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Entry
Two Hundred Thirty-Eight.
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December 3rd, 11th, and 23rd,
2020. |
Ten years ago, on my birthday, I became an orphan. My dad was found dead by his next-door neighbor. The proceeding dealings with the estate (working on cleaning it, finding out that it was broken into, and finally having it purchased and remodeled by a very kind and patient longtime friend) took several years, and I was glad to finally be done with them.
Today... is Christmas Day. I love Christmas - and by that, I don't just mean that I think it's fun. I LOVE the experience of Christmas, except for the parts where I usually run out of money and my stress goes up. Those parts suck.
As I write this, I'm currently enjoying some Gu Manh X2 2-in-1 coffee and watching Slime City, a fairly atrocious but fun classic horror flick that I first purchased back in the late 1990s. The plot is okay, and the gore effects aren't completely shit, but the acting is garbage. Overall, it's a fun flick and worth watching if you're into that kind of thing.
I tell you... I miss sharing the experience of crappy old films (and/or legitimately good "cult classic" films) with my friends. It's been a long, long time. Once the COVID-19 pandemic is taken care of (if that ever happens), I look forward to getting together with people more often. Movie nights, game nights, dinners... I miss all that kind of stuff.
For now, I'm at least socializing through the broadcasts. Currently, on Saturdays, I'm still spinning tunes on Radio SRO and the Groovy Train at radiosro.net starting at 7:00 PM central time, and on most Wednesdays, I'm presenting the Hump Day Sessions at badgerspins.com. A whole subculture of Tulsa's vintage clubgoers - people who went to SRO, Beat Club, Limelight, Palladium, and The Max/Circa/Ikon - have adopted me like one of their own, and I am extremely grateful.
Other than that... I'm still working on my novel, tentatively titled "Mercy," occasionally producing music, and continuing to do the day-job thing. I'm still married with two awesome sons. Life is not perfect by any means... but it's sometimes pretty sweet.
Twenty-five years ago, you could have caught me on most nights at Critic's Choice Video at 31st & Harvard. I hung out there with my friends Tim (DJ TMJ) and Chris, and after the store closed late at night, I would often go out to eat with Tim and his then-girlfriend, now-wife-of-over-a-decade Lori. I haven't seen Tim and Lori in person in about a year, and I haven't seen Chris in person in about a decade. We are still friends, and we (especially Tim and I) chat from time to time.
Anyway... I'm getting older, and it's weird. Parts of me are still stuck in the past, and I don't think I'll ever fully escape the past's grasp. I've lived an awful long time, and I've reached the point at which a lot of the people whose work I've enjoyed and respected are dying off. Strangely, George Michael, who died four years ago today, comes to mind more quickly than anyone else. Bowie's gone. Carrie Fisher, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, and now Jeremy Bulloch - who was extremely kind to me when I was a child - all gone. Pat Dinizio, Tony Lewis, Florian Schneider. Lots, lots more. And more will be coming. It's the nature of the game.
In the meantime, I have enemies who will die as well. At least two very messed-up individuals whom I'd known personally died this year, and I can't say that the world isn't better off for it. They weren't necessarily enemies of mine, but they were considerably damaged people who had hurt others whom I care about. As time goes by, I hope to outlive more and more of those types of people, as well as those who have hurt me personally. It's something I quite look forward to, and there is no shame in celebrating the deaths of people whose lives have been a detriment.
Alas, I digress.
We are quickly approaching the new year. I have accepted the possibility that about 25-30% of me is irreversibly locked in time, and I will continue to collect and relish the artifacts of the distant past.
It still astounds me that I started DJing thirty-one years ago. Time is amazing and often quite cruel, and as I am now approaching age 50, I still - as I probably say too often - still feel like I was only twenty-five years old a few months ago.
Thank you so much to everyone who has enjoyed and supported my work. I can assure you that there's much more to come.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready to head out to a magical place called Spunky Creek to look at holiday lights. I usually do that before Christmas, and over the years it had become more and more of a specific Christmas Eve tradition. But, this year, largely due to a day-job fiasco about which I am not highly pleased... I had to postpone my Christmas Eve Spunky Creek trip. Hopefully it will be just as wondrous tonight.
Thank you again... more soon.
Badger
[The badgerkelley.com site is still forthcoming. The views and opinions expressed in my posts are mine and mine alone. No posts on this site, nor any of my posts on social media, should be considered representative of any company for which I work, nor any company for which I've ever worked, nor any company that I own or have owned.]