The Winkest Link

I will confess here that I am ‘oldish’ (but not yet old). I have a large collection of record albums that I never got rid of. I just couldn’t let go of these old “friends,” in spite of the fact that I hadn’t played any of them in decades.

I have somehow come into possession of an iPod. The first thing I did was to transfer all of the better songs from my cd’s to it.

Then I was given a bit of magic. I now have a device that can transfer the songs from my old records onto cd’s. From there it is only a short step to my computer and then to my iPod.

Some of the album music I have transferred are part of two-record sets, such as Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

Almost always, one record of a two-record set will have side A and side D, while the other has sides C and B. To clarify, on the flip side of A is side D. The flip side of B is C.

If you are my age or older you know why they are formatted A/D and B/C. On stereos you would physically stack the albums atop the spindle (the silver pole in the middle of the turntable), side A would play first, then the other record would drop down to play side B. After B ended, you would flip them both over and play C and D.

This concept is not so complicated (assuming I have described it adequately).

Here is the point (finally): WE LISTENED TO FOUR ALBUM SIDES OF ONE ARTIST ALL IN ONE SITTING.

That was a long time ago. We would never do that today. Aside from being at a concert, can you imagine listening to 20 consecutive songs by the same artist? No, you cannot. No patience.

And remember, we were listening to the whole album, including all the lame songs.

There are almost no complete albums on my iPod. From most albums I only selected one or two songs, and many albums I skipped altogether. (Did I actually pay money for those disco albums?)

So far my iPod has 1,200 cherry-picked songs, all songs I really like. It is set on “shuffle”. I never hear two songs in a row by the same artist.

It doesn’t matter. I now have an “MTV attention span.” This means if I am not entertained in the next 15 seconds, I am skipping this song and moving on to the next.

Remember, I CHOSE EVERY SONG on this device, I am never forced to listen to the same artist twice in a row, and I am still skipping songs all the time.

“Bored” has been redefined.

How did this happen to me? I expect this type of impatience from young, terribly immature people. I thought I would be immune due to my unusually high ‘intelligence and wisdom’ content.

Nope. No patience. None.

It has gotten so bad that I really don’t give a song 15 whole seconds. After about seven or eight notes I am usually done and movin’ on (thank you Bad Company).

Maybe deep down I DO think I am old, and can’t afford to give three whole minutes to a song that doesn’t just kill. I will call the shrink and check on this…

(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

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