This Week's Wednesday

Wednesday is my day off from retail work, which makes it my designated day to record my parts for each week's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio and to try to get around to doing whatever else needs doing. I always run out out of Wednesday before I run out of Wednesday things to do.

Woke up with aches of the head and neck, the result of an uneasy evening where I just couldn't ever manage to get comfortable. An ibuprofen accompanied my morning coffee. With so many busy Wednesdays as the norm, this was the perfect time to have a lower-key Wednesday.

With that coffee in my grasp, I did my usual weekly mojo of bank accounts and online payments. I also tweaked the This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist that Dana and I put together Tuesday night, settling on minor changes (including swapping out one track from Big Stir Records' excellent new Halloween compilation Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies in favor of a slightly shorter selection from the same album). I deferred selecting the show's fade-out tracks until after I recorded my parts for the show, a task I planned to address in the afternoon.

After a modest breakfast of corn muffins, Brenda and I left the house at 11:00 for an appointment at Books End, where I was offering a few boxes of books for sale from my vast collection of stuff. I love--love--surrounding myself with books, and I'm reluctant to relinquish my treasures. But I know I have to downsize. I have too many books, too many records, too many comics, too many tchotchkes. I've gotta let some of this stuff go. I've already sold a lot of books to Books End, and another, deeper purge was at hand this time.

Alas, Books End's intrepid proprietor Patrick was only able to take a fraction of what was offered this time. But, as always, he paid me a fair price, and I'll decide what to do with the rest of the books over the next few days. Having already determined that I can let them go, they will not be going back on my bookshelves. Maybe they'll wind up on eBay, or at another store. They've gotta go somewhere.

(Patrick also agreed to sell my books Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones and The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) on consignment--cool! My supply of the Ramones book is nearly exhausted, and I'm unlikely to order additional copies. I have some in-person author events coming up in November and December, but I may need to do those without any Ramones books to sell.)

From Books End, Brenda and I drove to North Syracuse to grab my weekly comics haul at Comix Zone--see, getting new stuff is part of the reason why I have to downsize some of the old stuff--and then a stop at the grocery story before going home.

I spent the afternoon finalizing this week's TIRnRR playlist, recording the show, transferring the files into a folder, and Dropboxing the whole magnificent mess to Dana. Brenda made sausages for an early dinner, after which we brainstormed on some mundane matters in need of our attention. Around 5:30 we left the house again, this time intent on treating ourselves to ice cream at Big Dip in North Syracuse.

It is a plausible possibility that Big Dip served me my first ice cream when I was a little kid. I concede that it's just as likely my first ice cream could have come from our freezer at home, or from an ice cream truck cruising our suburban neighborhood, from some other restaurant, or from my Aunt Connie in Westvale. 

But Big Dip could have been my first. Their website claims this heavenly source of frozen treats wasn't called Big Dip until 1968, but it opened (under whatever name) in 1955, five years before I was born, and my memory insists it was always, always Big Dip. My first ice cream? Maybe. My favorite ice cream? YES!!!

Somewhere, deep within the vast accumulation of stuff we talked about a few paragraphs ago, I have a picture of preteen me in my team Big Dip Little League uniform. If I find it, I'll post it. My first year in Little League, my Dad was the coach of that Big Dip team. Dad would have been 106 years old on Wednesday. It's great to still have Big Dip as this happy connection to childhood. I celebrated that connection Wednesday night by enjoying a scoop of Blueberry Cheesecake and a scoop of Deep Dish Apple Pie, both in a Cotton Candy dip. Brenda had Coffee Crunch with Chocolate dip. Sweet.

We followed our Big Dip blessing with one more grocery store stop before returning home. After settling in, we watched some game shows before calling it a night. We'll presume it's a more restful night than Tuesday night was. 

All of our remaining October Wednesdays are booked with appointments of some sort or another. This week's lower-key Wednesday arrived at just the right time. Next week's Wednesday will come soon enough.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.