Please Don’t Go

So..... it’s over. I’ve said it before, but i didn’t really believe it. or maybe i was saying, hoping someone would say “no, you’re wrong” (cos my peeps got no problem with that) or at least “not yet” to give me just a little more time to pull myself out of bed in the morning, blissfully ignorant.

but really, this time i know it’s for real. oh sure, there’s some crying left to do, some recriminations to be thrown around, giving back this and giving back that, and the eventual acceptance (that’s about 7 months off by my time proven stage progression), but i know it’s done. baked. eaten and the leftovers have already spoiled on the countertop. It’s been a long time, longer than i thought was possible (despite the writing otherwise), and really it was a good run.

I’ll admit to seeing it coming, but still not ducking. More me being in denial cos i’d be fooling no one to say there weren’t warning signs. Once the initial rush had worn off, everybody could see it was a possibility. And there were more than a few detractors right away (but i just blocked them out). What’s perfect though? nothing, right? you take what you get and deal. But i’ll admit the overhead was quite a bit, maintenance was more than i’m comfortable with, and the space? To say nothing of the economics of the situation.....jeez, all that time, all that effort and ..........

Ah hell, who am i kidding, i’m just trying to salve my wounded ego, because i got jilted.

it happened at the cheapo on lake street, this past sunday morning. never thought it would happen at cheapo. not really sure where i imagined it would happen, maybe best buy or the fetus, or some cool place like amoeba or some little two bit shop in a far flung place. honestly, i probably didn’t think it really would, but cheapo just seems wrong. but you don’t get to pick your places, your times for life changes events, you can just roll with them.

There’s a hole in the floor now, where it happened; down the aisle, halfway through the Tuesday/Wednesday new used (as opposed to the old used, the old new and the new new) on my way to Friday (my picking is random, don’t ask for rhyme nor reason, just hope i whisper something good) I glance to my left, and even before i had seen, much less processed, it hit me. the bins are half empty. I finally believe it. CDs really are over.

This ain’t chicken little prospectus anymore, this is the canary singing before he falls over. it’s real, it’s happening, and it’s in black and white and in the NEXT ROOM. i can’t close my eyes and think everything is all right. Cheapo is running out of used cds. The end is here!

Half empty bins are unprecedented. sure, i could believe a half empty monday (who sells on sunday, and do you really think the clerks are gonna bust their humps putting stuff out for MONDAY?), but half empty thursday? friday?(seems all the cds somehow congregate at the back end of friday.) Something is badly askew here when i don’t have to move a cd over a previous row in order to flip through the current row. and something is really off when i can fit a dirty pig elbow in the row before i even reach a disc.

Nobody is selling cds. in this economy, with the cd demographic looking for a quick buck, nobody has anything to unload. cos nobody is buying discs. like viking fans after game 10, discs are gone (probably to des moines) and they ain’t recycling in the cheapo bins anymore. the happy circle of life; buy cd, listen to cd, get sick of cd, (possibly burn cd for archival copy, but that might just be me) sell cd, buy cd, (give dirty look towards scar on the upside), has been replaced with sell cd, sell cd, sell cd, use proceeds to buy shiny new ipod and open access to bank accounts to apple (wasn’t an apple the reason adam and eve got banished from the garden?) and then....nothing. empty bins and all you got is a crappy sounding electronic file that has no heft, no meaning, no substance, no soul (ok, so i don’t really think cds have soul)

i like cds. they sound great (i don’t buy that warmth argument about vinyl---and who really has that great of equipment to make a difference even if it’s true), they don’t have pops and hiss (again, great nostalgia for it in some folks, but it always used to bug me), you can leave them in the car on a warm day (mostly, newt says, mostly) and damn if they ain’t super portable. (i’ll give you the shrinky dink artwork annoyance, but i’ll counter it with some nifty packaging and HOLOGRAPHIC cds) and even better, when you are flipping through cds, you can make that click, click sound that drives people nuts. albums barely move the (stale, mildewy) air when you flip through them. I mean, it’s really no contest. How can cd’s be dying off? NOOOOOOOO. We were promised jetpacks, i want jetpacks along with my lifetime of digital aluminum music!(see above for denial, and i’m not 100% behind that lifetime of use thing cos i’ve had a few cds with the dreaded pinhole rot, may Eureka version 1 rest in peace) How can such a nearly perfect listening medium be rendered onto Caesar?

i don’t know what comes next. i’d sooner go back to rockville than go back to vinyl. mp3’s (even 320, don’t even talk to me about that itunes shite) are ok for when i’m running, but i can’t abide the sound of them coming out of anything other than an itty bitty speaker stuffed in my ear. Am i gonna have to be one of these FLAK guys? don’t get me wrong, i’m comfortable with my geek, i just don’t know that i want to...bother. it all smacks of audiophile and i have some latent tendencies, but that seems only ok as long as i don’t act on it.

Come back, baby, come back.