The other day, a fellow came into the shop looking for us to do a repair on an arm for a record player.
"This is a vintage arm for a vintage player and..." blah.
As this precious "vintage" arm was in the back having contacts soldered, I noticed that this man was unconscionably and invariably white. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm white. However, I carry myself with a degree of sullenness and attitude that prevents me from being "white". What do I mean by this?
Picture Dave Chappelle's parody of the average white man. Throw that character into some khaki shorts and a polo shirt, give him some bad wire rim glasses, and add an irritating sniffle, and you have the unbearable whiteness of being that was this guy.
To top everything, he's trying to look into our storage area and keeps asking "Do you have any vintage _ for sale?" where "_" was any piece of audio equipment that happened to pass through his head. After about the 5th time telling him that no, we do not have anything for sale and no, we are a repair shop not a vintage item store, I finally took the tone of annoyed asshole and plainly told him "No. Nothing. Period."
To this he kept trying to peer in back to see if perhaps I was lying to him and was stashing all the "vintage" audio equipment on the planet in some kind of National Treasure-esque masonic storage chamber, when finally the tech came out and handed him his contact arm.
As he left the shop, he kept looking back, not at me, but at the storage area, shuffling his sockless dock shoes as he walked away to a life filled with listening to Michael Bolton on his vintage audio equipment while scarfing down numerous egg salad sandwiches with massive amounts of mayonnaise on white, white bread.
Seriously, I could easily see this guy doing that.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
"Unbearable whiteness of being" -- that's pretty good! Indeed, there's nothing more geeky than vinyl aficionados. I confess to a modicum of such geekiness. About 10 years ago something possessed me to buy a turntable -- actually a combination record player, CD player, cassette, radio, made by TEAC and made to look "vintage" -- and then set about going on eBay and haunting the used record stores down in the Village. It lasted about a few months, and I still have the albums, but rarely do I find the need or have the inclination to actually play a record. Nice to know they're there, but there's a reason CDs, MP3s, etc., were invented. Something to do with superior sound quality.
I enjoy vinyl as much as the next guy, but this was going beyond the charm of owning a record player. I can see this guy meticulously cleaning brass joints to a polished sheen while humming along to the Carpenters.
Uh-oh....it's the vinyl vs. digital debate!
Warden: I know the unit you're talking about. Crosley makes a similar product (actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they were from the same overseas factory and the respective companies simply stamp their names on them.) I recently bought an entry-level turntable myself and have also been skulking about the used record stores, searching for blues and jazz.
I actually prefer the sound of vinyl. I know, sounds crazy. CDs win in almost every department, such as clarity, definition, durability, availability, etc. But the analog sound captures (for me) a buttery richness and warmth that the clear, hollow sound of digital music (at least the currrent sampling rates) fail to. I believe that it's because of the fact that digital music, however high resolution, is always a sort of snapshot or approximation of the original soundwave. Records, on the other hand, are analog and the tiny wiggles carved into the (hot)wax produce a realworld physical vibration which (again, in my opinion) better duplicates the infinite nature of an actual soundwave.
Or maybe it's all in my mind. Who knows.
Anyways, did you find any cool records?
Yeah, the TEAC has pretty damn good speakers and a great sound whether it's records, tapes or of course CDs. Actually I think it's good to go through a vinyl phase every once in a while just so that when you return to digital, you'll appreciate the amazing difference in quality all over again.
The best record haul I made was when I stumbled on a yard sale in Brooklyn and they had boxes of old albums. The girl running the sale didn't know what she had, cause she was asking like a dollar an album for some real good stuff from the Sixties. I happened to be riding my bike at the time, so I was only able to carry away a limited number of albums, but those included the Woodstock 3-record set -- original label according to another guy going through the boxes that day; and LPs by the Doors, Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull... I remember I had to fashion a makeshift way to carry the albums while riding my bike by using a hanger wrapped around my shoulder and sort of hooking the plastic bag behind me...
Another guy just gave me a buncha punk LPs cause he was moving to L.A. and didn't wanna carry them...
My Aunt who lived across the street from me recently moved and she let me pick out stuff from her vast but decidedly unhip collection, except for a few choice Tony Bennett joints and some wacky lounge and Broadway stuff she had, including West Side Story...
It almost made up for the day I sold back all my classic punk albums and 45s for chump change. I blame my girlfriend at the time for not stopping me...
Now I got about 60 albums, 30 new-ish singles, and a bunch of scratchy old 45s passed down from my parents and older sister and brother. Play 'em every once in a while just for the zoo of it.
Post a Comment