Amoeba Music's 10th Anniversary: When You're Broke and Need a Fix, This Legendary Hollywood Store Has Had Your Back

I know I commented previously...but the fact that the city editor of the LA Weekly wrote Amoeba an apology letter (in which he admitted to not reading the article before it went to print, and it not being the concept that he & the writer agreed upon) yet the LA Weekly didn't think it apt to print it, or any other apology/retraction (or even rebuttal letters or comments) in the next weeks issue just gets me so riled up. So...LA Weekly, you are willing to apologize to Amoeba in private, but not in public? That is pretty sad.

I am not even going to comment on the article, except to say it was hilarious. The editor of this rag who gave the green light on this article should be fired. No question. 

For more than thirty years, I've been frequenting record stores across the country and all over the world.  I've found many wonderful stores, each with its own virtues -- some of which may be lacking at Amoeba.  Like coziness, or bathrooms, or carefully catalogued, meticulously graded collections of rare '60s soul 45s.  But, overall, there is no store, anywhere, in which I'd prefer to buy my music.  The prices are reasonable, the staff is knowledgeable and friendly, the continuously-rotating selection is comprehensive across all musical styles and playback formats, free performances by terrific artists are offered regularly, and nearly everyone in the place seems to love dogs.   (They're really nice to dogs at Amoeba.  They welcome dogs into the store, pause in their labors to play with them, offer them biscuits, and learn their names.  [These are, in the main, very, very nice people.  Sure, there a couple of surly dudes, but is any record store in the world completely surly-dude-free?  They're drummers, fergodsake.])  I don't work at Amoeba and never have.  I have no financial interest in the place.  I'm just a customer.  And I'm a regular trader at Amoeba.  I've been selling them my extra CDs and records since their initial pre-opening buying spree.  And I have never, ever been ripped off by an Amoeba buyer.   I have, on a number of occasions, been offered less money than I expected.  But I have just as frequently been offered more.  When buyers exceed my expectations, I nod my assent and take the credit slip with a smile.  When an offer falls short of my expectations, I negotiate.  I have, many times, simply pointed out to buyers what makes a particular item worth more than their initial assessment and been rewarded, after a moment's research, with an offer twice or three times the original figure.  Many times I've simply suggested a higher price.  On other occasions, I've had no success in persuading buyers to sweeten the deal.  And in those rare instances when I truly believe that my wares are being undervalued, I politely decline and walk away.   Ultimately, as a seller, it is impossible to be exploited by a buyer. So this is a pointless article, ill-conceived and poorly executed.  So what?   (The Weekly has been full of them since they decimated their writing staff, first years ago, when they lost Michael Ventura, Steve Erickson, Ann Powers, and numerous other world-class writers, and, more recently, with the dismissal of Harold Myerson.)   The problem, Mr. Groubert, is that you've failed to understand the basic nature of the buyer-seller relationship, you've ignored the facts, and you've inaccurately represented your subject matter.   Amoeba is a terrific store, staffed in large part with people of integrity.  Of course, institutionally, Amoeba attempts to maximize profits by buying low and selling high.  No trader enters the building without the full knowledge that they're dealing with a for-profit retail enterprise.  To suggest that there is something unfair or unethical about Amoeba's buying practices is ludicrous. Amoeba really is the best record store in the world.  Fortunately, your writing's abundantly evident inadequacy assures that your attack will have no effect its reputation.

This article may be the worst thing I have read in years, what a way to celebrate. L.A., SF, Berkely...your going to have your share of addicts and weirdos no doubt. What this has to to do with an independant record store going on it's 10th year in troubled times is beyond me. I would like to say my tenure working at the SF store was great, I met and worked with so many awesome people whom I won't forget and many I still maintain friendships with. Even when the job itself got repetitious, it weighs in a the most fun I've ever had at a job. There simply isn't anything like sharing your passion for music (no matter the genre) with co-workers, customers, tourists, musicians ect., from all over the world on a daily basis. Anyhow congrats on the ten years...and Mr. Groubert expect a punch in the face if you and I ever cross paths.

booyah! articles like this'll give Vice magazine a run for their ad money fo sho! congratulations!

