No Holds/No Trades

People ask me about records everyday. Sometimes they're crazy, sometimes they're funny, sometimes they just want to argue.

[noholdsnotrades]

A not-so-young man told me he's looking for the demo of the very first band of the guy from Choking Victim/Leftover Crack. "I looked on Apple Music and it's not on there!" he exclaimed in confusion.

[noholdsnotrades]

Today in the "It's that easy!" department:

A man who, years ago, tried to fast-talk me into selling his lame graffiti style t-shirts re-emerged with a colorful story about a Stylistics album that he has (not on him, of course, but back wherever he lives) that's worth $1K. He described the cover and I pointed out that I have the same record sitting in the bin for $3.

"So what records could I start looking for that are worth, like, $500?" he asked.

[noholdsnotrades]

Middle-aged Man: “Would the Cars be under ‘C’ or ‘The’?”

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Young man: “You have anything by this band - they’re called Drive Like Jew?”

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Adult man as he walks in: “How’s business been?”

Me: “Great! It’s been my best October yet.” [There are even several people presently shopping].

Him, while leaving three minutes later: “Well, I hope business picks up for you” 

It’s a very Pennsylvania thing to stick to the negative no matter what. 

[noholdsnotrades]

Young woman to her friend, while holding up the new Dead Weather LP: “You know Jack White’s never done any drugs? Totally emo.” 

[noholdsnotrades]

A really, really, really stoned college kid was staring at an MF Doom record for like ten minutes while dicking around on his phone. I finally asked if there was something he was looking for or if he had some kind of question, and he said, “Oh no, you have what I’m looking for.” And then he shrugged, “I just don’t have any money.” 

I had a good laugh about that before he left. I wonder if other businesses have a similar problem - like, I arguably can’t afford a new car, but what if I went to a dealership and fucked off in the show room until finally asked? Anyway, I hope he was present enough to realize I was laughing at him and he leaves me a shitty review on Yelp or something. 

[noholdsnotrades]

Ready to do this. 

[noholdsnotrades]

Yesterday, a college-age young woman and her friends were looking at cheap bin records; they were talking a lot, and rather suddenly, the young woman went on a decidedly vitriolic rant about Billy Joel. “No one wants to admit he’s just ‘adult contemporary.’ It’s like, get over it already, everybody - it’s Billy Joel.” Shortly thereafter, her and her friends left. An older man was present for all of this, and as I was ringing him up I asked him what his Labor Day plans were. He shrugged and said everything he was planning on doing was now canceled. “I need that time to ‘get over’ Billy Joel,” he said. “I can no longer think that he’s anything but ‘adult contemporary.’” 

Indeed, it was a paradigm shift for all of us. 

[noholdsnotrades]

[Post-college age guy & girl come in and it’s immediately obvious they’re just here to kill time. Which, fine, I get it, it’s nice out; the girl even asked what LPs meant in a non-shithead way and I answered her question in a non-shithead way. Minutes later, the guy notices the Burger King sign I have in the back.]

Him: “So what’s back there?”

Me: “Oh, just doubles and empty boxes. If there’s something you’re looking for, I can help you out.”

Him: “Oh, no - how much for the Burger King sign?” Me: “Well, you’ll need a truck to move it.” [Chuckles from them & other customers.]

Him: “Oh.” [Beat.] “But seriously - is it for sale?”

Me: “If you’re serious, but, really, you would need a truck to move it and it’s not just going to be $20 or something.”

Him: “Oh.” [Beat.] “Oh, whatever.”

Her: [Laughing at him] “Really? Whatever?”

[noholdsnotrades]

Guy: “I’m looking for something...”

Me: “What’s that?”

Guy: “Something to piss off my wife.”

[noholdsnotrades]

The Riddler: “So how many of that Replacements box set did you order?”

Me: “None, actually. Box sets really don’t sell very well.” [The Riddler looks at me like I’m crazy.] “With new vinyl, I’m willing to take a risk, but they can get really expensive, so if it doesn’t sell...” [The Riddler still looks at me like I’m crazy.] “Look, if you want me to get you one, I can.”

The Riddler: “Well, no, I pre-ordered mine.”

Me: [Throwing up my hands] “And that’s what everyone who actually wants one is going to do, you know?” The Riddler: “Hmm.”

[noholdsnotrades]

Man on phone: “I got a box of records to sell...there’s some Zeppelin, some Paul Anka, some guy...Chuck Mah-joaine? Mah-goonie?”

[noholdsnotrades]

This afternoon's phone call: "I have several Disney albums that I heard are valuable. Will they need to have the sleeves, too?"

[noholdsnotrades]

So there was two young women in here looking at records and I look over and there’s a sketchy looking older guy looking in the window by them; there’s a roller derby poster right there, so I didn’t know if he was looking at the poster or them. The one girl notices this and I say something like, “I hope that guy’s not being a creep, I can go say something if he is,” and she just chuckled and said, “No, he’s all right, he’s my dad.”

Everybody has a good laugh and I try to make some dumb joke in attempt to make it seem less like I just called this girl’s father a pervert (which didn’t really work), and I felt pretty bad. And the dude comes in and starts griping about the new vinyl prices. “$20?! I guess that’s what hipsters will pay these days - new records weren’t that much when I was a kid,” and, yeah, no shit, gas was also 60 cents a gallon and movies were $3. There’s a thing called “inflation,” if you’re an adult, you know what that means. 

So fuck him, glad I called him a fucking creep in front of his kids. 

[noholdsnotrades]

Got a phone call from a woman who said she’s from PP+L (the gas & electricity company, for those of you outside of Pennsylvania) and wants to talk to the account holder. I assume it’s another sales pitch call, so I tell her that I’m not interested and that I’m not in control of the utilities in the building anyway. “No, this isn’t that,” she says sternly. “This is about the over-due balance for the account - we have a shut-off scheduled for today if you can’t take care of it.”

I start laughing and tell her that they’re going to have a tough time shutting down service to an account that doesn’t exist and she reads off the store name and my address and repeats that I’m going to have to do something about the balance. It dawns on me that I heard about this scenario as scam on Facebook (”PP&L” calls and tries to scare you into giving them your credit card number), so I tell her that she should try this shit on some confused elderly person instead and then she wasn’t on the line anymore. 

And that was disappointing. I wanted her to try to argue with me about for another couple minutes so I could really lay into her. 

[noholdsnotrades]

Guy who’s old enough to know better: “Is this the same as Counting Crows?” [holds up record from the band Crow, which is very obviously from 70′s]

Me: “Well...No...”

Guy: [Dejectedly] Oh.