Well it was a pretty swell birthday all told. I got a book I've been looking for for years: 201 Yiddish Verbs.
My coworkers threw me an ice-cream party at work. My girl came to meet me after work and brought me a hot scallion pie direct from King Fung Garden in Chinatown - Yum! Then we went and played skee ball for a while and had dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. The steak was good; the atmosphere stupid, but whadaya want?

Oh and...did I forget the 8-tracks? Well none came in the mail and I was sad, so I went around the corner to Looney Tunes and bought a couple to cheer myself up. I'd buy all they have if I could afford them but they run pretty high. $4.99 mostly. I paid that for a Rare Earth 4-track cartridge called Get Ready. I wonder if it is a pirate or if the company had all the info on a sleeve long departed? It only has six songs on it which seems strange. The cover art is weird too, but who knows, maybe that's how it was. I'll have to do some web research. I also got an 8-track of Rare Earth - Ecology. This one is the actual label release on an ampex cart with the label being rare earth though. But now I have two new carts for my birthday - Yay!

I like to look up groups in my Rolling Stone Record Guides (the 1979 1st edition and the 1983 "new" edition) and see what "the critics" thought. Dave Marsh said Rare Earth was the worst white soul group ever and where was Berry Gordy? Out to lunch? Critics can be so cruel. I usually find I like the music fine.
For more Soul than you can shake a stick at plus a discussion of white soul artists like Rare Earth check out Soul Patrol.

A word about 4-track cartridges. These are like 8-tracks without pinch rollers inside. You needed a special machine that stuck an internal pinch roller in the hole in the 4-track to play them. These were a precursor to the longer lived 8-track. Both were made to be played in cars primarily, where vinyl did not work - they tried. Then they made a little gizmo with a pinch roller to insert in the 4-track so you could play it in the 8-track player. I have this gizmo. (See below.) I have a 4-track player too, but it doesn't work. Someday I mean to learn how to fix players. Now to listen to Rare Earth!