I had not previously heard of Amoeba.  I live in the Valley and Hollywood is a million miles away.  I was excited to discover that there are still record stores and that I can sell my old records to as well.  The article didn't bother me at all.  I could care less what a reporter writes about a store, or, as long as we are talking about it, what a critic writes about a record. Some of my favorite records were bashed by "critics".  I will make a trip to Amoeba soon, just to check out what all the hubbub is all about.  Just a word of wisdom to those posting... the only concern I have about the whole deal is the angry responses from the employees.  I hope I get treated curteously and that the comments below are not a true reflection of the store employees.

Congratulations to Amoeba Music for surviving for 10 years in a market that has been decimated by hi-tech shoplifting and mainstream corporate greed.  It's a damn shame that the music/movie industry has been overtaken by corporate hacks that can't cultivate their product anymore because they saw dollar signs and overcharged for everything.  It's even a bigger damn shame that people think that just because something is available to be stolen, that you're justified in taking it.

As for the article, what could I expect from this hit piece culture that is the "press" in this town.  What's the matter, Jennifer Aniston wasn't bitching about Angelina Jolie this week, so you had to get together an article real quick about one of the only independent businesses still barely thriving in this corporate hell hole society?  This "junkies need money" story is the same whether it's a music store, pawn shop, blood bank, etc. except that you won't get stabbed to death trying to interview a person selling their stuff at Amoeba.  Good job on your hack writing abilities that will get you as far as writing about Selena Gomez farting at a Hollywood premiere.

Once again, many thanks to Amoeba Music for giving me hours upon hours of entertainment in my life.  And as for the author of this article that stole time from my life........well, you know.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... 

Dear Mark, it took me a while to respond to your articlebecause I’ve been working my ass off, at the place that you so inexplicablytrashed.  Allow me educate you as to whyyour article sucked.

If you wanted to write an article about the experiences ofcurrent and former junkies in Hollywood, that’s perfectly legitimate, but youshould have called it that, and used a giant picture of them, not ourstore.  You made it look like you werepresenting an article about our 10th anniversary, but it wasn’t thatat all, it represented only the experiences of a very small slice of ourcustomers, in only one section of our store.

I understand that they felt they had some bad experiences atour buy counter (and, from the tone of your article, so did you?), and, I feelfor them.  I wish there was something wecould do to make that better.   I completely understand how disappointing itis to haul your boxes full of items in from however far away you live, just tofind out that you won’t be able to get as much as you’d hoped.  But, what would you propose we do?  Just because the items are valuable to youdoesn’t mean they’re going to be as valuable to someone else.  Should we guarantee that we will buy everysingle item that people bring in, even if we can’t sell any of it?  How would we keep our doors open?  And as far as, getting offered a lower pricethan the going rate on eBay, you seem to think that we are we are purposelymaking low offers and that we must be making money hand-over-fist.  But did it ever occur to you that, we simplycan’t offer as much as a buyer on eBay, because, unlike eBay, we are an actualbrick-and-mortar location?  We have rentto pay, and if you haven’t noticed, we’re in Hollywood, so it’s a lot.  That valuable collector’s item that you’vesold to us, do you know how long it will sit on our shelf, before it issold?  Months.  And for each day it sits there, we have topay the rent that keeps a roof over its head. That cost has to be taken into account when making an offer on anitem.  The people at the buy counter havea very difficult job to do – to make the fairest offer they can to you, whilebalancing the needs of our store to make enough money to survive.  Our buyers don’t make a commission – theydon’t benefit from making more on that record. It’s just people doing the best they can to balance the customer’s hopeswith our needs.  Where’s the motivationfor an employee just being a jerk for no reason, when it would just put us all outof a job?  We all want people to have agood experience and keep coming back, because guess what, we need customers tokeep our store open and keep our jobs.  We’vegot to feed ourselves and our families too. 

