Author: Mark Alexander

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Satisfying

Was it perfect? No. Were there gaping plot holes and twists that made absolutely no sense? Of course. But was it a fun ride? Did it finally answer some long-running questions? Did I enjoy it more than Season 3? Absolutely.

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My Latest Acquisition

Prompted by this and an offline convo I had with one of my readers (you know who you are), I decided it was time to add Ray of Light to my vinyl collection. This 2-disk, 180g clear vinyl, Record Store Day/Black Friday 2018 special edition didn’t come cheap. It cost a bit over twice what I’m used to paying for new vinyl, but it was worth it.

Now I’m just worried that this purchase will  justify shelling out twice that for the purple vinyl edition of Prince’s Purple Rain that I’ve been eyeing for years.

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A Repost

As I am wont to do on occasion…

I come up with some really weird shit when I’m laying in bed, wide awake at 2 am and can’t get back to sleep; shit that sounds amazing at the time but when I actually get around to putting it down for posterity the next day it doesn’t seem quite as amazing as I’d thought it would. (This leads me to believe that perhaps I wasn’t quite as awake as I thought I was.)

Case in point, this little meme. I don’t know if it’s really a meme if I’m only one doing it, but the idea came to me last night when my usually fool-proof method of forcing myself back to sleep—counting backward from some arbitrarily high number—utterly failed me.

It works like this: starting from the current year, assign a few words, a phrase, or a picture that best describes that year to you and work backwards as far as you want.

Mine goes like this (updated for this post):

2022: Insurrection. Return to the non-functional “normal.”

2021: New beginnings…and saying goodbye to a furry friend.

2020: Lockdown. Fire. My sense of security destroyed. Removal of the orange menace.

2019: Hired full time. “I’m a real boy now!” Benefits!

2018
Thinking outside the box is strongly discouraged at ADOT, but the arrow finally found its mark. Return of the Quirky. Revisiting the ghosts of Solano Drive.

2017
Gub’mint work. Disaster strikes; Touchbar woes.

2016
Underemployed and overextended. Fear of a Cheeto planet.

2015
Back to Phoenix.

2014
Done with Denver. DISH: a feculent vat of toxic hellstew.

2013
Marriage to Ben, Dad’s passing.

2012
Exploring Colorado. Devil’s Tower. Mt. Rushmore

2011
Denver! (What have we done?)

2010
Ben’s Graduation

2009
Mom’s passing. Road trip to Wisconsin. Mac!

2008
Ben

2007
Anderson, Yellowstone

2006
Never leave home without your camera.

2005
Full time employment returns!

2004
Abrazo

2003
Cancer

2002
Return to Phoenix. Living with Dad.

2001
9/11 and the surreal beginning to where we currently find ourselves in this country.

2000
Foggy early morning, walking down Market Street on January 1st to go to work to make sure that our interconnected world hadn’t blown up at midnight and thinking, “So this is what the year 2000 looks like. We were lied to.”

1999
Realizing I’d become the very thing I swore I never would when I originally arrived in San Francisco in 1986: a jaded old queen living up on the hill.

1998
Back to Phoenix. Turning 40 and living with Mom; later, returning to Oz again.

1997
Redeeming my life at 33 rpm

1996
Return to Oz. Employment hell. Yosemite and Mono Lake. Dragon Lady Productions

1995
Leaving San Francisco. Tucson and the Emmett Higgen affair.

1994
Jezebel, the car from Hell.

1993
Hell on Fell.

1992
The Rory Hansen Affair.

1991
Dennis’s passing.

1990
14th & Church

1989
The Earth shook.

1988
The Michael Rose Affair

1987
My first apartment in San Francisco. Kenny, Dave, Kevin.

1986
Aliens (the movie). Breaking up with Bernie and moving into my own place. The black behemoth. Yamaha, finally! Ben Walzer. Arrival in Oz. “The City will chew you up and spit you out!”

1985
Bernie, Kekku and the trip to San Francisco.

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Oh Michael… (NSFW)

Yes, I will always repost these whenever I come across them on in my journeys on the interwebs.

If you’re new to my blog, you can read the whole sordid story here and here.

(Sorry, I tend to repeat myself on certain subjects, but it’s my blog so deal with it.)

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Released 36 Years Ago Today

Madonna: True Blue (1986)

From Behind the Grooves:

“True Blue”, the third album by Madonna is released. Produced by Madonna, Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, it is recorded at Channel Recording in Los Angeles, CA from December 1985 – April 1986. After the massive whirlwind success of the “Like A Virgin” album and “The Virgin Tour”, the pop superstar does not rest on her laurels, beginning work on the crucial follow up at the end of 1985. Working with long time collaborator Stephen Bray and new producer Patrick Leonard (Michael Jackson, Jody Watley), the album is praised upon its release as her strongest effort to date, and is widely regarded today as one of the best albums of her career. It spins off five top five hits including “Live To Tell” (#1 Pop), “Papa Don’t Preach” (#1 Pop), “Open Your Heart” (#1 Pop) and the title track (#3 Pop). “True Blue” also marks the beginning Madonna’s long association with famed fashion photographer Herb Ritts who shoots the LP’s iconic cover photo. The original LP package also includes a poster of the album cover shot. As a promotion for the album, MTV sponsors the “Make My Video” contest, inviting viewers to submit their own visual interpretations of the title track. The winning entry comes from Angel Gracia and Cliff Guest, whose black & white clip is rotated heavily on the video channel. The pair are awarded a check for $25,000 by the pop superstar herself at MTV’s New York studios. The alternate video directed by James Foley, featuring Madonna with close friends actress Debi Mazur and fashion designer Erika Belle is shown largely outside the US. Madonna also supports the album with the worldwide “Who’s That Girl Tour” beginning in June of 1987. It is remastered and reissued on CD in 2001, with the extended 12″ mixes of “La Isla Bonita” and the title track included as bonus tracks. The vinyl LP is reissued in Europe in 2012, including the original inner sleeve lyric sheet and poster featured in the original release. In October of 2016, a limited edition release of the LP pressed on blue vinyl, is issued as exclusive through the European supermarket chain Sainsbury’s. “True Blue” spends five weeks at number one on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified 7x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

My unbridled love for this album and the accompanying quest to acquire it on “true blue” vinyl has been well documented on this blog, so I won’t add anything more today and instead will sign off and go listen to it.

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