MY 92nd CATALOG – “CHIC A-GO GO LIST #1”
Frank Merrill/Saturday Night Records, P. O. Box 60085, Chicago IL 60660
Please REMOVE Macomb IL address…
EMAIL IS THE UNDERLINED PART ONLY
NOTE: Illinois buyers please 10.0% Sales Tax. (This is one of the “prices” I must endure for living in Chicago…)
HERE IT IS! Beginning this on 24 February 2018 – from a new place. YES, I successfully moved, something I’ve been trying to do for more than TEN YEARS. First, I needed to decide WHERE…then I had to find a place, and get it done.
YES, I MOVED TO CHICAGO…IT WAS NOT FUN. After a decade of considering possible destinations coast to coast (Portland/Oregon, Providence, Los Angeles, Berkeley, northern New Jersey, Asheville NC, Salt Lake City, and a few more) – as well as possibly Canada or even UK or Portugal, I decided on the closest one and, very surprisingly, the most affordable one. Some places (notably California and, near the end, Portland and New Jersey) fell off the list quickly because of price, Asheville fell off the list almost immediately due to politics, and foreign destinations fell off in late 2016 when I realized that immigration was too onerous to even consider. (Ontario/Canada, for example, required me to work forever until I drop dead, or be a multimillionaire and create five full-time jobs…utterly impossible.) I was close to settling on Pittsburgh, Providence, or Ann Arbor around Christmas, and on the day after Christmas (2016) Jello Biafra (yes, that guy!) asked if I’d considered Chicago…no, “it’s too expensive” – all of my friends were telling me THAT. After his suggestion, I found out otherwise, and it took me only one week to decide on Chicago (deciding during a solo 2 mile walk in drizzle, barely above freezing in Madison/WI), and only six weeks later I was signing condominium paperwork. I got a place in a high-rise on the lake, with the needed space for records I’m keeping or selling on lists, and it cost less than nearly ANY other similar property I looked at in any other city/area. Also, I KNEW this Chicago neighborhood to be wonderful, fun , and vibrant with plenty of “people from all over the world, who don’t talk like me” - which, for me, was a tremendous incentive. What few affordable places I found elsewhere, I questioned the areas (i.e. neighborhoods I knew nothing about), possibly bleak areas with no culture, or around Los Angeles they were not at all convenient to any of the trains, etc. I made sure I got a place that did NOT need stairs for access; I can use stairs “NOW” but what about 4 or 11 years from now? It needed EIGHT trips for me to move up, far less than I had feared but still horrifying, and half of the trips were made IN PAIN. The pain made me very thankful, and feeling very fortunate, that I had chosen “nearby.”
MY FINAL “MOVING TRIP” was 17 September, when I finally brought up the last things I needed for daily life in Chicago but I consider the 10 September moving trip to start my “living in Chicago.” During this week in Chicago, I “transitioned” from Macomb (though, even now, I have at least 500 hours of work to do before I can entirely vacate from there. My roommate was already here, having moved in nearly four MONTHS before I was moved in. ROOMMATE? Yes. That’s something new for me (other than the two years immediately after I had moved to Macomb in 1985-87, renting an upstairs with roommates, and my stuff in storage, ONLY so that I could drive to Alaska in 1986). This is certainly my first time arranging to have a PERMANENT roommate. I didn’t know that he would NEED to be here to “rescue me” over the summer when a flooded unit higher in the building ruined the floor in the room where my office needed to be, and he needed to be here to coordinate everything when I couldn’t be here yet. With this, and the pain peaking during this time period, it was miserable. But, if was finish or be doomed!!
PAIN? YES…SCIATICA. It started in late May while I was in Wisconsin. One “moving trip” on 06 August happened on the most painful day of my entire lifetime – the “AVERAGE” pain all day only was only about one grade less than what I imagine I’d feel with my fingernails torn off with pliers. This affected my left leg. Finally on 07 August (yes, as I became 70 years old) it was confirmed that there was NO problem with my hip, but needing more than two months to know that was unconscionable. Also, 07 August, with the floor in my office now repaired and allowing me to move some stuff around, I could now move the storage shelves out of the living room. That evening, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I had a living room that was really “starting to LOOK like a living room.” Macomb was not a good place to try to treat my sciatica, and I’m almost sure I was further harmed by some of the physical therapy, which was based only on assumptions. Indeed the pain diminished (though remaining well into intolerable levels) after I abandoned that therapy on 04 August. I had a recommendation for a Chiropractor in the north Chicago suburbs [Northbrook], and my first appointment was 12 September. Relief started coming very quickly, and…
BY THE END OF DECEMBER, FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, MY SCIATICA WAS CURED.
