Monday, November 05, 2007

Garage Sale

Way at the back of our garage there is a stack of boxes. Old boxes, boxes with stuff in that I packed away in 1999 and have never ever unpacked again – like my entire record collection. My whole vinyl history with all my Parliafunkadelicment thang albums, my Rolling Stones collection, all those blues albums, Dr Feelgood, Cream, you name it. I don’t even own a turntable anymore.

There are all kinds of papers in the other boxes, archive stuff such as copies of hundreds of letters I wrote in the days before I had a PC, and memorabilia, and birthday cards, and extraneous weird shit. There was even until a few days ago a box full of CDs that I had not yet brought back into the apartment. And a few boxes full of my art: mostly on small scale and on paper or cardboard, along with the bigger pieces that cannot fit into boxes. A whole lifetime of art from the years when I was lonely, alienated, bitter, twisted, sexually frustrated and weird. Now I am just weird.

Last year I tossed out a bunch of stuff I had gathered over the years, gave away about half of my books, and generally liberated myself from useless ephemera of the past. The things I could not bear to throw away ended up in boxes in the garage where I do absolutely nothing with them. I haven’t even seen the records since I boxed them 8 years ago. Why on earth do I still hanging to things I have not had any use for and most likely will never again have use for? Are these days my garage days?

No comments: