RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,386
(peter yorn and the tid-bit kids) pt. Two
Each day, about 7am. whoever was
scheduled for that day's work would
show up. It was all staggered, and
people came in at different shift
times, but for the most part the 'daily'
morning staff was the store for each
day. As I said, all of the pre-opening
and behind-the-scenes stuff would go
on, for an hour or more - cash registers
set up, music department folks in place,
the massive inventory of books and CDs
other items sorted, checked over and, of
course, rearranged - from the sometimes
massive disarrangement of the busy and
crowded night customers of the previous
evening. Many things were often found
out of place, rearranged, etc. That one
morning hour or so was kind of golden,
in that it was peaceful and quiet, almost
religious-like, as carts were rolled around,
books re-loaded, and everyone was mainly
quiet.
-
The Manager, or one of the Managers on
duty, in this morning time, would often put
some CD, or music anyway, on the overhead
store-sound system - personal favorites or
current musical bands or hits. It was OK and
seldom got too annoying. The soundtrack to
'Pulp Fiction' is one that right now comes to
mind, but there were others. The music was,
of course, inconsequential - but it set the
tone too. One of the major facets of store
sales was 'Music' - in a department all by
itself. Racks of new CDs, samplers of music
to buy, and a dense back-catalogue too of
old titles and artists. Any resurgence of LPs
and 'albums' of the vinyl sort had not yet
occurred, but I think, eventually too, after
my days, they also returned - albums as sale
items. Anyway the point I'm leading too is
that one ritualistic aspect of each morning,
and one that still sticks in my head, is how,
as 8am , or 9am, when the store opened for
business (I can't actually recall now what
hour that took place, 8 or 9). It was at that
point that the overhead sound would switch
to 'store music.' For a long time the opener
was always Enya, and her ethereal Irish music
or whatever it was. It was nice and spacey, but
got boring as Hell too. A little of that stuff
goes a long way, and it has lots of new-agey
baggage with it, which it drags along. Sameness.
But, my real favorite - and who he was and
how all this grew on me - was a NJ guy
named Peter Yorn. I'd never heard of him
before, and knew nothing of him. He wasn't
part of any of the 1960's Greenwich Village
music scene stuff, and seemed younger and
slicker, out of Pompton Plains or Totowa or
somewhere. He had lots of write-ups, was
gook-enough looking in that male pop-star
way that googly girls love, had come up
through his ranks, however and whatever
they were. I had no clue, and didn't care.
The reviews always called him a delicate,
or powerful, tunesmith, really good at
songwriting and presentation. That all may
have been so, but he did seem to lack the
mortal grit that one acquires coming up
through pass-the-hat venues and the gritty
small clubs and halls one usually gets. In
any case, his damned music grew on me.
Every morning, and for a long time, it
seemed, he would pop up at the opening
hour. I grew to depend on that song, with
its scratchy and distant opening which
would then phase in to a stronger mass,
with a beat and a shuffling progress towards
the song's body. They were all pretty good.
I just looked him up, as I wrote this, and
apparently he's still around and functioning.
Looks a bit more mature, though I've not
checked his current music nor his trajectory
for the last 20 years. Who knows? By this
guy were my mornings defined? How
was that?
-
The kids I worked with were cool. I called
them the 'tid-bit kids' because they knew a
'tid-bit' - a small amount, but never thorough -
about everything. It ran the gamut : Anton
LeVay, witchcraft and Goth stuff, Paul
Bowles (the writer and composer), William
Burroughs, Charles Bukowsky ( a supposed
'poet' whom I'd always disliked). Some jazz
stuff, the usual arts and crafts craft of 'modern'
schooldays. They were all mostly of an oddly
indeterminate ilk. They weren't 'college' types,
or they'd BE there. They weren't the usual
pranksters or punks - they had some of the
knowledge that smarter people had, yet often
incomplete. They partied a lot, it seemed, and
met with each other after-hours quite often, at
Cranford bars or any of the local highway spots
around. One or two fancied themselves as artists
or composers, any number of the girls were
bi-sexual, it seemed, or lesbian. The guys were
half lechers, or not - though I need to admit
that there were any number of the girls with
which I too wouldn't have minded a sled-ride.
Some of the people were quite charismatic, and
often had their own little followings. It was
charming. Early on, there was a guy named
Jonthan something, whose father was some
big guy with money, at AT&T or somewhere.
He had his own little group, and they invited
me to one of their house parties one night in
Edison. His parents were away or something,
and he was house-sitting the condo. Kathy and
I showed up, and it was interesting enough,
although we mostly stayed in the kitchen just
chatting. The TV, all night, was showing clown
porno. People going at it, in clown makeup
and faces, while, in fact, people in the rooms
were going at it on couches and chairs, in
regular faces! It was a trip. The age gap was
a bit too much for me. ("Well, it's been nice.
Gotta' go. Thanks for the invite!'). Jonathan
ended up attending Pace University in lower
Manhattan. The list of names is pretty long.
A few are dead. A few, I've kept touch with.
-
Barnes & Noble, as a corporate undertaking,
streamlining and then consolidating the business
of buying and selling books, was always an odd
idea. The Riggio Brothers, at NYU, bought an
old, Book Row, NYC bookseller's name, or
the rights to it ('Barnes & Noble'), established
a new, crasser, means of merchandising, and
in a number of years, infernally set out to build
'superstores' - which carried the miserable idea
farther and farther away from their initial 'ideal'
of making money from selling, and buying used
textbooks. Where that idea ever came from, and
what percentage of the name 'Riggio' was Jewish
at core, I'll never know. The first few stores, around
Fifth Avenue at 17th or 18th street, were, yes,
interesting and enjoyable, rich with things to see
and peruse and buy. Then the hags of fortune honed
in - cafes, seating, comfy chairs. They 'wanted' you
to stay there, in place, as if in a gentleman's library
lounge, fasting on the richness of things. Then they
did not, unless you were buying something. It got
more and more confusing - events, performance
space, readings, theatre sections - books and
books about everything. When too much
becomes too much, it's too much. Focus
was quickly being lost, in an apparent
slavery-hitch to money, and I could
see the troubles coming, once more.
(NEXT - part three, an insider's view)
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