Beasts of Burden and the Beauty of Futile Resistance

At the turn of the turn of the twentieth century, horses the world over celebrated the advent of widespread application of the internal combustion engine. From whinnying to neighing to trotting about (kind of at a loss as to how horses celebrate here), the perennial beasts of burden were thrilled at the promise of no longer being forced to pull every ridiculous contraption those strange bipeds had come up with over the centuries. It’s easy to understand they were ecstatic at the promise of slowly becoming obsolete.

Still, there must have been the odd individual who preferred the carriage and his trusty equine friend, but for most the appeal of not sitting directly behind an animal that consumes a large quantity of fibrous food everyday (Rusty …. RUSTY!) and the sexiness of those new motorcars sent many a horse out to pasture – happily.

Here’s the thing – I may be a chronically frustrated and disillusioned musician, but I’m a musician nonetheless. Despite the rock n’ roll lifestyle dream slowly withering away, I still hold out a faint hope of one day receiving my first royalty. To that end, and more so because I simply love the tangibility of them, I’m one of the dying breed who still buy CDs. Napster be damned, I believe musicians should receive their due compensation and conversely I’m quite proud of my beyond-expansive CD collection. Though it appears inevitable that they are doomed to have the same legacy to music as the horse does for transport, I will be the aforementioned guy in the horse-drawn carriage staring disdainfully at the Model-T.

My CD collection? I’d say 600 plus qualifies as beyond expansive and it grows in small increments once or twice a month. Much to the aesthetic displeasure of my wife, it takes up a good portion of the wall space in our living room by being stored in all manner of racking; from six foot wooden towers to bare function plastic trays to the discs that are parked on the floor in the overflow lot. I’ll admit it’s a bit of an eyesore, but it’s part of me and, plain and simple, a CD collection speaks big-time cool.

I may, however, cave in to the better half’s décor wishes. I’m thinking a CD / DVD spinning tower or spinning media tower may be a more stylish and functional storage solution for my archaic medium and Cymax Stores Online features a large selection of entertainment library storage options at competitive prices. A standard CD tower or media tower and their against-wall orientation may be more suitable considering our space constraints. Either way, whichever media storage cabinet or CD storage rack I buy will need to be a large one as for as long as they keep making them I will keep buying them.

I’m sure those same horses are sympathizing with the millions of over-worked pistons and valves around the world holding out hope for the advent of perpetual motion. My wish for the devolution of the commercial music industry is about as likely.