WEDNESDAY. JUNE 20, 2001
ENTERTAINMENT
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 3B
Music lovers true to their tracks
Eight-tracks bring back nostalgic era of the 1970s
The Associated Press
ENDICOTT, N.Y. — The ABBA 8-track plays in Len Saaf's apartment as he shows off the rest of his collection.
There's Kansas, the Commodores, Cheap Trick and a Ktel cartridge with the Barry Manilow chestnut "Mandy." This is music Saaf heard on the radio growing up in the '70s. Then there's the stereo, the one he found in a thrift store. It has a flywheel tuner, faux wood sides and — crucially — an 8-track slot.
"It was really something amazing," he says. "It was like digging something up out of the ground."
Or the grave.
Eight-tracks are supposed to be dead and forgotten, a musical format long ago relegated to the dustbin of pop culture's history, a dud technology, a symbol of '70s goofiness as potent as the leisure suit.
They are embraced by a community of collectors.
These 8-track aficionados are music lovers, retrotechnophiles, '70s survivors and iconoclasts.
But mostly, they seem like people hip to some really big ioke.
"There's a certain humor in playing an 8-track in 2001," said Daniel Gibson, a Texan who sells 8-tracks online with his wife, Kathy.
Developed for car audio systems in the '60s, the 8-track format flourished in the '70s before being abandoned in the '80's.
In retrospect, it's easy to see why.
The cartridges were chunkier than cassette tapes. Song sequences were shuffled to fit the four programs (two stereo tracks for each program, thus eight tracks)
The latter-day attraction of 8-tracks is a mystery even to the people who collect them—few report becoming a "tracker" intentionally.
Saaf, for instance, fell into it after finding the stereo. The 38-year-old software engineer already had a keen eye for retro-kitsch, evidenced by bigeye waif paintings hanging on
the wall of his Binghamton, N.Y., area apartment.
A common tracker story involves coming across some old cartridges, then maybe picking up more and more over the years. The next thing you know, you have 20,000 cartridges.
At least that's the way it worked for Malcolm Riviera, a pioneering tracker from Hickory, N.C., who maintains the p o p u l a r www.8trackheaven.com Web site.
"It's the music and the nostalgia and the funkiness of it all," Riviera explains. "And it's a cheap hobby."
Price is certainly a lure — 8tracks can go for under $3 on the Web and 25 cents at thrift stores.
There also is a widespread feeling that 8-tracks are so lame they're lovable, like a runt puppy. But nostalgia might be the biggest draw. Since the format's heyday more or less rose and fell with the '70s, 8-tracks tend to evoke powerful associations with that decade.
Saaf can recall listening to Supertramp in a Monte Carlo owned by his best friend's mom
in high school. Riviera remembers listening to his new "Abbey Road" 8-track on Christmas morning 1969 as he played with his sister's Spirograph. He still remembers where those old Beatles songs would fade out to a "ka-chik."
Daniel and Kathy Gibson, who keep a shed full of 8-tracks for sale at 75 cents to $1 a pop in Arlington, Texas, see their typical customer as a guy about their age — 39 — who maybe bought a Trans Am with an 8-track player and is looking for the music from his youth.
Business is brisk. The Gibbsons report getting a lot of calls from "mainstream people" in both the United States and abroad. Elsewhere on the Web, e-Bay lists hundreds of 8-tracks.
"Maybe it's the American way," Riviera says. "You kick something down then you go back to it years later."
West Wing creator to enter drug treatment
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES—Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing TV series, will be allowed to enter a drug treatment program instead of serving prison time for possession of cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Sorkin, 39, who pleaded guilty yesterday to a misdemeanor and two felony counts, must complete the two-year program or risk a prison sentence and fine.
"Needless to say, it is a relief to have a resolution regarding my legal situation," he said. "I
fully intend to proceed as directed by the court and am eager to get back to work and focus on what's important."
Sorkin was bound for Las Vegas when he was arrested April 15 at Burbank airport. He later was charged with one felony count each of possession of cocaine and mushrooms and a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession. He had initially pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Sentencing was deferred yesterday after his change of plea, pending the outcome of his treatment program.
