Have I ever told you the story about when I got lost in Brooklyn for a day?
I was thirteen years old, I must have been in seventh grade or so. I went up from D.C. to stay with my dad’s cousins in Manhattan because I had just gotten a job at a skate shop in Williamsburg only a few years before Williamsburg became completely… whatever you want to call it.
I remember a really expensive sandwich shop that had these weird vegetables on all of their sandwiches, like sprouts and spicy grass (which have since been redefined as “microgreens”). They had a bookshelf in the shop and a big sign over the shelf that read, “women like men who read”, of course I am not surprised Williamsburg is now full of these “men” who want “women who like men who read” and not women who like men. haha that's a good one.
Anyways!, it was the day before I started work and it was also the first time I had true independence from anyone in the whole world. As a young teen is likely to do, I hopped on a random train in Manhattan that a lady told me was going to Brooklyn. I had a flip phone and no more than twenty dollars in my pocket as I descended into the belly of the beast. I also had my innocence, but what the hell is that worth?
My goal was that I would SOMEHOW FIND the skate shop that I was about to start work the next day so I could introduce myself. I figured New York was big, but broken up into boroughs, it could not be that hard to locate a very specific business. I had no idea at the time that not everyone skateboards so not everyone, and in fact, no one would know what the fuck I was talking about.
Obviously, I had no luck finding this skate shop. Only over a decade later is that obvious to me…slightly embarrassing, but I gave it the best effort I could possibly give at that age. I remember after hours of walking up and down every block in order, that I started drifting towards a large bridge. I had no idea New York had more than one bridge, so when I told someone I just came from a bridge, and I am looking for a skate shop, they replied, “which bridge?”, oh boy that was not a good feeling.
Another hour later I found myself next to a factory that seemed to be empty but music was coming from a black door that was on the side of the factory. Then I saw a young man leave the factory with a skateboard. OH THANK THE LORD FINALLY!, “Hey man! I am totally lost and I am looking for this skate shop, do you have any idea where it could be?. He wasnt from the area either… I was completely out of luck, but the guy told me, “why dont you go inside this door right here, its pretty cool”.
Again, over a decade after all of this has happened, I now recognize what an absolutely awful idea it was to enter that seemingly abandoned factory. That being said, if I had not been thirteen at one point in my life, then this entire journey would never have happened and I would never have experienced what I was about to experience.
I pushed open the metal black door, and the music got louder. I took a step into the building and it felt like I was walking on grass, because I was walking on grass, the entire room I was in was covered in turf. I heard rushing water because there was a fucking man-made stream running through the middle of this room. Lining the walls, all the floor surrounding the stream, filled with records. “OH SHIT!” I say out loud and the guy behind the counter said, “expecting something else?” it took me nearly a full minute to recognize I had encountered a truly unique experience.
I asked the guy behind the counter what this place was and he told me it was a record store. I asked about the grass and the water and he said, “what, you don't like it?”. I thought that was kinda funny. I went over to a bin and started flipping through the records. I didnt recognize any of the bands or albums at all. They were all wrapped in cellophane so they must have all been new records. I asked the guy if they had any Cool Kids records because I was obsessed with those dudes back then. He had no fucking clue what I was talking about. So I had to ask him, what kind of music is all this shit?!
“HOUSE”
I thought he didn't understand my question, but I wanted to sound hip so I said, “Oh, cool”. I only knew hip-hop and had never heard of house music before. I quickly realized that looking at these records wouldn't mean much to me because I had no idea what I was looking for. So I found two records that physically looked interesting, but not based on any musical inclination. I remember one album I bought was on one side of the store and the other album was on the other, and I had to jump over the stream to get there. I had to jump the stream again to get back to the side with the cashier and I almost dropped the records in the water. I wonder if they have some kind of policy about that.
Eventually, I had to leave the store because they were closing. It was at that time that I realized I was just about as fucked as anyone has ever been because I have now forgotten how to get back to Manhattan. It is mid-February and had been dark for a while by the time I got outside again. I truly believe someone was looking out for me that night because someone pointed me in the CORRECT direction of the subway. The subway attendant put me on the RIGHT train back to Manhattan and I remembered the name of my stop literally as we pulled into it.
My innocence was thus in these records' hands as far as I was concerned. And boy has it been a wild ride. How many off-brand designer drugs I’ve done in warehouse raves resembling that record shop (without the grass and the stream) to the house music I purchased there that one cold lonesome day in Brooklyn. My idiot friends and my idiot self staying out all night with our idiot young female counterparts in clubs dancing to these same records. From thirteen to eighteen when I wanted to start producing some of that very same house music for myself.
Only a few years after that, I met some new friends, and they liked heavy metal. The story continues to this very day.
