Dude, seriously, record shows. I remember first going to them as a teenager when my brain-frame was fresh and excited
about everything. My mother had gaggles of records when I was growing up and took me to spend my first allowances on
records at The Shoppe in Berea, Ohio in the early 1980s. I remember every record at that store was $4.98, first I
bought Business As Usual, then Prince Charming. I WAS 8 GIVE A BREAK TO ME.

I remember going to a record show in Cleveland in the very early 1990s and finding a person that just sold cassettes of
live shows. There were rows and rows and rows of tapes with hand drawn covers with different dates and band names.
Mixed in with a whole lot of hair metal was a fIREHOSE show. I asked the woman selling it if it sounded good or not.
She replied that it was recorded by a person with a tape recorder at the back of a club but because of that this tape was
VERY RARE. I think it was at that moment that I realized that the soldiers DEEP in the trenches of music collecting
were either kooks or ding-dongs.

So, after working in a record store for 8 years and owning one for 2 I've amassed A LOT of records. I think at one time it
was a reaction to growing up poor and thinking that material items bring security in times of need. Really though, those
things just bring allergies and sore backs and hours wasted alphabetizing and listening to A Love Bizarre 7 times in a row.
Last week I was illegally downloading some things that I already had on CD and LP. I had a hard time in my head thinking
about if I was doing something wrong by downloading something that I already owned on two different formats. Then I
went downstairs to make some paintings and saw the same recording on cassette. 1 person + 4 formats = BAD SCENE.
Now I want to sell these things, but not in boxes on the internet.

The CHIRP Record Fair started 5 years or so ago by Mary Nisi. Then it was the WLUW Record Fair which raised money
for a DJ operated radio station that was then taken over by WBEZ to make a radio station run by robots in Indiana. Listen,
I don't really know the reason why they switched because the truth is, I really don't care about anything. A lot of times
when people are talking to me I'm just thinking about Triscuits and what would taste good on them.

BUT, this record fair kind of rules. I mostly just know Mary & Kristen who are involved and now it is twice a year, once
in some place and the other time at Pitchfork. I think because I have done it so long they put my table by Touch & Go or
Sub Pop and now we're all great and wonderful friends. I have met 999 people while at these things and I don't ever really
care about sales or marketing or inventory, I'm usually just on sedatives asking people where they're from and where
they got the shoes that they're wearing. Some guy making an economic comparison to last year asked me, "how'd you
do this year?" and I could only respond, "I ate two lemon-poppy seed muffins and a pulled pork sandwich, I did pretty
good!"

It hit me though, as I was leaving the Local Chicago Plumbers 232 Union where today's record show was held,
that if I'm not careful, trouble is a-brewin'. It was at the moment that a man with a scraggly grey pony tale was hollering
at his wife because she was putting boxes of cassettes on a hand truck incorrectly and he had crates of Hustler Magazines
when he passed me and I noticed a Confederate flag on his truck antenna and some other guy was on his phone yelling"$4.99!
$4.99! $4.99! $4.99! $4.99!" OVER AND OVER AGAIN and another guy had arm loads of Bad Company records and
really I could only think one thing: OH NO. If I don't mull the consequences soon the next thing I'm going to notice is that
it will be 2014 and I'll be arguing with somebody about Dif Juz LPs and what the sequence of the Holland version of XTC's
Waxworks. I WOULD RATHER TELEMARKET.

But, all is not so bad at this place. My darling Pooks (this person's name is AMY to you) brought a ruben sandwich and was
so very thankful that I sold all of her CDs and records for her. She also knew every fifth person that came to look at the things
for sale and it turns out that she's also on the cover of another CD by the band Puller! What a coincedence! Wait, no, that is
not a coincedence. Georgie also came by and ate 1/2 of a sandwich, told some kid what Who record to buy and read a
book. Jake Austen came to DJ and ask if I would watch his children. What happened then can only be described as North-
amption avant performance art, these kids "tore it up". I mean, like, they threw apples at me and broke crayons. Here are
pictures by April Sims (who looks like she's from Dogtown 1981):

In the above picture Mya is squirting A LOT of Purell on me. When I asked in horror what I was then covered with
she simply answered, "IT'S HAND SANITIZER.".

Ok, so the day before today was "Record Store Day". You would think that a person like me would really just go
ahead and embrace something called Record Store Day. OH JEEZ, GIVE ME A BREAK. Record Store Day is A WHOLE
LOT like the US bail out of The Big Three. If an industry is failing, it doesn't need help, it needs to die. Some time
ago record stores were run by jerks who were like, "OH, YOU WANT TO BUY THIS? GO FUCK YOURSELF, ASSHOLE."
Now the independent record store REALLY NEEDS YOUR HELP because cheaper, more efficient methods of
business have taken it's place. Why in the flying F isn't there a Fotomat Day where people take pictures with film
and then pay $12 to get 18 shitty pictures developed? I'll tell you why, because you can plug a digital camera into
your computron and develop all of the pictures FOR FREE.

My favorite part of this year's record fair was pricing Dan K's records. I first met Dan Koretzky 4 years ago at one of
these record fairs when he sold me a copy of Unrest's Catchpellet for $5. I mostly threw up all over myself, I was so
happy. Dan had a lot to do with my life's soundtrack from 1991 - until right now so every time I talk to him I'm like:
OH WOW. He seems to have a lot of records and he asked if I would look to see if there were some that were worth money
and I did so he gave me these two BEYOND WONDERFUL RECORDS:

This record seems to be the vinyl version of a cassette made by a boy at a Boy Scout camp, at least that's what I
imagine. I reckon there is someone else in a cabin with him and he's riffing to impress this person by inventing a
fake radio station (WBUYSUCK) complete with songs. It's mostly wonderful:

The Robert Delaney Radio Show - MP3

The second record is something that I should have known about ages ago, John Trubee's "A Blind Man's Penis".
The story is that John Trubee wrote in to a song-poem ad with lyrics about Stevie Wonder's penis with a WHOLE
LOT of drug references certain that they would reject his idea. To his surprise they just asked that he send in $80 to
make a record of his song idea an soon sent him the record, though Stevie Wonder was changed to "A Blind Man".
This kind of makes sense to me, I bet they had a policy of omitting the names of celebs or commercial products.

John Trubee - A Blind Man's Penis
John Trubee - A Blind Man's Penis (Dub)

Both of these records reminded me a whole lot of The Winners Of The World's Worst Rap Competion record that
I found somewhere ages ago. I think it's a total fake but the songs are actually really catchy - I find myself quoting
Tomorrow's Bay-Con all of the time. Apparently this guy is from East Palo Alto, Ca and is, um, rather bad at rapping.

Black Tea - No Flo For The Hoes
Black Tea - Tomorrow's Bay-Con
Black Tea - Homocyde

This photo is by Joe Mariano. My head can be seen on the left.