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2002-12-01 - 12:02 p.m.

diva e-mailed me last night to let me know a CD she’d purchased (used and cheap) was money well spent.

Luther Vandross, she said, was playing in the background while she puttered on her computer, and he was terrific. Wonderful. I zipped back a one-word Yuck answer. Spartan. Unpolished. A whitewash. I have no idea in hell who Luther Vandross was or is. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell diva that. I suspect, however, she knows.

Although I like music, I don’t often listen to music when home. My car radio is set to a sold gold rock and roll station out of Iowa and plays when I’m coming or going. The CD player on the boat is constantly blasting Elvis, The Righteous Brothers, The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, CCR or a compilation of rock and roll hits from the 50s and 60s. My music tastes--considered stagnate and stalled by fans of today’s clamor--haven’t changed in 40 years! If the music isn’t circa 1960-70, I probably don’t know what the hell it is! My die-hard devotion to the old stuff leads to abuse by some friends, but I don’t let it bother me. There is, after all, something to be said for enduring stability! And a helluva lot to be said for jacking up the volume when disrespectful comments erupt.

I have a stereo system in the basement party room, an older system, nothing remotely close to the flashy doohickeys available today, and I have a portable boom box which has survived outings on the old boat and late-night shenanigans on the back deck or front porch. My satellite TV system is also capable of tuning in thousands of music stations. Yet, I rarely have music playing in the house. Of course, the reason the television equipment isn’t playing music is easily explained: I don’t know how to operate the damn thing.

Under the sound system in the basement is a cabinet full of old albums. Some of the first Elvis albums recorded, the first Beatles album, Creedence Clearwater, Sonny and Cher, Chicago, Neil Diamond. Some different stuff: Bette Midler, Trini Lopez The Baja Marimba Band. Ronnie McDowell Charlie Pride, Conway Twitty, Mac Davis and Anne Murray. My country western favorites are also 20 years out of date.

My CD collection includes The Platters, The Lovin Spoonful, Jan and Dean, The Mamas and the Papas, The Best of BJ Thomas, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Bobby Vinton. A cassette tape carrier contains many of the same artists.

Old stuff. Lots of it.

But rarely do I have music playing at home. It’s been so long since I’ve played some of the old albums I don’t know what condition they’re in today, or even if the turntable works. My CDs haven’t been taken from their summer carrying case, and I’m not even sure where I stuffed it when we finally came off the boat at summer’s end. It could be in my office at work, occasionally I will insert a CD in the computer player to buttress myself from some the insanity there.

I found the Dean Martin’s Greatest Christmas Hits ( a joke Christmas gift from a friend last year) in the loft closet and played it in the iMac the other day when Mom was here. The first time music has played inside these walls in months.

One reason I don’t play music is because it’s distracting when I’m trying to read or I’m working on the computer. And it’s partly because I get carried away and start singing--at the top of my very healthy lungs--and I’m proof positive of the “can’t carry a tune in a bucket” cliche! Even the dogs are terrified and seek asylum when I start belting out a song!

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