Let’s flashback to Saturday, April 21, 2018. It’s a beautiful spring day here in the Music
City which I was hoping would be a good sign for I was on the hunt. You see, this day was Record Store Day and I
was on the hunt for the Warner Bros. single disc reissue of the 1999 album.
Since I am one of those nocturnal creatures of the night, I had just gotten off
work, quickly changed clothes and Ms. Spooky and I made our way to nearest
Wrecka Stow where a line had already formed. We took our place in line like the
good obedient automatons that society has turned us into meanwhile I could not
shake the image of the lines of children marching into the meat grinder from
Pink Floyd’s The Wall. As we stood with the 200 or so other people in front of
us, we idly chit-chatted and listened to the banal ramblings of three soon-to-be
lawyers as they discussed how they had the solutions to all of the world’s
problems. Even as one of them talked about how he couldn’t manage to even
parallel park his car. Wait… what? You
can’t parallel park your car but you can solve the world’s problems? Okay there
Skippy McGriffin!!! Sorry, I digress, but I had to listen to Skippy and the
Wonder Twins for almost two hours until the store opened. While waiting in line, I discovered that
several people in front of me were also in search of the same record I was.
Hmmmm… this did not bode well for me. I needed to come up with a Plan ‘B” but
what could that be? Then inspiration struck me. Well, not really. I wouldn't say it struck me or that I was actually inspired at all. You see, what happened was I actually
got a message on Twitter from my friend Gina in Ohio.
Seems Gina was in search of 1999 as well and was having much better
luck. Where I was in line with hundreds
of others, she was at her local Wrecka Stow with just a couple of people. So Plan “B” was born. If she could, she would grab an extra copy of
1999 for me just in case I couldn’t grab one for myself. So we waited.
As time crawled past with glacier like speed, I followed
Gina’s progress on Twitter since she is an hour ahead of me. She breezed in to her local Wrecka Stow and
snatched up her copy of 1999 but alas, a copy for me was not to be found. But
not one to give up, the campaign quickly turned to another Wrecka Stow that she
knew had a couple of copies of the album.
Meanwhile, the line I was in slowly inched its way inside my Wrecka Stow
here in Music City. Another update from Gina to let me know that she had
arrived at Checkpoint Bravo and that golden goose had flown the coop, in other
words, she was at the new Stow but they were sold out of 1999. Damn! Plan “B” isn't looking too hot right now!
Finally I make my way into my local Stow and what do you know, no 1999. Not a
copy to be found anywhere, which is exactly what I feared. Ms. Spooky decided
to ask one of the employees, you know just in case we had overlooked it or it was
in some special place we hadn’t thought of looking. So she finds an employee, some 20-something
kid with shaggy-mop hair that looks like he’s closer to 12 years old and asks
him if they have 1999 by Prince. He
says, “Prince? Hmmm… Prince is probably in the ummmm. Probably in the P’s. I’d check in that area.” Wow!!! Thank you
sooo much. I would never have guessed to look there. Someone call NASA and let
them know that I found their missing rocket scientist. On a side note, do you
know how hard it is to type while you are rolling your eyes? Pretty damn
hard. Anyway, back to the Mensa-Man of
the Year candidate and our search for the ever-elusive 1999. So after the shocking epiphany of checking in
the “P” section, I decided it was time to leave. As I slowly walked to the car, head hanging
in defeat, I sent Gina a message to let her know that we had failed miserably also but
thanks for trying. She replied back,
“Good news! I got you one!” Apparently while I was dealing with the rocket
surgeon (yeah, rocket surgeon – you know - part rocket scientist, part brain surgeon), she
had gone to a third Wrecka Stow and hit the jackpot. Then after a few days
wait, I received a package in the mail and I was the proud owner of a Record
Store Day 2018 Exclusive single-disc re-issued Prince album 1999.
This is what the Purple Army is all about.
True Funk Soldiers coming together in the
spirit of Love 4 One Another and helping each other out. So thank you once
again, Gina and of course thank you for each and every day, Ms. Spooky! To the
rest of you, remember to Love 4 One Another, Love 4 Each Other, Love 4 Us All!
Peace, B-Wild & Stay Funky!!!
