Who Do I Think I Am??

This one's about the big payola.

THE PROMPT: "You just won the lottery! However, the catch is that you MUST spend all of the money in a single store or chain of stores. You are NOT allowed to donate or gift the money in any way. So, which store would you spend your lottery money in?"

Good evening...what's good, yo? I see that we have a twist here on the old game we all played, "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" I remember doing it as a kid...sitting down with a calculator and a sheet of paper, and plotting. Houses and cars...toys...all the fun shit we could never afford. And being a kid (and not knowing the value of things sometimes, or the added costs incurred), having a hard time spending it.

Now that I'm older (remember that I said older, and not "mature"), I see things a little differently. Houses are expensive, and insurance must be considered. The same with cars. Now, I don't need fancy clothes or many material things. And since we're limited to basically giving our winnings to some store, that rules out paying off debts, upgrading living conditions, or helping out family. So, what you're really telling me, is that I'm spending all of this money on cool shit for me in a store? One store? Easy!

(And for the record, I'm capping my winnings at a million, minus Uncle Sam's and NY State's take. I don't need to win a Powerball $500 million jackpot or anything like that...just enough Franklins to satisfy my wishes.)

So here's where I'm heading...I don't go there very often anymore since they closed the location closest to me, and the nearest ones are a little out of the way, and iTunes now gets most of my entertainment money, but it's by far the first place that came to mind when I saw the prompt. Good ol' Record Theatre...a local staple of music for decades. Check them out here: http://www.recordtheatre.com/

Why? Because where else is there to buy good music these days? Best Buy? Target? No thanks. Them "big-box" retailers know nothing about music. They sell all that crap you hear on the radio. Well, fuck the radio, because the music I listen to is stuff you won't hear on the radio. Their selections are always so limited, and overloaded with "the big hits of today" and the greatest hits of yesterday and the latest "next big thing". Naw man, I'm gonna support a locally-owned, independant, old school record shop.

See, I can never go in to Record Theatre without dropping at least $50. I can go in looking for one thing in particular, knowing they carry it (and I don't mind calling ahead to see if they've got it). New releases, dvds, new and used cds, even new and used vinyl (yes, I'm an audiophile...and I own a turntable with a collection of some of the cheesiest records ever put out). My old favorite location used to even had an "adult" section, but I don't know anything about that...I was waitng to mature to see what that was about.

So turn me loose on Record Theatre with a shit-ton of money, and I'd go Christmas morning on the place...tearing into stacks of cds and records. I may have over a thousand cds now, but I'd have everything I need and more by the time I'm done. See, you might pay a dollar or two more there than Best Buy or anywhere else, but it's worth it because the money's staying in the community. And the indie shops? You know they carry all the underground shit nobody else will even touch. I've found personal classics there that I never would have found anywhere else, except maybe online...but I didn't have a credit card or a computer for a long time, so that would've done me no good.

Did I mention they have a large variety of used cds? I'm sorry...I'm all about new and quality and all that, but a used cd is the same as a new one to me. I've gotten tons of used cds from Record Theatre, and I've never had an issue with the quality. Same with the used vinyl! I played every record I've gotten from them (while paying anywhere from $.25 to $2.00) from front to back without a skip or anything degrading the audio quality. They also buy used cds, cassettes and vinyl. Don't expect much, but fuck it, in ten years when you're no longer in love with Justin Beiber and he's washin' cars for a living, you can make a buck by selling his cd back. They'll turn around and resell it for a fraction of what you paid for it brand new, so some parent can relive the magic with their kids for a few years, only for that kid to grow up bitter and disenchanted for what their parents made him/her listen to during their formative years.

And what exactly would I buy? Well, about 12 years or so ago, I had one of those cd binders with all the cds I owned at the time. And it was stolen from my car. I worked a second job at a gas station overnight on the weekends, so when the second shift person left, I'd bring in my radio and cds (and this is neither the time nor place to mention all of the other shenanigans I pulled back in the day at that job). So I was out my entire collection. Some I've replaced, some I can live without, but I'd probably buy what I haven't yet. If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a gigantic music nerd. Living life with only one cd that was left in your stereo is no way to live (unless it's The Tragically Hip's "Phantom Power", which I had just purchased at the time and was falling in love with).

I'd buy a shit-ton more of cheesy vinyl as well. Why? Because records are sweeeeeet! C'mon, it's all I had when I was growing up, until I moved on to cassettes. I'm a product of my mother's Beach Boys and Beatles records.

No doubt, I'd buy so much, I'd have to make a couple of trips trying to bring it all back home. And I'd have to pray they started selling iPods, because my 120GB iPod is damn near full. I'd need one of the 160GB's, and that wouldn't be enough for a lotta hundo-thous of beats, rhymes and life (yes, I lifted that from A Tribe Called Quest).

And if I had everything I was looking for and more, I'd use the spare change and treat all y'all to a nice lunch. At http://www.mightytaco.com/main.php

MUSICAL BREAK!!

When I worked for the biggest locally-owned consumer electronics retailer in the area, we had the opportunity to earn something called "Spiffs". You got Spiffs for selling certain products, copying the reciepts, and sending them in. Periodically, you'd get checks for this practice. I had a successful three month run one Christmas season, and received $4500 from "Uncle Sony", as I liked to call it. With that, I bought my first receiver (a Harman/Kardon that's still in use), my first Sony dvd player (that died years ago) and my first turntable (also a Sony). And I went on a vinyl shopping spree with Bink, who was the audio manager at the time and perhaps even a bigger music nerd than me. He played in some local bands and we would trade music all the time, even though we had different tastes. I'm pretty sure he cringed when I bought this, but yes, I own this album on wax.

MOTORIN'!!

VITAL STATS:

I got nothin'...today just felt like I was being pulled apart at the limbs by horses runnin' in separate directions. Hence, little accomplished. But I'mma take two day scheduled off and not worry about it. I'm beat from workin' another eight hours, walkin' home for an hour and twenty, and gettin' on with gettin' on. Ya dig? Peace, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!

I've bastardized this at karaoke so many times....I had to include this.