My Record Collection (1952-1992)

The collection can be viewed in three separate galleries:

1952-1969 (140 records)
1970-1979 (249 records)
1980-1992 (211 records)

View fullsize

From the flip side of Dave Van Ronk's album, Just Dave Van Ronk, 1964

Vinyl is heavy, man.

My record collection weighs approximately 369 pounds. This estimate is based on the average weight of a piece of vinyl, plus the album cover, being 9 ounces. Then you multiply that number by 600 records and add another 30 pounds for the milk crates that keep everybody upright. I've carted this assemblage from Los Angeles to New York, then to Virginia, and now Baltimore.

I decided to turn my record collection into a piece of visual art to lighten my load. With each passing year I let go of more stuff. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. I remember laughter, I remember heartache and I remember love. My record collection spans the years from 1952 through 1992—a time before I was born to a time nearly 30 years ago. I've carried my past across the country. I respect the journey of my ancestors and myself. But today I am lighter. And here's the truth—I didn't know I had a record by Dave Van Ronk until I started this project. Like Dave, I have no interest in telling a lie when I open up my heart. I open up my heart by meditating, which is weightless, and meditation opens my awareness. My awareness has no age.

My earliest recollection of vinyl was back in the early 70s, which is one of the reasons why 41% of my collection is from that era. The record that got the most rotation back-in-the-day was this little pumpkin:

View fullsize

1971 | Harry Nilsson | Nilsson Schmilsson (photo by Dean Torrance)

Everything about the album resonated with me until I was deep into my 20s, my 30s, maybe forever. So many fun times with family and friends, laughing, dancing, getting stoned. Harry's hand casually tucked in his pocket, the other hand cradling his pipe. The gentleness of it all. The cozy ass kitchen with the refrigerator calendar. If we weren't letting the good times roll in the living room, we were in the kitchen, cooking Italian, playing games, conjugating until the wee hours. Harry was a God, my role model. And so was Uncle Tom, my Mom's brother, the cool cat who introduced me to Harry Nilsson. We all just wanted to be free, to be lighter, to drink it all up.

Another reason I have a ton of records from the 70s is because of my friend, Kent. Back in the early 80s, Kent had a Monday night gig spinning records at the Whistle Stop, which was a small club in the South Park neighborhood of San Diego.

View fullsize

Flyer by Kent Landis, 1985

Kent and I loved to have fun together. One day he invited me to join him on Mondays to play our favorite records, drink beers, smoke weed, boogie down and eat hot dogs. It was heaven. Kent loved music from the 70s, so this naturally rubbed off on me. Even though I moved back to Los Angeles after graduating from UCSD in 1986, I always imagined we would play music again. So Kent was on my mind whenever I was at a thrift shop looking for fresh wax. I would say to myself, "Kent would dig this." We never got that opportunity to spin again, but if we did, this is the first record I would play for him:

View fullsize

1975 | Gloria Gaynor | Never Can Say Goodbye (photo by Bernie Block)

I always thought my records were kinda groovy. Although the collection was cumbersome, the nostalgia of it all was definitely worthwhile. Collecting records was a thing. I mean, just the cover art alone was worth the effort and mondo trippy, not to mention the crazy music. The act of holding an album in your hands, studying it, reading the liner notes, pulling out the record, cleaning the vinyl, hearing the pops and cracks as the record spun round-and-round. The whole thing was romantic and visceral. And thanks to Kent, making sure your collection had both the classics and the schmaltz. Be diverse, have fun. So that's what I did. 

In 1990, my record collection became truly vintage. That's when my father's wife, Gloria Kersey, gifted me the record collection that belonged to her husband, Chuck, who passed away in 1984. And speaking of the 80s, my father took me to see the Steelers play the Rams at the Superbowl in Pasadena in 1980. We had great seats on the 50 yard line courtesy of our hosts, the Biltmore Hotel. I was 16 years old, the weather was perfect and everyone was drinking beer, including me. Before the opening kickoff, a friendly fella from the hotel bought a bunch of hot dogs for everyone to munch on. I was stoked and hungry. I had no idea who the guy was but he was instantly a major dude. That man was Chuck Kersey. It wasn't until I flipped through his record collection in 1990 that I realized Chuck was a full-on jazz head. His collection made my collection go from cabernet to cognac. 

