Old Records Never Die (30 page)

Besides, I had found enough. I'd started a quest in which coming up empty-handed was a foregone conclusion. But somehow, inexplicably, I'd found some old treasures. I had a Bon Jovi
Slippery When Wet
covered in dried swamp mud, a stolen
Let it Bleed
with a boot footprint on the vinyl, a KISS
Alive II
that cost me three hundred dollars, a box of my dad's old country records that smelled like mothballs and mildew, a Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction
with my (alleged) initials written on the front, and a Replacements
Let It Be
splattered with my own blood.

Kelly was sitting next to the record player, gently turning over
Remain in Light
like it was something pristine and fragile, and not just an unloved antique that'd spent the last three decades smooshed into a box with some old shoes and
TV Guide
s. She dropped the needle onto the first track, and waited for those first familiar notes.

A smile crept over her face, and she closed her eyes and breathed in, like the record had released something fragrant into the air.

Charlie bounded down the stairs, laughing wildly, and leaped into the room like a clumsy ballerina. He wasn't wearing clothes. Just his Batman underwear.

“Charlie, where are your pants?” Kelly asked.

He gestured toward the ceiling. “Somewhere up there.” Then, his shoulders began to move, slowly at first and then increasing in speed, a rhythmic shrug, his head bobbing along to the music.

“Daddy, what is this?”

“Talking Heads,” I said.

“I love it!”

These types of emotional proclamations weren't uncommon for him. He made up his mind fast and decisively. If he loved something, he'd know it more or less immediately. And the same for the things he hated. (Lettuce had never had a fighting chance.)

He burst into a joyful dance, moving his body in every direction at once. I've always adored the way he dances, without any self-consciousness and with total abandon. He dances like Michael Jackson would have if he'd had too many wine coolers and completely forgot his choreography.

“This is my favorite!” he shouted, diving between us as he attempted another complicated move. “This is my jam!”

“I thought Elvis Costello was your jam.”

His brow furrowed. “No, that's not my jam anymore. This is my jam!”

“Okay,” I said, laughing. “Duly noted. This is your jam.”

“It's my jam and I love it and it's the only thing I want to hear forever and ever!” he shouted.

Kelly got up to dance with him, but I sat there, watching the two people I love more than anything else dance in my childhood living room, while listening to music that I'd never paid all that much attention to in the eighties with fresh ears.

The feeling returns whenever we close our eyes

Lifting my head, looking around inside

Charlie's smile was so big, and so perfect and so pure, I wanted to capture it and wrap it up and hide it somewhere, so it couldn't ever be ruined by the cynical, sneering world. But I probably wouldn't have done it even if I could. Because nothing good in this
world ever stays in mint condition. And if it does, you're doing it wrong.

A few scratches—deep, irrevocable scratches that stay there forever—aren't a bad thing.

When we got home, I was going to take Charlie to a record store. And I was going to pay attention to him this time. We'd buy everything they had by Talking Heads. Because that was his new jam, and a dude's new jam has to be respected. But I'd also coax him into wandering the aisles, let him pull out some records and see if anything caught his eye. If he ended up with a pile of Roxy Music, I wouldn't be like, “Yeah, don't be fooled by the arty covers.” That was not my decision to make for him. He needed to make his own mistakes, take his own chances, choose his own jams.

And what the hell, as long as I was there, maybe I'd take a chance on something new. Pick out a record based on nothing but the coolness of a band's name and some trippy album art. It's been a long time since I jumped into the abyss and hoped for the best.

I think I'm finally ready to see what that feels like
again.

T
his book wouldn't exist without two people. First, there's Mike Ayers, my former editor at MTV Hive—may it rest in Internet peace—who pushed me to write new things every week even when I wasn't in the mood, which resulted in a lot of questionable stories—including, if memory serves, columns about plaster cast vaginas and an interview with seven David Bowie impersonators—but eventually caused me to come up with the concept for this book. I'm forever indebted to you, Mike. Also, I think MTV Hive still owes me three hundred dollars. Would you mind looking into that?

