Should I Brush My Cartridge After Each Use?

I use stylast and the little brush that comes with it. I use it when I can see grunge (or "gradois" pronounced Grah-Doo -- it's a New Orleans word) on the stylus. I also sometimes hear a dirty stylus -- but I can only tell the difference on records I'm very familiar with.

I'd say this happens about every ten records.

As for the parts of this thread about vinyl being work/worth the work -- it's fine to be all anal about each dust speck if that floats your boat, and there are times when I do the whole wet-dry-vacuum-sweep-blowdry-fluff-and-fold, and then there are times when the prospect pushes me toward cd's. When that latter event happens, I recall my blissful teen years of loving music and not caring about every snap, crackle and pop (and also taking dust gobs off my old Dual with my fingers) and I play the record all dirty and nasty. Embrace your inner schizophrenic and do what feels right at the moment. If you have to scrub up like a surgeon every time you want to hear a record, and it takes longer to prepare to listen that to listen, my guess is that you will spend an awful lot of your listening time alone and listening only to a record vacuum.