental store, and I got to see all the movies I wanted to for free. I was bullied and did not have a lot of friends growing up. I always had movies to watch though, and my father would even sneak home the ones my mother didn't want me to see. My favorite genres of film would be horror and science fiction. I don't limit myself to those, and will try just about any type of movie. I have greatly enjoyed some movies labeled as chick flicks, and do not consider them guilty pleasures. You should never feel guilty about liking something. 

When I was sixteen I moved to Florida and knew nobody, but I still had the movies. I even made a few like minded friends who also enjoyed going to the movies. After high school when I eventually moved out, it was just me and the movies. I was shy and didn't date much but I always had movies. I eventually got married, divorced and had a daughter somewhere in between. I still love movies, and watch them whenever life is not taking me in another direction.  Movies also helped me get over times when I was really depressed. Whether I was watching teenagers get hacked up by Jason Vorhees or laughing at a Mel Brooks comedy, movies made it possible to totally remove myself from the world for two hours. Sometimes that is exactly what you need.