Music Listography #5 - List the First Albums You Ever Owned...

To quote Jay from "Mallrats", "The Jedi Mind Trick...Holy shit! Motherfuckin' Yoda'n shit!"

With the Yoda reference now out of the way, I bring back Music Listography as a bloggy sorbet from my Day 3 posts which I've been steadily pumping out much like the Duggar woman does with babies or those tennis ball shooting machines. Same thing.

Each category is a post waiting to happen...

And voila....here's the subject! [I just realized I wrote the wrong Donny Osmond album, oops]


List the First Albums You Ever Owned

(I added a couple more entries after I took this photo and I've rearranged them in choronological order because I'm anal like that)

"Too Young" by Donny Osmond.  Although the album came out in 1972, my parents bought it for me in 1976.  The album also contains the song, "Puppy Love" which I erroneously wrote in my book. The album image below is in Spanish. The English version photo keeps getting x'd out when I post it. :(

I mean, c'mon, what young girl back then didn't like Donny Osmond? He was the the Justin Bieber of the 70's but squeakier clean! Ha ha. I think this album had the song "Puppy Love". OMFG, I just outed myself as a (former) Donny Osmond fan. And yes, I wore purple socks in 2nd grade because of Donny.

(in searching for images of purple socks, this photo was taken from a blogpost that also referenced Donny Osmond!)

"Live at Budokan" by Cheap Trick (The album was released in 1978 but I bought it in a classroom auction. Even though it was scratched like fk, my best friend N and I wore the grooves out on this thing!)

Plus, Robin Zander was a total FOX! "I Want You to Want Me!". This is absolutely one of my favorite albums of all time!

"Off the Wall" (1979) by Michael Jackson

I got this for Christmas '79. I have a photo of me wearing a striped velour sweater and red baggy stringtie pants holding this album. Notice that's not posted here, heh.

"Beauty and the Beat" (1981) by The Go Go's

I got this record as a Christmas gift from my godbrother.  He was so happy to pick it out for me since he knew that I loved music and not socks or underwear. Ha ha. The record came in an LP shaped giftbox from Licorice Pizza! I think I played this record to death as well. Their signature song, "We Got the Beat" was famously featured as the first song in 1981's classic teen flick "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".

"Pyromania" (1983) by Def Leppard

Besides having a cool album cover (design by the famous Hipgnosis), the album was engineered by the ex Mr. Shania Twain, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who earlier produced AC/DC's blockbuster comeback album, "Back in Black" (1980).  Their songs and videos for  "Photograph", "Rock! Rock! 'Til You Drop!" and "Rock of Ages" were on heavy rotation on KGB 101.5, KPRI 106.5 and on MTV. I begged my mom to get me the sleeveless Union Jack shirt (which I still have)! Every song on this album is great!

"Declaration" (1984) by The Alarm

I bought this album with junior high graduation gift money in 1984. The Alarm were an up and coming band and billed derisively as "U2 Jr.", which I disagreed with. Their sound was quite cool - acoustic folk punk. Their songs were also political, "Marching On" and "Sixty-Eight Guns". My personal favorite was the melancholy song, "The Deceiver". 

"Shout at the Devil" (1984) by Motley Crue

Another band that I was into back then.  I totally dug their makeup (although it had been done years before during the 70's glam rock years and famously with Kiss) and of course, their music. "Too Young to Fall in Love", their killer cover of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter", and my signature song, "Looks that Kill"! Who knew that Nikki Sixx would end up dating Vanity (from Vanity 6) and is now engaged to that LA Ink Chick? Vince Neil (who I had a crush on) - wtf happened! Ugh! Tommy Lee? Let's not even go there!

Any readers care to share the first albums you ever owned? C'mon, don't be shy...

Shattuck to Marin

After our ice cream we wanted to take a short drive and check out a park at the top of Marin Street. We had to head west on Shattuck and make a right on this roundabout. Here's the intersection of Haste and Shattuck. Thane used to live on both streets (at different times of course) when he was still a grad student at Cal. Bert and I would visit him almost every year beginning from 1993 up to 2000. We used to love walking up and down the streets and checking out the used book stores and record stores. We would also have to dodge homeless people begging for spare change.

There's a ton of different cuisines here, Indian, Italian, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese and so on. No decent Mexican places up here and no Filipino places unless you want to head over to Alameda down south or to Daly City across the Bay.

Aah, here's a greasy spoon that we'd been to back in the early 90's. It was walking distance from Thane's old apartment on Shattuck. This is Oscar's and it's a no frills burger and hot dog joint with huge glass windows. When you're a college student or new grad with no job, anything tastes good. In retrospect, it was kind of a desperation eatery but it served its purpose back then and continues to do so now. Eating in there was like eating in a glass cage.

