One of the things I wanted to do once I tiled the floor was to replace my old entertainment center. It’s a teak veneer deal that was all the rage back in the 80’s when I bought it. One of the smoked glass doors has a big crack in it – the crack is more than ten years old. But you know I don’t buy anything retail, so I had been scouting craigslist, keeping an eye open. Last week I bought a solid ash hand crafted entertainment center for $50. I think it was made back in the 80’s. Hmm.

I still have a lot of albums, but I didn’t realize until yesterday, while cleaning out the old entertainment center, just how many cassettes I had. I can’t remember the last time I listened to one. I was going through the dusty tapes – The Police, Guns and Roses, Miles Davis, etc – and then I saw it; GASP.

If you’ve read the 50 things about me page, your might remember #10 was that I once was in a band called Guido and the Scum Puppies. At one point we really did have a drummer named Guido. Last I heard, he was doing stucco work in Trenton NJ. I listened to the old tape. Damn, for the 80’s it wasn’t half bad. While I won’t name all the songs (I can only embarass myself so many times in a thread and the pictures are damning enough), I particularly enjoyed And She Was by the Talking Heads and Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar.

Finding the tape assured me I still had pictures somewhere – but where. My house is ridiculous to navigate at this point as furniture from the rooms I’m tiling are jammed into every other room in the house. But I had to find the pictures. Why? Because I’m having a horrible case of writer’s block right now and somehow finding the pictures was going to fix all that – or at least kill time. Today, victory was mine. A fit of giggles was also mine. Man, the 80’s was a tough decade not to look silly in.

I leave you with this parting picture, with a look that must have been inspired by Farah Fawcett without the teeth. OMG!!! I sure hope I can write now, otherwise this won’t have been worth it.

I promise poker for next time. These flashbacks can’t last forever.