Or - 'How Paul McCartney Once Kept Me From Getting Laid'

Anyone who knows me knows that at some point in the distant past I lost all patience keeping up with sentimental 'stuff.' All those records, tapes and CD's that I'd been holding onto like The Grail? Gave 'em away or put them in storage. Kazaa and a case of slugs would hold me. The shelves full of books I used to line up like soldiers? Parceled most of 'em out as Christmas gifts and got myself a shiny new library card instead. High School annuals? Fuck that. I was ugly and so were most of you. And who among us really needs to re-read gems like 'Chris - God loves you and I am trying' (direct quote - from a majorette, no less) scrawled in the margins of a $30 dollar book I bought 15 years ago? Nobody, that's who.

Why the change? I dunno. Honestly. I just remember thinking - you know what? I have been listening to the same music, reading the same 15 books, eating the same food, and traveling in the same circles for quite a while and I'm done with that now. And that was that. Amen. So I became the 'hey, let's go do something different right now' guy. Hydroponic Indian food? Sounds delicious. Jeet Kun Do classes? Absolutely. Ditto for Buddhist meditation and slam poetry. Ambient techno music by a 12 year old Israeli girl? I'm IN! Colonic? Well ... maybe.

Still, every once in a while you just gotta look back - pillars of salt be damned. And I did just that (in the silliest of ways) Friday last by shelling out $16.95 for the (used) 2-CD set: The Beatle's Greatest Hits : 1962 - 1966. I bought them for no other reason than that I woke up humming 'Eleanor Rigby' and couldn't quite get over it. Waking up humming anything, much less 'Eleanor Rigby,' is probably a sign that my meds need adjusting, and it kept on nagging at me until I found myself at the music store on my lunch hour. No, the irony is not lost on me that my 'nostalgia' music is from my parent's generation. I'm weird, always have been.

So I spent the weekend getting reacquainted with the music that kept me company so often when I was younger and it was nice ...