How about the fact that amoeba pays its employees (close) toa living wage, and provides us with healthcare, unlike other places you couldgo to buy your music, like Walmart, where employees are provided such crappyhealth insurance that it’s worse than none at all, and most end up gettingstate-provided health care, shifting the burden to the taxpayers.  How about the fact that we provide freeparking to our customers, for as many hours as they’d like to shop in ourstore?  What other retail location inHollywood does that?

You make the blanket statement that, “Unlike other successful businesses, at Amoeba Records the customer is not always right. Many times the customer is wrong,” and then you go on to back that statement up with…nothing.   That statement is so wrong,and makes absolutely no sense.  The factthat we just celebrated our 10th anniversary shows just howsuccessful we’ve been.  And do you reallythink that a retail business could survive for that long with shitty customerservice?  We pride ourselves on ourcustomer service, that at amoeba when you deal with an employee you’re going toget a real human being, not a robot.

What you do go on to point out is the real phenomenon thatour employees routinely have to keep our cool when being yelled at and cursedat by people who are mentally and emotionally disturbed, and yes, on variousdrugs.  We ARE in Hollywood.   It’sunfortunate that there are some people who get that upset.  But the experiences of those few people can’tbe taken to represent all the thousands upon thousands of customers we’ve helpedover the years.  Did you talk to any ofthem?

You sure made a lot of assumptions about amoeba, withoutever doing any homework to find out if any of it was true.

You assume that so many employees came to amoeba’s defensedue to “misguided loyalty to an institution”, when they should be for thepeople.  Now why do you think that aperson would ever want to defend the place that they work?  Did it ever occur to you that, peopleactually like working here, precisely for the reason you seem to value, that itIS all about people?  I’ve been working here a long time, andbelieve me, it’s not because I get paid a lot. It’s because ever y day that I come in, I get treated like a person, myhard work and my contribution are recognized, and valued.  I’ve been treated with respect, from top tobottom – unlike most of the places I’ve worked, at amoeba I’ve never beentreated like a dollar sign, like a means to an end.  I’ve never been treated like just a cog insome giant machine that was making someone somewhere a shitload of money.   At amoeba there is no guy in a suit sittinghigh up in some office tower laughing with his pile of money.  We are not a corporation.  We are independently owned – three locations,four owners, all record store vets themselves, and they are there every day atthe stores working alongside us.  If Iever have a problem as an employee, or you do as a customer, you can gostraight to the owner.  You’ll never bepassed off in an endless phone tree to some customer service agent in India whocan’t do a damn thing for you because they’re not empowered.  At amoeba, we can, and do, make changes everyday, based on employee and customer feedback.

What kind of people are at amoeba?  When my dad got sick with cancer, and weweren’t sure from day to day if he was going to make it, they let me leave togo visit him, as many times as I needed, for as long as I needed, no questionsasked.  There was no, “sorry, but youonly get 2 days of sick time a year. ”  Later,when I got sick myself, and was out for weeks, and then took months to fullyrecuperate, they made it clear that all I needed to worry about was justgetting better, that my job would be here waiting for me when I got back.  Now that’s what I call, being about “people.”

And then there are the people I work with – everyone whoworks here is here because they are a serious lover of music and movies.  It’s simply the best place to be in LosAngeles if that’s what floats your boat. If one of us spends 20 minutes talking to you about a record, it’s becausethey actually love the record.  I workedat ever other corporate record chain, and unlike at those places, there are norequired canned responses here, we are not forced to “upsell” youanything.  We can give our honestopinion, whether it’s good or bad.  Andmy coworkers here are just good people. I’ve made all of my best friends in LA at amoeba.  How would you feel, if someone talked shitabout your family?  Wouldn’t you stick upfor them?

In such difficult economic times for any business, with somany record stores closing, when we are doing all we can to make sure we’ll stillbe here for years to come --  in a timelike this, I’m so grateful to you for writing such a thoroughlywell-researched, fair and balanced portrait of our store.  You can always count on the LA Weekly forgreat reporting!

If you’d like to talk to someone other than junkies and oneamoeba employee, my name is Lori, and I’d be happy to talk to you.  I’ll be at the registers, five days aweek.  Come on down.

