A Hole Without A Key

First off, I talk way too much and never stop talking. It gets to the point that I start to annoy myself. I like to believe that I'm not an ego aficionado and that I'm just doing it to fill an audible void because silence drives me crazy. That's got to be it. The reason I talk too much is because I fear silence. Regardless, I get that Wilco lyric "A hole without a key/if I break my tongue" now. Here, I'll write my whole conversation from last night "BLAH BLAH BLAH."

Second off, today is Minus the Bear Friday. I started off this morning with They Make Beer Commercials Like This and will be advancing to Highly Refined Pirates. First line from Highly Refined Pirates is "And then we all bought yachts." Fucking brilliant. The thing about MTB is that their song titles are insane and have nothing to do with the song in most cases, kinda like Zeppelin without being so hippy. So here is the track listing for They Make Beer Commercials Like This:

1. Fine + 2 pts
2. Let's Play Clowns
3. Dog Park
4. I'm Totally Not Down With Rob's Alien
5. Hey! Is That A Ninja Up There
6. Pony Up1

And here is the track listing for Highly Refined Pirates:

1. Thanks For the Killer Game of Crisco® Twister
2. Monkey!!! Knife!!! Fight!!!
3. Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse Note:This song is really good.
4. Hey, Wanna Throw Up?
5. Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo
6. We Are Not a Football Team
7. You Kill Bugs Good, Man
8. Spritz!!! Spritz!!!
9. Women We Haven't Met Yet
10. Damn Bugs Whacked Him, Johnny
11. I Lost All My Money at the Cock Fights
12. Andy Wolff
13. Let's Play Guitar in a Five Guitar Band
14. Booyah Achieved

So, anyway, Highly Refined Pirates is a fucking solid album. It's not chock fulla hits like Bon Jovi New Jersey was, but think of it like that album with no MTV support and no Bon Jovi keyboard player or Tico Torres soul patching.

My Minus The Bear story is that when I saw them I got my drank on and went up to their merch booth and politely apologized for liberating their full discography from a server somewhere and gave them twenty bucks. The girl at the merch booth was like "Take a shirt or this wallet or something." And I was like "No. It's cool. We're even now. I don't feel bad about it anymore." And she was like "You're totally clean karmically." It was an awesome show, too. A Minus The Bear show features finger tapping a la Satriani. You don't see that a lot anymore.

I'm going to jump to my new idea to compete with iTunes. When I was in high school I worked at a record store called City Records. It's funny how many times people would call thinking it was the City of Pleasanton's records department, but I digress. We sold used CDs before anyone did in the area and had a ton of them to choose from. It was pretty awesome and then everyone started doing it and we were crushed by the man. It was fun, though. One day I flushed my pager down the toilet while using the restroom. I'd call bullshit if someone told me that that happened, but I swear it did. Speaking of that, I dropped my chapstick in the toilet while I was peeing the other day and took it out and cleaned it off and still use it. That's gross isn't it? Oh, so anyway, my million dollar idea is to sell used mp3s from a kiosk downtown. This is how it works:

1. Building inventory - At first it will be slow going, but I have some used mp3s I don't really listen to anymore, so I can put those on the store hard drive or even just burn them to a CD. I'll buy songs for 10 - 25 cents a piece depending on whether it is a current hit and in demand. The person selling the mp3 must sign a contract releasing their right to listen to that mp3 anymore and I'll send that to the RIAA with a P.S. of "Fuck You." So, that's how I build inventory. I pay 10 to 25 percent of what iTunes charges. That's my Cost of Goods Sold.

2. Making papes - At my kiosk, I'll start with my laptop and let people just browse for what they are looking for. Maybe I'll even put some playlists or recommendations folders together to help people find what they are looking for. I'll then sell them the mp3s for 25 to 50 cents each and burn it onto a cd for them for a nominal fee. If they bring their own cd, I'll handle it like the canvas bag at Trader Joe's and enter them into a drawing for a gift certificate.

3. Getting interesting - Where I've got iTunes beat is I will have a cut out bin like record stores had when I was young. So, record companies send out promo CDs to get people to play them in record stores or write about them in the media. These are those CDs you get for a dollar with a cut gash in the spine or a hole punched in the bar code. Technically, the store is not supposed to sell them, but whatevs. Also, albums that just suck ass get put into the cut out bin. The bins aren't around anymore, but they used to be full of Frampton Comes Alive and Ted Nugent Records back in the day. So, anyway, I will have a folder in my laptop called the cut out bin folder and sell mp3s out of it for a nickel a piece. I might even go crazy and have a penny bin with stuff that I hate just to degrade it a little bit. It'll be full of shit like anyone who was ever on American Idol except for Kelly Clarkson. Only because she's kind of cute in a it-would-be-so-wrong-to-hook-up-with-that kind of way. I'll also just have a bunch of unlabeled CDs around with mp3s on them that I'll sell as grab bag items for like a dollar or two. I'll call them Mystery-Ds. You have to say that out loud to get it.

So, all I need is a name, a kiosk and probably a monkey as an assistant and I'll be ready to quit this job and start making papes and papes selling used mp3s. I thought I told you that we don't stop and if I forgot to, I'm telling you now. Holy shit! I'm going to call it MyTunes like MySpace and iTunes in a car accident.