iEATcars!

I decided to grab a cup of coffee at the gas station this morning, and as I drove to work, listening to synthpop and sipping on my vanilla cappuccino, I was reminded of a local record store hangout from when I was in high school. Tarantula.

It’s still a funny thing to me, how our taste buds change as we get older. How we grow to love the things we could have never seen trying to consume without immediately dying afterwards. Broccoli. Beer. Coffee. I don’t remember when it was that I started liking coffee, but I certainly remember a time when I couldn’t grasp the concept of liking it. It was awful to me.

Named after the book by Bob Dylan, Tarantula brought with it a breath of fresh air when it moved into a neighborhood that was predominantly centered around the gangster rap culture. This record store meets coffee house meets concert venue quickly became a safe harbor for the burnouts, punks and whoever else feeling out of place or alone. Owned and operated by guys we idolized; guys not hung up on who you were, necessarily, but what you listened to.

It was because I loved this place so much, that I was so incredibly eager to work there. I would have worked for nothing, because just being able to say that I was a part of this magnificence was payment enough. I just wanted in. So much so that when I met with the owner, Nick, to discuss the possibilities of employment, I jumped at the chance to have a cup of coffee with the man.

As we chatted about life and music, I pretended to enjoy every last drop of what could have been horse piss the way I enjoyed it. But it didn’t matter. I wasn’t about to let this man think I wasn’t cool enough to belong or, in the very least, think that I was ungrateful. So there I sat, cringing on the inside with every sip and smiling all the while.

“Well, I’d love to have you work here, man. I would. But I’m just starting out and I certainly don’t have the funds to pay employees.”

“Seriously, I don’t have to get paid. Hell, you can pay me in CDs for all I care.”

“You really want to work here, huh?”

“I do.”

“I just wouldn’t feel right having someone work for me that wasn’t getting paid on the up and up. I appreciate the eagerness, but maybe later down the road.”

And that was it. There I was miserable from the coffee that I had suffered through and feeling so rejected, but ultimately, Nick couldn’t shake me and I became a regular, getting a lot more out of that store than the occasional record and view to a great concert. More than just providing music to the people that frequented it, Tarantula had a way of instilling wisdom and relaxing restless souls. Tarantula quite quickly went from record store to an extension of the family. They were my long lost brothers.

That’s why it hurt so bad when they finally closed their doors. More than just flipping the open sign on a small business that failed to survive, we were saying good bye to a loved one… like the weeping widows at a funeral on a cold, rainy day.

And as I sat here today finishing my last sips of coffee, it dawned on me the irony in how I now really enjoy a good cup of coffee and how every drop of that hot goodness reminds me of those times. I miss you, Tarantula.