A lack of a criminal record made him a candidate for treatment, said Sandi Gibbons, a representative for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
The program, which includes counseling and drug tests, will be administered on an outpatient basis and will not require Sorkin, who has been free on $10,000 bail, to enter a residential treatment facility.
A Dec. 3 hearing was set for a progress report.
If he fails to meet the court's requirements, Sorkin could serve up to three years, eight
months in prison and pay a $10,000 fine plus other restitution costs.
Sorkin, whose credits include the play and film A Few Good Men as well as the Emmy-winning White House drama The West Wing, has acknowledged that he underwent treatment in the past for a cocaine addiction.
Young actor's career saved by Spielberg
The Associated Press
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif — Vin Diesel could be poster boy for all out-of-work actors who have thought about packing it in and joining the 9-to-5 set.
A stage actor who had trained in New York City theaters since childhood, Diesel came to Hollywood a decade ago at 23 expecting studios would clamor for his talent.
Instead, the muscular Diesel had to fall back on his skills as a nightclub bouncer to make ends meet.
"I came out here thinking, I'm a New York actor, this town's just going to eat it up and I'm going to be working like crazy," said Diesel, 33, who stars as leader of a street-racing gang in The Fast and the Furious.
"A year goes by, and I failed miserably. I can count the auditions on two hands. I went back to New York a complete failure. I had to regroup and strategize."
From that strategizing came Multi-facial, a short film Diesel wrote, directed and starred in. It was shot in three days in 1994 for just $3,000.
"I got a phone call on Saturday morning." Diesel said in an interview at the venerable Hollywood hotel Chateau Marmont.
The film had a prestigious screening at the Cannes Film Festival, but its real payoff came in 1997, when Diesel returned to New York from the Sundance Film Festival, where his low-budget feature film Strrays had played.
"My agent said that Steven Spielberg just saw Multi-facial and loves it. That was enough for me. I don't know how much more she really needed to say to put me on cloud nine. I was ecstatic."
But there was more. Spielberg wanted Diesel in Saving Private Ryan. Diesel's response: "What's Saving Private Ryan?"
Months later, Diesel was in
Europe playing Private Caparzo, the member of Tom Hanks' squad killed by a sniper. It was Diesel's first professional film job. It was his first big acting money. It was the first time he got health benefits.
After Saving Private Ryan, Diesel was hired to lend his resonant voice to the title character of the animated adventure The Iron Giant. Next came a supporting part in the stock-market drama Boiler Room. Then the lead as an escaped killer in last year's sci-fi horror flick, Pitch Black, a role tailor-made for Diesel's rock-hard frame, piercing dark eyes and shaved skull.
Later this summer, Diesel costars with John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper in the gangster film Knockaround Guys, and next year he stars in the drug thriller "Diablo."
In The Fast and the Furious, Diesel plays Dominic Toretto, king of the Los Angeles street-racing scene. The film follows his uneasy friendship with a new kid on the block (Paul Walker), who turns out to be an undercover cop investigating a rash of truck hijacking.
Before filming, Diesel attended some illegal street races and came to understand what draws drivers to the sport.
"It's an opportunity to be competitive without gang warfare. It's a nighttime thing. I guess the fact that it's outside of the law makes it a little alluring, too," Diesel said
"I used to say, 'If I'm not star by the time I'm 18, I'm going to quit the business,'" Diesel said. "Then I said, 'If I'm not a star by the time I'm 21, I'm out of this business.' Then it was 23, then I changed it to 25."
In the end, his big break with Spielberg didn't come till Diesel was nearing 30.
Barton County Community College offers college classes presented totally online.
Having trouble getting your class schedule to work?
Dropped a class, need to add a class?
Apply, Enroll and Attend class from your computer terminal!
Let us solve your problems, and answer your questions:
- Summer 2001 Session (8 wks) June 11 - August 5, 2001
- Logon!! BARTONline at http://bartonline.org
- Fall 2001 Session 1 (8 wks) August 27 - October 21, 2001
- Fali 2001 Session 2 (16 wks) August 27 - December 16, 2001
- Fall 2001 Session 3 (8 wks) October 29 - December 16, 2001
Many class credits are transferable to Kansas Regent Schools.
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