SONG OF THE DAY: Shakedown Street (kudzu'd)

I have a stick and poke tattoo that says SHAKEDOWN STREET, in honor of the two time I set up vintage markets, called Shakedown Street, in three different places (for obvious reasons), simply as a means to robbing the asshole vendors. Vintage markets are so punk rock (derogatory). Good signs of the asshole types are they have $250 wrestling t-shirts (“because I can get that price”) or they actually say “unique colorway” out loud, or their vintage style overtakes actually matching your shit (like they’ll have powder blue Jordans with black jeans and a green Nascar shirt or some shit). We’ve somehow made culture vulture a consumer identity and respectable small business option. That’s why I don’t regret the vendors I robbed at knifepoint, with my classic USMC issue Ka-bar blade. Fuck them. Too good for bad tattoos, but not too good to mark-up some shit they found at a small town Christian thrift store by 1000%.

SONG OF THE DAY: Cumbia de Los Taxistas

Taking an imaginary taxi to an imaginary flea market, because there’s an amazing record shop in the back corner beside the old lady with the farm stand. All the 45s are still in a sleeve, and it’s not really organized at all, but the old dude that runs it fills up a cardboard box and writes the date as two digit month two digit year on both ends in big black sharpie, and discourages you moving things between boxes with a handwritten sign on an old pizza box that says “DON’T SWITCH ITEMS BETWEEN BOXES, I DON’T WANNA HAVE TO GO THRU ALL THIS SHIT AGAIN TO FIND SOMETHING” so I know I just start in the past and work my forward, and have to trust the process. He told me he finds a lot of these records in old abandoned houses or from folks who are passing on and want to get rid of their favorite stuff to make sure it goes to people who will appreciate it. He could itemize all these records and maximize the profits by selling online or in one of those hipster ass gentrified “vinyl” shops, but he told me he just wants people to enjoy the music, so he just makes sure they look good and clean and he stuffs them into boxes and let’s folks sort through it themselves and buy it cheap. “That’s probably not best for business though,” I told him one time when he explained all this to me. “Yeah, you get assholes that get mad you hadn’t gone through everything and picked out exactly what they want and charge them a higher price for it. They got more money than time, so don’t wanna put in the work of digging through a bunch of boxes for treasure, because they think everything is as simple as buying it.” And I couldn’t disagree, naturally, because it’s an imaginary flea market that don’t exist, and why this world is not my home. I can’t have my treasure here.