IS IT ROLLING, BOB?
When I audiotaped my parents at dinner in 1973, I told my dad I was doing cinema verite. Don’t knock it. Louis Armstrong did a lot of audiotaping. Decades later, I played my 1973 audiotape for my adult children. My son Ted said, “You’re weird, recording everything.”
In the tape, my parents asked me questions about my college roommates.
For instance, my mother said, “What is Billy from the dorm doing?” I stonewalled my mom. Nevertheless, the tape is somewhat interesting, even the silences. As Ed Sanders once said: “This is the age of investigation and every citizen must investigate.”
“I don’t want any dessert” — that kind of thing. That’s what’s on the tape. I hope my kids throw it out. Or I will. I definitely will. There’s a bad sax solo by me on the flip side.
My dad: “What the hell you got the tape recorder on for? There’s nothing going on.”
4 comments
At first I thought this was a Bob Dylan blog. Still, I’m glad I read it. A record of bland, every day experience can sometimes be very illuminating. Especially the sax solo.
I taped my grandmother and grear aunt. I should find it and listen, get to hear their voices after 20 years.
The stuff of situation comedies, where I’ve seen this stuff (filmed, anyway) many times . We can’t think of anything we have with Lillian’s voice, and it’s a darn shame!
If I were you I would have blamed the bad sax solo on another person!
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