Entertainment For Lively Minds
Dispatches from the front
Those members of the Massive who have worked in retail will probably be familiar with Frank Zappa's great quote along the lines of "stupidity being the most plentiful substance in the universe".
I'm sure those who have done service behind a record store counter have a wealth of stories to tell which bear this out. I've got a million of 'em, but just off the top of my head, here are a few of my recent run-ins with Joe Public:
I recently sold a Best Of The Pogues CD (clearly marked as such) to a women who was at great pains to establish that it wasn't a live album because "I don't like to hear lots of clapping".
A bloke became quite abusive when I, er, disabused him of the notion that The Doors were an Australian band. It turned out he'd recently been to a quiz night and clearly misheard a trick question about "which member of the Doors was born in Melbourne". Melbourne, Florida, that is! Wake up!
A furious women brought back a CD by 90s American band Ugly Kid Joe, threw it on the counter and declared it to be "rubbish". No arguments there, but then it transpired that she thought she'd purchased an album by world artist Angélique Kidjo.
People will often stand at the counter and attempt to sing the nameless song they're looking for. One man desperately wanted what he described as "the famous football song 'Once In A Meadow' - you must know it!". When that drew a blank stare from me, he sighed and launched into a lusty yet tuneless Guantanamera.
Then there was the man who thought Elvis Costello was an Elvis impersonator.
And this stuff happens all day every day.
Beam me up Scotty!
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I had some choice ones when I worked in a Virgin Megastore...
although they weren't music related.
On separate occasions I was asked if we sold shoes, honey and magnets.
Do you ...
On seperate occaisions I was asked if we sold decals for motorbike windshields and if we hired out sunbeds. I worked in a bookshop.
You can develop a sixth sense about some of the more abstract enquiries. I was once asked if we had a book, about a young man, or it might be a boy, who goes on a journey and it changes his life. This could be pretty much any book from The Odyssey onwards, but the BBC's Great Reads show was running at the time, so I took a punt and said, 'Is it Pauolo Coehelo's The Alachemist?' 'That's the one!' However, no-one can help the customer who says, 'I'm looking for a book that my fiend used to have and it's got a blue cover. Do you have it?' And they are legion.
My favourite revenge was when a customer literally ran into the shop shortly before we closed, came to the till, and gasped, 'Where can I find religion?!' I slapped my chest and cried, 'In your heart, brother, halelujah!!!' He didn't seem to find this as funny as I did.
Working in an office in the early Nineties
One of the secretaries asked me what music I liked:
"Oh, Indie stuff, mainly" I replied.
"What, all that 'Oh bhut-bhut-bhut' stuff?" she said, in her best "comedy" Indian accent.
...
Customers, honestly.
The other day a middle-aged square guy came in requesting a copy of I Just Called To Say I Loved You by Stevie Wonder for his daughter's birthday.
I asked him if he even KNEW his daughter, told her there was no way she liked that record, then asked if she was in a coma. He said 'fuck you' and walked off in a huff.
You oughta
make a film out of that!
True Stories, told live
Received from a chum last week;
Woman, from out of the public; Do you have season 3 of The Ghost Whisperer?
Me, from out of ***; Let me check on our system. No, we've sold out, but it is on order and will be back in stock within the next couple of days. Would you like me to put one aside for you?
Wfootp; But how come you have season 1 and 2, and haven't you got season 3?
Me; We've sold out, but it is on order and will be back within the next couple of days. *smile*
Wfootp; Well, that's rubbish. I don't understand how you can have 1 and 2 but not 3.
Me; We had some, then we sold them, some more will be here soon. *slightly more forced smile*
Wfootp; Don't bother. I didn't really want it anyway. *exit, pursued by shoe, thrown by me*
I didn't really throw a shoe. A bit of a strop, but not a shoe.
The customer isn't *always* wrong.
In the days before t'internet if anyone wanted to check an obscure release, we had to look it up in the big red book - the Music Master, repository of all recorded knowledge. After throwing the same old man out on several occasions for taking the piss, our manager finally looked one night. Turns out there *is* an artist called Nosmo King...
But which Nosmo King?
This one?
Or this one?
As cheeky teenagers
we enjoyed going into record shops and asking "have you got any Balls?" Exit sniggering lads with a verbal clip around the ear.
Balls - short-lived group featuring Trevor Burton, Steve Gibbons & Denny Laine.
In a bookshop
A customer who absolutely insisted that there was a book called "Ken Livingston Seagull". I did my bit and looked it up on all known databases but surprisingly, no joy. He wasn't happy. I think he realised he'd made a mistake but he wasn't going to back down, to which I can only say, respeck!
Ken Livingston Seagull
Brilliant. That's up there with the George Formby Grill.
I even thought
of writing it myself. But couldn't be arsed.
Before the days of 118 and Dave Bedford clones
my sister used to work for BT as an operator, which included stints on directory enquiries. Apart from heavy breathers and Simpsonesque requests for a number for "Amanda Hugnkiss", it was quite common to be asked for the number for the pub across the road from the library, or the garage next door to the chemists. Rarely was it appreciated that this wasn't quite enough to go on.
