But I can still remember nearly fucking jizzing myself as a teenager rolling into Carytown to hit Plan 9 Records - maybe there was some Clash import, maybe there was finally gonna be a copy of Leave Home with Carbona Not Glue there for sale...hell, I remember trying to buy the cardboard cutout of the Rocket to Russia cover they had behind the counter for years...my heart would be pounding, until I entered the place and every single I'd dreampt about looking for throughout the previous weeks flew out of my head, and I panicked. Or, of course, got hit on by gay dudes.
TRUE STORY ALERT: I had never heard of Johnny Cash's A Boy Named Sue until the moment my buddy Ryan tried to go to New Orleans. He had been dating a girl named Susan for a coupla years and decided to surprise her with a week in New Orleans. Unfortunately, her parents did not agree with this surprise (she was a senior in high school or, at most, a freshman in college), and informed him she could not go with him, leaving Ryan with an unused plane ticket. We were at his house grousing about it when his dad came up with the idea of fuck it, why don't I go and just claim I'm Susan? Of course I told him that was absurd, until he brought up A Boy Named Sue. Suddenly, me getting on the plane seemed possible...
...I didn't get on the plane, I got rejected immediately (and this was in 1991, 10 years before 2001), but I'll always remember Ryan's dad explaining A Boy Named Sue to us. Also, I've never apologized for being way too much of a man to have pulled this stunt off.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, Ryan found vinyl copies of the Ramones' first three albums while in New Orleans, something I certainly couldn't have done in fucking Tappahannock. It's hard to imagine now, with everything so easily accessible, but twenty years ago it was a big deal to find those Ramones albums; it was hard as hell to find music you loved back then.
And I still have them.
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