My Old Job

For 8 years, I worked at the best record store in Dallas. This was when a record store meant "Records", as in vinyl LPs, 45s, etc. We even had a separate room for 78s. We didn't start carrying CDs until 1997. Record collectors are by definition, unusual people, untroubled by new trends, current tastes in popular music and personal hygiene. There are exceptions, but for the most part, I dealt with the smelly ones. Some of the stranger ones are seared on to my memory:

1. The Hudson Family. This family would take the bus down from Michigan every year just to come to the store and buy records, usually 78s. Mom, Dad, little girl and little boy. They would be waiting when I arrived to open the store in the morning and I would have to chase them out at closing time. I remember the little girl, who was about 6 years old at the time, proclaiming to me as I was checking out a customer, "Hey lady, I gotta shit!" Nice. They didn't leave to eat, even when the kids (who were very young) would be crying from hunger. My boss Dorothy would usually go to McDonald's and buy Happy Meals for the kids and chew out the parents for being such assholes. The last time I saw them, as we were totaling up the final bill, Dad said, "Kids, I hope those Happy Meals were good, because we only have enough money for the bus tickets back home. We'll eat again when we get there." Dorothy went absolutely ballistic and threatened to call Child Protective Services unless he put most of those records back and saved enough money to feed his children.
Mrs. Hudson also used to walk around while breastfeeding the little boy in the store, which shouldn't cause any undue alarm; that's what they're FOR, right? But then we meet:

2. Cajun. Never knew his real name, just always called him Cajun. He spoke with exaggerated courtliness, used a carved walking cane and stunk to high heaven. He weighed about 400 lbs., had sparse facial hair and wore overalls and a gimme cap sideways on his head. He was in the store one day when Mrs. Hudson whipped out a tit and started feeding the kid. I noticed him staring and gave him the patented Lisa "Stink Eye", which sent him scurrying to the back of the store. Cajun sidled up to the store manager Chuck, still staring at Mrs. Hudson, and whispered "boy, ya don't see that everyday."

3. Mr. and Mrs. Pop Eye. He was about 5 feet tall, looked like Pop Eye with a beard and he usually came in with his wife, who was about a foot taller and outweighed him by about 200 lbs. She usually sported a black eye or two (he probably stood on a chair to get that high). He bought 45s exclusively. One day I was playing a Sam The Sham Best of LP and when "Wooly Bully" came on, they both started yelling at me to take the record off. I wasn't about to, so I asked what their problem was. Pop Eye said that it was "devil music"....The next time they came in, they had little Jesus pamphlets for me. I politely thanked them, then dropped them into the trash.

4. Phil Donohue. No, not THAT Phil Donohue, this idiot just looked like him. He used to come in and look at jazz LPs and tell me to "TURN IT DOWN!!" whatever I was playing, if it wasn't jazz. I would immediately turn it up, which would send him into paroxysms of anger, amusing me greatly. I caught him switching price tags one day and banned him from the store.

5. The drunk guy who came in with his 2 floozies to stock up his juke box. "Spend mah money for me!" he slurred at me, waving his arms around, "Ah gotta whole jukebox ta fill up!" I told him I could do that, but tomorrow when he sobered up, he wasn't getting his money back. "Ah ain't gunna brang 'em back! Spend mah money!!" So....I spent about $2500 for him. He had a real nice jukebox when I got done. Sure enough, the next day, here he comes, obviously hung over and wanting his money back. No dice, but he had a killer jukebox, so he should have been happy.

6. The rich guy who was a big wig at Texas Instruments and liked to come in and spend loads of money. He would buy anything I recommended, which always happened to be the extremely rare stuff in the front glass case. He never asked for his money back. He was a bit of a prick, though, and I secretly groaned when I saw him coming through the door, because I don't like dealing with pricks, no matter how much money they spend. My manager Chuck had purchased a rare, though unfortunately cracked, Robert Johnson 78 and had a special round wooden frame made to display it in. Rich guy noticed it one day and asked how much? Not for sale.
In a smarmy, prickish tone of voice, he said "Everything has a price. How much is it?"
I called Chuck, who said to tell him $5000 just to shut him up. So I told the guy $5 grand and he said, "I'll take it, and these other ones you picked out for me (about $600 worth of stuff). How do I get it out of that frame?"
Why did he want a cracked, rare 78 that available on various LPs out of the frame? He wanted to PLAY it. I told him, NO!! you do NOT want to play that, you'll ruin it! He said in the same smarmy voice "It's mine now, I'll do what I want with it." Prick.......but I got something out of him.....
A friend of Chuck's used to do stereo equipment repair and also sold high-end stereo equipment. Rich guy brought up a turn table and said to give to Chuck's pal to fix. I assumed he meant the same guy, so I gave it to Chuck's pal. Turns out it was meant for another friend, but the pal fixed it and rich guy ended up buying $100k worth of equipment and I got a very nice SOTA turntable for free out of the deal. Very nice....

7. Several Dallas cops used to come in and buy every copy of Johnny Reb's racist 45s we had. Made me glad I wasn't black or Mexican while living in Dallas....

8. An LBJ look-alike who came in regularly, always wearing the same polyester disco shirt which pictures of trees on it and obviously was never washed. Two things always happened when "LBJ" came in the store: my co-worker Steve and I would look at each other and chant in stereo, "Ah shall not seek and Ah will not accept the nomination of mah party fo another term as yore Prezident", and Dorothy would follow the guy around the store spraying Lysol in his wake, all the while scowling at him furiously. LBJ was completely oblivious to all of this.

9. The effeminate little weirdo who always came in for his Joni James and Judy Garland LPs. He was extremely annoying and mistakenly assumed that any of us gave a shit about his very existence. He would call after he left the store so we knew that he got home OK. He got married at one point to a girl who (this seems to be a re-occurring theme) outweighed him by 200 lbs. and brought in their honeymoon scrapbook (it was about 9 inches thick, which is more than he could say) to show us. No thanks, I just had lunch.
I thought I left him behind when I started working somewhere else, but to my dismay, he started working at my fave CD store in Dallas. I walked in one day and hear "Hiiiiiiiiii, Liiiiiiiisssssssaaaaaaaa!!!!! Did you miiiiiiisssssss meeeeeeeee?" Sure, like I miss an axe in my head. He also assaulted me at every record show in Austin, even when I was pointedly rude to him.
"Hiiiiiiiii, Liiiiiiisssssssaaaaaa!"
"FUCK OFF!"
"Ooohhhh, Liiiiiiiissssssssaaaaaaaa, you're suuuuuuuch a jooooooooker!"
"FUCK OFF OR I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Ooooohhhh, Liiiiiissssssssaaaaaaaa, you're ssssoooooo fuuuuuuunnnnyyyyy!!!!!".

10. One day, there was a big news story about a guy who killed his wife and kids and himself. Apparently, he had been abusive to them and wife had threatened to leave and take the kids, and the guy freaked out and killed them all then blew his head off. A sad story. We were discussing this in the store that Saturday when 2 teenage girls come in. They ask if we have a 45 of "Love Hurts" by Nazareth. I get it for them and they ask if I can play it for them. We had a little headphone player so people could try out records, but someone was using it, so I put it on the overhead system. As soon as the singing starts, the girls cling to each other and start WAILING. Everyone in the store is staring at them and I ask them to please keep it down. I'm thinking, "oh, they've got broken hearts, puppy love, etc". One of the girls stutters out that they want the record for their brother's funeral. It was their brother who had killed his family and then himself. Cue Twilight Zone theme.......