Whenever I go to a thrift store, I look through their records and tapes.  There’s usually something pretty interesting or funny.  I started making uniform inserts for the tapes because I like how it looks on my shelf, and it’s something to do at work when I’m bored.  Here are some of the tapes I’ve found:

The Liberty Boys is a group that sings terrible country about Jesus and the army and semi-patriotic songs. I guess my cover for the tape tends to editorialize.

Songs You Should Hear is a mixtape I’m making for Sara with a bunch of pop punk (I used the sign language for “deaf” on the sleeve [clever, I know]).

Songs To Make Love To is a mixtape someone made full of Journey and the like.  I can’t imagine anyone made love to that music.  Whoever made it actually wrote “SONGS TO MAKE LOVE TO” on the tape, so there’s that.

Don’t Blame Me is a recording of some standup that a guy named Tom Drake did on a cruise ship in 1998.  It’s horrid, but it’s sorta fun to listen to.  I used a picture of Bush ducking from that shoe.

Living in A Difficult Marriage is some religious self help tape for women who deal with abusive husbands.  There are insane stories about pregnant women being shoved out of speeding cars and then people saying that they should stick with their husbands.  It’s hilarious. And pretty awful.

Do You Think They Know What A Longduck Is? is the second mixtape I’ve made lately.

Plone Taps is the holy grail of thrift shop tape finds.  It’s a tape that some dude made for a girl that used to like him. It’s basically him talking into a microphone about his life and how much he misses her and then he starts reading his poetry and then he talks about how he faked his death to hurt another girl he used to like and then he tries to get the girl he’s talking to to cue up a VHS tape of some movie at the same time so they can watch it “together.”  This is the funniest thing ever.  It’s called Plone Taps because he has awful handwriting and he meant to write Phone Taps on the cassette.  He meant to write that because at the start of side one he pretends to be some detective and says something to the effect of “these are the recorded phone conversations of John Doe (I’ve forgotten the dude’s name), if you have any information about him, please contact me.” This guy is insane.  Sample lines from his poetry:  “Hear the Shadows”, “Cries of the Nightbirds”, “Slicked Back Polyester Underhandedness”, “Chemical Prisoners”, and “Dig the Rays”.  Oh also at one point he calls people “insects on the tiles of life”.  This is the greatest tape ever.

Hopefully I’ll stop being so lazy and convert these to mp3 soon. Also some people have asked for copies of Plone Taps, but I feel a tiny bit selfish when I think about sending any out.