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omegaremix · 15 days

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MRKE, 2021.

It’s April. To me, I feel that nothing’s changed. By now I know that all of my favorite businesses to patronize stayed open. Not one record store on the island shuttered. So far, I was proud of myself to visit Williamsburg’s Rough Trade before their relocation this summer. It was the best $417.00 I ever spent. A pinball parlor opened up at my former local mall to my total surprise. It’s something that Long Island never had before. For eight hours and $25.00 I had more than my money’s worth. It’s safe to say that most of the money is coming back again, even if the third stimulus has no face or feelings of how people either benefit or still suffering. Businesses re-opened after New York State’s mandated closures, like my local ticket arcade where I benefit from buy-twenty-get-twenty specials and half-off games on Wednesdays so I’m relieved. It’s been years since I went and I’m long overdue for a night out of a real life 2021 version of The Price Is Right.

My friend M-Ro, brother of archivist and WUSB’s J-Ro, had been out of a job since the cinema-house closed down. He’s done nothing but stay home with his four kids watching infinite amounts of Disney, long-forgotten sitcoms, and other cringy obscurities. Not long ago, he started working again with a friend who later changed career paths and decided to open Pickle Island, a pickle house in Oyster Bay. He offered M-Ro to help run the place and Pickle Island is now a two-man operation.

I hate pickles. I think they’re disgusting, unappetizing, and revolting, They’re an unattractive food to me. I’d never have a reason to buy them ever, ergo be near a pickle house. But when your friend sells part of their CD and video collections there, then you do have a reason to go. I always support my friends with what they do. Snakeskin belts, local shows, photography books, or new ventures. You sell it, I buy it. I haven’t seen M-Ro since one of his final live performances of This’ll Kill Ya’ for his bro-’s bornday at a crowded bar in Hauppauge, so it’s about time I do.

I traveled west on the Long Island Expressway / Rt. 495 and drove past Exit 46, Sunnyside Blvd. / Plainview, where a once-astonishing world of fresh faces and memories that opened up my junior year was an era long dead. Then up north on Rt. 106 / 107. The last time I traveled down that path was when I worked at the Jewish center post-senior year. I got the girl, a Dutch caramel blonde, and also got the job through her father; a mean, threatening, over-protective scumbag who had me on his shit-list for two summer months because I was dating his daughter. I drive up Rt. 106 / Oyster Bay Rd.’s silent, wide-open, grassy roads riding past the stables and million-dollar houses on hills. View the scenic picturesque neighborhoods and one would think how Nassau County sits at the top ten highest-taxed neighborhoods in the entire U.S. Go up North Shore Rd. and see an amazing grandiose view of the harbor’s massive body of water as you coast over the Bayville Bridge and slide into the parking lot across from Pickle Island. I see M-Ro through the storefront, sitting on the couch minding his own as I walk in. He sees me walking towards and waves hello as I come in.

I unintentionally give him a friendly good-to-see-ya’-again hug. Oops. I realized you’re not supposed to do that in a pandemic world. But it’s two weeks after the fact and we’re still alive. After a few lines of conversation, I said to him that it’d be quick and he knows.

I’m not here for the pickles. I’m here to see what CDs he’s selling. It’s already cramped quarters. A Ms. Pac-Man cocktail cabinet sits behind the front window. There’s a few racks of issues of Captain America, Green Lantern, and Wolverine. Another rack of VHS tapes and a shelf of DVDs and Blu-rays. Then the CDs. They’re from his collection. Some duplicates and others he didn’t care about parting, he says. Eight rows or sixteen shelves of discs in total which would take me no more than ten to fifteen minutes to scan…and some neck pain from having to see it all sideways because that’s how he placed them, you Tetris artist. I’m already positioned in blocking the owner from going behind the front counter. And an all-too-nice suburbanite family of three just walked in; a father and his two kid who are all so fine and dandy to be there. As if they never experienced a bad day or tragedy in their white-winged innocent lives. Nice to know that Dad Of The Year never looked in my direction and wondered why a stranger is twisting over by the shelves.

