#agingdetective

Samba Guy squinted at his iPhone 7. He was glad he went ahead and stuck with Apple. He was close to following through on a new Samsung Galaxy S8 after a particularly positive experience at the Samsung pop up shop in San Francisco. He had been a long-time iPhone user and zealot, but lately some of the choices the company was making had rubbed him the wrong way and he was eager to see how Samsung compared. Thinking back on this now, as he scrolled through Twitter, he was happy he stayed loyal. Besides, the wireless EarPods are too cool looking to pass up. His thumb stopped on a post from an aging media and music writer he still diligently follows and looks up to. (The man is now Head of Quizzes at Buzzfeed, a position Samba Guy likes to daydream about holding himself.) The post extols the virtues of the new book "Meet Me In The Bathroom," by some woman, which, Samba Guy has gleaned, recounts the heady post-9/11 days of NYC indie rock. The Strokes. LCD Soundsystem. Others probably. The book surely held a king's ransom in insider anecdotes and music knowledge from the sweetest era in music history. The beginning of the beginning. The Strokes and the other NYC bands from that time were life-changing for Samba Guy when he first heard about them 4-6 years later. He needed this book.

He'd been seeing posts about it from other aging music scribes on Twitter for the last few days and was very interested. Now, seeing the Head of Quizzes gushing praise before him, he, feeling chatty and a itching to insert himself somewhere, to be, always, a part of things, replied to the tweet: "Should I buy the print edition of this, or am I good with digital? I agonize over this choice with all my book purchases these days" Ha, Samba Guy thought. What a dry rejoinder. He was surely laughing to himself. The "agony" he felt in such decisions was real, but he played it up to comic effect for the Head of Quizzes. Several minutes later, the Head of Quizzes replied, "it doesn't matter just get it" Oh. Well that wasn't quite the caliber of tete-a-tete Samba Guy was hoping for. Nevertheless, he persisted. "Digital, then regretting it, then spending more money on the paperback in a year it is, then!" he shot back. Suddenly feeling very drained, Samba Guy tabbed over to Amazon and ordered the Kindle version, hesitating another agonizing second before finalizing his purchase. He downloaded the book then turned his torso right and left, stretching at his standing desk. He turned up the volume on the new Mountain Goats album, "Goths," which he had been giving a listen on Spotify throughout this entire exchange. He liked it, but thought he was probably good with the digital. Meanwhile, in a barren forest, sitting inside a small wooden house, the hairs on the back of Detective Aging Mountain Goats Superfan's neck stood up. He paused, and to hold his place, put the jewel case of Opeth's 1998 album "My Arms, Your Hearse" in the yellowed pages of the "WWE Encyclopedia" he was rereading. He turned his head, in the direction of San Francisco. Hundreds of miles away. He rose and moved to a small shelf, containing CDs and cassettes, mostly early Mountain Goats demos and a few one-of-a-kind mixes John Darnielle had made himself. (The way he had obtained these personal mixes was something Detective Aging Mountain Goats Superfan was both passionately proud and ashamed of.) He selected a CDr, lifting it to the light with his bony fingers. Through the plastic case, in Sharpie, written, be believed, by John Darnielle's own hand, it said "goths - rough - merge 11/4/16". "Someone...listens. Someone who is unfamiliar with the whole oeuvre," he said. "They must stop. The truth is darker than blood." He pressed the disc to his chest. Sent from my iPhone