$1.99! What a racket! I’m going to start peeling off the price tags at home
and bring them with me to the store from now on.
Since I couldn’t find anything this morning and have been in a real sour mood all day I thought I’d take this opportunity to vent and write about-
Thrift shop pet peeves.
Items without prices.
Why is it whenever I ask the price of an 8 track without a price tag it
always cost more than the usual amount? For instance, I’ll be buying 3 tapes
for $.39 each and one won’t have a price and the lady will scrutinize it then call the manager and she’ll quote something like $.69.
In one case I had
Isaac Hayes’ To Be Continued priced at
$1.99! What a racket! I’m going to start peeling off the price tags at home
and bring them with me to the store from now on.
Huckster Clerks That Assume Something Is Rare That Isn’t "Gee, They haven’t made this Peter Nero 8-track in years, It must be valuable." (Insert inflated price and Satanic laughter here.)
Defective "As Is" electronic equipment with no public usage of outlets I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been burned by this and once considered dropping off my garbage off in front of a thrift store as a donation for revenge. Come to think of it maybe this is why I always see empty beer bottles for sale at the Salvation Army. Who buys this stuff? And while we’re at it who buys those half-full bottles of cologne?
The Occasional Idiot Clerk
The strange thing about these people is since most of these stores are "charitable" I never know if these people are
"genuine" in their stupidity or part
of the "We-hire-the-retarded" program and not sure to be pissed or
"try to understand" them. Is that a thin line or what?
I just think I set an new record for most usage of quotation marks in a
paragraph. Lately it seems almost every aspect of my life is becoming
surrounded by these damn punctuation symbols.
I’m feeling much better now.
Thrift Wars
Salvation Army moved from 8th Ave to First Street. This may not seem like a big deal but in this Hooterville town called Port Angeles it’s front-page news (literally).
All 2 blocks of First Street are this town's trendy business district and this move has created quite a stir because the "legitimate" businessmen are worried that SA will bring down the neighborhood standards. Some have this fantasy that out of town investors will drive down the strip in their Rolls Royce's accessing the area and see the thrift store then leave with their briefcase full of cash in tow to Seattle. On a humorous note, this store is now located next door to the overpriced Retroville which will give you your youth back for an absorbent price. Now the only difference between the two shops is the signage.
Don’t people in small towns obsess over the stupidest things? But wait theres more…
The reason for this move is because since Goodwill broke ground here 2 years ago SA profits were cut in half and this move to a bigger location represents a new beginning to reclaim the number one spot. When you live in a Peninsula with a 7% unemployment rate thrifts are serious business and not to be taken lightly.
They were still unpacking so all I got was this
semi-commemorative mug
...And how are things in your town?
When searching for tapes, somedays this town can be drier than a whore's cunt on New Years Day (I got this phrase from some William Burroughs story I can’t remember the title now). I suppose by using it I effectivity shut this site out to kids who’s parents have Net Nanny but that's alright. 8-tracks aren’t for kids, if they were "N SYNC would have a tape out. Besides, who needs every Johnny Generation-Y fumbling through tapes of bands they’ve never heard of?
Today’s 7 garage sales delivered a mere 4 tapes ($.25), all of it is post-Woodstock AOR rocking tunes-Ten Years After-Shh, Humble Pie-Rockin’ The Fillmore, Traffic (I put a scan of this on the bootleg link) and the southern metal band Lynyrd Skynrd-Nuthin Fancy.
Funny how Heavy Metal has become a brain dead, Spinal Tap cliché in the last 15 years. The first song on this Lynyrd Skynrd tape is called Saturday Night Special and it’s a sensitive commentary against firearms. Could you see this song being made today by any metal band (Especially a southern one)? It brought to mind a Steppenwolf bootleg I got a few months ago called For Ladies Only that’s a kickn’ biker album dealing with women’s issues. Now that took balls. And it’s so damn original.
It made me wonder if metal had a mind of it’s own and didn’t buy in to the cemented dogma of the label if I would still be listening to it. I watched this same thing happen first hand with punk and new wave. I guess the nail in the coffin was when Blondie was a guest on the Muppet Show in the 80’s (Although I always hoped that Johnny Rotten would end up as a Batman villain.).
I think the biggest slap this week was when I heard
"N SYNC broke the record for most albums sold in a week. I first thought these
manufactured for cash bands were funny when The Monkees got big but this has
gone too far. After Rolling Stone put these toy boys on the cover
I came to the conclusion that music is too safe and rebellion ain’t what it
used to be.
Now I’m starting to sound like a crotchety old man, I guess I just need a genuine unique visceral experience. Maybe the bar tonight.
