Little Piece of My Heart

Friends,

As noted over here, today was the Mankato Grad Student Yard Sale, the first of what could be many different fund raising events for our AWP trip. It turned out to be a rousing success, because in some part of the CDs that I donated to the cause.

The CDs, 440 titles to be exact, ranged from a live DC Talk album that was gifted to me when I was a practicing Southern Baptist to the Insane Clown Posse (the three discs were The Great Milenko, Riddle Box, and the Amazing Jekel Brothers). And pretty much everything in between....there was stuff for people who had taste (The Kinks) and for those who did not (Europe)...it was a blue rubbermaid tub of plenty. That wasn't all the CDs I own. I believe I still have around two-hundred or so discs that I will not get rid of because I still enjoy listening to them.

But that blue tub of plenty, from each dumb purchase to each fashionable one, it contained a biography of my life from the moment I had disposable income until I moved to Mankato. Many of those CDs, I still know the story too, or a story around them, no matter how trivial. And I know this sounds remarkably similar to that scene in High Fidelity where John Cusack tells that bald guy that he is arranging his discs autobiographically, and goes on about a Fleetwood Mac album for a while. But you know, that shit is true, to every small, insignificant detail.

Like the first Eagles of Death Metal CD, I remember walking around the Carbondale Best Buy while Emily was plucking away at Scott Joplin's The Entertainer on one of the keyboards they sold there, seeing it in the E's, and talking Emily into letting me splurge on it because I read it was good in Rolling Stone.

I remember that I bought the Plumb CDs on recommendation from this woman I know named Katy, who was a good religious girl, until she started dating a Little Caesar's delivery man, who my friends referred to as The Bearded Lady (fuck, I remember his name too...Roy Badgett). The Bearded Lady cashed in Katy's V card, more or less, (oral sex counts, right?), and when she told me, I promptly told the person who she hated the most, just so that person could blackmail her. Oh yeah, I was an evil bastard then (I'm leaving out plenty of that story, a little bit about her ex-boyfriend and her Church of Christ pastor dad, but I don't come out like a rose no matter how much I tell you).

There was the Janis Joplin greatest hits disc I bought because my Mom had it. I bought the greatest hits of the Kinks after given a dissertation about the Kinks from a record store owner in Carbondale. I bought the Europe CD, just so I could have The Final Countdown on my laptop, so I could play it for my friend Clint. I bought Guns `N Roses Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II the day they came out at a St. Clair Square Mall store called Tape World, and even then I knew it was shitty for them to sell a double album as two separate discs. I remember being accused by my girlfriend at the time that the only reason why I liked The Cranberries, and their CD No Need to Argue, was that because the lead singer sounds like she's orgasming on the song Zombie. I won the Hootie and the Blowfish album Fairweather Johnson from KSHE95 because I heard on the radio to be the 10th caller without knowing what the prize was, and got it...and I never won anything else from the radio. (And their first CD, Cracked Rearview, I remember my girlfriend at that time had a brother who wanted to borrow it, but I didn't trust him because he had a wall in his bedroom that was covered in gang graffiti, so I never lent it to him...that same brother also told me that the best way to make out with a girl is to work your tongue like you're licking an ice cream cone). I bought all the techno CDs (especially the Aphex Twin) in there because of my friend Brad in high school who loved that kind of music, especially when doing acid. I bought the Sublime CD because my friend Tom and I loved to sing along with it (especially Caress Me Down) while he smoked pot in his Ford LTD while driving, and routinely pushing 100 MPH. Nirvana's Incesticide was bought because my friend Scott said the song Sliver was hilarious, and I still don't understand why it was that funny. But I remember that story.

So right now, I'm feeling a little conflicted to be honest. I'm thrilled I was able to help the AWP cause, especially this New York trip because if you're serious about being a writer, this is a rare chance to see the elite contemporary figures in the field and see/learn at their feet even for just a weekend. Also I had 440 spare CDs just lying around in a big fuck-off blue tub in my living room, so I'm glad that's taken care of so I don't have to move them. And not every single CD in there has some emotional connection (damn near though). But those select ones were concrete pieces of my teenage years and early twenties, physical nuggets of memories. And it was strange to see people rifling through them without knowing that the Primus album Tales from the Punchbowl was bought right around the time I knew I loved Emily because we were driving to St. Louis, and on the way we heard that song Winona's Got a Big Brown Beaver on the radio and we both sung along without really knowing the other person knew that song and weren't shy about belting out that juvenile thing (shit, want to know more...we were in Madison, Illinois, at a stop light in front of Dairy Queen, and I could drive you right to that spot right now if I had to)...and I didn't even like that album, but that song was on there, so that was good enough for me.

Then it was even stranger to let each person who pawed through the discs know that the CDs, all of them, were priced at two bucks apiece. Priced to move.

But that's a part of writing, isn't it. Especially non-fiction. You're laying it all out there, memories, feelings, emotions you experienced, and asking people to buy it to help you out. Trading in memories is what writer's do...and sometimes, those people who receive the memories, will treat them like shit and not know what they have. Like, will the person who bought that Primus CD ever know that story, or even care about it as they stack that disc like a dinner plate, thusly scratching and ruining it and throwing it away because why would they care, it was only two bucks at a yard sale. But, that's a part of writing, a part of dealing with an audience.

I heard a couple people were surprised that the CDs I brought were in such good condition. Well, I think it's obvious as to why. So, I hope whoever bought the CDs at least treats with respect. But it's theirs now, so I wish them both well.

VIVA LOS CDS