Between the sciatica and the MOVING, it is nearly a “MIRACLE” that this list is coming out now, no later than the 2017 one. I also managed to get some traveling done, though not as I had hoped. Hopes for three or four weeks on the east coast (NY City, etc.), and five more weeks later Out West (mostly Oregon and California), were replaced by a two-week trip in the western Great Lakes area, first moving a load to Chicago later on the same day as a Hillside record show, then off to Wisconsin to visit Dennis and Rocky, as well as Jay and Linda (and her son Mike), then directly to Indianapolis and Richmond (Indiana) to visit friends, and to Ann Arbor/Detroit/Toledo for more visiting, finally back into Chicago to the condo and visit my roommate (who moved in during my time in Ann Arbor). I began feeling the sciatica pain just after the Wisconsin visits.
My OTHER TRIP was a “BUCKET LIST” thing!!! This was in August (a time of year I generally don’t like to travel), and that’s probably enough clues for some of you to guess what I did…I drove quickly to Reno for a national meet-up of hobbyists who enjoy DX’ing (picking up distant/”rare” radio signals) and that put me reasonably close to Tom and Kathy Clark in central Oregon where, under a flawless sky on Monday morning 21 August, the four of us watched the TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE from lawn chairs in their driveway. It was a happy coincidence that the Reno weekend optimally came just before the eclipse. Four? YES, Don Kirsch drove down from Tacoma and we had a blast hanging out. I planned for this trip 15 to 20 years ago! Originally I planned to drive to western Nebraska or possibly Casper, Wyo. to watch it…but this Reno thing was confirmed in spring and it immediately changed my plans, and it was a great shared experience with people who I only rarely get to see. Finding out about “future eclipses” 18-20 years ago was an ordeal which, at the time, had me going to the Astronomy Department at the U. of Michigan to ask if there were any eclipses coming. Now it’s easy to “Google it” to even find out where-and-when all solar eclipses in the 24th Century will occur, if I’m interested.
There was no other substantial traveling in the year since my last list, other than a lot of moving trips to Chicago, and a
couple of special trips to Hillside record shows (near Chicago). And…guess what…I’ve survived exactly 400 days of Trumpland. Chicago is definitely a sort of “oasis” but, still…contrary to what people think about Illinois, look at the “county outline state map” showing results in recent presidential elections. Illinois is more or less a “sea of red” with only a few counties showing up as blue (but you may have to be a USA’n or Canadian to know what this means). Illinois is still reliably Democratic statewide, as that’s when you get when most of the state’s population is concentrated in four or five northeastern counties. Southern parts of the state are as reliably Republican as Oklahoma or Idaho, and surprisingly if one compares the Illinois map to Alabama, the latter actually looks “more Democratic than Illinois” with its east-to-west swath of Democrat-leaning counties going through Montgomery, and a “blue” Jefferson County [Birmingham] to the north. Yes, maps (and statistics) can be misleading.
So, here we go – instructions first – LAISSEZ LES BONTEMPS ROULEZ!
THIS LIST IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON MY WEBSITE
NEW TO THIS LIST: MUCH!! You will notice three new sections just after Nonchart (Horror/Monster/Halloween, Spanish, War and military)…also, I will be using a new designation on some records “[OR I’LL KEEP]” which I’m reluctant to get rid of, but willing to do so if somebody wants to bid as suggested (usually well over prevailing retail). This happens most often in the Horror records and Nonchart.
ALSO NOTE, I’M SELLING MY BREAK-IN COLLECTION! Nearly 400 are on this list!
