i hate the nineties (kinda “sundown, part iii”, kinda not)

back in early april i think i sealed something in my head for good…

…the nineteen-nineties.

i figured since today marks one week till my birthday i’d take a moment to get all reflective and shit.

and when i say “sealed”, i just mean all the bad shit, all the negativity, all the bullshit – is just behind me for good. never to return. guaranteed. at least, i hope.

while the decade brought a good person or three into my world (chuck, kramer, leia, and harold spring to mind) for the most part the decade sucked for me. in one ten year span i got (and lost, one way or another) every job i’d ever wanted as a kid (record store clerk, radio personality, club dj), plus the career i’m still paying for via student loans (radio production) plus my mom.

say what you want, that sucks.

this all came back to me as i stood outside sundance records – the musical mecca that i loved for twenty-nine years, even if i didn’t love the people that owned it for a couple of those years (specifically the ones i worked there). if there was one thing the last day i was there proved to me, it’s that the store, and all the musical memories it came to represent is bigger than any of us or the bullshit beefs that existed in and around it. that being said it did bug me being blatantly reminded that i was the bastard step-child of the store and that, at the end of the day, despite all the years (twelve) that have passed since i left their employ, the owners just plain and simple don’t like me very much.

you’d figure after twelve years shit would be let go. i know i did. easy to do that when you’re the one, for the most part, that was in the wrong. those who YOU wronged don’t let go so easily, i suppose. shit happens.

in their defense (and i think i may have mentioned this) they got me at my worst – mom had died, six weeks later i got shit-canned from 101x, six weeks after that they hired me. i was bitter, shitty, filled with attitude, scared about what my life would do to me next and scarred (internally) from what i just HAD done, and this was all before i was twenty-five. couple that with the fact that i never had even a remotely decent relationship during that decade (and some would argue since) and they had a powder-keg on their hands. one thing that has permeated since my childhood was that if i wasn’t happy i WOULD be vocal about it. VERY vocal.

and that’s what they got. for four years. shit, it’s a miracle i was never fired.

when you add to that the fact that i didn’t drink or smoke weed (as almost everybody else did at least one of the two) AND i didn’t live in san marcos (so i wasn’t out at local bars and shows with them) i set myself up to be an outcast…but given all that happened leading up to me working there could you blame me? i just kinda shut myself off from…well…everything. shit, i didn’t really 100% feel like myself again after all that until recently. a rough fifteen years? when you’re only forty that’s a good chunk of time!

moving on…

so fast-forward to april of this year – the store had closed, and three days later i was standing outside it. why? because the owners ain’t getting any younger, and i had promised i would volunteer to help if they needed it braking down the musical museum that is the store. so, i show up, see the owner’s lincoln, and try to open the door.

locked. no surprise there.

so i called and some girl answered (the last female employee they had, i forget her name which is honestly shitty ’cause she always remembered mine) and she took my name to ask bobby if my help was needed. my answer was (via her, not him) a slightly drawn-out version of “thanks, but no thanks”.

(i should add, lest i look like a really awesome guy, that part of this was self-serving…as i mentioned in the previous “sundown…” bit i did want to at least claim my nineties era pearl jam ticket, and possibly swipe the kurt cobain guitar shrapnel, and he knows me well enough to know this)

i didn’t mention in the call that i was leaned up against my car which was parked next to his at the time. for all they knew i was at home, but i honestly don’t think it would have mattered. plus, i was twenty minutes shy of boozing it up with shane; i was just gonna keep it in check if my services were “needed”, which they weren’t…so we didn’t really keep things in check. never mind that now.

but the decade brought some good people (including the sundance guys, who it was really nice to see again recently) as well as harold and kramer (who each have a place on my left half-sleeve, if i can ever get it going) and leia, randy, and chuck (the good people i never see but i know they’re out there somewhere). and it all closed out with that fucked up 1999 new years where i had to go out by myself ’cause everybody was afraid y2k would make the globe go shit-house…but that’s a WHOLE ‘nother story.