I took a little walk in Arabi.

March 12, 2026. Day .

I like this old destroyed sign. I can make out GUIDRY GLASS. I have Guidrys in my family, not too distantly.

This orange building is just pretty cool to look at. It didn't have to be orange. That was a decision someone made.
Looks even better as the sun is low in the sky, at sunset.

After I took these pictures I stopped in the Lighthouse record store, on Mehle Avenue.
I wasn't planning to buy anything, but I looked in the "cheap" bins.

regarding the cheap bins, let me preface:
I'm reading the Cars Biography by Bill Janovitz. It's so interesting because:

1. Bill Janovitz is a musician, and he gives a little serious thought to just about every song on every Cars album;
2. It's a story about five talented men who could have been happy for a lifetime, but somehow they didn't, and I'm thinking it was because the most talented of them just thought or decided he was the only talented one.

So I bought Ric Ocasek's solo album This Side Of Paradise. It's not bad, but it's not all that good either.
It had a small hit called "Emotion In Motion". I had forgotten all about it. In the book, though, a couple of people comment that it's a lift from Bread's "Everything I Own". Elliott Easton told him so to his face, and it hurt Ric's feelings, but by that point in the story, youre rooting for someone, anyone, to hurt Ric's feelings, because he deserves it.

I bought a book called On-The-Spot Drawing by Nick Meglin (a MAD magazine artist, one of "the usual gang of idiots"), and it's full of beautiful black and white sketches from life by a dozen artists. Five bucks! I bet it's at least $7.50 on eBay. I can't wait to read it.

All three of these items were five bucks each. Three? The third, you ask?

The last thing I bought was a vinyl copy of R.E.M.'s Fables Of The Reconstruction, the first R.E.M. album I was a little bit disappointed by. It's still one of their best. Unfortunately, song one on both sides has invisble skips. Also, the sleeve was on that non-glossy paper, and it was hamdled a lot, so the spine is soft and white, like cotton, illegible; and the opening is kind of splayed out, and somebody used a three-hole punch to punch three holes in the sleeve. Perhaps the previous owner kept her or his LPs in a notebook. Still, as damaged as it is, I'm glad to have it, and listening to it skip all over the place inspired this karaoke cartoon.

walks Arabi Louisiana signs interesting buildings orange Guidrys Lighthouse Record Store The Cars Bill Janovitz [object Object] Ric Ocasek Elliot Easton Bread Emotion In Motion" Everything I Own R.E.M. Fables Of The Reconstruction MAD Magazine Nick Meglin On-The-Spot Drawing black & white three-hole punches