A Good Mixed Tape...

Earlier this year, Goat got a sweet Subaru Outback. It was a few years old and had cool accoutrements such as seat heaters, heated windshield wipers and a tape deck. En route to hiking or Mom’s house, we had a blast reliving our high school days and our rebellious twenties listening to our old mixed tapes while ripping down the highway with warm butts. Some of our tapes were gifts from good friends, a few we had made for someone else but they turned out so good that we kept them for ourselves, but most of all they were a way for us to talk using someone else’s words. There was something about expressing my thoughts using someone else’s prose that made me much more daring in making my intentions clear while creating a mix for a boy I had a crush on. In my twenties, I was fond using the creation of mixed tapes to express my innermost feelings; usually turmoil and usually about a guy.

Sadly, after a mere two months with his new-to-him Subie, Goat and the Outback were involved in a high speed, multi car pile up on the highway that closed the whole damn freeway for an hour (save for the drunk driver that crashed through the police barricade, miraculously not adding to the carnage despite the number of victims, cops and first responders that were milling around the closed lanes. He was pulled over immediately and was so drunk and freaked out that he pissed his pants while being cuffed. I’m sure that’s the least of his problems right now, but it still seems so horribly humiliating). Goat is fine; he walked away with one small scratch even though at the time of the crash he had 8 foot pieces of wood he was toting home from a dumpster diving score in the car with him. Goat was so fine, in fact, that he woke up at 5:45 the next morning and ran a 5k trail race, knocking over 2 minutes off his road running time. Impressive. If you are a runner that runs dirt and pavement, that will be even more impressive to you.

Unfortunately, the Subie is a goner. She did her job and absorbed the brunt of the crash into her metal makeup so Goat’s spongy viscera, organic bone structure and spaghetti thin spinal cord were spared. We humans are sheets of wet paper in comparison to the brutish technology we create. He did manage to get a great deal on another used Outback, a few years newer, same color, but no tape deck. No Minor Threat and Misfits mixes on the way to the Art Hop in Kalamazoo; no more explaining how I got from Skin Yard to Bob Dylan to a song from The Little Mermaid soundtrack in three steps, no more favorite songs that I never knew the title to or performer of. Now, we just listen to boring old mixed CDs made in this decade, which isn’t far away enough for me to look back on it fondly.