one man’s stuff, er, junk

Before I headed out west last week I stopped by the local used CD shop to sell off the remaining CDs that had been gathering dust at the foot of my bookshelf. I get most of my music online these days but occasionally buy actual new releases from artists that aren’t available at emusic.com. I probably had twenty new CDs from the last year and another forty of so from my previous life. I hadn’t had the time (or the inclination) to verify their existence on my hard drive until a few weeks ago. Now that all had been sorted I headed out on some Saturday morning errands. Before heading to the grocery I headed to CD Cellar in Clarendon with my boot-sized bootbox full of music that everyone wants…and wants now! In my mind it would play out like this:

Hip CD buyer/seller: “Hey man, how’s it going?”
Me: “Great. Just got some music I need to move.”
Hipster: “Rock on.” [making rock sign with fore finger and pinky]
Me: “Yeah. Just some rawk I finally ripped to my hard drive. People have been knocking down my door to ask when I was gonna sell. I’ll just take a look around.”
Hipster: “Cool man. Just give me a few minutes to blast through these.” [another rock sign]

As I’m shuffling through the used CD racks, making the jewel cases hum with the clackety-clack of a veteran used CD shopper (Amoeba, Homer’s, Cheap-o, Turn it Up, etc.), I know it’ll be mere seconds before “Tony” (as I’ve dubbed the music store guy) calls me over with a quick whistle:

Tony: “Hey man, groovy stuff you’ve got here. I didn’t even get through it all because the sheer glory of your stash is blinding me. By the way, I’m Tony, what’s your name?
Me: “T for Todd. How’s it going…busy weekend?”
Tony: “A drag mostly. Been seeing people trying to gaff off some lame CDs lately. All the good collectors have gone online. I’ve been up to my ass in Faith Hill, Beyonce, and American Idol CDs.”
T for Todd: “Sounds like someone’s either got horrible stuff, or they ripped off some yellow VW Bug parked over by Crate and Barrel.” [rock sign from me]
Tony: “No doubt! Anyway, this is quality rock, I’ll just give you $200 for the whole load.”
T for Todd: “Great. No Problem. Those’ll all sell pretty effing quick.”
Tony: “No Doubt!” [a two-finger rap sign across his chest]

Seriously…that is how it should have gone. Have you seen my music? Thought so. For some reason I end up shuffling through the racks much longer than expected as this guy, who must be in part-time from Sam Goody, rummages though the box pulling out every fourth of fifth CD. Out of the corner of my eye I see his technique and think he must be sorting the great CDs from the really good CDs. I end up grabbing a few used discs before heading up to the counter; I can see he must be done since he’s just milling about tidying up the register area. He points to a pile of about 25 CDs…

Sam Goody employee: “I’ll take those for $61.”
Me: “Yeah. Sure. Sounds good.” [hands in pockets]
Sam: “I can’t do anything with that other stuff.” [scanning my CD purchases]
Me: “Yeah, I know what you mean. I got those from my sister, she just wanted me to bring them along, you know…”
Sam: “Right.” [subtracting purchases from store credit]
Me: “Thanks.”
Sam: “Sure. Have a nice weekend.”

I always end up thumbing through the dregs of CDs that buyers decide they don’t want. Buyers function on an ever-changing platform of tastes and reason. The units that resell the best can be queued by geography, target audience, and numbers of copies they may already have in stock. As I made my way back to the car, and got to the end of my review of my Wednesday’s child CDs, I notice that he bought all the stuff I thought he’d laugh at when he came across it. The more recent, independent releases were happily dropped back into the trunk.

Of course, maybe my musical tastes aren’t as awesome as I thought.

[making rock sign with fore finger and pinky]

Rock on.

T.