She was based in Newbury and calls were routed locally. On days when there was horse racing on, there would be no end of callers, much the worse for wear, trying to find cabs, bookies or even their own name and addresses. Or a distressed French punter wanting a number in "Enlee Ontombs". To you or I, Henley-on-Thames.
We have one bloke
who regularly comes in and asks if we have any new rock & roll "copulations"
We then direct him to the various artists section.
Anyone mention 'The Loneliest Monk'?
I was in the Notting Hill M&V Exchange about 6 months ago and an American lady came up to the counter with a wad of Micchael Jackson vinyl
'Have you see this?' she bellowed at the usual sleepy staff
'Whats that?'
She pointed at the price label which was labelled 'Jacko'. 'This!'
"Its just shorthand for-"
'No it isn't!!!. Its offensive to his memory'
After 30 seconds of being ignored she said 'Isn't anyone going to address this?' before picking up a pen and ammending about 25 LPs with his full name before stomping out of the shop.
"Least we didn't put 'Peado'" said a wag from next to the stereo
On the other side of the counter
I was a Hall & Oates fan (still am I suppose).
Back in the 80's I went into my local record shop looking for a new release by H&O and asked the rather beautiful female shop assistant:
" Excuse me but have you got Everything Your Heart Desires?"
she replied:
"I do, now piss off".
...........
Gave Up Asking Friends and Relatives To Buy Albums as Gifts..
...cos they could never find them. My Sister bless her heart used to try. Asked one year to buy Yes' The Ladder - and she wondered why she got funny looks when she asked for the new one by Yes "The Bladder."
When I worked....
in Virgin Megastore a girl came into the shop looking to return a CD. Only problem was that all she had was the jewel case! No CD, proof of purchase etc. She said that she had received it as a present and didn't like it. Brilliant!
Son and heir
S&H worked in HMV when they were selling Penguin Classics (maybe still do).
Had customer asking for books by Doctor Yevsky
This tale was told to me by the manager of a branch...
of Waterstone's in London. Some years back a gentleman (if that is the right word) would visit the Hampstead branch who - how shall I put this? - found reading Dickens novels in public sexually arousing and would satisfy his urges in the bookshop in full view of anyone who happened to be standing nearby. Staff would gently suggest to him that he might do better to read 'Bleak House' at home.
If
he was showing off that regularly who he was shaking hands with the recommendation should surely have been Our Mutual Friend
Hard Times
That's all.
Maybe he was reading
A Sale Of Two Titties
I'm Ronnie Barker, goodnight
Whenever he walked in the bookshop,
there must have been some, erm, "Great Expectations" amongst the staff.
My stint in a record shop...
... didn't last long enough to come up with any interesting tales, but I did spend 14 years in TV and hi-fi retail, and boy do I have the scars to prove it!
A couple of things that spring to mind (don't worry - there's loads more):
A customer brought in an amplifier one day that wasn't working. I asked him what the problem was. "It hums" he said. "Maybe it's just forgotten the words?" I replied. He didn't even crack a smile.
Back in the early 80s there was a Russian satellite and you could - with the right equipment - receive live Russian TV. Well, you could, but you wouldn't want to. Seriously, there were 3 different types of programmes - news, farming and ballet. That was it. One day a bloke came in to buy some blank tapes and on his way out the shop he stopped to look at the TV that had a great big tent card sitting on top of it which said something to the effect of "YOU ARE WATCHING LIVE RUSSIAN TV VIA THE GORIZONT SATELLITE!!"
"What's that?" he asked me. ""As the sign says (I said pointing at the sign) it's Russian TV. It's live via satellite." "No it's not" he said firmly. "It is!" I pleaded. "Look!" and I changed the channels so he could see BBC1, BBC2, ITV and then the Russian satellite channel. He pointed to the power cord and the coax cable connected to floor mounted sockets under the TV. "It's a video" he said. "A video?" If it's a video where's the VCR, then?" I asked him. "You've got it hidden away somewhere" he said. After another 5 minutes of verbal jousting I gave up and said to him "You know what, mate? You're right. There's no such thing as satellites. It's all on tape."
"Aha!" he exclaimed. "I knew it! I knew you were trying to fool me with that satellite nonsense" and with that he left the shop with a satisfied look on his face.
Please don't go there
with this talk of "no such things as satellites".
We'll have Patrick Moore posting on here before you know it..
;-}
Sommelier-like teen spirits
When I was shelf-stacking in the wines and spirits section of a suburban supermarket, I was gangly and spotty and very obviously a greasy and disgraceful 15 year old. I wore a brown, ill-fitting warehouse coat.
I was the very lowest in the supermarket food chain - lower even than the Man Who Always Walked Sideways - who never said a word, except the occasional "woof!" to himself, who was employed to gather trolleys from all corners of the precinct.
So why oh why oh why did *so* many people approach me asking for my opinion on certain wines or advice regarding various malt whiskies?
After a while, I started to enjoy sharing made-up knowledge because it was what the punters seemed to want. They walked away happy.