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Who Remembers Travis McGee's Stereo System?

musichal

musichal

poet emeritus
There may have been more than one. He had AR speakers, I believe the 2ax. However, I can't recall the amp/tuner, or was it receiver? Scott? Fisher? McIntosh? Marantz? Maybe KLH? Aboard the Busted Flush with a bikinied dancer practicing her choreography to the music while conning him into going to work - something he tended to resist doing until funds got low.
 
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Deep Blue Goodby?

The scene you refer to was the start of that
book as I recall. It was one of the early books

The dancer was not in a bikini however she was in a leotard.
Then she got into his tub.

The bikini dancers were part of the Bama Tiger's
floating house party.

I recall a few references to his sound system and
I recall it changing over the years. But no details.
 
Fun2Learn said:
The scene you refer to was the start of that
book as I recall. It was one of the early books

The dancer was not in a bikini however she was in a leotard.
Then she got into his tub.

The bikini dancers were part of the Bama Tiger's
floating house party.

I recall a few references to his sound system and
I recall it changing over the years. But no details.
Click to expand...

Wish I still had the books. I remember you're correct about the leotard, and I think her name was Chookie McCall, maybe from the Mile-o-Beach Club. Deep Blue Goodbye sounds about right - I remember stolen gems mostly washing into the sea, and a woman whose name I think was Lois dying in the end, after being beaten by the big, smiling antagonist. Possibly Boo Somebody. Big smiley finally went down with his neck stuck in the crook of a Danforth anchor, while Travis held on to the fuzzy edge of conciousness only long enough to cover bodies or something. Can't remember name of Chookie's dance-team gal from the keys who set the story in motion with the hunt for hidden treasure her pilot father brought back from the war.

Oh, yeah. It was the Alabama Tiger's Perpetual Floating House Party.
 
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Great Question! I still have almost all the novels... I'll have to pull them out and "remember" the details.

Dean
 
I have the entire series, and you are correct, Chookie McCall was the dancer, and the book was "The Deep Blue Good-by" (1964). The book begins with her, in her leotard, choreographing a routine in McGee's lounge on the "Busted Flush". The enemy in this book was Junior Allen, and the lady was Lois, who died of a head injury.

I don't recall which book mentions it, but he had AR9 speakers at one point, and then another time after a fight inside his boat, his amp got a bullet hole in it. It was replaced with a Fisher loaner to the best of my memory.

Its a terrific series, well worth rediscovering. You should be able to find most of the books at a used book store for very little money.
 
I believe the amp that caught the bullet was a Marantz. At various other times during the course of the series, I remember McGee having AR speakers and Fisher electronics.
 
wu6fiend said:
I have the entire series, and you are correct, Chookie McCall was the dancer, and the book was "The Deep Blue Good-by" (1964). The book begins with her, in her leotard, choreographing a routine in McGee's lounge on the "Busted Flush". The enemy in this book was Junior Allen, and the lady was Lois, who died of a head injury.

I don't recall which book mentions it, but he had AR9 speakers at one point, and then another time after a fight inside his boat, his amp got a bullet hole in it. It was replaced with a Fisher loaner to the best of my memory.

Its a terrific series, well worth rediscovering. You should be able to find most of the books at a used book store for very little money.
Click to expand...

I'll have to find some used and re-read. Read 'em all back in the day. Was up to date on them when Cinnamon Skin was published, and bought the hardback.

Also remember Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdamndale, Fla, and a bear of an economist named Meyer, Travis's friend and sometime-salvage-partner.
 
Travis McGee series, begun in 1964 by John D. MacDonald. Travis was a beach-bum living aboard his house-boat and taking his 'retirement' in installments between 'salvage' jobs, which actually consisted of retrieving stolen loot/valuables on behalf of those who'd been cheated - for one-half of the value of any recovery. Landed him in lethal trouble frequently.
 
I know in one book he put all his vinyl on tape (or cassette), and donated the records to a local jazz club. He also had two sets of speakers, one for background music.
 
McDonald's Last Published Work

Reading For Survival
Done for The Center For The Book (October 1985)

Did you know that McDonald's last published work was a pamphlet
called Reading For Survival? He agreed to do it then had trouble
getting it to sound the way he wanted.

So it was suggested to him that he make it a conversation between
McGee and Meyer. He sets the scene in the beginning by having McGee
say "I was doing a job I hate and had avoided for too long, sorting out the
music cassettes, setting aside the giveaways and the ones to erase,
getting them all back into the right boxes."

