Yesterday I went to Amoeba record store in Berkeley. I wanted to sell back a few unwanted media items. No use holding onto an unbearable HR Puff 'n Stuff dvd and an unopened Jerry Seinfeld stand-up comedy routine DVD. Don't get me wrong, I used to love watching ol' Puff 'n Stuff back when I was a kid, but try watching it in your early '30s--it'll fuck you up a little bit, in a bad way. Also I love Seinfeld the show, but I don't want to own a DVD of him doing his stand-up routine, boring. These items were gifts given to me from friends. I don't think they'll mind if I trade them for something that I'll actually watch/listen to.
While at Amoeba I ran into an old friend, Lane Brookshire. Lane is a really good artist and great all around guy. It would be difficult for me to imagine him being really mean to anyone. Lane works a Amoeba, and on quite a few occasions I've ran into him there and we've talked briefly. Last night we talked for a while, as I proceeded to ask him questions about his current art projects and he in turn listened to my explanation of my OCD art projects. It was a good exchange, and he even hooked me up with a little discount when I used my credit slip to get the Office Season 2 DVD (a great BBC TV show, which I will certainly watch!). Anyway, I noticed that Lane was wearing a pretty cool hat, and I asked him where he got it. He told me that he bought it from this place called Slash on College Ave in Berkeley. He said that if I went there to be prepared to talk to the crazy lady who runs the store. I laughed and told him I'd be careful.
So today, at lunch, I drove over to this Slash place across town. Upon entering, the shop is quite small and packed wall to wall with used Levis jeans and corduroys. Stacked on top of that were piles of blank colored t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, thermal tops and jackets. The collection was quite impressive, if not a tad overwhelming (how is one to search through this mess??). Up above on the ceiling hung all sorts of hats, mostly the army/messenger style hats that I've recently become fond of because they actually look "ok" upon my gross old balding head (a bald man needs a few good hats, yes?). So I was mainly looking up there at the hats when the crazy lady approached me. Lane was right, this woman would not stop talking the entire time. She first asked me what I was looking for and I said "hats". But then, after about 10 minutes, she starts pulling off all these jeans that she thought I might like. I didn't want to seem rude so I said, "Oh those are nice, but I really don't need any jeans right now." She apparently didn't care and proceeded to pile the jeans around my feet. I sorta danced around them in an attempt to continue looking at the hats above. She then started pulling out all of these T-shirts and thermal tops that might interest me. I kind of laughed to myself, and eventually she sat down for a minute. Sitting down didn't stop her much, as she proceeded to tell me about how she acquires all of her used/vintage merchandise.
She told me about this guy in Reno who would pay the local thrift stores to hold clothing for him. He would then come around and collect these massive amounts of clothing and take them down to swap meets and flea markets to sell. I suppose his mark up was pretty good, considering he'd buy the stuff for a couple bucks each and then sell it for around $25. This lady here was selling jeans for $30 a pair. Yikes! Seems pretty pricey for a pair of used jeans. She went on to tell me that he recently suffered a heart attack and would not be doing his vintage clothing exchange for a while, or maybe ever. She told me that she knew the guy pretty well and said that he was always on the go, hardly ever stopping to relax, and eating shitty, greasy food all the time at truckstop diners. How sad it must be to live life like that; hauling around a bunch of stinky clothes, rushing to dirty flea-markets, stacking up your clothing, and hoping that hipster dorks like myself will maybe pay your asking price. Maybe the guy enjoyed doing this? Who knows?
So when I was finished looking around I ended up buying a hat that I thought looked alright on me. It was pretty cheap and I felt ok about paying the price. I was hungry and still hadn't eaten any lunch. I went across the street to a 7-11 store and bought a bottle of orange juice and a little fruit cup thing that had a surprisingly fresh collection of orange slices, apple slices, and grapes. I feld alright that I was eating something sorta healthy from a 7-11, especially after hearing the crazy lady's tale of the heart attack man. As I was leaving the lady came into the 7-11, she must've shut down her store for second to walk across the street. I felt kinda weird and said, "Oh, hi!" and she was friendly enough and smiled back. I think she bought an Almond Joy candy bar. I thought of her and her little shop and the story that she told me, and I hoped that her daily meals were not coming solely from the 7-11. I would hate to hear in a few years time about the crazy woman at Slash who died of a heart attack. I ate my fruit thing and felt slightly guilty for eating 7-11 food. I was in a rush to get back to work, always busy, always on the go, no time to stop and just relax for a minute. People aren't crazy, this life is crazy.