Seeing his partial stash, M-Ro was never one to shy away from pop. Jewel, Head Automatica, Pretty Girls Make Graves, some pop-punk, first and third-wave ska, Warped Tour bands…no judgment here. Because he’s a solo artist who goes by The Matt Roren Karaoke Experience doing covers and music videos of various popular chart-topping hits. Before that, he was also part of the legendary local pop-punk / ska band The Microwave Orphans and after that the garage-punk outfit The Repercussions which I ended up getting two CDs of. Don’t Fear…and Modern Sounds were the two most expensive discs I bought at $7.00 and $10.00 respectively, still sealed. Come on. You have to support your friends.

As with any receipt, there’s plenty of firsts. This one, however, had the majority of them. Veruca Salt, Faith No More, and The Posies were bands that my alternative circles of friends from both Brentwood and Plainview were into. A low price point allows me to have them now for the first time. Stabbing Westward, as it’s industrial rock, is in my hands. The Presidents Of The United States Of America? Yes. They wrote that song about peaches so that’s valid. Why not get The Stooges first album with a second disc of live material? And being I have their second album, why not get the first from The Specials? It’s one of the very select few ska bands I’ll allow in my collection. None of that too-important elitist third-wave carnival music. I don’t think I have Phil Collins’ But Seriously, and he was someone I listened to feverishly during my Nintendo youth. And Richard Marx? None of you know who he is and if you did you wouldn’t dare mention his name. But I will. My ma’ loved him and once had the cassette. So both middle digits flying high to you all.

As M-Ro counted up the tab, I look to my right and there it was: a Sony Watchman. It’s the third one in two months I seen. My interest in them started when during my Saturday shift, one of my favorite customers, a young 20-ish redhead with glasses asked me for a power bank. On my way of showing them to her, she mentioned about buying some more accessories for her Watchman. I’m not much of a movie person so that kind of flew over me until she showed me an actual Sony Watchman handheld TV. She took it out of the box and turned it on for me. I almost dropped dead in front of her. I read about these things all the time but never saw one in the wild. Now here it was. She recently bought one at Savers for only $4.00 and bought an analog-to-digital converter from us to try and stream it to her flat-screen TV. She even went a step further and told me the manufacture date on it: 1985. The fact that it was her holding obsolete antiquated technology in her hands and was still in working condition made my entire month for me. I told this story to my friends at the radio station and our resident fantasy aficionado Captain Phil offered to send me one from his eBay store, which I’m now a proud owner. Pickle Island had a larger unit sitting on its counter showing a random movie and I’m wondering if some talking head, celebrity, influencer, or magic cartoon kangaroo on Instagram recently touted them for everyone to grab.

This one-and-done expedition was just as quick as when I visited Rosie’s Vintage three years ago, but not the least expensive. $62.00 later, I was the proud owner of a piece of M-Ro’s life. Not a gift, but a purchase. Being Pickle Island is not a legitimate music store by any means, it doesn’t count towards my record-store victory tour. I thanked M-Ro profusely for my patronage and told him to stay in touch which he would. It’s now time to reverse the drive home under partly cloudy blue skies with a playlist of past Springtime discoveries as the evening’s soundtrack. I’ll get to experience the harbor one more time and get an idea of where to take a scenic shoot in the near future. I’m not taking the L.I.E. this time as it’s cramped with traffic but this time the Northern State to Rt. 25, Rt. 345, and Rt. 454 all the way through. I’ll log on to social media for all of my friends and allies at WUSB to hear about because I never shut up about what I bought. I need the assurance and affirmation from everyone which I bought with my money today and, so far so good, it’s favorable. Then I see this posted under my purchase:

“You’re lucky I left some stuff for you.” said his brother J-Ro.

You don’t say! I had no idea some of his collection was mixed in for sale with his brother’s. So which ones, exactly? Unlike his offering, the stuff I left for him from my collection was totally free and not out of pocket. Take that to the bank and cash it in.

Repercussions, The: Don’t Fear…

Stabbing Westward: Wither Blister Burn + Peel

Stooges, The: self-titled

Veruca Salt: American Thighs

Phil Collins: But Seriously

Faith No More: Songs To Make Love To

Lacuna Coil: Karmacode

Richard Marx: Repeat Offender

Posies, The: Frosting On The Beater

Specials, The: self-titled

Presidents Of The United States Of America, The: self-titled

Raveonettes, The: Whip It On