Show You How To Hustle

Oh, the Pharrell signing at my store the other day went okay, I suppose. It was hot, of course, so people were a little crabby. but overall it went off swell and folks seems to enjoy themselves, especially once they were able to pour into the air conditioned store 50 at a time and at least lay their eyes assuringly on the man of the hour. I was in charge of crowd control, but everyone behaved themselves very well and I think they all got what they basically wanted from the man, who is always a very personable, very courteous fellow even when he's in town and shopping on his own (or with his bodyguard and increasingly taller and taller model girlfriends). Pharrell is from Virginia Beach, by the way. He and Chad Hugo from The Neptunes/N.E.R.D. went to the high school directly across the street from my record store.

That's Pharrell up there with some of my work posse, a pic I ganked from Brad's myspace page. I split before this photo was taken so I'm not in it, but there's my pal Tracy over to the right who appears to be mortified to be having a frappuccino hanging out of her mouth right when the picture was snapped. Next to her in the white shirt is my boss Nilda. I'm actually going out with her tomorrow night to celebrate her birthday.

Yeah, speaking of the store, uh... do any of you long-time readers from the old blog remember the nutty homeless man that used to come into the store a few years ago and scream at the classical CDs? Or rather he would quietly walk into the classical room, stand and press his face to the far wall beneath the large paintings, and scream like a lunatic until one of us ran in there and told him to leave. Well, looks like he's returned. At least (whew) it sure smells like the same guy. He was MIA for about a year, I guess, but now he's back with screaming jets, although this time he's lost the battle with the classical CDs and has learned to just keep to the pop/rock section -- and yes, he still talks to himself. Very, very loudly. And I gotta tell ya, the dude can drop some mad science. When he used to be a frequent visitor I would often follow him around the store with a pad and pen and write down everything he said because some of it had an almost free-form, Captain Beefheart imagery that I admit I found thought-provoking. Well, now his new schtick appears to be, uh, licking things. Especially cash registers and metal detectors. And um, God knows what else. Quite frankly I'm afraid to touch anything in that store anymore without Nilda's economy-sized container of Clorox wet wipes, let alone what other parts of the man's body he might be anointing our machinery with. But so far he hasn't physically bothered any of the customers, even though Barnes & Noble next door have banned him from the store because apparently he was going around behind female customers' backs, gently touching them with a pointed finger, and saying "whore" to each one. Which frankly I think is hilarious but I can see how others wouldn't be as amused. He did, however, walk past one of our new employees and clasp the boy's shoulder in passing. The poor kid ran up to me with a look of terror on his face, pointing to the perfectly outlined filthy hand print on his purple shirt.

I just found out recently that the guy isn't really homeless at all, and even lives not too far from myself. But every day I see him shuffling zombie-like as always down the boulevard with his backpack and long, gray, matted hair, staring straight ahead at all times, and conjuring up imagery of children with nails in their heads and dogs that serenade you with old Sonia Dada tunes. Man, I wish we had a picture of him with Pharrell up there.