On a whim I hit Serenity Thrift Store and found the soundtrack to The Godfather, (a beautiful score) a tape called The Bobby Vinton Show (a painfully bad tape), and Les Baxter's Paradise (I was looking for this on vinyl and was happily surprised to find it on 8-track) yee-haw.! But even these scores were overshadowed when I got a long distance call from and ex-roommate telling me he saw a signed Wesley Willis drawing at a Salvation Army near his house and wanted to know if I wanted it (was he kidding?). Anyone who's heard anything by this musical oddball can surely relate. I just hope his "outsider art" is as innovative as his lyrics
"Rock over London... Rock over Chicago...We're proud to be your Bud"
Spring is in the air and since love has never been big on my list of priorities my fancies have turned into the wonderful world of garage sales. Finally after the standard three per week today there were no less that 14 sales today. Why does anyone buy anything retail?
I left at 8:30 and got back shortly after 2:00 and would have stayed out longer if my biological clock wasn’t out of whack (must be that quaint daylight savings time).
I hate to use the oldest 8-track yard sale cliché in the book but once again it rang true-"I didn’t find a single cartridge and was ready to head home but decided to hit one more sale of the hell of it and what do you know PAYDIRT!"
As I hit the garage I noticed a small box of
8-tracks that was a mixture of rock, country and EZ listening and the guy said
he had more if I was interested and pulled out a cardboard box the size of a
large television set. Inside this crate were 14 small 8-track cases filled with
tapes (my estimate at least 150) and with out skipping a beat said I could have
them all for $5.00. With that I slipped him a five spot and soon his kid was
loading up my car (It’s a great feeling having to put the back seat down in
order to load up 8-track tapes).
Here’s a partial list of what I got, I’m hesitant to list it all because it seems every fricken webpage on 8-track is nothing but list upon list of what everyone either has or wants to trade. It reminds me of some quote by Voltaire that goes something like "England has over a thousand religions and only one sauce." Come on trackers lets show some originality. Anyway, here’s a sample of what I got:
6 CCR, 2 Bob Dylan, 4 K-Tel, 2 Ventures, 1 Quad bootleg (the first I’ve ever seen) Smiley Face, Zevon, 2 Saturday Night Fever Soundtracks, 3 Grease, The Man With the Golden Gun ST, Weird Stuff: Dr Seuss, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Masked Marauders, Geraldine Jones, Rusty Warren.
Non 8-track cool stuff I found- A Star Trek chandelier and a beer can hat
I just might join the dark side and sell on Ebay this summer, I’ll keep you posted.
Based on the amount of mail and hits this page gets,
I've calculated that there are 2 people who regularly read this journal. Hi
Scott, Hi Pete! Congratulations guys, and your loyalty is going to be
rewarded today. Last night I hid two sealed copies of The Sex
Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks 8-tracks in a small box by the Sequim Post
Office buried next to the American flag, pick it up at your convenience.
And don't worry no one else knows about it. In the future I'll have some more
goodies to pass out so keep reading. Oh, and Pete I'm still waiting on the buck
for the U-2 tape, if I don't hear from you by this week I'm going to gut it for
parts, OK?
It looks like I got my yearly quota of 8-tracks last week because even with this mornings 8 garage sales the only tape I found was Wayne Newton’s (When he was in his androgynous phase) Danke Schoen.
Still, something surreal happened at one of the sales this afternoon. Someone had a cool 3X4 1970’s super graphic geometric cloth screen print for $5.00 and I decided I needed this for my house right now. When I went to pay for it, the guy told me he really liked it and had it for years in his music studio in Denver but his wife basically gave him an ultimatum that either it goes or she does. To complicate this transaction even more, (I bet this was a heated argument.) she told him that if no one buys it today he can keep it and she won’t say another word about it.
Talk about extremes, when I pulled out a fiver this
woman was screaming for joy and the poor guy looked like he just lost his best
friend.
It’s hanging over my bed now and I’m wondering if it’s in league with the forces of darkness.
"The Homewrecker"
Spring is here so that must mean it's time of the latest edition of "What's Hot and What's Not" in the the trendy world of 8 tracks. Just as I predicted last year the gaudy Weltron Space Helmet has thankfully vanished from the landscape ("Music should be heard and not seen."). And this exciting year promises more tips for the well rounded tracker.
So pay attention to this list that I think Mr. Blackwell would be proud of. And don't forget to send in your nominations for the Tracky Awards in October.
| What's Out | What's In |
| K-Tel | Ronco |
| Bands named after Continents (America, Europe, Asia) |
Bands named after states and cities (Kansas,Boston Chicago) |
| Woodgrain Players | 8-track players with radios that pick up televison stations |
| Radio Shack sensing foil | Gum wrapper foil and Krazy glue |
| Madonna 8-tracks | Toni Basil cartridges |
| 4 channel seperation | Mono |
| Styx | Stones |
Oh yeah, I'd like to hear what you think about at traffic signals.
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