Me and Molly used to sit in my room with my Realistic record player and a cheap 2 dollar microphone and sing into it so that we could hear ourselves on the
tinny single speaker. We would then record ourselves from a
boombox I had. We would do radio shows and game shows, introducing our friend Shannon or her little brother Corey as the next contestant.
I took that radio places with me, to the houses of the few friends I had growing up. Documenting the idle talk of kids, then playing it back, noting how my own voice sounded different than the one I heard from the amplifier of my own head. It never sounds like me.
Blank tapes used to be solid black with turquoise highlighted labels. Nowadays they're clear or blue tinted and shiny, space age. That's if you even make mix tapes anymore. Boomboxes used to come with a built in microphone, little three slit grid next to the buttons for Play and Record.
I still make mix tapes; I love doing it It's relaxing for me. I wonder if I would say the same for MP3's. Maybe I am just old fashioned. I wish they still had those mics. I wonder what kids do for fun these days.