Yard Sale/Joe Cardella

Benji and the Cone

Since the pandemic, my dog Benji and I walk the mile and a half to the beach every Saturday, and often stop at yard sales on the way. He is my yard sale consultant, and so far has picked up tiki mugs from Harvey’s of Lake Tahoe, a Craftsman Scroll Saw, and assorted books among other things. Today he’s wearing the cone due to a procedure on his ear yesterday, and I thought it best to stay away from the sand that he likes to roll around in. Instead of the Starbucks at the end of Seaward that we normally frequent on a Saturday morning, we headed to Simones by the hospital.

I’ve written about Simones (though this is the new one) before, and should update that post. They’re still good.

We walked the long way back home to try to get close to the 6 miles we normally do on a Saturday morning, and happened by a yard sale in a part of Midtown that we don’t normally walk through.

There were interesting things, like some vintage tools and bottles that I thought looked cool but had no use for, as well as some art work that again, looked interesting, but I don’t really have a place for. I did find some ceramic insulators for $2 a piece, to go with my collection that I use as yard decorations. I picked out two.

There was a couple and an older man running the yard sale. She was trying to get a Margaritaville Blender to work and seemed disappointed that all it did was crush ice. The older man said the parrots had left the trees, and her husband (I think) was talking to me about various items they had for sale.

An Original

I saw this mixed media painting, and he said that I could have it, that he didn’t think anyone else would want it. I wasn’t sure that I wanted it either, but it will fit in with the tiki bar I someday wish to have, so I accepted.

He said that the artist, Joe, lived behind his house on the next street, and that Joe had made it on an idle afternoon in Florida, when his friends were off doing something that he didn’t want to do. Joe had passed a few years before, throat cancer the guy said, and they had become friends over the fence, especially after his wife would make soup that Joe could eat. I asked if the artist’s name was on it, and he said yes pointing to where it was on the front of the work, J. Cardella.

Home now, I looked up Joe Cardella (follow the link to learn what I learned) not expecting to find anything, and after the brief internet search, I’m now quite proud of the piece that I’ve acquired. It’ll still go in the tiki bar that I don’t have, but now I have a story to go with it. Apparently well known in the Ventura and national art scene, I now have an original, though minor, museum worthy piece.

The Who A Quick One (Happy Jack)/Sell Out

I knew Magic Bus and My Generation, but when I hit High School, the kids were listening to Baba O’Reilly from Who’s Next, and Tommy (the movie soundtrack, not the original). By Numbers was out, but I didn’t really take to it.

 

 

Then came Who Are You at the start of my sophomore year. Licorice Pizza in Downey had a pretty good import section, and I bought the longer import version, which didn’t sensor the “Who the fuck are you?” line.

I alluded in another “12” post about the Wherehouse affiliate store, Big Ben and the Lakewood branch. In the cut-out bins, I came across this two record set, and in my mind, the two are very much linked together. It must have been a good price, and I knew I Can See For Miles so I plunked down the cash and found that I really enjoyed the early Who. Also in the bins was another two discer, Magic Bus/My Generation, which I’m surprised I didn’t buy as well, but I think I bought the imported The Story of the Who instead.

Tommy was long and convoluted, not really making any sense to me-deaf, dumb and blind kid? Really? And though I liked Elton John’s Pinball Wizard, and thought it was strange to see Ann Margret rolling around in beans, the Tommy Movie or the original Who version didn’t make much sense to me. I could follow Quadrophenia better, but not much better.

But the nine or so minutes of A Quick One (While He’s Away) made sense. Moon’s drumming drives home the story of the girl who’s been waiting for her man, get’s tired of waiting and takes up with Ivor the Engine Driver, then her man comes back, forgives the transgression, and everything’s good once more. The tempos and styles change quickly, and to me it represents everything that is the Who. I love the power chording of Townshed’s guitar and the bass runs from Entwhistle. The harmonies are far from perfect, which gives the song the feeling that anyone could shout along.

