Oakland's Vinyl Vault - Darkness on the Edge of Town

Hello again! This week, I will be looking and listening to Darkness on the Edge of Town by the Boss, Bruce Springsteen.



Release Date: June 2, 1978
Singles: Prove It All Night, Badlands

I have to admit, this is an album that I rarely listen to. One of the reasons I wanted to do this project of reviewing all my albums was to force myself to actually listen to all my albums, instead of just my favorite ones.

This album is raw Springsteen. The cover says it all. Working-class guy from Jersey. Things may seem good, but there's darkness on the edge of town (get it?). If this album were a baseball player, it would be Nick Punto. Gritty. White. Underrated. Announcers/music critics all love it. There's no hit single on this album, no star (I mean, can you tell me how "Prove It All Night" goes, because I can't and I just listened to the damn thing!).

This album is a true album, not just a collection of songs. It has a theme. I've always felt that Springsteen gets somewhat overlooked as one of the great American songwriters. But I say, if he's good enough for Joe Posnanski, he's good enough for me!

Rating: 7 thumbs up - Great listen, solid all the way through. Springsteen's passion really comes through. I think I'm going to have to put this one into the regular rotation.

And now, without further ado, that "hit" single, Prove It All Night. Enjoy!



Pat Is Crazy

Oakland's Vinyl Vault - Sounds of Silence

Greetings faithful follower(s)! This week I have decided to start a new (possibly) weekly tradition: I will review an album from my vinyl collection. I (of course) already have a spreadsheet of all the albums that I own, and I have put them in random order with the help of the internet, and I will go through them one by one! I will try to give a little information about each album (with the help of Wikipedia) and give my thoughts about it.

First up: Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.



Release date: January 17, 1966
Singles: The Sounds of Silence (previously released), I Am a Rock

The name of the album obviously comes from their hit single, which had been previously released on their debut album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. The art work is kind of interesting to me. On the front cover, it appears that Simon and Garfunkel are either being harassed by the trailing photographer or are else looking back as they flee the scene of a crime. The back cover has shots of Simon and Garfunkel in what I can only assume are attempts to look like tough guys, smoking cigarettes and loitering.

The album is pretty much what you'd expect from Simon and Garfunkel: folk rock. One thing that I thought was a little odd was that side 2 opens with back to back songs about a man committing suicide: "Richard Cory" and "A Most Peculiar Man." Actually, in general the album is pretty dark. There isn't a single happy song on this album. Even "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" (which the back of the album says was "just for fun") is about that groovy thing leaving Simon and/or Garfunkel's depressed ass. Hello darkness, my old friend indeed.

Rating: 5 thumbs up - It's a solid album. It's not my favorite album of Simon and Garfunkel's, but it's a good listen nonetheless.

Now here's "Richard Cory," which for some reason somebody synched up to The Shawshank Redemption. Enjoy!



Pat is crazy.

Oakland's Inferno - Part III

Here is the long awaited part three of my journey. Here are Part I and Part II in the likely case you have no idea what I'm talking about.

As my guide, Obi-Wan, and I walked along the perilous path through hell, a great wind began to blow. "We are now entering the second circle of hell, where those who succumbed to desire reside," my master informed me.

As I struggled to keep my eyes open before the fierce gusts, I looked around for the tortured souls of the lustful, but could not find anyone. "Where are they, Obi-Wan?" The old jedi smiled as I followed his gaze upwards.

"Wheeeeeeeeeee!" cried a shade as it soared above us, being blown about by the wind. As I looked closer, I noticed that the sky was filled with shades like this one.

"Wow!" I said. "That must be quite a thrill! I'd love to talk with one of them and hear about how they got here."

With a wave of Obi-Wan's hand, one of the souls imprisoned in this circle floated down towards us. "O condemned soul, my friend here is curious to learn more about your plight. Please, tell us who you are, and how you ended up here," he said to the soul.

"I am Sir Lancelot of Camelot. While I lived, I did many great deeds. Alas, it was my love for my lord's lovely lady Guinevere that has doomed me to this place. Our love was forbidden, and was a destructive force. In the end I lost everything. After Arthur died, Lady Guinevere became a nun, and I a hermit. Long did I live afterwards, and eventually I came to peace with the actions of my youth, but I guess that God did not, for he sent my soul here upon my death."

"Man, that is rough," I responded.

"Actually, it's not that bad here," replied Lancelot. "I fly around all day like a bird. The worst part is simply that we are here for eternity, and that there is not much to do. We're all great philosophers now, since we have had so much time to think. If you would like, I could share with you some of my insights."

"Unfortunately, we do not have time for that," cut in Obi-Wan. "We must be going now. Farewell!"

And so we continued on to the next circle of hell. "Here the gluttonous are punished. I hope you brought an umbrella," said my master.

"Why's that?" I asked, "there's not a cloud in the sky. In fact, we're underground. It couldn't possibly ra..."

My voice trailed off as we came to a solid wall of rain. The third circle of hell was eternally rained upon. "Damn," I swore. "Let's move quickly through this one, shall we?"