The other reason this book exists is because of my editor, Becky Cole, who believed in it from the beginning, when there wasn't much there but a really insane premise. She's guided me through several incarnations, shaping and molding this story with a gentle but surgical precision. I've worked with a lot of editors in
my time, but rarely have I felt this protected and challenged, which are two things that rarely coexist peacefully. I remember being in her office in New York, going over the first round of edits and having a picnic on her desk with sandwiches she'd bought from some deli down the street, and thinking, “This woman is my Gandalf.”

I owe a debt of gratitude to Dan Mandel, my agent for almost two decades, who has continued to believe and fight for me even when there was no compelling reason to do so. I hope I live to ninety, just so I can write his obituary for
The
New York Times
, and be one of those writers who waxes nostalgic about how Dan changed my life.

I'm endlessly grateful for my mom—who has supported and encouraged me long after when most parents would've said, “You're on your own, kid”—and my brother, Mark, who is legitimately one of the funniest people I've ever known. There are few things in this life as satisfying as making him laugh. Mark is the only person who's ever knocked out one of my teeth with one punch, and the only guy who made me feel fearless about my writing when I needed it the most. And I'm not just saying that because he can have me “disappeared” and sent to a Turkish prison with the cash he has in his wallet at any given moment.

Thanks to the Wednesday night Edgewater Lounge drinking collective—Ryan, Jeff, Mike, ET, Brad, Carl, and Jeremy—who were my sounding board back when this idea was just a vague, stupid notion. We spent many an evening discussing this book, long before it became a book, over way too many beers, at a bar we never realized didn't actually have a liquor license. The Edgewater Lounge is dead; long live the Edgewater Lounge!

Thanks to the people I dragged to record stores—T. J. Shanoff, Brian and Liz, and I'm sure others I'm not remembering—who
tolerated and sometimes encouraged my worst vinyl instincts. Thanks to my many magazine editors, who shaped me like a literary Frankenstein's monster. Without Stephen Randall, Jon Kelly, Michael Hogan, Julian Sancton, Frank DiGiacomo, Adam Campbell, Paul Schrodt, Bill Phillips, Peter Moore, and Willy Staley, I would be a formless, shapeless, word-vomiting blob.

Thanks to the buildings where I wrote most of this book—like Metropolis Coffee Company in Chicago, in which I'm two card punches away from getting a free coffee; my family's cottage in Omena, Michigan; and the Sayre Mansion in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which I'm pretty sure is haunted. Seriously, I'm like 99 percent sure I was in a haunted room while finishing the last chapter of this book. I distinctly heard the giggling of a girl under my bed, which I later learned was probably a ghost from the nineteenth century who, according to one of the innkeepers, was known to tickle the toes of visitors. That did not happen to me, thankfully, because I would have literally crapped my pants in fear.

Thanks to Questlove, who put me on this journey, even if it was unintentional. Thanks to Bob Diener, Rob Harless, Heather Godbout, and Alan Hunter, who were in many ways the backbone of this book. And thanks to my old friend John Swanson, who always reminded me to “Keep typing, Dorothy.” Thanks for the motivation, John. Now go fuck yourself.

Above all, thanks to Kelly and Charlie, my wife and son, who sacrificed so much so that I could write this thing. There were too many nights and weekends (and months, if we're being honest) when I had to disappear because of this book, and you both never wavered in your support. Except for that one time Charlie told me, teary-eyed, “I hate Daddy's book!” Which I completely understood. I kind of hated my book at that point too. I would have much rather been playing dinosaur-robots with you, like I'd
promised. But I did this instead. You've both been more patient with me than I probably deserved, and unconditionally supportive in ways I can't begin to repay you for. If this book doesn't suck, it's because of you. Everything that I am, everything that I'm trying to be, is because of you.

Looking for more?
Visit Penguin.com for more about this author and a complete list of their books.
Discover your next great read!