The times change, like record shops....

A story:

It was the summer of 2002. I had just returned from Europe where for the last three weeks I had been relentlessly seeking out vinyl records. I had made the decision during my time in Holland that I was going to become a vinyl geek and simply put there are no shortage of good music shops on the continent. Utrecht, the city I lived in, had at least 4. Anyway, when I got back to the states all I wanted to do was find vinyl. I found several stores via the phone book and searched them out. The most incredible and the only one I even remember was Orpheus in Clarendon.

Orpheus was awesome because (1) it had a pretty incredible selection of used and new vinyl, and (2) it was run by the weirdest looking dude I'd ever seen: A hippy who always seemed to be wearing the same denim shirt and pants every time I went in, and who was known locally for never wearing socks or shoes over his hideously unmanicured feet. His hands weren't that much better. I figured at some point in his life someone had told him about the beauty of nail clippers, but he had decided to ignore this advice in order to more closely resemble Gollum.

...to each their own, right?

Well now Orpheus is closing. I haven't been back there in a long time, mainly because I never replaced my record player after it broke three years ago, and hence didn't see a point to purchasing new vinyl. But I rode by there on my bike today and saw the "Everything must go!" sign and my heart sank.

I mean, what will replace it? Seeing how the Clarendon area is developing the space will probably be rented out to some asshole who wants to open a boutique of some kind. You know, the kind of place that sells handbags. Or pants. Fashionable pants. Made of dead cow skin. The kind of place that necessitates that you call it a "boo-TEEK", which will annoy the shit out of me because I hate that word. And when people tell me about how awesome the new store in Clarendon is I will cringe. I will cringe because I will remember how years ago I walked into that space, which smelled of mildew and hippy feet, and bought a used copy of Motorhead's "Overkill" that rocked my balls off so much I never wanted to listen to the CD version again, hence finally forcing my conversion to music snobbery. I will cringe because it will remind me that Arlington is now, and will forever be, populated by soul-less, workaholic automatons that DO NOT ROCK. I will cringe because one more part of the world that was unique won't be there anymore, and one part of me will be gone with it.