One sweet piece of vinyl from the Kersey repertoire is this:

View fullsize

1956 | Chet Baker | Chet Baker Sings (photo by William Claxton)

I collected most of my records while I was living in Los Angeles in the late 80s and early 90s. When I moved to NYC in 1995, I pretty much turned to CDs and then mp3s. But those post college years in LA were a great time for vinyl enthusiasts and thankfully I had some decent jobs to support my jones. During this period of deep accumulation, I became a huge fan of reggae, and consequently, a regular at the Kingston 12 in Santa Monica on Thursday nights. It was a ritual for me. I would roll up in my yellow VW Rabbit, smoke some ganja, and then dance for a couple of hours with the other Rastas. Jah! In honor of these irie times, I would have to say that my favorite album cover is this piece of candy right here:

View fullsize

1974 | Jimmy Cliff | Struggling Man (illustration by David Dragon)

Creating an archive of my vinyl was a calling. I was in a p-funk and I needed to heal my chi, so I created a self-help project that required absolute focus, dedication and love. Operation Free My Mind.  

Each album cover was scanned four times: top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right. I merged these four sections in Photoshop and cropped the result into a perfect square. I color corrected the final images to best resemble the original artwork, but I didn’t retouch anything because I wanted to see the wear and imperfections of each cover. I created unique titles for every digitized file according to the year, the artist and the title of the album. My last step was to create a collage of all the records, in chronological order, left-to-right, top-to-bottom, which I did in Photoshop. I worked on this project every day for five weeks and I worked eight hours a day, or 280 hours in total. 

My intention was to make the record collection feel as though you were actually in my living room thumbing through the dusty stacks. Wine, weed and snacks—totally optional.

Jimmy Cliff was singing about those good old days. I guess I am too. Archiving my record collection was a blunt way for me to confront the past in order to find peace in the present. Did it work?

The best days of my life are right here, right now. 

My mind is free.


P.S. The songs on this blog were recorded by me from my actual record collection which is why you might hear some pops and cracks.  

⌘

A Portrait of Anthony, Fear and Compassion

I was on day three of an indefinite road trip. The mission was to drive from Baltimore to Los Angeles to visit my Pops—and then drive back to Baltimore when I was good and ready. The once in a lifetime trip lasted exactly 27 days, 5,728 miles and I never turned on the radio. I drove in silence. When I rolled into Oklahoma City, I checked into the Red Roof Inn and immediately dubbed my room, The Porn Suite Deluxe.

View fullsize

Motel Life | Oklahoma City, OK | 2021

Sexy faux leather, a warped California King and carpet so nasty I had to keep my slippers on. Oh baby, spank me good! But I needed to take some pictures while there was still light, so I grabbed my camera and leaped off the balcony for an adventure. 

The OC neighborhood mimicked the motel. Slim shady for real. Although I was dying to get a beer at the Circle K across the street, I had just lit some reefer and I didn't feel like confronting the kids lingering out front smoking cigs, so I sacrificed sips for the sake of art and social anxiety and headed in the opposite direction. After walking through a series of endlessly dense parking lots, I discovered an urban oasis.

View fullsize

The Oasis | Oklahoma City, OK | 2021

Whoa. I was digging this. And I forgot all about the sketchy motel room. As I lined up the shot and crouched down a bit for the perfect angle, I noticed some folks checking me out across the lake—and when I see someone rubbernecking, this is generally a sign to click and move on. But I was too late. I saw a dude walking my way with a serious sense of urgency. Oh fuck. He was so fast I just had to deal with it. When he approached I said, "Do you see this?" And then I pointed to the tableau. He shook his head as though he didn't understand. "The reflection, it's so dreamy." I showed him one of the 14 pictures I just took. He studied the image but was mildly interested in the art. He wanted to tell me something. So I stalled. "What is this place? Do you live around here?" His name was Anthony. He said, "Yes, I live right over there. You see that stuff on the sidewalk, it's mine, and I'm trying to get someone to take me to my storage unit before it closes." I asked him what time it closed. Anthony said, "9 o'clock. Can you take me? It's only a few blocks away. It would take just five minutes." I looked at my phone. It was 9:05. I said, "I think they're closed." He said, "But if we go right now we can make it. I know Amy. She's cool. But we'd have to go—right now." 