Thanks for teaching me the word "polemic." 

I'll be sure to NEVER use that word again.

Hi, I'm Jack, the Amoeba employee who was masturbating on the couch. That dude was totally sending me mixed signals. What the fuck. Oh, and he wasted a perfectly good beer. Fucker.

This is the worst article ever written... ever... sounds like the author had some beef with one of the buyers at Amoeba, and couldn't get as high as he was hoping one day, so he quoted some other pissed off low-lives and mashed it all together forming word-vomit...  it's sad really.  

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Aldous Huxley

Wow.  Mark Groubert, you have a serious vendetta against one of the last remaining music stores in the world.  Not sure why you would write most of this article about junkies and then bring Amoeba down with them -- especially when the store spend the kind of money they do advertising in your newspaper. There would have been plenty of other interesting angles to write about when it comes to celebrating the 10 year anniversary of a local, struggling business that continues to champion for music lovers. Shame on you for calling yourself a writer (you might want to take a journalism class) and shame on the LA WEEKLY editor for allowing this to go to print.  I hope Amoeba rethinks their advertising dollars and that you and your crappy newspaper realize that language (in this case the written, published word) has consequences.

This article reads like an editorial. However this so called article lacks a point and lacks cohesion.

WAIT A MINUTE. Wait one minute.

Am I reading too much into it.

Did all the addicts in the story recover?

Is Amoeba actually the gateway to recovery?

a doff of the cap to mark groubert for rattling cages, throwing a cat among the pigeons, talking about the elephant in the room and kicking against the pricks. i for one applaud you and raise my glass to you! bravo!

This touched a nerve I see. Here's a different point of view for you...

I don't care one bit about this story.

I had no idea there was a place in Los Angeles that would buy my old vinyl.

Amoeba has a new customer. Thanks for turning me on to this.

Signed,

Valley Millionaire with no vices

I take one day off to go Christmas shopping and all hell breaks loose on this page.

1. Groubert accuses posters of being undercover Amoeba employees. I roll my eyes and give Groubert zero credibility.2. Amoeba employees break anonymity and admit to posting angry messages. Nowhere in the 10,000 world essay is Groubert accused of inaccuracies.3. A skateboarder (I roll my eyes) is spared stumbling on a tragic shooting spree because he 's late getting out the door due to reading the story.

Those are the highlights as I see it.

As a buyer at the Amoeba used buy counter, there's quite a bit I could say about this article. But I will keep it brief: yes, unfortunately some of our customers use the money they get from us to buy drugs. But I would consider the vast majority of our used buy counter customers hard-core music and film lovers that are either downsizing their collection, need some quick cash, or (my favorite) getting store credit to buy some cool new stuff. I felt that the article was downright mean, as well as puzzling and sad. Perhaps the author brought in some items to sell, and felt he didn't get a fair price?? Maybe this is just someone using a public "news" forum for his own vindictive means?

After venting my frustration, and getting a good night's sleep, and rereading Mark's article, I would like to add a few more thoughts to my previous comment.

Mainly, I would like to acknowledge that whatever its faults, the main theme of this article is to tell the stories of very poor people who have to sell their CDs and DVDs to get by, and those stories are valid.  It sucks to have to sell your stuff, and it sucks when you don't get as much money as you think it's worth, and that's the main thing.  I still don't think it's a very fair portrayal of Amoeba's buying practices as a whole, but I that's tough luck for us, it's tougher luck for people who are in such bad circumstances that they have to sell their possessions to survive.  My last comment was so long and wordy that I'll keep this one brief.

Despite what one might think of the quality of Mr. Groubert's writing or his motivations, one fact emerges from his article, Amoeba buys stolen product. Mr. Tures states that Amoeba never intentionally buys stolen product, and he undoubtedly is telling the truth. However, if there is even a suspicion of product being stolen then the buyer should not buy it. Does Amoeba buy potentially stolen product then save it, hoping the original owner comes to claim it? Doubtful. They price it and sell it for a hefty profit as they, by their own admission, lowball potentially stolen buys.

