An obsession begins

Two months ago, a friend of mine got tired of waiting for me to make the leap into the 21st century and he bought me an iPod Shuffle. Needless to say, I love it and it has become an obsession. There are lot of reasons I was hesitant to make the leap (maybe someday I'll go into them, if I can think of something lucid to say). But one of the main reasons is that I'm a slave to the physical world (And if that ball comes into my yard again, you kids aren't getting it back!). I lost count at 3,000 CDs. In order to realize the most value from the iPod, I've got to go throught he arduous task of digitizing my collection. It's time consuming, but it's a lot of fun, I must say.

But it's creating all sorts of moral dilemnas. With two kids, a full time job, and other demands on my time. I've got about an hour or less a night to devote to iTunes. And you can't just digitize your collection alphabetically. Because after an hour of importing discs, you're left with ABBA Gold, The Best Of Johnny Ace, Arthur Alexander, Dave Alvin, American Music Club, Archers Of Loaf and Laurie Anderson -- a fine cross section of music to be sure. But it's not what I want to listen to.

So where do you start? I started with the The Replacements' All For Nothing/Nothing For All -- a symbollic gesture, mostly, a doff of my digital cap to my favorite band of all time, not necessarily, the music I listen to most. Then I went through Wilco and associated alt-country acts, because it's what I'm listening to most.

But when the iPod shuffle decided what I would be listening to on a given day, I wanted it to be able to draw on the widest selection of music possible. So I had to consciously diversify. So I imported all of my jazz, reggae and blues CDs. Then I decided to go through my boxed sets, since these compilations would give a nice representation of the the more beloved acts in my collection: The Band, Talking Heads, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, etc.

But as I worked my way around the boxed set collection, I came upon a George Harrison boxed set. Now who in their right minds would import their George Harrison collection and not import their Beatles CDs. So I got sidetracked and did the Beatles. Then I went back to George. But now, how can you import George Harrison CDs and not import John Lennon CDs? So I got sidetracked again. And if you've got John Lennon and George Harrison on your iPod, how can ignore Paul. And naturally, because I'm anal, I have to import all of Paul McCartney's albums. That means, "Mull Of Kintyre" is on the Ipod, but "Broke Down Piece Of Man" by Sam & Dave is not.

Sleep does not come easily to me with this in mind.