ALSO, A HUGE CAUTION TO BUYERS IN JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA: POSTAGE RATES ARE **HORRIBLE** FOR SMALL ORDERS. It now costs more than $50 to send **ONE** record to .jp or .au, but $60 to $63 for as many as 42 to 44 records, so it costs almost nothing to add 40 more records! This is ENTIRELY CRAZY, because one record to Europe is still $14!!!
FALSE ALARM!!! I must have looked at the wrong chart – perhaps I looked at the Express Mail chart. Rates to Australia and Japan HAVE increased…BUT NOT IN ANY MAJOR WAY. Therefore, ignore the above comment – thankfully. For more than four records, what was $22.75 is now $23.50 (for Australia) – surely Japan is similar. I thought that one record was more than $50 to ship, and 42 to 44 records was about $63. This relieves a number of fears that I had. (I would merely REMOVE the above paragraph, but some people in .au and .jp have possibly already seen that note, so I am adding the disclaimer.
TABLE OF CONTENTS! This list is LOADED!!!
HUGE NONCHARTED SECTION—THIS WILL BE A GREAT SECTION!! Remember, I processed
eight to ten tons of records to find the best stuff for this list. You will find a lot of GARAGE sixties, SOUL &
NORTHERN AND FUNK. I am estimating that there are MORE THAN 1,000 INSTRUMENTALS in this section.
So often, novelty records that came from my collection have rock and roll instrumentals on the back; I haven’t even
made a serious attempt to analyze and research the large number of instrumentals on back sides of records in the
BREAK-INS section (which is huge!) Most rare Hot 100 have been moved to their own section, so you should
look there.
**NEW** - HORROR, MONSTERS, HALLOWEEN – This is a VERY large section, representing what
I’ve put aside over a few years of downsizing my collection. This will be in two parts, BID//MIN: and Set Sale (still
subject to overbidding on “unnoticed” popcorn, etc. stuff). This section is entirely removed from Novelty this year.
**NEW** - SPANISH (MOSTLY MEXICAN, SOUTHWEST U.S.A.) – I admit that I am completely
clueless on this music. I will add any descriptions shown on the records. There are MANY RED WAX records in
here…and all items will be BID//MIN: 5 (which will make it easy for you to win, I think). I can list hundreds (not
thousands) more in the future if there’s much interest.. Nearly all of these are USA pressings, and they were
sitting in El Paso TX for decades…and I’ve seen VERY little of this stuff otherwise in my lifetime.
**NEW** - WAR, MILITARY, TROOPS (INCLUDES VIET NAM, COLD WAR, VARIOUS CIVIL
WARS, ETC.) – I’ve been putting these aside for about a decade. Depending on the interest with these, I may
decide to list further MASSIVE quantities of these (perhaps 500 to 700 more?) from my collection in the future.
COUNTRY AND WESTERN—You will see a LOT of Fifties, and definitely you’ll have a good time here.
This section is probably of average size.
MOVIES, TV, SHOWS AND PERSONALITIES—Not a very big section this time. I wasn’t concentrating
on that genre in 2017, when I was pulling records out of stock.
POP, EASY LISTENING AND NON-ROCK—This section is also of fairly average size (for me).
NOVELTY AND TOPICAL (ALL TYPES)—HUGE SECTION (INCLUDES A
BIG NUMBER OF BREAK-IN RECORDS, CLOSE TO 400, because
I’m selling off nearly my entire collection.
Otherwise, in other sections, you’ll also see a MASSIVE selection this year, one of the
biggest ever! Many are never seen before: DOWNSIZING collection!
CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAYS—This section may or may not be large; it depends on how much space remains
when I reach this part of the list. If needed, it is VERY easy to make it larger by just sorting another box or two.
“ORIGINAL LABELS” FOR CHARTED RECORDS—This is still a large section, but almost entirely
repeated records – WITH SLASHED PRICES!!! What you couldn’t afford last year, you can probably try now.
“HOT 100” CHARTED RECORDS/ ARTISTS— This section will simply be *GREAT FUN* - with a lot
of very rare and vintage “Mint” records in it, and some less-rare items mixed in. Many of these records are now
quite rare, often over 50 years old. There are probably around 400 titles in this section, as I revise this at the end..