We plunged into the third circle, our hands over our heads, trying futilely to stay dry. As we ran, I looked around and saw giant crowds of obese people. It looked like a state fair.

Finally, we got to the fourth circle, and the rain ceased. To find out what I and Obi-Wan discovered there, tune in next time!

Pat is crazy.

Happy Holidays!

Star Wars Episode IV 1/2 in its entirety:

Oakland's Inferno - Part II

Bet you thought I wasn't coming back! Well I did. Now let's continue the story:

As Obi-Wan and I stood on the edge of the river Acheron, a boat drifted towards us, captained by a solitary figure. "Charon!" my master called out, "come. You must ferry me and my companion to the other side."

"I can take you, Jedi. But you're companion still has a living soul, and cannot pass here," replied Charon.

"What if I knocked him unconscious, would that do?" replied my master.

"Yeah, I'll let that slide."

"Wait, wha-" I started to say, and then world went black.

I awoke with the back of my head throbbing. Rubbing it, I looked around, and saw the old Jedi. "Ugh, what was that about? You could have warned me, you know." Obi-Wan looked at me and simply raised his eyebrows. "Well where are we anyhow?" I asked him.

"We are in Limbo, the outermost circle of Hell. Here reside those who were virtuous in life, but cannot go to Heaven because nobody dumped some water on their heads. Even those who could not possibly have been baptized because they lived before the ritual was invented, or come from a galaxy far, far away, must linger here for eternity. There's not a lot of logic to it. Kind of like on a boat with women and children first. I mean why should they..."

"Did you just quote Arrested Development?" I asked, stunned.

"Yeah," he replied. "We're dead, so we don't have any responsibilities, and we've been here for eternity, so we have a lot of free time. The invention of the TV has really helped. Anyway, let's keep moving, we have a long way yet to go."

As we walked along, Obi-Wan pointed out the great thinkers of history, like Socrates and Plato, Euclid and Archimedes. I longed to talk to them, but they were in the middle of an episode of How I Met Your Mother.

At last we came to an imposing figure. "This is Minos, the judge of the dead. Long ago he was the king of Crete. Now he decides which circle a sinner will spend eternity in. Come, let us speak to him," my guide said to me as we approached Minos.

"Halt!" he cried out. "I have been on the lookout for two souls of your description, one living, the other dead. You cannot pass here!"

"We are not the souls you are looking for," Obi-Wan said with the wave of his hand.

"You are not the souls I am looking for!" boomed Minos.

"We can go about our business," replied the old Jedi.

"You can go about your business," said the judge of the dead.

And we passed deeper into Hell without further molestation.

"That was AWESOME!" I shouted when we had gotten out of earshot of the ancient king.

"Just an old trick I knew," Obi-Wan said, and winked at me knowingly.

Tune in next time to find out what horrors lay ahead in the depths of Hell!

Pat is Crazy.

Tiny Paper Plane

Oakland's Inferno - Part I

Well boys and girls, I've been gone a long time. Where have I been, you ask? Let me tell you, it is quite the (completely true) story:

One day I was out camping in the woods of Minnesota. As is tradition on camping trips everywhere, I had been drinking. Stumbling through the woods looking for a place to relieve myself, I came to a clearing. Suddenly I heard a fierce growling coming from the long grass. There a saw a leopard crouched and ready to pounce. From the left I saw movement and when I turned, a mighty lion did I behold. The breaking of a branch behind me alerted me to a giant she-wolf approaching, cutting off my retreat to camp.

"What the shit?" I muttered to myself, "was there a breakout at the zoo or something?" I could no longer tell whether I was urinating from the pressure on my bladder or the terror in my heart. Without zipping up, I fought the urge to run and slowly backed away from the three beasts. As I turned to run in the only direction left open to me, a root grabbed my foot and I fell to the ground. When I looked up I beheld a sight even more unbelievable than the previous three.



"Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!" I blurted out, not knowing what else to say.

"Relax, son. Fear not, the beasts will not hurt you, but you cannot go back to camp that way. You must follow me down through the depths of the earth. It is the only way." And with that he led me through the dark and tangled woods, away from the three vicious animals.

"All hope abandon, ye who enter in!" read the sign above the gate to which Old Ben had led me. "Are you sure this is the right way, master?" I asked.

"Trust your instincts," he replied, "or better yet, trust mine." Thus we entered into that horrible place that only a handful of living souls have ever seen: Hell.

On the other side of the gate I beheld a vast crowd of people. All of them were facing a giant white flag, and appeared to be saluting. "Who are these people, and what are they doing?" I asked the old jedi.

"In life, these people were neither good nor bad. They had no causes that drove them, and so now, they must salute this flag every day. The rest of the day, they pretty much just sit around and play Xbox," replied Obi-wan as we walked through the crowd. At length, we arrived on the shore of a great river. "This is Acheron, the river that divides Hell proper from this outer region."

And so I stood at the edge of hell, not knowing what lay ahead, but not able to turn back. I trusted that my guide, the old jedi Obi-wan Kenobi, would lead me through safely, just as he had led Luke safely to Alderaan (it wasn't his fault that it had been blown up when they arrived). Tune in next time to find out what happened next!

Pat is crazy.