Obsessions

I love cheesecake
I dream about bike rides in the mountains
Sometimes my thoughts dwell on food of all kinds
Gadgetry and gizmos make me happy
Books and literature make my brain feel good
But more than anything
I am always on the prowl for new record stores
There has to be something in the dusty shelves that I don't own yet, and I am willing to hunt it down.

I am obsessed with music more than anything. Really. It is sometimes kind of pathetic.

I almost always have music playing in the back (or fore) ground of wherever I hang out- car, work, home, airplanes, motorcycles, etcetcetc.

I don't even know how many stereo systems we have at the house- the number I'm sure is pretty obscene. But I need to have them all over in order to facilitate my soundtracking of every life event.

Part of my obsession is listening to new purchases repeatedly. Dozens of times. I pick out a few tunes that I like and completely soak myself in them. I listen to tracks in album order, out of order, singles, repeats, etc. I soak them up, and then file it away on a shelf for future consumption when my needs call for it.


As a subset obsession to my music fetish, I love love LOVE LOVE LOVE U2. I've been a huge fan since right around the time that War came out in 1983. I heard "Sunday Bloody Sunday" on KRSP (Rock 103) and really liked what I heard. It turned out that my cousin had a tape. we jammed it for days.


In March of 1987, I bought "The Joshua Tree' on cassette- skipped school to go to a record store and pick it up the morning of release. After listening to it 10 or more times a day for a month, the tape was tired, worn out, and just plain damaged. So I replaced it- hoping for better luck with the second one. It also died in 6 weeks. So I bought the CD. I didn't have a CD player, but I had friends that could make me copies. Still have the CD. Several others also.

I took a bit of a break from my obsession for most of the 1990s- the stuff they were releasing wasn't interesting to me at the time- although I don't mind it now.

It's pretty unhealthy. I listen to U2 almost all the time, I travel to concerts, my collection contains almost (not quite all) every song they've released- almost 600 to date. I've been known to purchase rare items on ebay. But I don't think It has reached the point of imbalance. Yet.

I'm going to be heading out into the desert this fall to locate the tree. I have a 'treasure map' that shows approximately where it is located in Death Valley.

I also plan on hitting several other U2 specific sites around the world in the next few years- we'll see if it happens.

But most importantly:
concert season is here.