18,250

7-29-08 18,250

18,250 is close to the number of days that it takes to have been alive for 50 years. I also think that it’s the number that is about the maximum size of titles in a proper music collection. If it takes you 50 years to get 18,250 titles, that’s one new music title for each day you’ve been alive, at age 50. Any number of titles over 18,250 is to be regarded, essentially, as ‘over-collecting’. As of today’s date, my music collection numbers 21,795 – so for a 50-year-old – I have over collected to the number of 3,545 music titles. In other words – if I ‘get’ 18,250 titles in 50 years, it could potentially take me another 50 years to play them all. Anything over18,250 titles…I theoretically do not have the time to listen to a second time!

Not that I expect to live to be 100 years old, mind you! Ooh, with having over-collected 3,545 titles, I guess I can take 9+ years off from buying new music! Or possibly I should sell off some titles, to get the collection back down to 18,250 – in time for my 50^th birthday? Well, I can’t quite do that – the Claremont LP Swap meet isn’t until Sun. 9/21/08!

As some of you will already know, I am having my 50^th birthday event in Portland, OR in a few days. I am really looking forward to it – seeing all my friends etc. I have visited Portland a few times before, and it’s a decent place, as far as I am concerned. And it’s far away enough from L.A. to be of interest to me.

At present, I am playing with an idea of “re-typing” the listings for my record collection, adding a few ‘columns’. I am sort of bugged that the “Comments” section in my present Excel list contains both ‘release date’ and ‘number of tracks’ – those should be in separate columns, don’t you think? It would be a giant under-taking, but…it would accomplish a few things – a more accurate list, and I also wouldn’t bother typing up stuff that was not of primary interest to me – as in: easier to get rid of stuff! We’ll see how far it gets; the template has been created, and I am going to experiment with throwing a few titles / artists into the new template / format.

When I reach the ‘ideal collection’, I will advise!

- Ron

P.S. I recently had the chance to meet up again with the poet and lyricist Pete Brown (the man who is one half of “Bruce/Brown” – the folks who wrote many neat Cream songs). “What would Ron talk to Pete Brown about?”, I hear you ask. Well, I raved about having finally seen Hermeto Pascoal play live – and he understood. He and I are both Hermeto freaks. He played me some tracks that he was working on, potentially for a new album (his first album of new material since the wonderful “Coals To Jerusalem” CD, 1993). I’ve known Mr. Brown for over 20 years. It’s nice to stay in touch with him. These days, I try to stay in touch with as many of my ‘old friends’ as possible.