Comments

1

Webmastering?

2
This is the downside of the constant pace of innovation and novelty we've become accustomed to. Some innovations are "competency destroying", they negate the advantage of experience and turn it into the liability of assumption drag. People who are accustomed to profession A can have a hard time letting go when it's time to move on to B, C, or D.

Don't be too down on yourself if you fall into this situation. You still have many transferrable skills that can help you launch a new career, you just aren't aware of them or how to market them. Selling is selling, no matter what's being sold. Once you master the technique you can learn to sell anything.

And older technologies tend never to go away completely. They often find a niche someplace with a new application. The fax machine was first invented in 1843 and went thru a few incarnations before it caught on. Ocean liners were on the ropes in the 1950s-60s; now the largest liners ever built are being launched, as cruise ships.

Embrace the shock of the old.
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I can't listen to vinyl on the bus. Records are dead. Some people get left behind. Adapt or die. Etc. etc. etc.
4
You're talking about Paul Constant except with records.
5
I wonder if there's a parallel for this in other categories of retail like groceries, apparel, or electronics.
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I have visited Randy Now's Record Store (http://www.mancavenj.com/) in Bordentown, NJ. He is an affable guy. It seemed like a big chunk of the store's inventory was his own personal collection. Hopefully the new documentary on City Gardens will open up new some new doors for him.
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@5 "I wonder if there's a parallel for this in other categories of retail like groceries, apparel, or electronics."

I should certainly hope not.

If I can't pop into my friendly neighborhood grocery store and have the shop clerk tell me the top five canned soups with lentils listed by year of release, or name the top three most influential orange foods and suggest their best followers, then food is dead to me.
8
Dead, just like journalism.
9
Rodney Bingenheimer? Have you not seen "Mayor of the Sunset Strip"? Oh, my God, drop everything and watch it NOW. The whole thing is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EDp2oHQ…

Warning: it's incredibly sad. Rodney's not adjusted well to the changes of which you speak. The scene of him sitting on his bed talking about how he wants to get married to his girlfriend, when it is apparent that she's not his girlfriend at all, is just painful. And the scenes of him getting jacked around by the bungholes at the radio station are ugly. But he's got a sweet charm that shines through. And a ton of memorabilia....
10
The thing about being a former record store employee is that what you used to do is unfathomable to the current generation and the generations to come...it's like being a wireless operator.

A good record store employee not only loved music but was an indispensable font of accumulated knowledge...and simply being "someone who knows a lot about stuff" stopped being a marketable commodity in the age of Google, Wikipedia and the All Music Guide.

So, it's not that there were no longer jobs tailored to our skills...or places to work...but that suddenly "what we knew" stopped mattering to anyone. And that's what burrows into your heart as the years go by.

"Hey, there's this song...I don't remember the words, the title or who it's by...but it kind of went like this--" were often the best parts of my day.

(Former Orpheum employee, 1992-2003)
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@10
you could become a dj.... or a nurse.
( married former orpheum employees 1984 - 2001 )
12
@10: flog your services to Hollywood as a music consultant.
13
As a former record store alumni, and one that's still in touch with many of my former coworkers through social media, it's been interesting to see the ones that were able to adapt to the post-retail world and those who are stuck in the retail rut, moving from bookstore to bookstore like polar bears jumping from ice patch to ice patch.
I still love music and record stores, but now I just spout useless trivia about producers and tracks and my friends roll their eyes.
14
As you well know, Riz, I was a dj... :)

(And you've got the best nurse I know. Can't follow that!)

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