Something borrowed, something used

The sheer glut of used media (books, CDs, DVDs) has been threatening to overwhelm our society for a few years now. In fact, selling used is apparently not a sound business model (all those CD Warehouses went out of business even before the heyday of digital). Even the thrift stores don't have the room for all the VHS cassettes and Readers Digest condensed volumes dumped into their bins; they still make their bucks turning over clothes and handmade holiday macrame. Is there a better model?

There are still some independent retailers in my area who are sticking to the "mostly-used, some new" model, but many were forced out of business by a public obsessed with purely digital entertainment.  One former community favorite - Vinyl Fever - ended up splitting their new and used music sections 50/50, but I don't think it could sustain itself on meager 99 cent used CD sales. Up by USF, Mojo Books and Music is rocking a cavernous, well-stocked used book selection (and selling coffee and being a community hangout), while in Pinellas Park, SoundExchange is so overrun with used DVDs, they are pushing most off at 3/$5 (but being smart by organizing them by lead actor rather than alphabetically for easier binge watching). The venerable local institution that is Bananas will invite you to their voluminous warehouse, but their retail presence serves up a rather generic catalog of used CDs, sure to please the passer-by looking for a bargain.

So, juggling new and used media in brick & mortar is probably not a good business model at all. (I can't see Barnes and Noble doing it, no matter how quickly I am contributing to their demise.) Books and CDs are, unfortunately, destined to clog up the landfills; DVDs probably even faster due to the realization that you don't have to own a movie in order to have access to it whenever you want thanks to streaming subscription services and several robust rental schemes like Amazon and iTunes.

But folks don't stream CDs, they still rely on glorified radio stations like Pandora (and the upcoming iTunes Radio) to curate for them. As for books, is there really a more sustainable idea than the public library? Thanks to places like Better Worlds Books, it's gotten easier. I can buy a used book for a penny from Better Worlds Books via Amazon, read it, and then deposit it in one of the many green Better Worlds drop boxes in my community. It seems like borrowing to me, verging on recycling  (the tree's already been felled, the presses already run). Unlike the public library, it isn't exactly free - but most of the price goes to keeping the U.S. Postal Service alive - so that's almost being patriotic, right?

I have attempted to set up the same sort of cycle for CDs, but it's a bit more complicated. Sure, I get 99.9% of my music digitally (not just iTunes, elitists, I actually make the trip to bandcamp.com to pay my favorite artists directly), but you know how iTunes and Amazon will make the best song on a soundtrack "album only" just to piss you off? I'll by the CD used and within minutes of it showing up in my p.o. box, I've digitized the track and re-listed it to sell on Amazon. The circle of life to be surel I may even make a profit.

Speaking of supporting artists directly, one fantastic arena rocking my online world is original art t-shirts. Instead of rolling down to Hot Topic (at my age, please!), I find amazing art to wear on websites such as Zazzle and Threadless and – since I have a New Orleans bent – Dirty Coast. The original t-shirt world is bright, shiny and booming while allowing me to spread my bucks around big business directly to the folks who deserve it.

Timeless classics, no mildew

I worry about books being burned. Not in some sort of orwellian dystopic sense - although the whole censorship conundrum requires constant vigilance - but I worry about the glut of analog material being tossed aside in the big push to digitize. Books are only the most flammable. 

Not that this is new, it's just all of the sudden so ubiquitous. In olden times, that box of eight tracks found in the back of your uncle's shed would be an oddity - but it's not like it had a chance to end up at the antiques mall. After a few quick clicks and a post to your Google+ page for your friends to get a good laugh at, the bulky plastic would end up in the trash - I mean, no one's getting any money for this.

We were spoiled by vinyl. It had its day and then it became a precious commodity among the musicphile elite - the ones who made sure they had a reliable source for turntable needles. Recently, "collectors" editions of heavy grade vinyl started being offered; but record companies know who their audience is and cater to them as if sending packages of food to war torn countries. 