Cobwebs and Strange, Moon’s contribution, seems to always creep into my head when I need an instrumental, and other songs, like So Sad About Us and Boris the Spider were immediate favorites.
From Sell Out, of course I Can See For Miles is a great Who song, but Tattoo, I Can’t Reach You, and Silas Stingy all contain classic early Who styling. Unlike the longer songs of later albums, these songs are short and to the point.

Keith Moon died while I was in high school, and Who Are You became a huge hit. I liked Trick of the Light and the title track, but it was the short songs of the early years (A Quick One is several short songs crammed together), that I always preferred. I must own four or five versions of A Quick One (While He’s Away)-the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus or the original studio version are my favorites. Early Who-that’s where the power is!

Pagani Design Diver

 Pagani Design

Safe from China

My year of belonging to Watch Gang brought me an appreciation of Chinese made watches. I knew watches were made in China-many Fossil Watches are made there, and I have a few of those, and more than a few of the watches I got through Watch Gang were made in China. Though many of them weren’t particularly my style, as I wrote in my reviews, they all seemed to keep time okay.

I buy things from AliExpress pretty often-it’s great for computer stuff-usb drives, external disk drives, cords, etc., and I’ve picked up a few watches off the site as well. My hard ceiling for watches from AliExpress is $100. After that, I might as well buy a name brand. AliExpress allegedly has some name brand watches, but around the internet it states that they’re fakes.

I decided that I wanted a new skin-diver type watch, and that I was actually going to use it as a beater-a watch to wear to the beach, while doing yard work, fixing things around the house and other mundane tasks, so I thought a cheap Chinese watch from Aliexpress would fit the bill. I also wanted it to be mechanical-I hate picking up a watch with a dead battery. And I wanted a watch that had a face of about 39-40mm, (though I’d go up to 42mm), my preferred watch face size.

After the Omega/Swatch was released a while back, several watch reviewers popped up on Youtube saying that the Omega/Swatch wasn’t really worth it, and if you wanted a good Omega Speedmaster homage, to buy the Pagani Design from Aliexpress. The cost was about $115 compared to Swatch’s $270 (if you can find one), and the specs were much closer to an actual Omega.

I think that misses the point. If I’m buying an Omega/Swatch, I’m buying it because it’s an Omega/Swatch. A Timex quartz will tell time just as well. I want the label-oh and if you'd like to buy me an Omega Speedmaster or the Omega/Swatch, I'll take it.

Unwrapped

Which brings me back to Pagani Design. Several of their watches had positive reviews, and they had a skin-diver that met my requirements. It cost $53.95 in one of the frequent AliExpress sales (it's $62.47 as I write this), and I wanted a nato band for it, which added another $3.95.

Original band

It arrived in a reasonable amount of time, packed inside an ordinary box covering another ordinary box. I realized fairly quickly that the watch was hefty. Things that I liked right away-the black and orange color scheme gives the watch a serious look, but with a little pop. It has a screw down crown and a large date window. There’s an exhibition back, and a scratch resistant sapphire crystal. It’s also powered by a Seiko NH35 movement.

Things that I don’t like-I didn’t care for the band, so I knew that I was going to change that. The lume isn’t very good, fading out fairly quickly. It seems to be about 30 seconds fast every 24 hours (I should mention that a watch running fast is probably a good thing for me-I’m more likely to show up on time). At 42mm, it's a little bigger than I wanted.


Unexpected likes-the colors pop more than I thought they would. There are no sharp edges. I’ve gone swimming with it several times, and it’s water resistant. I don't know that I'd actually do any diving with it, but it is rated to 100m, certainly enough for me to reach the bottom of a swimming pool.

Black and Orange nato band

Sapphire Crystal

As you all know, I’ve got several watches, and I keep putting this one back on. It’s going to be my watch of the Summer, and certainly worth the $60 I put into it.

I’ve three other AliExpress watches, and I’ll get to all of them soon.

