i'm a song from the sixties

so as of late i have been a little bit obessive in my desires to acquire ephmera from the 50's and 60's. over the last week i bought a mid-fifties zenith console stereo, and in my lust for making the damned thing work (especially to turntable!) i've bought a second zenith turntable and another entire console stereo from the late seventies that included a kenwood reciever and a garrard turntable. so that's three turntables, to consoles, and still no working record player. for what i've spent i could have bought a new, lower mid-range turntable that i could have been playing already (albiet that i would be lacking speakers).

im going crazy. the zenith console is freaking awesome, even though it isn't working right now. the thing powers up, and when i could actually tune something in on the radio, it bumped (two 10' subs and six tweeters). but there's a terribly loud hum most of the time, and especially when i power up the turntable. there's some sort of interference somewhere, and no pick up of the record spinning on the platter. to top it off, i tried re-splicing the rca's that connect to the deck, and that still didn't work. i would have just swithed out the entire rca cables, but the damned things are wired straight to the reciever end of things. my thinking is that is has to have something to do with the reciever. it's a weird size though and that bodes badly for dropping in another new unit to replace it... unless i can find one. all three of the turntables are old school and require power through the reciever through an old plug style hook up. this absolutely neccesitates an older reciever that will have this same kind of plug. the kenwood reciever in the other console is too big, and so far i have been able to power it up anyway, so that's out of the question.

the problem with this whole thing is that the zenith console is sweet, the speakers work fine (when there's no hum), and it looks freakin awesome. i've spent WAY too much money on this thing, meaning other more pressing bills aren't getting paid as quickly, and it's kind of a sticking point between amanda and i right now. she's not mad about me buying it, she's just upset that i am obsessing so much about getting the damned thing working (aka spending more money on top of what i've already spent).

the underlying issue is that i love this old stuff. i want to have tons and tons and tons of old stuff lying around, looking cool, and inspiring me to create cool stuff at the same time. but there's a lack of space, money and tollerance for old junk lying around all the time right now. we don't have the luxury of a shop or studio space, aside from our living room, and there's not a lot of money to spent on stuff, that however cool and great, is still just old, not-working, stuff.

i found one guy out in hesperia that does restoration on old radios and stuff, and he's fairly cheap at $25 an hour, but who knows if it will even get working anytime soon, let alone having to pay for the fix too. maybe i can sell him some of the other stuff to offset that. anyway pray for me guys. pray that i can listen to my vinyl soon, and not spend a bundle. i need to hear the sounds i grew up listening to with my mom again soon. im becoming to ocd not to have this resolved soon.