Fall 2000

Fall 2000

March 2001

For my 40th birthday we invited 16 friends to join us for a big Italian dinner at Buca di Beppo in San Francisco, so I made a souvenir CD of Italian and midcentury (I was 40, after all) tunes. Cover is from a retro cookbook. One amusing detail: the cubbylike waiter was flirting with all the guests, and kept telling them what time he got off work! And we had so many leftovers we thought they'd last a week. They lasted a day or two.

Spring 2002

FALL 2002

Our friend Bill was leaving the bay area to move in with his partner Timmy in Savannah, so we made him some tunes for the road. He had appeared as a model in an ad with him eating notoriously stinky fruit durian, with a clothespin on his nose, hence the name of the compilation.

FEBRUARY 2003

A romantic selection of love songs for Jack on Valentine's Day. However, I'm surprised I didn't include "Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton ..."

October 2003

April 2004

Our friend Derek was visiting San Francisco for the first time, so we made a CD of music to play during a cookout we held for him. Has a bunch of the usual tunes that showed up on these CDs.

November 2004

Our friend Pete was visiting San Francisco for the first time, so we made a CD of music to play during a dinner we held for him. Has a bunch of the usual tunes that showed up on these CDs. (Title comes from something we heard Rachael Ray say on TV, which struck us at funny.)

Fall 2005

After I broke my leg at Disneyland, I was facing months of recuperation at home, and I couldn't have survived with my spirits intact if it hadn't been for Jack and a bunch of friends (like Mel, Victor and Phil) who helped me out in numerous ways. Because I was home watching TV for the first month, there's a bunch of TV themes here, and some of the usual song suspects.

January 2008

October 2008

After the broken leg incident, we went back to Disneyland the next year, and some friends we were meeting planned to bring Miracle Fruit Powder -- a bizarre fruit-derived powder that dampens your sour taste buds. So, the night before we went to Disneyland, we had a Miracle Fruit Powder party and joyously sampled lemons, rhubarb, Warheads candy, etc. And then I did a souvenir CD to mark this very, very special occasion.

February 2010

Another CD of romantic music for Valentine's Day and our initial wedding anniversary (when we were married by the San Francisco mayor's office in 2004).

May 2012

One of the best things about working for an airline is being able to hop on a plane for free and jet across the country for 24 hours to attend a birthday party. Which is what I did, and completely surprised my friend Bill. So, I also brought him a mix CD with fifty favorite songs. Well, not quite fifty.

Fall 2013

A CD in honor of my Italian friend Beppe, who was visiting San Francisco. Just wanted to give him a souvenir with some of my favorite songs on it, and some recent bands (like Snow Patrol). (Actually, Snow Patrol is the only recent band on it.)

Summer 2018

In May 2018 I intersected my Australian friend John on our respective trips to the Fort Lauderdale area, so we hung out and listened to music. John is a vintage punk rocker who loves bands like Stiff Little Fingers and the Levellers, so I made him a big selection of my old punk rock favorites. No doubt he was familiar with most of these already.

Fall 2018

What with all those lounge cover CDs I'd been buying at flea markets, I thought John (in particular) and Greg would appreciate the more ridiculous of them. The Enoch Light Singers wailing on "Born to Be Wild" is especially over-the-top!

January 2023

Trapper is planning to move out of San Diego, and he had all these CDs that he didn't want to move, so he gave them to me. I kept many, sold some, and sold some that intrigued me but not so much that I wanted to keep them, so I burned certain songs and then tossed them on the sell pile. And on New Year's Day, Ted, Doug and I drove to a bookstore in Riverside and traded them in. The guy behind the counter probably thought he was going to have an easy day, but instead we brought in hundreds of CDs that he had to individually check for defects!

January 2023

Rpped a bunch of songs off the Trapper John CDs that I decided to keep, to give me an overview of the whole big pile. Might take these collections on some future road trip and surprise Trapper with this somewhat-familiar (I would imagine) music.

June 2023

Aramis and Paul came back to visit for Memorial Day again, as did old college friend Pat Lusk, so I whipped up a souvenir CD with tunes we listened to in the car or heard on TV. We played games and evidently I was awfully smug about winning, and the "cheffy" comes from eating at Native Foods (vegan, for Pat) and then deciding Chef Tanya's Kitchen was less fast food and more "cheffy." (Note: I also made a CD for Aramis and Paul last year but can't find the covers ...)

January 2024

New friend Scott from Masachusetts seemed to have a lot of the same musical tastes as me, so I made him a CD set of things he might like. He's promised to do the same for me once he returns home! The cover is from using a fun AI tool. No actual graphic artists were harmed in the making of this cover.

January 2024

My friend Carl Lamb was moving down from his place in Oregon to Palm Springs, and was getting rid of a lot of his music collection. I was up in Oregon at the time and picked up a few bags of his CDs. Kept some, marked some for resale/trade, and some I ripped certain songs on ... and then they'll go for resale/trade. The 4th, 5th and 6th CDs are all more '90s-era dance music. Thanks, Carl!

February 2024

Scott from Masachusetts sent me a number of CDs after I made one for him, so I made a big 4-CD set for him, using music from various trip CDs I've made over the past seven years. Cover is him as (a Funko) Steven Universe, which was a theme on the CDs he sent me.