About Lugnut -- Patrick Malone

Glad you are feeling better, Pat. One could actually feel the collective sigh of relief throughout Audiogon.... Enjoy your sister's visit.
Sota Cosmos should be here next week - apparently the motor alignment was so smashed in transport that there was no way, Kirk said, that I could have fixed it.........even with the help you so graciously offered.

Great news for a very deserving soul. I will continue my prayers for you, i still believe your going to beat this. I feel much to strongly your incredible journey has much more to experience. Keep giving yourself all the rest your body is asking for, you will be back!

Alex,

If Lance is starting in Northern California and going to D.C. then he just might come to Boise. There are several great bike races here and he'd be honored by we citizens if he did pass through. For sure, I'd get out to cheer at him.

The CDP may be a gift from heaven if I need to send the preamp off. I'd already considered the variable outputs.

And Alex, I'd really recommend you do go out and fish. About the only thing I can think of that I haven't done enough of is swimming. Now I wish I'd spent more time in the water. Simple things we enjoyed as kids are some of the best things we can do as adults. So much to do in a lifetime and never enough time.

Lou, Mary and I both are huge Neil Young fans so we always listen to his stuff when together. In the world of rock we both love the joint family tree that resulted from Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds. So many good groups and wonderful tunes came about as a result of those guys it still makes my head spin. You can imagine the vinyl I pull when we get on a roll. When my friends were here last week we pulled David Crosby's "If Only I Could Remember My Name". Man, I wish someone would find the master tapes and reissue this masterpiece to audiophile standards.

One thing for sure, of all the fine folks I've met personally here at Audiogon I think I'm most like Albert. I bothers me NOT if a record is less than audiophile grade IF the music moves me. I demand my system to allow me to enjoy the music I love. When Bill Dillon was over and we listened to NY's Greatest Hits he remarked how listening catapults us to a different time and place. My brother called recently and he remarked how much he doesn't like music videos because it ruins the connection the mind makes with where you were when you first heard a song. I agree with him 100%. It's too bad I'm not more like Albert. If I were I'd have about a zillion tubes to roll and my system would have a dead silent background too. But then I'd also tell many really bad jokes too. As if that's a bad thing.

Nate, I heard you laughing. And Doug, you know I love you but you need some rock 'n roll in your life while I need some more classical. Too bad we don't live closer so both could rub off of one another. Larry sent me some classical CD's I enjoy a lot.

FWIW, I can't figure this health stuff out at all. I felt like crap yesterday and today I feel really good. Go figure. I'm glad I'm feeling good today. One of my fellow club members is coming over this afternoon amd I'm betting he brings some vinyl that hasn't seen a stylus for years. And later we'll pick up Mary and probably go out to dinner. Barb and I haven't done that for quite some time and to think that was one of our weekly or bi-weekly dates. It would be nice for her to enjoy some small slice of the way things used to be with us. The poor woman might as well have the same thing wrong with her as I have. She's suffered right along with me and has remained cheerful in the process. Just for me. Bless her heart.

Denis, can't wait to get a report on your Sota. Please let us all know how it goes. Time to warm up some tubes and listen to The Waterboys again until my guest arrives. A good weekend to all.

Pat,

I play rock (and even some roll) alot when I'm driving. It keeps the energy and attention levels up. Classical is impossible to listen to in a car, or at least in my car. The dynamic range is too wide.

We recently acquired a (sealed!) copy of 'Trio', with Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmy Lou Harris (Warner Bros. W1-25491). Thanks to Swampwalker BTW for introducing us to it. Not rock and roll certainly, but also not classical. This is one amazing LP with three amazing singers. When Dolly sings "Wildflowers" the lyrics somehow bring Lugnut to mind:

The hills were alive with wildflowers
And I was as wild, even wilder than they.
For at least I could run, they just died in the sun
And I refused to just wither in place.

Just a wild mountain rose, needing freedom to grow
So I ran fearing not where I'd go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

And the flowers I knew in the fields where I grew
Were content to be lost in the crowd
They were common and close, I had no room for growth
I wanted so much to branch out

I uprooted myself from home ground and left
Took my dreams and I took to the road
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

I grew up fast and wild and I never felt right
In a garden so different from me
I just never belonged, I just longed to be gone
So the garden, one day, set me free

Hitched a ride with the wind and since he was my friend
I just let him decide where we'd go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

Dammit. Now I'm gonna cry every time she sings that.

I will laugh though, whenever I put that record away. I own no other LPs with paperdoll cutouts of three skimpily clad ladies printed on the inner sleeve. There are even little garment cutouts to fit them. This is not a thing I ever expected to find in my music collection.

Doug, as long as you don't try to wear those little outfits yourself, you might be okay...