September 25, 2008
Can I Get A Do-Over?
Posted by Sean Moores at September 25, 2008 6:55 PMHindsight being 20/20, here are some things I would like to have handled differently:
I would have taken care of my vinyl when I was a teenager, so I wouldn’t have to replace so much of it now.
I would have bought a ticket to see Stevie Ray Vaughan every time he played within 100 miles of my hometown.
I would have insisted that a certain female acquaintance return my Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers/Bob Dylan bootleg from the 1986 tour.
I would have held onto my mix tapes so I could now convert them to CD.
When choosing between two CDs recommended by my friend Barry Friedman at Birdland Music in Virginia Beach, I would have put back the Pine Box Boys’ “Child of Calamity,” and purchased the new Taj Mahal disc, “Maestro.” I’m just not in the mood for a blend of country and punkabilly/psychobilly/horrorbilly right now. And I may not be in the mood at any time in the near future, either.
Nice Idea.
I would have had a job that would have paid me enough to NOT have to sell off 150,000+ records just to live 15 years ago. This was a 43 year old collection of ALL genres, but especially Americana. It still hurts to see how much some of these records I used to own are going for now. Thank God for working in record stores from 1971-1998 and MP3s and KNOWING what I'm looking for and getting ahead of time.
I wish I would have developed a hobby of photography so I could have sometimes taken pictures of all the concerts I saw and performers I met over the years I Worked in clubs as a DJ, soundman, driver, drug dealer, MC...
Ditto for collecting autographs
I also wish I had at least kept more records of what my mix tape playlists were, so I could have reassembled them today...as it is i have precious few (maybe 20) of the hundreds I gave away or made for myself and gave away. I was lucky one friend just gave me twenty of the tapes he made from boxes of 45s and LPs I used to loan him for months on end (CUZ i HAD SO MUCH AND DIDN'T MIND SHARING)only thing is he NEVER wrote down what each track was (unlike me who was always anal about noting as much as I could on a cassette card) so now I have to guess what a lot of these tracks are since it's been 15-20 years since I've even heard (or wanted to hear) some of the songs on the tapes. Hey, it'll be a 'groovy' time wasting project for a rainy day.
At 57 there are a lot of things I wish I had done differently in my life and it's always a trip to consider what may have happened if only...I just went to the funeral of my first adult girlfriend last week. We hadn't spoken but maybe 5 times since our acrimonious breakup back in 1981. So many what ifs...gotta let them go and be thankful for everything I have NOW.
Choices every day, you know.