Anthony had a lot of energy and he too seemed to be catching some kind of buzz. Maybe liquor. I said, "Man, I just smoked some weed. And I just drove 500 miles because I'm on a journey to see my father in California who just had a stroke and he's dealing with Alzheimers, and. I can't get back into that truck right now." "I'm sorry to hear that," Anthony said in earnest. "Thank you." I continued, "Yeah, my friend Doug just died from the diabetes and I wasn't able to see him and when my mom passed in 1997 I wasn't able to see her, I tried, but she died when I was on layover in Texas, so I haven't had much luck with family, when, you know what I mean?" He shook his head. I looked him in the eye and waited a sec.

So we got to talking. Anthony is a father of three and his oldest is 38. Like Pops, Anthony was in the Air Force and served 10 years as a medic. He knew a lot about medicine, and although he still did a bit of meth, it was the drink that got him into trouble. He was in prison twice for a total of nine years. He was released from his second conviction just two years ago. In the meantime, a rat bastard stole his identity and his money and he planted a bug inside Anthony's head so he is watching his every move and literally driving him insane. Anthony is working with the FBI to track him down. He wants to move out of Oklahoma City but he's not sure where to go. He's been shifting around from motel to motel and is currently living at the extended stay shown in the photograph above. You can see one of his roommates, Ray Ban, on the left side of the photo sitting with the stuff Anthony wanted to take to storage. He is sitting next to a shaggy woman who is also sharing their room, which consists of a queen bed, a sink, a shower and a toilet. Ray Ban and the blonde were the peeps checking me out when I initially discovered the oasis. Anthony wanted to put all his stuff into storage because he's sick and tired of people stealing his shit. I told him I was staying at the Red Roof. He said, "Yeah, I've stayed there too." Although I was getting a deep sense of paranoia from Anthony, something about him was legit sincere. I trusted him. I said, "My middle name is Anthony." "That's cool," he said. I slowly continued, "Although it's a bit late right now, I would like to drive past your room tomorrow morning after I wake up and have coffee. I want to help you with your stuff. Maybe around 10am?" We hugged and he said, "That would be great. I really appreciate it. I just need to get my life together."

View fullsize

Blackout Curtains | Oklahoma City, OK | 2021

I couldn't sleep a wink that night. I started to doubt myself. Am I being too compassionate? Is this dangerous? What am I thinking? The last thing I need to do is invite a total stranger into my truck with all their baggage. I convinced myself that it would be best to just roll out of OC and never look back. But I was conflicted. I was just trying to get to California, man, and I had a long way to go. The rain was pouring when I finally had the courage to get out of the California King and make a cup of in-room coffee. I was even beginning to tolerate the taste of stale grind. OMG, what is happening to me? I packed up my shit, left the room key at the front desk and started up the truck. No radio, just the sounds of the wiper blades jerking back-and-forth. I stared at the Circle K across the meridian. No one was there. I thought about Anthony. Hey, we are both Anthony. Isn’t that wild! He just needs someone to help him out right now. He talked to me when I wasn't so sure about myself. He shared intimate things about his life. He was honest and tender. And I told him I would be there. Fuck.  

When I pulled around to Anthony's room there was an Uber driver parked outside his door with his trunk open. When I saw Anthony I waved and said, "Good morning, sir. Sorry I'm late." Anthony was happy to see me and he told the Uber driver that I was his ride and he didn't need him anymore. The driver was furious and asked for $5. Anthony didn't have any cash on him. I offered to pay the $5 but he didn't want my money. He just glared at me and sped away. 

Anthony meticulously put all his belongings into the bed of the truck as Ray Ban and I stood around and watched. Anthony was frantically looking through his bags when Ray Ban said, "What’s wrong?" Anthony said he couldn't find the keys to his storage unit. I started to pace a bit.

"Oh here they are."

Phew. So I drove Anthony to the facility which was a few blocks down the road, as promised. On the way he said, "So are you going to drive 500 miles today?" I told him I'd like to. He said, "Well, that should take you through Elk City, then Amarillo, then Tucumcari, then I think you'll end up in Albuquerque. That should be about 500. Text me when you get there so I'll know you're safe." He was right. It was 536 miles by the time I rolled into New Mexico. I texted Anthony when I arrived and let him know I was good.

