Wednesday, July 02, 2003

Getting Rid of My Record Collection Starting from when I was an elementary school kid, I always collected something-- comics, sports publications, records. I got heaviest into record collecting and built a huge library of material that I used as a reference library for my jazz criticism. I wrote about jazz from 1959-1976 and then again from 1989 to the present. Between 1976 and 1989 I got tired of writing about jazz, and sold my record collection. When I started writing about music again in 1989 I had to build another record collection. By this time I had learned how to get records fast and cheaply, and accumulated a ton of them in months. The trouble was, I didn’t have room for them anymore and I stuck them all over my house in no particular order. So the records didn’t do me any good because I didn’t know where a lot of individual LPs were. It wasn’t worth it to look an hour for every LP I wanted to hear. I’ve also been getting a huge amount of CDs from companies and don’t know where to put them. So I decided to sell a large part of my LP and CD collection again. This made my wife happy, because it reduced the clutter in the house and got us some money we could really use. But it’s been kind of slow going; LPs aren’t in as much demand as they were in back in the 1970s. I’ve sold a lot of them, but my place looks about as messy as ever. I still have thousands of pieces left. They still sell from time to time. I’ve got this one buddy, who’s an international LP dealer and has bought a lot of stuff from me. Once in a while, a collector will come into town just Jonesing for sides and, after my buddy has sold him all the stuff he can, he’ll turn him on to me. That’s nice of him. Not that he has anything to lose by doing it but, y’know, some people see competitors everywhere and it just kills them to give them a break. Just yesterday he sent some German guy to see me, and the guy bought $246.00 worth of stuff. And he’s coming back tomorrow to buy more. So little by little the clutter’s going, and I’m getting this money I’m not expecting. It’s like dollars from heaven, and I love it. 9:55:10 AM