Exhibition Back

Coffee at the 7-Eleven

7-Eleven, Mills and Main, Ventura

 

In 1985, I read an article in Spin by Henry Rollins singing the praises of the 7-Eleven. I wasn’t really a 7-Eleven guy, though, and on the rare times I bought food from convenience stores it was from AM-PM because they used to have the cheapest gas. Generally, I don’t buy anything from convenience stores beyond the occasional Slurpee/Icee/Froster.

That changed when my daughters showed me this machine at our new 7-Eleven:


This is the latte machine.

Yes, the latte machine. I'm not really a latte drinker, finding that the extra two or more dollars didn’t make my coffee two dollars better. I like lattes, and if you’re buying I’ll have one, but I’m not willing to pay for it. 

Choose the Bold!

But here at the 7-Eleven, the vanilla latte does not cost extra. The machine grinds the beans fresh (‘bean to cup’ in coffee talk), and then brews it up, adding in the steamed milk and vanilla. Since you are making it, you can add an extra pump of vanilla from the counter, as well as a dash of cinnamon, which is how I do it. True, the machine doesn’t do the swirl at the top, but I’ve never found the swirl to add any flavor.

Add Some Vanilla

The extra large latte comes in at $2.89 (less if you bring your own cup), while the Tall Vanilla Latte at Starbucks next door costs around $6.75, meaning it’s half the size for a little over twice the cost. The obvious question is whether the 7-Eleven latte is as good as the Starbucks latte, and Starbucks will be happy to know that it isn’t. However, is the Starbucks latte twice as good, justifying the cost? 

No, the Starbucks coffee is not twice as good. The biggest difference is that the Starbucks Latte is usually hotter, something that I can fix by going down a size in the cup (pushing the button for the large and putting it in the extra large cup), and then topping it off with their fresh roasted drip coffees. In fact, I know that I’ve paid for lattes far more expensive then 7-Eleven that weren’t as good. If I'm just drinking the latte while driving, the 7-Eleven is perfect.

Brewed Coffees

The downside of this is that not all 7-Elevens have the fancy machine, though according to C-Store Dive, some sort of online convenience store trade website, they will all be moving that way by the end of 2025. Of the four 7-Elevens here in Ventura, only the one on the corner of Main and Mills has it. I’ve actually only found one other 7-Eleven with the fancy coffee machine (and I’ve looked, too), and that was in Walnut across from Mt. San Antonio College.

If you come across this, and know of where the fancy coffee machine is, add it in the comments.

7-Eleven, Japan

Fresh Food Shelf-All Good!

7-Eleven, Iwakuni, Japan

On another 7-Eleven note, if you’ve heard about the 7-Elevens in Japan, it’s all true. When the Summer Olympics were in Tokyo in 2020, I read and saw several rave reviews about the food options at the 7-Eleven stores. People talked about the fresh food, low prices, and 24 hour convenience, and when my son was stationed in Japan, I asked him about it. He said the 7-Elevens have everything, and when we visited him and stayed in Hiroshima, the 7-Eleven was the first store I went into. It was amazing. 7-Eleven was the most convenient and cheapest place to change money (I used my ATM card and withdrew cash from my account in Yen), we bought tickets to see the Hiroshima Carp play, I was in every morning for breakfast (melon pan, banana, coffee), bought coffee several times, and since neither my wife nor my son care for sushi, it was the only place I had sushi (except for the fugu restaurant). 7-Eleven was everywhere, and it was the go-to place for snacks and cash. 7-Eleven made the trip to Japan better.

The Rolling Stones-Some Girls

 The Rolling Stones Some Girls

 

I remember bringing Made in the Shade to an 8th grade dance because strangely my Catholic School classmates would only dance to ballads (probably because holding each other drew less attention than ‘shaking your groove thing’), and put on Angie, which was loudly greeted by groans and I took it off right away. I personally didn’t play Made in the Shade that much-I think I bought it because I wanted to
seem more grown up, but found the songs hard to sing along to.

When I started high school, the Rolling Stones were still a big deal with the stoner crowd that I didn’t really hang out with. Black and Blue had just been released, and I wanted to like it, but it didn’t work for me, and I wasn’t going to spend my savings on it.

