Pandora's Box

So Bubs and I have been here just over a year. Somehow, I've managed to NOT get to Amoeba records in all of this time. My boy Z had hipped me to it a while back, as THE wrecka stow (see "Under the Cherry Moon" for the geneis of "wrecka stow") in Los Angeles. What with the advent of the I-Pod, the greatest invention of my lifetime, I've spent the last few years slowly getting my cd collection uploaded onto it, and downloading the periodic single on line, such that I haven't had the need to frequent a record store. Amoeba is up on Sunset, right next door to my favorite theater, the Arclight, thus, I've passed it plenty of times. In search of a James Brown DVD, we figured we'd break the ice and check it out.

We park the car, and walk up a block to the entrance. There's a strange mix of folks, congregating at side. Tatted up, slacker looking punks, and oddly, a LOT of hip looking young Asian kids. Enough to where I wondered if we were coming up on an in-store appearance of the Wu-Tang Clan or something (the Wu are oddly, HUGE in Japan). Turns out, it's just business as usual. We venture inside, and instantly, the formerly deceptive vastness of this place hits us. Just gargantuan. Or dare I say, ginormous (I recently saw that somehow, that word that sounds like Phoebe from "Friends" talking has somehow made its way into accepted, dictionary veracular)?

Almost instantly, I'm practically short of breath at the overwhelming potential of this store. Where to start? I'd already decided that I deserved to treat myself to a cd or two. Now, faced with this seeminigly infinite selection, I realized my error in planning. Clearly, one needs a pointed agenda before setting foot into such an aural paradise. I compose myself enough to at least narrow down my options to the jazz section. But now what? The Duke? Miles? Trane? Do I go guitar? If so, who? Wes? Grant? Joe Pass? Do I go vocal? Someone I've heard of but never taken the plunge with? Problem is, if I go new, which album of say, Sun Ra, do I begin with? The stakes are too high to screw this up.

No. Clearly, going forward I need to do my homework BEFORE I get there. I need a game plan. I can't do this willy nilly. So, resigned to my fatal miscalculation, but still determined to leave with some type of musical booty, I opted for "Impressions" by John Coltrane, because I love him and it's a classic I didn't have, and a Wayne Shorter joint because I love Wayne, and my man Herbie Hancock is part of the ensemble.

The point is not to name drop my hipster musical sensibilities. The point is, this place is the bomb. The point is, ironically, in the same way I stubbornly (STUPIDLY) put off getting an I-Pod until my father got it for me, I similarly have denied myself this unbelievable resource. So much music, not enough time.