infundibulum

So Tower Records is closing.

You know, I’m surprised how bummed out that makes me. I have gone to Tower for years. that one and that one and that one and that one.

It’s sort of stupid to feel nostalgic about a retail chain. Retail chains don’t feel nostalgic about you. (Or your privacy — it always bugged the hell out of me when cashiers at Tower would ask for my zip code. I’d say “90210.” They didn’t like that.)

And yet, the fact that I can remember these places means that they have been part of my life like any other, I guess. And while Tower was a huge, corporate store peddling stuff sold by record companies that (on the whole) can only be described as clueless about recent changes in the way music is distributed, and terribly disrespectful of their customers… even then it makes me sad that Tower is going away.

I thought about it a little, and I think I put my finger on it.

Tower Records was the one holdout in suburbia that could make you think that somebody, somewhere, was still willing to invest in the idea that being a little unusual was alright.

They gave jobs to the pierced kids, the punks, the goths, and the classical wonks too. In fact, they gave the classical wonks a whole room of their own.

And, if you dug around in their book sections, you’d find stuff that you will not find at Barnes and Noble or Borders. Subversive stuff. Some stuff that I had zero interest in reading. But at least it was there, you know? At least you could still buy that stuff in suburbia. It existed in the brick and mortar world, and there was no massive catastrophe as a result of it.

As a business entity, I really won’t miss it. They didn’t figure out how to live in the age of the long tail. They never clued in to the iPod world, they never got creative, and that’s the way it goes.

But tonight I was talking to one of those hipster chicks that work there. You know her, the cute one with the slightly blue hair that you joke around with and wish you could keep talking to, but hey, transaction completed? The one who’s cooler than you. That one.

We were joking about what would be left at the bitter end — miles of NKOTB remixes? Would they turn it into a Costco-sized McDonalds? “Tower Records is the only place open at midnight for miles.” She said, “yeah.”

Then she told me not to say any more about it, it was depressing.

And it hit me: even someone who really values the idea that they’re outside of the system, and they say “screw you, system, my hair is blue and I’m putting tattoos on my eyelids!”…

They’re still stranded in suburbia too. And at quarter to midnight, where are they going to hang out now?

I have this icky feeling that a fundie somewhere is snickering.