When Miss You was released I wasn’t as dead set against disco as I would be a few years later-chicks in tight fitting disco clothes will change the mind of a teen-age boy, and somewhere I have the 12” extended version on pink vinyl. At this point, I’m wondering if it’s the same character on both sides-Jagger wandering Central Park on a Friday night, turning down the buddy who wants to take him to meet some ‘Puerto Rican girls’ because he ‘Miss(es) You,’ thumping disco beat coming from nearby clubs, and then flying out to LA, driving through Bakersfield Sunday morning and looking for ‘the girl with far-away eyes’ from NY. Whether that’s true or not, I did play the b-side more.

I bought Some Girls with the original cover filled with women, only some of whom I recognized, and played it often. I liked the way the guitars blended together, with no real discernible lead guitar, and that most of the songs were short. The title track, with what the ‘Black Girls’ want to do, was appropriately taboo for a 16 year old, and Richards’ vocal Before they Make Me Run made me feel better about my own limited vocal range. I was moving into my Punk Rock phase, but the Rolling Stones were still a common touchstone in an American high school. Shortly after, I was rifling the extensive cut-out bins Big Ben’s in Lakewood, where Metamorphisis would regularly turn up, and found Rolled Gold, a cash

grab compilation from Decca focused on the early work of the Stones, and two other compilations (one with a red cover and one with a blue cover) and discovered that I really liked early 60's era Stones, things like Paint it Black, Under My Thumb, and Get Off My Cloud, which led me to buy my second favorite Stones album, Aftermath (US Version-I didn't know there was a different UK version), which didn’t really win me many friends when the stoners at school were listening to Black and Blue or It’s Only Rock and Roll.

When the 2011 Deluxe reissue was released, I bought it curious to hear the bonus tracks from the time. I knew that the best of the outtakes were used for the Tattoo You lp, so I didn’t have high hopes, but No Spare Parts jumped out of the speakers. Another first person narrative like Miss You and Far Away Eyes, it stuck with me immediately. Jagger redid the vocals, and the song is better for it-compare with the original here. His voice is older and works better with the character, and the narrative is leaner, seemingly about an older man driving through the southwest to visit (and care for) his much younger woman. Interestingly, the other outtake high point, So Young, also seems to be older man/younger woman, but here Jagger sounds like the creepy old guy hitting on a teenager at a French arcade. A few of the other tracks are worth a listen as well.

Johnny Cash-American Recordings

 

 

Johnny Cash American Recordings

I’ve always known who Johnny Cash was. He’s Johnny Cash, a mythical figure who’s deep voice and large presence just seemed to dwell in my consciousness. I don’t know of a time when Folsom Prison Blues didn’t exist. I know that I was alive on the release of A Boy Named Sue, but it seems like it was always there. I’d watch Johnny when he showed up on the Mike Douglas Show, which came on after school and would have a variety of musical guests.

From late ’75 to early ’76 I listened to country music station KLAC, and recall two hits of that time, Johnny Cash’s One Piece at a Time and Tom T. Hall’s Faster Horses.

In the 80s, I thought of Johnny as a kind of dinosaur that continued to roam the earth, a larger than life figure that called up a time long past. While I was on the Otter (KOTR) in SLO, my radio co-host and I pulled the new U2 Album, Zooropa and played the Wanderer on a lark. Playing it now, I stand by my original opinion-why? It’s a good vocal performance for Cash, but the synthesized backing track seems gimmicky, and I wonder if the song would have been improved with the synth mixed down and an acoustic guitar mixed up.

A few years later, on a ski trip in Mammoth with a girlfriend and her family, her step-dad pulled out American Recordings, and I listened to Delia’s Gone. I was floored.

For the next few days, I asked to hear that cassette every evening, and bought American Recordings when I got home. This old man (just a touch older than I am now) was singing these amazing songs, just him and his old Martin acoustic. The music was so full, I don’t think I realized that there were no backing musicians. (Like a Bird on a Wire is playing right now, filling the space here in my backyard). A credit to producer Rick Rubin, who somehow managed to capture the fullness of the rooms (Johnny’s cabin and Rubin’s living room) in the recordings.