View fullsize

Storage Unit | Oklahoma City, OK | 2021

I eventually made it to California to see Pops. We spent 13 days together. The last time I saw my father was on Halloween, 2016. Me and Pops aren’t super close. We never seemed to really connect after he and my mom divorced in 1984. That was a bitter situation. We stumbled to reconcile the memories over the years, but it was awkward. We just didn’t seem to have the right words, or tone, or affection. The most time we spent together since the 80s was maybe one or two days. For a second, I thought we might spend 19 days together but an unfortunate bit of quarrel shortened my stay. We left each other without saying goodbye and we ended at 13—an omniscient number, perhaps—signifying the end of one thing and the beginning of another. There is hope for us.

I love my Pops. That’s just the way it is.

One of the last things my friend Doug said to me was, "Wig, everything doesn’t need to be perfect." I can dig it. I suffer a bit as I compulsively attempt to line up all the pieces. This was one of the seldom discussed motivations for my road trip—to just, let it go. Improvise. Trust the path.

View fullsize

Pops | Thousand Oaks, CA | 2021

My brother texted me the other day and said, "Hope the road trip was a good experience."

Indeed. And I’m grateful. 🧡 There’s work to be done. But I had a lot of time to meditate as I patiently weaved in and out of traffic. Very mellow. And I took 1,300 photos with varying shades of nuance. It's a beautiful country. And the feelings. Oh, how the feelings influence everything. Art. Love. Compassion.*

When I finally made it back to Baltimore, I took a deep breath and turned off the engine.

The silence was familiar—and friendly.

* Say a prayer for Pops if you can. Wish him well on his journey.

⌘

The Day I Broke Joe's Heart

My parents moved from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles in 1964. Based on old photos, Super 8 movies, and fuzzy memories, I kind of remember a few of our homes back then. There was the duplex on Topanga Canyon. And then there was the house right around the corner on Buenaventura. After that we moved to the "celebrity home" with a pool on Kittridge in Canoga Park which used to be the residence of the Tabatha twins from “Bewitched.” Although the Kittridge pad was epic because of the BBQs, booze, bare bottomed slide rides, and ping pong, my dad used to joke about wanting to live south of the boulevard. He favored the 91364 zip code and was determined to return. In 1977 we did just that and moved to Ensenada Drive in Woodland Hills. This was about the time I became good friends with Joe.

I can't remember if Joe ever walked inside the house on Ensenada. Perhaps it was due to the wayward reputation of the Wiggins boys back in the day. We liked to party. We used to buy a case of Mickey Big Mouths and ice block down the fairways at the nearby Woodland Hills Country Club. We weren't the ideal role models for star athletes to hang out with. Joe was tall and sculpted and the best swimmer in town. My brother was a good swimmer too, and I was scrawny, but scrappy. We all swam together on the El Camino Real High School team. At the peak of our friendship, Joe would pick me up before school at 5:30am in his dad's Pontiac station wagon. He would patiently idle out front while I lugged my 9’6" Dewey Weber from the side of the house and slid it into the back of the golden, oxidized surf mobile. When I climbed into the front seat, Joe would always have some Beach Boys playing for us, this way we didn't have to talk much. We knew all the lyrics by heart. With every curve along the winding road of Topanga we would pray for a righteous swell. We were stoked either way and would paddle out even if it was flat. We both had vintage longboards and paddling around the Pacific on those beasts was a great shoulder workout, and swimmers needed strong shoulders to break records, which Joe did all the time. It would take us half an hour to get to the beach, pull on our wetsuits, wax the decks, and paddle out. By the time we caught our first wave and were sitting on top of the world, it was 6am.

Waking up early is the standard for serious swimmers. If we weren't surfing before class we would be doing laps at Warner Center Racquet Club. It was brutal. I had a ton of allergies at the time and being soaked in chlorine for a couple of hours before homeroom made for a nonstop runny nose and swole ass eyes. And I was tired, constantly, so my focus and grades were terrible. But surfing was way better than competitive swimming, so when Joe said he'd pick me up tomorrow, I was ready. I'm not sure what kind of student Joe was but I do know that he was extraordinarily talented in the pool, especially at freestyle. I would happily be the teammate that counted his laps when he competed in the 1500 free. I felt proud about that. That's my buddy. Joe continued to swim at a high level and participated in the Olympic trials in 1984.   