Driving North on Shattuck we passed by Andronico's Grocery (kind of like a Whole Foods) and the neighborhood known as the Gourmet Ghetto (where Cheze Panisse is). I love how these old trees give the neighborhood character. You'll see no palm trees here!

The Solano Ave tunnel...

After the tunnel, we took forgot to make the proper turn at the roundabout and ended up on Solano Avenue. Now that's a street that we should explore next time we're up here. It's got that old time feel to it complete with an old fashioned movie theatre and mom and pop shops galore.

We ended up finding the way back up to Marin on the roundabout. Man, this is a fkg steep hill! It must be a bitch biking up this hill. Imagine riding down on your bike or rollerblades or even skateboard. That would be a total deathwish.

hill

Turns out that Tilden Regional Park is quite large!

Our guidebook...

I liked the name of this street, Grizzly Bear!

We found a small area of the park where we relaxed for a bit. It was nice because no one else was around. Just us and the sound of birds. There was also a primitive restroom area. Although it was clean, I still felt the need to roll up my pantlegs when using the facilities. There was a huge log that TC enjoyed walking on. There were also some big trees that she was tempted to climb but the worrywart in me wouldn't let her. Plus there were lots of ants on the tree trunk. Ewww!

Here's the ride on the way down!

Near the bottom...

Made it!

It was time to get back to the City and relax at Thane's...We were originally going to meet up with my cousin (the one who lives in the Sunset) but she and her kids were sick. We were also going to meet up with a former student of mine but she was on her way back from camping and wouldn't be back until 7 pm. We didn't want to risk missing our flight because of a late dinner so we had to cancel that as well.

If you're a cyclist you might find this interesting:
The Marin Street Death Ride.

Dia de los Muertos figurines

This was a shop just a few blocks away from Ici Ice Cream. Man, we were lucky to find some parking. That is one crazy busy street. Anyways, I thought this was a cool window display. I forgot the name of this store but they had a lot of Day of the Dead figurines in the window...

Ooh, a devil bride and groom!

More figures...

Yeah, a drummer!

This was another store that had the skeleton thing going on...

Next stop, to the top of Marin Street!

Ici Ice Cream

Up near Cal on College Street was an ice cream place I wanted us to try, Ici Ice Cream. You'd think we'd be tapped out by now but we weren't. My poor husband. He had to put up with this and he's lactose intolerant. Hopefully he wasn't hunched over the toilet too much during that weekend!

Flavors of the Day:

Ici Ice Cream does everything in small batches, from its ice creams and sorbets to its baked goods like cupcakes and cookies. According to their sign, everything is made from top quality ingredients, many of them local and organic. Their flavors are different everyday as well.

Hmmm, no root beer for me.

I wonder if these were real scoops or plastic?

Ooh, ice cream bombes! Maybe next time!

I loved how they displayed their baked goods. These cake stands and plates with glass domes are so cute!

Here's all three of our scoops. Mine was the lower left - Anise Almond Grappa Raisin (which was excellent), TC had the Nectarine Raspberry Sorbet (of course since she loves fruity flavors) and Bert had the Cinnamon Pecan Swirl.

My ice cream had that faint licorice flavor which went well with the almond and raisin. The Grappa is a grape based liqueur. It was an unusual flavor but I liked it better than the strawberry szechuan peppercorn flavor I had at Humphry Slocombe the other day. I didn't try Bert's since I don't like Cinnamon but he really liked the flavor. He normally likes peanut butter or caramel based flavors but the Cinnamon was what drew him in.

They had some other flavors that sounded intriguing (like the Orange Rosemary Toffee) but I could only take so much ice cream in one day!

It was nice being out of San Diego that weekend. We would be flying out later that evening and we were trying to squeeze in as much as we could.

4th Avenue District

Stuff we saw while walking around 4th Avenue:

"This shit writes itself" Shakespeare t-shirt (kinda blurry).

Loved this poster publicizing an upcoming show by the English Beat!

Tell us how you really feel:

Some sculpture on one of the street corner.

The sculpture was "anatomically correct". It had the full male frontal junk which prompted a fit of laughter from TC. Around the backside, TC also giggled at it's "natal cleft" (the proper term for "butt crack" according to a toilet trivia book we have at home).

Atist info:

We saw quite afew of these poles that were covered with striped knits!

Interesting!


Lastly, another cool poster on a telephone pole for a Johnny Cash tribute concert.

Our next stop? Another ice cream place...