It's record collectors and record-store clerks who give me heartburn. There's a vinyl record shop in my town; I've nicknamed it "Old Fart Day Care." The people who work there, and the customers who hang out there, are all old ex-garage rockers who think all music created after they left school is $#!+, but everything from their days was pure gold, and boy oh boy, didn't we fuggin' rock back then, you betcha. That, muscle cars, and Tea Party politics are the main topics of conversation, and they do their damndest to put down anyone who disagrees.
Needless to say, it's a total sausage fest there. Girls don't rock! Female artists are segregated in their own section, possibly to prevent the spread of "cooties?" Blacks don't rock either; except for 50's doo-woppers, all records by black artists are in a bin labeled "R & B, Soul, Disco & Etc." (Just for fun I should also mention that at this store, the Baja Marimba Band LPS may be found in a bin marked "International/Foreign," along with Hawaiian music. Obviously, these guys' flags stopped at 48 states.)
Not long ago, the clerk and his cronies were holding forth on (of all topics!) Arthur Godfrey's "Too Fat Polka." "Yeah, I got that one for my boy. Y'know, that thing's got some great lyrics if yuh just listen to 'em. But yuh gotta listen to 'em! Yuh can't play that song now, yuh know, ohhhh, myyyy, mustn't offend anyone. These modern 'liberated' women all weigh 400 pounds, but god forbid ya should make fun of 'em!"
The conversation then somehow turned to the Blues Brothers; "Yuh know how they got started; it was a reaction against all that black disco crap." (Yeah right, a bunch of millionaire white movie stars start a pseudo-blues novelty band to show 'em how it's really done...) And last but hardly least...
"I just got back from South Carolina; I've never been so happy surrounded by real conservatives, not like this buncha dumb Swedes up here. Wife 'n' I were havin' dinner with a good ole boy down there, and he says to us, this country started slidin' down hill when they let women and (n-word plural) vote, and let all the queers outa their closet! Now that's the kinda thing we useta be able to say and laugh about, but not now, uh-UNH!!"
Well, I don't fit into any of those minorities (except 50% dumb Swede) and I was still offended. I'd been flipping LPS for an hour and hadn't found what I wanted, so it was time to leave anyway.
This record hobby sure is welcoming, ain't it?
In fairness, it's almost as bad from the other side of the fence. We have a hipster-wannabee alt-weekly here, it's pretty much a collection of columns by conspiracy-theory wackjobs. But a while back they had an I'm-too-hip-to-live music critic, whose topics usually alternated between the White Stripes and why Jim Morrison was the greatest, coolest, most genius-est musician ever.
Well, one week he devoted a whole two-tabloid-pages column to praising this terrific vocal group he had never ever heard of before...THE MILLS BROTHERS! His rationale? "I usually don't waste my time listening to granny music." I'm the Man From Uncool myself, but at least I know who those guys were. (And I agree they were great.)
And the opposite of the redneck vinyl shop here is the too-hip CD store in the next city. They have a pretty good jazz and vocalist section there, but one day I didn't see what I was looking for and asked the clerk, "Do you have any CDS by Jo Stafford?" His answer? "Who's he?" (You know, Big Jo Stafford, king of the Chicago blues...)
I'm sure what I'm writing here is bound to raise hackles from several sides, but it's all true.
Needless to say, it's a total sausage fest there. Girls don't rock! Female artists are segregated in their own section, possibly to prevent the spread of "cooties?" Blacks don't rock either; except for 50's doo-woppers, all records by black artists are in a bin labeled "R & B, Soul, Disco & Etc." (Just for fun I should also mention that at this store, the Baja Marimba Band LPS may be found in a bin marked "International/Foreign," along with Hawaiian music. Obviously, these guys' flags stopped at 48 states.)
Not long ago, the clerk and his cronies were holding forth on (of all topics!) Arthur Godfrey's "Too Fat Polka." "Yeah, I got that one for my boy. Y'know, that thing's got some great lyrics if yuh just listen to 'em. But yuh gotta listen to 'em! Yuh can't play that song now, yuh know, ohhhh, myyyy, mustn't offend anyone. These modern 'liberated' women all weigh 400 pounds, but god forbid ya should make fun of 'em!"
The conversation then somehow turned to the Blues Brothers; "Yuh know how they got started; it was a reaction against all that black disco crap." (Yeah right, a bunch of millionaire white movie stars start a pseudo-blues novelty band to show 'em how it's really done...) And last but hardly least...
"I just got back from South Carolina; I've never been so happy surrounded by real conservatives, not like this buncha dumb Swedes up here. Wife 'n' I were havin' dinner with a good ole boy down there, and he says to us, this country started slidin' down hill when they let women and (n-word plural) vote, and let all the queers outa their closet! Now that's the kinda thing we useta be able to say and laugh about, but not now, uh-UNH!!"
Well, I don't fit into any of those minorities (except 50% dumb Swede) and I was still offended. I'd been flipping LPS for an hour and hadn't found what I wanted, so it was time to leave anyway.
This record hobby sure is welcoming, ain't it?
In fairness, it's almost as bad from the other side of the fence. We have a hipster-wannabee alt-weekly here, it's pretty much a collection of columns by conspiracy-theory wackjobs. But a while back they had an I'm-too-hip-to-live music critic, whose topics usually alternated between the White Stripes and why Jim Morrison was the greatest, coolest, most genius-est musician ever.
Well, one week he devoted a whole two-tabloid-pages column to praising this terrific vocal group he had never ever heard of before...THE MILLS BROTHERS! His rationale? "I usually don't waste my time listening to granny music." I'm the Man From Uncool myself, but at least I know who those guys were. (And I agree they were great.)
And the opposite of the redneck vinyl shop here is the too-hip CD store in the next city. They have a pretty good jazz and vocalist section there, but one day I didn't see what I was looking for and asked the clerk, "Do you have any CDS by Jo Stafford?" His answer? "Who's he?" (You know, Big Jo Stafford, king of the Chicago blues...)
I'm sure what I'm writing here is bound to raise hackles from several sides, but it's all true.