sometimes i know whats going on

ice cube and axlsometimes i dont know whats happening at all

last night a pretty girl came over and said lets make crazy love.

i said omg lets watch this movie about Tower Records first.

this is what happens when you get super olde, btw

so she was just happy to be there so she said fine and we turned on the tv and she made popcorn and we watched the movie

just as i thought, she fell asleep about 20 minutes into it because she was too young to remember when record stores mattered, you know when they were the center of the universe and if you really loved music youd know where they all were in every part of town and which ones were great at used records and which ones were great at singles and which ones were cheap and which ones were perfect for imports

the tower records story was fascinating. i didnt know anything about it. it pretty much mirrored the trajectory of records in general. the dude started by getting a part of his dads drug store and he bought 45s in frisco and drove them to Sacto and sold them and drove back and bought twice as many and sold twice as many

then one day he was all fuckit, let me get a big ass location in frisco and make “the biggest record store in the world” and he did and it was a success and every time he built a record store it was pretty much a success. and everything went well until the industry a) stepped away from singles and got greedy and tried to shove albums down everyones throats for $16.99

and b) didnt pay close enough attention to napster and itunes and the ipod.

but one magical thing happened: Japan. tower figured out how to make it happen in Japan early on and there are still Tower Records stores there to this day.

which is something no one would have predicted (none in the US and tons there) which tells me its ok not to know things. its ok to rise and fall. its ok to live life filled with love and wonder.

and rock n roll may die, but all those great tunes never will.

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