Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Letter to a record store

Gimme Gimme Records closed for good on East Fifth Street Sunday. And on the last weekend, the following letter arrived.

[Click image to enlarge]

The letter writer, a woman named Harriet, has several items of business to discuss. First, does this store buy cassettes? There is also a hard-luck tale about "2 males from Long Island" who came to her apartment in Brooklyn and took her record collection. In all caps, she explains that she was supposed to be paid for all this.

I "thought to God I'd trust them, and I made a terrible mistake."

Lastly she'd like some REO Speedwagon CDs, specifically one that had the following three songs "ON THE SAME CD":

• Keep on Loving You
• I Can't Fight This Feeling
• Take it on the Run

"The store got a lot of weird letters like that. I figured I would put one up in honor of the last day," said Gimme Gimme clerk Eden Brower. "We sort of made fun of it, but I feel badly if her stuff really was stolen. People make up stories like that all the time to get records cheap or free. It's hard to tell who is scamming."

Meanwhile, Gimme Gimme owner Dan Cook has plans to eventually reopen the store in Los Angeles.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck in LA, Gimme. NYC is dead.

Anonymous said...

I used to take piano lessons with Mr. Tschudy inside the Gimme Gimme store on Sunday mornings. I wonder what he's going to do now that the store is closed?

Eden Bee said...

Richard will make house calls...as he sometimes does I assume. Poor Harriet..I would mail her the songs if I had them!

JamesChanceOfficial said...

That letter just about says it all...Long live REO.