mix tapes reborn

I'm moving for the first time in over 12 years from my humble little apartment in the city, and I can't believe the amount of crap I've accumulated.

I've decided that moving is good if only to motivate you to purge unnecessary items from your apartment.  This is Spring cleaning on a massive level.

I found a draw filled with 80s cassettes, Cassingles and college mix tapes.

It's really hard to part with a mix tape, especially the ones you made.  There's a sentimental connection to the format, or should I say art form.  But there's also a sense of ownership to the creations.

As I was tossing them one by one into the garbage it dawned on me that I could recreate the mix tapes on Spotify.  These tapes were mainly for my listening pleasure, and each one represents a very specific moment in my life.

I'm thrilled though not only to rediscover the tracks for myself, but also allow anyone out there with Spotify to experience them too.

All of the following original packaging images below click through to the Spotify lists...

NEW YORK CITY MIX
I know.  Really original title for this one.  I made the mix when I had first moved to NYC in 1995.  It's the one mix tape I always had with me though and listened to it pretty much nonstop until MP3s...

I'M NOT MONKEY BOY
This has mid-90s all over it.  Collective Soul, The Rembrandts, Paul Westerberg, Bjork?!  Not all the tracks on this (or some of these other tapes) are on Spotify, by the way, but most of them are.  The title for this one came from something I'd mutter under my breath as a miserable Executive Assistant starting out in the Entertainment Industry.

YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ME VERY UPSET
The title comes from Tom Cruise's line in Mission Impossible, which I would quote pretty much daily in my 20s.  There's a ton of techno, trance and dance stuff on this one that didn't survive past 1999.  What ever happened to Deep Forest, by the way?

 

SILENT GLANCES FROM WAITERS

This one is dark, for the most part.  I remember the title came from the fact that I was really bad at realizing I was being hit on when I went out.  I got a lot of silent glances, sometimes from waiters, that didn't add up to anything ever.

MAGWITCH PROVIS BOOGIE
I never read Great Expecations in school.  It probably wouldn't (still to this day) be my favorite book of all time.  It had a profound impact on me reading it in my mid 20s.  The title of this tape comes from a major character in the book (known as both Abel Magwitch and Provis).

VICKI 4.0
My roommate Vicki came out of the closet exactly 5 months before I did. The range of emotions, drunken binges and broken hearts that occurred during the year we figured ourselves out was epic.  Joking about how she constantly was reinventing herself to be newer improved, I would call out each version, and right about Vicki 4.0, this was the soundtrack to our lives.  It's also, pretty much, the soundtrack to any gay bar in New York during the late 1990s.

i'm not gaybut I kiss gay

While Sean Hayes was busy proving he can suck face with a girl (ironically the one girl any gay man would gladly suck face with), the season premiere of True Blood last night cashed in on television's obsessive "mock gay moment" trend with a male/male make-out dream sequence.


A lot of people complained about the recent (not to mention previous) MTV Movie Awards overuse of understandably straight celebrities kissing. This year we got Scarlett Johansson and Sandra Bullock and in 2003 it was Britney Spears and Madonna. Even Jason Bateman and Dustin Hoffman kissed at a Lakers Game.

Is it funny anymore? Is it shocking anymore? Does anyone really care?

The key component for the mock gay joke to work is that it's televised. It's a public display of homosexuality, but it's socially acceptable because both parties are "proven" heterosexuals. Should one of the two parties involved in the kissing be actually gay, the joke turns from amusing to awkward. Two gays kissing and it's no longer a joke to audiences. It's shocking, and perhaps even gross.

Personally, the mock gay moment is offensive and demeaning. It reduces being gay to what straight people perceive as an act. That gay is acting gay. Perceiving that it could "happen at any moment" and is possibly contagious. While the more common straight male fantasy of two girls making out is a comedy staple, two guys embracing then locking lips is reserved for the big laughs.

Understandably, comedy needs a level of unpredictability and irony to work, but we're getting past that point with the mock gay comedy staple. It's not ironic if you're gay - it's a common occurrence. It is nothing you "do" so much as a part of who you are. It's not meant to be laughed at, or mocked or shocking.

But until we grow past the concept that people's differences are the stuff of comedic exploitation (case in point Sex and the City 2 or any joke still being performed by Don Rickles), we're stuck with the nervous schoolgirl giggles of millions who need to grow-the-fuck-up.