The pamphlet is not that long, it is a fine representation of what made
the Travis McGee series so special, especially his interactions with Meyer.

It is here: http://ebookbrowse.com/john-d-macdonald-reading-for-survival-doc-d180730419
 
Batch68 said:
Can remember the stereo either, but I remember he always listened to it while enjoying a Tuborg.
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Or sometimes a St. Pauli Girl, or Dos Equis.

For anyone interested in reading, MacDonald's 'Travis McGee' novels all had a color in the title, ie, "Nightmare in Pink," "The Turquoise Lament," "Pale Gray for Guilt," etc. He wrote other novels as well, some of which were translated into movies, eg, "Cape Fear," "The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything," "Condominium," and a couple of the Travis McGee novels.

I believe I recall Travis eschewing the high end and going midfi in a later novel. I've always assumed the taste in audio and beer reflected MacDonald's own experience, and wonder what was on his audio shelf prior to his death in '86.


Found this excerpt from "Darker Than Amber":

"As it was very still and very hot, I got the big auxiliary generator going, and we buttoned up the boat and put the air-conditioning on high. The fading day put an orange-gold light through the starboard windows of the lounge. I briefed her on the music machinery, and after she couldn’t find anything she liked among my tapes or records, I put the FM tuner into the circuit and she prowled the band from end to end until she settled for a Hollywood station whanging away at what Meyer terms beetle-bug mating chants. She boosted the bass and put the gain slightly below torture level. My big amplifier fed the rackety-bang into the big wall-mounted AR-2a stereo speakers, giving us all the resonances and overtones from twenty cycles all the way up to peaks no human ear can detect." http://www.e-reading-lib.org/chapter.php/129498/0/MacDonald_-_Darker_Than_Amber.html

And this, the author speaking of himself:

Regarding music tastes, in 1969 John D. told his biographers and
friends Len & June Moffatt,

"I just ... checked the records most recently played, and find a
most catholic assortment: Billie Holiday, La Misa en Mexico, Simon
and Garfunkel, Pable Casals, Modern Jazz Quartet, Brubeck, Chicago,
Ohana - Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, Eydie Gorme & Trio Los
Panchos, Illya Darling, Tatum, Bach.

"I guess I like all music that has enough quality of invention,
guile and surprise so that I get a feeling of pleasurable amusement
when they fit the pieces together in a way I could not have
anticipated. I have good stereo equipment, and built a lot of the
pieces of it myself. Most 33 1/3's have some dreary (tracks)
thereon. So I tape to eliminate the drearies, and because I
scrupulously clean tape heads and demagnetize, the per-play loss of
quality on the tape collection is infinitesimal compared with the
loss resultant from needle play, even on the Marantz turntable."
 
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I reread the entire series every couple of years and I am more of a horror/scifi/fantasy fan. One thing I do remember is that Travis really liked listening to Julian Bream.
 
In "A Tan and Sandy Silence" Travis' Marantz Model 18 took a bullet dead center "killing it".
EDIT: All Marantz gear is fictionally portrayed.
 
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I'm dredging this old thread up. I've been reading the series for the first time, and in Book 4 (The Quick Red Fox) Travis talks about listening to his new AR3's with a Scott tuner and Fisher amplifier. He's not specific which ones. If I recall he was listening to a piece by Shostakovich REAL loud.
 
Ashfan said:
I reread the entire series every couple of years and I am more of a horror/scifi/fantasy fan. One thing I do remember is that Travis really liked listening to Julian Bream.
Click to expand...

Are you aware the John D. also wrote science fiction?
 
JoeESP9 said:
Are you aware the John D. also wrote science fiction?
Click to expand...

"The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything" which I previously mentioned in this thread is a good example - also available as a made-for-TV movie with Robert Hays and Pam Dawber, though as is frequently the case, the book is better. Clicking the stop-watch froze time for all except the person who triggered it - a handy thing to bring along to a bank or casino. Not a Travis book, but a good read.

I always wished someone had made higher-budget Travis McGee movies, though that time has passed, I fear. Done today, they'd likely want to modernize which would ruin the whole flavor - and also they'd want to explosively blow people hundreds of feet through the air without them getting a scratch. The books presented Travis's battles with a more realistic grittiness than most of the BS coming out of Hollywood the last couple decades or so. Enjoying the series, mr_wetland?
 
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