I stopped swimming after my senior year in 1981. I then applied to UC San Diego simply because Black's Beach was next door. At first, my application was rejected, but somehow my parents lobbied for me and UCSD changed their mind. I ended up being a garbage student in college as well, but I did manage a 3.2 GPA mainly because I was a visual arts major. Black's Beach was legendary, not only for it’s perfect barrels, but also because it was a nude beach. My kinda people. But Black's was a beach break, so you needed a shortboard, which thankfully my mom bought for me. My shortboard pal at El Camino was Rich, who was basically a skinhead, had a ton of freckles, and loved to box. Rich didn't care much for the Beach Boys. He would blast the Circle Jerks or the Dead Kennedys while we drove to Zuma or County Line in his beat-up Honda Accord.

After I graduated from college, I moved back to LA. Joe and I didn't talk at all during my years at UCSD, but he did invite me to his parents house in Woodland Hills for his birthday party one summer. Joe looked great. He had a wide smile and was super positive and he really rocked the Hawaiian shirt. I cut my own hair into a vicious mohawk and my favorite attire was a faded jean jacket with a red pentagram painted on the back to protect me from the evil forces. We shared some small talk at the party but it was all kind of awkward. We reminisced about our surf days and I told him I didn't really listen to the Beach Boys anymore.

I never talked to Joe after that.

When I revered the Beach Boys back in the late 70s it was simply because the music reeked of summer and surfing and the hope of sex in the sun. It was perfect. When I got my shortboard, things started to change for me. Life began to suck a bit and I just couldn't tolerate all the happy. I wanted to be punk. I was mad as hell and I couldn't take it anymore! My professors convinced me that the USA was an evil empire and racism and oppression was the root of it all. I remember studying at the UCSD library and all I could think about was a Peter Tosh lyric, so I whipped out my ballpoint and violently scratched into the wood, "Everyone is crying out for peace. None is crying out for justice." I felt better and promptly fell asleep in the cubicle.

I am a bit calmer these days but I'm still pretty pissed off. And I'm finally a better student. I read, I study, I practice, and I enjoy it. I'm also listening to the Beach Boys again. I can totally relate to the wonders of Brian Wilson. I've tripped out to Pet Sounds a few times. And yes, the music makes me happy.

Paddling out to the point at Topanga and glancing over at the smiling face of my friend is vivid and lovely, so very, very lovely.

God only knows what I'd be without you, Joe.

⌘

Ways of Seeing

Why did I start taking pictures? Pretty much to document family and vacations. My first few cameras were essentially scrapbook facilitators. I love a good keepsake. But by the time I started college I became less interested in the camera as a tool of remembrance. It was the Vivitar 35ES that changed things. The Vivitar was a gift from my dad. It was the second camera he gave to me. We bonded through picture taking. Me and Pops. And boy did that Vivitar make me feel legit. I lugged that baby around from class to class. I had no idea what I was doing at UCSD. I was a biology major, then drama and finally visual arts simply because my roommate at the time, James, got me a concessions job at the Ken Cinema. He worked there too. Films were cool. James was cool. And during our six years of living together in San Diego and Los Angeles, James introduced me to all kinds of art, literature, music and food. James taught me about friendship and cinema as well. Moving images, still images, we were fascinated by every frame. And that's when my relationship to the camera changed. The Vivitar became my first paint brush. I am a deep observer. Patient. Cerebral. A huge fan of pattern recognition. The world was abundant with grace and strange. And the Vivitar faithfully captured my POV. One of the books that reminds me of James is John Berger's Ways of Seeing. James was a visual arts major as well. I started reading Berger when I had the Vivitar. He was the perfect complement to all the Hitchcock and Truffaut films we saw at the Ken. As John Berger would say, "Seeing comes before words."

James, John and the Vivitar—each introduced me to the world of my inner and outer compositions.

⌘

I Am Wide Awake

I want to run, kiss, dance and create. Is this too much for a Saturday? I say no. Because you must take it when you get it. There are days when the power of love permeates my entire being with blissful intent. It is a day like this that can motivate a man for months at a time. Deep seated belief. I am wide awake.

But I have to close my eyes to truly feel it.

⌘

Polaroid Swinger

My first camera was a Polaroid Swinger. A gift from my dad. I used to keep a Swinger photo of the family in my wallet. I was so proud of them.

My dad loved taking pictures. He was a faithful documentarian. My mom would make something good to eat and we would dim the lights and watch slides and Super 8 movies projected on the walls. These were times of laughter and love. So thank you James W. Wiggins, Jr. for introducing me to the art of photography and associating the viewfinder as an act of affection.

View fullsize

Michael Wiggins & John Wiggins | Lindsay, CA | 1976
(photo: James W. Wiggins, Jr.)

⌘