House of Blues, Sunset Strip

There were a couple of live tracks, Tennessee Stud and The Man Who Couldn’t Cry, played for an adoring crowd at Johnny Depp’s Viper Room, and I’d got to see Johnny at the House of Blues on his birthday in 1996. Johnny commanded the stage in a way that I’ve only seen a few performers do. He started the way you’d imagine-“Hello, my name is Johnny Cash,” and went right into I Walk the Line. June came out and sang a few songs, and it looked like Grandma and Grandpa climbed onstage. June belted songs from the bottom of her feet-it was quite a sight. We were also treated to Carlene Carter and Rosanne Cash, and Johnny looked happy and proud. The encore saw Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Howie Epstein come out for Rusty Cage. By the end, I was convinced that Johnny could have come out and sang the phone book and it would have been awesome.

All volumes of American Recordings are excellent, and Johnny’s version of Hurt, especially with the video, is frightening, showing the frailty of a man near death, and alarming in that wife June is shown gazing at him, and would precede him to the Promised Land. I almost put his VH1 Storytellers album with Willie Nelson on this list as well. I enjoy the 60s era Columbia records, too, but Rick Rubin really seemed to know how to get the best out of Johnny Cash, and as I get older, I’m glad that Johnny Cash did excellent work in his 60s.

Cheap Trick-In Color

 In 1977, I was able to talk my Dad into taking me to see Led Zeppelin at the Fabulous Forum, and then my sister and I were able to talk both my parents to taking us to see Kiss. Somewhere in my Mom’s garage, the “I Was There” button remains, as they were recording the concerts for the Alive II album.

I really liked the opening act, too. There were two total rocker dudes,
the singer/rhythm guitarist and the bassist, and also some nerdy guy with a weird hat and a bunch of guitars playing lead and a balding guy who looked like he should be working at a bank playing drums. In a building full of crazed Kiss fans, the opener, a band called Cheap Trick, held their own.

They were touring behind their second album, In Color, which I bought a few weeks after the show. Something about albums that you don’t get from downloads-the covers were often extremely interesting. In Color had Robin Zander and Tom Peterson (the rockers) sitting astride choppers in color on the front, and Rick Neilson and Bun E. Carlos on mopeds in black and white on the back. Several of the songs from the concert (Rick Neilson standing on a tiny riser playing the opening lick of Clock Strikes Ten at the front of the stage still burns in my memory), were on the album, including one that I thought should be a huge hit and I played if for everyone who’d listen-the studio version of I Want You to Want Me.

I still like the studio version better than what became the hit, the live version from Budokan. I thought the crowd was unnecessary and took away from the sonic textures of the album version. Tom Werman’s production was clean and bright, with guitars and vocals loud in the mix. I Want You to Want Me is a great song, three minutes of pop perfection on an album filled with great pop rock songs.

The opening track, Hello There, I remembered from the concert and still opens their live sets-I now see Cheap Trick regularly on 45 year intervals, having last saw them at the Ventura County Fair two years ago. (Next time, 2067). It’s starts with a tightly strummed power chord, and then a drum cuts through followed by Zander’s “Hello there ladies and gentlemen/are you ready to rock?”

Rick Nielson, the band’s songwriter and lead guitarist, crafts solid three minute guitar heavy pop, and though there are some dark moments (I want to live on a mountain/way down yonder in Australia/it’s either that or suicide/it’s such a strain on you), the gloss on the music might keep you from noticing.

Heaven Tonight, Live at Budakon (I had the original Japanese import) and Dream Police were all good, too. When the original bass player left, the quality dropped a bit, but The Summer Looks Good on You from a couple of year ago is a great track.

I also have and recommend the Steve Albini sessions of In Color, where the band went into the studio with the Nirvana producer in 1997 and re-recorded In Color in a more stripped down version.