Back in the early '90s it was obvious used record stores were literally stocked to the ceiling with unloved vinyl; they couldn't give them away fast enough. I confess, we figured out a way to abuse these rejects into art. I hung mobiles made from 45's, some artists took out their mini welders and figured out how to melt vinyl into fantastic new shapes (check out the amazement for vinyl here and cds here.)

This probably isn't going to happen with dvd's, just as it didn't happen to cassette or VCR tapes. And it certainly doesn't bode well for the trillions upon trillions of paperbacks heading for the landfill (although there a few who are touched by brilliance or madness who can do this.)

I've had good luck selling my cds, my hardcovers, my dvds - but the glut of product on amazon.com has forced prices down to the literal penny. As more and more people digitize, it will no longer be profitable to spend the money to package and mail something that you're only getting 1 cent in return. Then the boxes go to the thrift stores because, if you haven't noticed, used record stores and used bookstores have evaporated like rain on a hot sidewalk. Those who still believe they have a buying public have been relegated to dusty, musty stalls at the flea market, but only for the buying public who like lifting crates and perusing un-alphabetized effluvia.

When I was a kid, in my hometown, there was one of those ex-military rounded un-air-conditioned metal buildings (Nissen huts...) called "Paperback Palace" or some such. I remember endless bins of mostly romance novels; the place seemed cavernous and unending, full of every book imaginable (and this was in the late '70s: how many books could there have been in the world?). A paperbag full of moldy-smelling paperbacks was a good catch on a hot Saturday afternoon. (I had a collector's tendency at an early age; I was determined to buy every Agatha Christie novel - even if I had no intention of reading any of them). The bins of vinyl at many late-lamented used record stores had the same distinct sweet and dusty air to them.

I don't believe there are special landfills for books and cds. I don't imagine we can power whole cities based on burning album covers for fuel. I don't believe most people can go through a stack of media and know what is valuable and what is not, so it will all find its inevitable way down to the curb for the trashman's joy.  Ultimately, if this art is something that can and will be digitized, we're just talking about copies which shouldn't be eulogized like fallen heroes, right? And in the digital realm, all will eventually be reconstituted - except for the wonderful mildew smell.

Apologizing, digitally

The fact that this apology does not exist anywhere on paper, that it was created in TextEdit on my MacMini, then copy-and-pasted onto Blogspot, is in a major way the reason why I need to say how sorry I am it has gotten to this.

I apologize to Borders and many small, independent bookstores (except the tiny B Dalton's that used to be in all the malls, which were - let's be honest - more of an irritation for serious booklovers) for purchasing my books on amazon.com. True, most of them were used, and the inventory impeccable. I grew up trolling the literally dust-filled bins of used paperback palaces, some maddeningly unorganized, most with 100 copies of crap romance novels and nothing close to what I was looking for. But now they're mostly gone because of me. The fact that Barnes & Noble might not survive 2013 is my fault as well.

I apologize to now-defunct record stores - large and small. Tower Records was closing its doors in New Orleans soon after Katrina recovery was in full swing, and I was there, scouring the shelves for deep, deep, discounts, fingering the bullet holes in the corpse. I often stopped by the Virgin Megastore in Downtown Disney before it went away, more to see what new chill compilations were out, but never to buy. In hometown Tampa Bay, after following Vinyl Fever through three locations, I even stopped trolling the 99 cent used disc bins. And all of this because iTunes allows me to purchase just one beautiful track out of an entire cd that might contain utter shite.

I apologize to all of those amazing independent cinemas that have had to close their doors. The real historic movie houses, like Tampa Theatre, only hang on due to intense corporate funding. Less glamourous palaces, like the just-shuttered Beach Theatre in St. Petersburg, were snuffed out by me, cacooned at home thanks to Netflix, who slide luscious indie and foreign film into my post office box every week.

I am deeply sorry for all the many businesses that I have abandoned in my quest for efficiency, low prices, high tech and customer satisfaction. And for my sins I now live in an area where every where I look is an Amscot, a Dollar Store, a place that will pay cash for my gold (if I had any). This is the barren landscape I deserve.