Entry Two Hundred.
Saturday, 2016.12.31, 12:35 PM CST.
Remembering Fall 1991.
Current Mood:  Warm, successful, and ready for 2016 to be over.
Current Scent:  Touch by Burberry.

It has been far, far too long since my last post, and I'm sorry about that.  I really am.  As usual, I've been posting to my Facebook page

Over six months have passed since I last posted here.  Carrie Fisher died a few days ago, which has hit me pretty hard... and, as a lot of you know, a ton of other 80s celebrities have passed this year as well.  George Michael.  Alan Thicke.  BOWIE.  Shockingly, depressingly gone.

As I stated in a previous entry over seven years ago, "I grieve not for... celebrities; I grieve for my past."  I'm not 100% sure that I believe that anymore.  I miss my past, but I also am very saddened that Bowie will never release another album.  I'm saddened that Carrie Fisher will not live to see the release of "Star Wars" Episode VIII or take part directly in Episode IX.

Unfortunately, on a more personal basis, I've had two old friends - instructors for whom I had a great deal of personal respect - die since my last post.  On a happier note, I've had the privilege of seeing one of my most treasured longtime friends get married.  I will post more about these things soon, hopefully, in greater detail.

All that being said, I hope life is treating you all well.  My life... isn't bad right now.  My family had an exciting Christmas, and I am taking a much-needed break after one of the most successful years I've ever had insofar as club performances have been concerned.  I have seen the landscape of the Tulsa DJ scene transform, and I am still very proud to be a part of it.

Today, however, I don't want to elabourate too much about this year, but rather, I want to discuss the fall of 1991 - an extremely special season for me.  Twenty-five years have passed since that fateful autumn.

As I mentioned in journal entry #198, I had a mighty bad breakup in the beginning of 1991... but the fall of 1991 was transformative in many other ways and had some very serious, strong memories attached to it.

At the time, I was still suffering over a couple of losses.  The breakup in early 1991 was a big deal - a really big deal - but also, shortly after that breakup, KTOW Progressive Radio went off the air, and that was a major blow as well.  In addition, due to a number of issues (financial and stress-related), I had to leave the University of Tulsa following the spring 1991 semester.

So... life was changing a lot, and it wasn't all in the most pleasant of ways.

On a brighter note, in the fall of 1991, I had a new girlfriend - a young blonde named Teneya (pronounced like "Tonya") who was very sweet, but we just weren't compatible enough with each other.  I was now attending college at Rogers State College in Claremore and taking part in the "Edge of Insanity" alternative programming on the college's KNGX 91.3 FM radio station - the closest thing available to the classic KTOW progressive programming.  I was playing so much great stuff - like the "brand new" Depeche Mode song "Death's Door" from Wim Wenders' film Bis ans Ende der Welt.  Thanks to another KNGX DJ, Kevin Roden, I also got my eyes opened to such classics as "The Jezebel Spirit" by David Byrne and Brian Eno and "Einstein on the Beach" by Philip Glass.

This autumn presented what I think was my first opportunity to go to the University City Loop - a relatively small but incredible section of Saint Louis, Missouri, with unusual, independent businesses like:

• Vintage Vinyl - an incredible music store where I found my first vinyl copy of the 2 Live Crew classic "We Want Some Pussy."
  
• Ziezo - a tremendous clothing store which is unfortunately no longer in business.
  
• Blueberry Hill - an amazing restaurant where I had the best hickory burger of my life in 1994 before giving up meat give years later.
  
• The Tivoli Theatre, whose flyers I used to grab in order to know which new "cult" films I needed to check out.

The Loop was beyond incredible... and I miss it.

I remember shopping a lot at Mohawk Music, of course.  That place will haunt me forever, of course, in a wonderfully sentimental way.  In the fall of 1991, I specifically remember getting the CD "Blind Man on a Flying Horse" by Lick the Tins there.  Paul at Mohawk swore (and, I'm sure, still swears) that I special-ordered it.  I don't remember doing so at all, but when it arrived in a shipment and he told me I'd ordered it, I went ahead and bought it... and I loved it.  The Lick the Tins version of "Hey Joe" was incredible, and the extended version of their cover of "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" (which had also been featured in the soundtrack to "Some Kind of Wonderful") became the top listener-requested song during my shifts at the Edge of Insanity.

I remember being hired by one of the staff at the University of Tulsa to DJ at a December 1991 event that he was holding - some sort of reunion or college admin meeting.  I very specifically remember going to Tulsa's now-defunct Lee's Records with my parents to pick up a slew of "older" songs on vinyl for that event, including lots of 45 RPM seven-inch records.  Over the next few years, Lee's would be one of my main resources for classic rock and oldies on vinyl.  (Keep in mind that this was almost two years before I first started using the Internet and about five years before the Internet become openly accessible on a commercial basis to most of the country.)

Finally... when I think of the fall of 1991, I remember a clearance sale being held at Camelot Music in the Tulsa Promenade mall.  I very clearly remember picking up the following CDs there for dirt cheap:

• Underworld - "Underneath the Radar."
• Underworld - "Change the Weather."
• Fuzzbox - "Big Bang!"
• The Strawberry Zots - "Cars, Flowers, Telephones."
• The Bolshoi - "Lindy's Party."

That last one was a really big deal.  The title track of "Lindy's Party" had been a track that I had dearly loved on KTOW... but unfortunately I had no idea what the song was actually called or who performed it!  You can probably imagine how it felt to simply "stumble" onto the CD, take the chance on blindly buying it for about two bucks, and determine that it was in fact the correct song.  If you've never heard the track, look it up... it's lyrically and musically amazing.

I remember that U2 had released their single "The Fly" at the time, along with the Achtung Baby album - still my favourite U2 album containing my favourite U2 song, "Love Is Blindness."  (For that matter, I also remember purchasing my first vinyl 12" copy of U2's "New Year's Day" in December of 1991.)

I remember performing DJ duties at a charity benefit that was put on by the "Edge of Insanity" at RSC... and I can still remember picking up the 12" single to Apollo Smile's "Dune Buggy" (to which my old friend Kevin "Wink" Winkler had introduced me), the 1991 remixes of a Split-Second's "Rigor Mortis," and Consolidated's "Consolidated!" EP for that event.

I specifically remember buying the Queen "We Will Rock You"/"We Are the Champions" EP with the Rick Rubin remixes in December 1991 as well.  It is a strong enough memory to be noteworthy.

I realize that these memories probably mean very little to most of you... but they mean a great deal to me, and this fall those memories have been hitting me extra-hard.  Autumn of 1991 simply could not have been a quarter of a century ago... and yet it was.

Time is fast, and time is often cruel.

Meanwhile, I have not been to the University City Loop in over twenty years.  I desperately need to return, soon.

More later.

Badger