Walkmen

 The first time I ever saw a Sony Walkman was at my Cousin’s house. He had won a Sports model - specifically the F5 model - at some contest. I remember it being Yellow and it had these really cool looking matching headphones. It was a Sports model so it was Water Resistant and had a hard rugged plastic body. The buttons were on the front face and the side has a plastic snap that secured the clamshell lid. Of course after that day I had to have one! Fortunately I had a paper route back then, so I spent about a month and a half of my income and bought a Sony Sports Walkman. Specifically it was a WM-F63. It had AM/FM radio, auto reverse, and Dolby B noise reduction. The coolest part about that Walkman was that I could carry whatever music I wanted anywhere. It sounds like nothing now but back then when we didn’t have the Internet it was fun creating a “soundtrack” for my walk to school. The packed in Dolby noise reduction was very effective in reducing a lot of the hiss associated with cassette tapes. I eventually got another Walkman - it was a black Sports Model known as the “Outback” edition. Essentially Sony took their rugged Sports line and make an even more rugged series know as the Outback line. The Outback had a plain radio version, a cassette boom box model, and of course a Sports Walkman. I remember it came packaged in a beige box with an Armadillo (or some other small rodent) picture on the front.

Of course Cassette tapes were being eclipsed by Compact Discs. Naturally my next purchase was a Sony Discman. The first few models produced amazing sound - albeit they burned through batteries fast. My first model was a basic one (model D-20A) that took 4 AA batteries. I used to carry it in the inside pocket of my Starter Bull’s Jacket - where it would skip every so often. Ironically most CDs back then were recorded from analogue sources, usually from reel to reel tape. Consequently when you played a CD there were artifacts left over from the recording process. On some CDs you could clearly hear some hissing sounds - so eventually the Music labels released CDs produced directly from Digital Tapes. Of course those CDs sounded even better. And yes I did buy a Sony Sports Discman. It was clunky - but it had 5 seconds (I think) of backup buffer memory - and it was Yellow.

Then of course Sony started releasing Mini Disc players - so naturally I bought a Sports Mini Disc Model. It was white, not yellow, and it was labelled as “S2” and had a white clasp on the clamshell. Now instead of making mix tapes of my CD collection - I could make Mini Disc mix tapes. Mini Discs were handier than cassette tapes as they allowed indexing, and track marking. You could actually use a Mini Disc like a Compact Disc, and the sound reproduction was digitally superior to a cassette tape.

Writing

 Full disclosure - I’m a writing addict. Albeit I never knew I was - until I took a moment one day and starting counting all the Moleskine journals that I’ve filled in over the years. I own a lot of them. You know the ones I’m talking about. They are mostly black - and have a string bookmark - with a paper pocket in the back. When you buy a new Moleskine you get a small booklet in the back. Essentially Hemingway, Chatwin, and Picasso all used similar journals. All of the “cache” and marketing might of Moleskine is contained in the packed in card. When I write with one - I’m conjuring the likes of some of the greatest writers, artists, and thinkers of the 20th Century. Seriously - I use other notebooks - not just Moleskine - but sometimes the brand name - and the inflated cost of dead tree skin - makes me want to write more. Lots of people write in journals - and I believe we are allowed to have our heroes. My fave artist that wrote in journals was Jean Michel Basquiat. He used Mead Composition Books - and a good chunk of what he wrote and drew borders on the Genius level. There was a published compendium recently of some of Basquiat’s journals. His journals are amazing. Of course to put pen to paper nowadays is hard. We all have access to cellphones, laptops, and iPads - so most writing is done on a screen. I do a lot of extra writing on screens everyday. I’ve been fortunate to have been exposed to IT at a young age. My Godmother is a talented writer - and she had early on given all her nephews and nieces access to hardware and software. She used to work for Microsoft. My first major foray into computing was largely on a Macintosh. It was a beige computer with an integrated monochrome monitor - a keyboard - and a single button mouse. It had a 3.5 inch floppy drive so I could make copies of files - as well as install programs. Back then owning a printer was a luxury - but I had one. That Macintosh was amazing as it had an integrated handle on the top so I was able to move it around. Of course I should mention that I spent a good chunk of my early life living in cramped apartments so it was nice to be able to move my computer around. Writing back then wasn’t an escape from anything - I just liked doing it - and I would types lots of random things everyday. Of course having a Godmother that worked at Microsoft meant that I got a lot of word processing software packages. I remember using Microsoft Works - then Microsoft Word . Word changed everything for me - I wrote the majority of my essays in High School and University on Microsoft Word. There was another word processor program called WordPerfect back then . It was used heavily by lawyers. I did try Word Perfect - but by that time I was already hooked on Word. WordPerfect was a big blue screen - it seemed very minimalist and sleek - but it wasn’t Word. I should point out now that back then these word processing programs weren’t downloaded on the Internet - they were all on 3.5 floppy discs . Installation would take anywhere from 15-30 minutes. Anyway - that’s a bit of my background. Somehow in all of that I developed a love for writing.