A Dream I Had About Opening A Record Store

December 24, 2022

I dreamt I opened a record store. Somehow it all started by hanging out by the train tracks in a rough part of town with some low lifes. (Doesn't it always?) The store front was huge and cost me almost nothing. We had high ceilings. We also served breakfast. Friends like Tony Keefer, Bryan Dilsizian and Bradley James came to work part time at the store for free simply because it was cool to hang out there. There were two entrances including one that never locked so people could come and go as they pleased. The cash register was an open till where our trustworthy customers left exact change. I walked all around the building taking pictures of the store to send to friends out of town. In particular I remember thinking, "Jeff Walls is gonna love this place." The storefront was located near an urban beach. I swam out into the water to get a picture of the storefront looking back at the beach from out in the ocean. There was a bunch of people out in the water and many of them were talking about the store because they just discovered it and thought it was a cool addition to the neighborhood. The interior walls were covered with rough unfinished wood, just like the original Mole's Record Exchange on Short Vine. (Now home to Mike's Music.) I immediately began displaying my own collection of records, posters, odd little figurines, and Rock & Roll paraphernalia on rickety wooden shelves in the store. The dream took place over a long span of time, not some isolated incident or one day in the life. Folks really started responding to our breakfast and we started making a little money. Very little money. Like, a hundred bucks a week. My employees were shocked at how good the tips were. At the end of one week when I handed Tony Keefer $21 he said, "What's this?" Not expecting to be paid at all, just happy to be working there, he turned around and spent it on records in the store. His tips were good that week too, but all in dimes for some reason. We sold used vinyl only. No new product and no CDs. At one point I remember walking to the bank to get change and on the way back to the store I realized that I would never pay taxes again because my business did so poorly. But when I got back to the store there were people waiting for me to open up. Others were already inside shopping because of course we had that other door that never locked.

Never not even once in my entire life have I given serious consideration to opening my own record store. But after waking from this dream at 5:00 in the morning I couldn't go back to sleep.