Full Mental Jacket, Part I

Something happens to me every pay day. I get this Herculean rush to go to the nearest electronics store and fondle all the light-blinking, sound-emitting gewgaws I can lay my paws on. Stereos, phones, MP3 players, televisions, recording devices, portable thingies and so on. Show me a combination DVD player, cell phone, toast-maker and I'm fantasizing in the bathroom stall at work just how complete my life would be with one of those beauties in my hands. But, it doesn't end with electronics, my friends. You see, I am one of the more obsessive music and movie collectors of our time. And here is where we begin our journey.

I'll invariably stroll into the nearest Best Buy store, drunk with a freshly-restocked bank account. The sliding doors welcome me like an old friend and caress me with promises of eternal ecstasy. In the movie "Full Metal Jacket," a character named Private Payback says:

"That's because you don't have the stare. The thousand-yard stare. It's like you can see...beyond."

Damn straight. There I was, standing threateningly in shorts and a windbreaker, dramatically pausing near the carts like a Tyrannosaurus eyeballing a shallow tank of overfed seals. Forget the fact that seals most likely were not around in the Triassic Period - I was a man with blood on his fangs after a few gullet-loosening burps. I decided to be systematic in my approach. Now, this is important because it's the one thread that connects me with my withering attachment to humanity in these situations. Casually, I circle the cardboard display of whatever new special-edition DVD they're shoving into our mitts. I lean in and give it a sniff, trying to locate any evidence of Julia Roberts, Jim Carrey or Sandra Bullock. Luckily, there was no trace of any of them, and I loosened my grip on the emergency vial of penicillin I carried with me. With reptilian cool, I scan the $9.99 mini-kiosks for movies that beg to be added to my personal stash. This is all a preliminary ruse - sort of like looking at the "lite" section of the menu when you know you aren't leaving the restaurant without a few bones from a porterhouse left spinning on the plate.

I drop all pretense and hit the CD section - I'll cover DVDs another time. Immediately, all albums (yes, I still call them "albums") I had listed in my mind as must-haves systematically disappear from my memory. I'm stuck in the music tar pits, surrounded by some of the worst selections of music in one of the darkest and least impressive eras of creative performance in recorded history. Pasty nancy-boy guitar bands with gratingly whiny singers who are as alien to proper usage of the bass guitar as Homer Simpson is to a salad fork. And when it isn't wimpy "rockers" cluttering up the shelves, it's the Colorform blonde dingbats who are as overproduced and over-processed as Healthy Choice brand lunchmeat. Let us also not forget the thundering static of idiot bands whose only attribute is to play as fast and loud as humanly possible, shouting 3rd-grade lyrics, wearing all black clothing, soul patches, and tattoos as if that is supposed to prove how tough they are. Doesn't anyone remember melody? And speaking of lack of melody, rap music, for all of its social worth, has dissolved into bragging how much Cristal champagne they have in their "cribs," how much "bling" they have on their "grill" and how much "talent" they have. Amazing how boastful these performers can be about talent when they haven't picked up a musical instrument in their lives.

Perhaps you have seen the mushrooming "Essentials" industry in the music section of your favorite store. You know the ones I'm talking about: The Essential Billy Joel, The Essential Earth, Wind & Fire, The Essential Bonnie Raitt. They're "essentially" "Best of..." collections featuring the hits AM radio and easy-listening, white bread adult-contemporary FM stations keep on life support. As I was perusing the "Essential Neil Diamond/Alabama/Sade" CDs, I came across - are you ready for it? - "The Essential Iron Maiden". Well, color me constipated. Since when did speed-metal gargoyles like Iron Maiden qualify for the wire racks that have only known the shadows of khakis and fanny packs?

Frustrated by the bitch-goddess of my failing memory, I end up weaving my way through the aisles like a blind orb spider, touching and sensing anything that might leap off the shelf, into my cart, and change my life. Instead, I pick up a Cream album, turn it over, rejoice at the song list, then toss it back into the bin in disgust because "White Room" isn't on it.

Maybe I'll wait for "The Essential Cream".