But it's not just junkies and crack-heads who get lowballed. I've sold Amoeba LPs in the past and have been offered ridiculously low amounts for things that I know they will sell for descent money. I just took my records back and went someplace else. I understand that Amoeba has to make money off buys, but to offer $.50 or $1 for a record that will go in the bins for $10 of $15 is a rip-off. Perhaps because of their size they're profit margin needs to be larger, but come on! I've taken the same types of records to Rockaway, Atomic, and Freakbeat and been paid $3 or $5 for things that will be priced $10 or $15....that's fair.

It's a shame to because when Amoeba first opened they paid great for stuff and consequently had an amazing used vinyl section. Not so much anymore. With so many new record stores opening up (Jacknife, Vacation, Origami, Permanent Records, Mono, High-Fidelity, Wombleton) Amoeba needs to re-think their buying policies. If they do maybe they'll actually have used vinyl worth buying.

Aaron Records? You mean Aron's Records? They went out of business, like most other record stores for the same reason there are no longer blacksmiths or carriage makers on every corner - not because of Amoeba. 

In addition, a large number of their co-workers were hired by Amoeba, which has a much better selection of music than Aron's ever did. The selection at Aron's, to be blunt, was shit. I moved here from Iowa and was appalled at how paltry it was - mainly a bunch of over-priced cut-out promos. I'd seen better stuff at yard sales. It was embarrassing how lacking Los Angeles was before the arrival of Amoeba.And even if everything this fact-shy, wannabe muckraker wrote was true, he's still a total asshole. I wonder if he's this much of a dick to everyone on their birthday. Jeez.

I already posted and said what I wanted to say for the most part, but I want to make it clear that I work for Amoeba.  Let's get that out of the way.

I'm not being paid to write this and I don't have many logical arguments to make that Daniel hasn't already made and I don't have any loyalty to the abstract concept of the name 'Amoeba', though I do feel loyalty to the hundred or more co-workers whom I consider friends.

I was mad when I first posted (which explains the unfair bit about Third Eye Blind, I have nothing against them) but now I'm kind of sad.  I've never been accused of being a 'Have' before and don't really understand how to take it.  I always thought of myself as a retail employee.  I make a little bit more than 300 dollars a week.  My portion of the rent's 600 a month (my three roommates pay a little more than me) and after bills, insurance and other expenses that leaves me around 350 or 450 a month to eat, smoke, drink and live on, which is enough.  I live a pretty comfortable life for a 30 year old in this economy and I've always been aware and compassionate for the fact that there are a lot of people out there who have a much harder life through no fault of their own.  But I've also been keenly aware that I'm nowhere near the top of the economic ladder and also nowhere near even the middle of that ladder.  I don't blame my bosses at Amoeba for this, because I know the state of the record  business and know that they pay me what they can afford and still keep me in a job.

It's not really a story of the Haves versus the Have-Nots, so much as it's a story of the Have Very Little versus the Have Less.  The reason that it's the 'loyal employees' who are the first to 'attack' (I just noticed, 'normal people don't care'.  Why would you write an article that normal people don't care about?) is because it's the employees who have the most to lose.  Life-long record store employees like myself don't have many options these days, so to see you attack one of my last chances at gainful employment feels more than a little bit personal.

I wish there was some way to convince you to see things from our perspective and to somehow take back this unfair portrayal, but I know that's not going to happen and that makes me sad.

great article! thanks frank!

I'm the Amoeba employee quoted in Mark Groubert's story, and I admit that in the course of a long, seemingly friendly conversation with Mark (who I've never met before), I did say what he quoted me as saying in the article, though in a rather different context than the way it came out.  The main part which he wound up using to make me and the store look bad, was part of a discussion of whether people ever tried to sell us stolen merchandise.  The gist of what I was trying to say is that we never intentionally buy stolen merchandise, but in situations where we're not sure, but we think some of it could possibly be stolen, we might sometimes try discourage the seller by offering such a low amount that they'll pass, or at least not try to sell us stuff like that again in the future.  Mark used that statement of mine to make it seem like we have a policy of sizing up everyone who comes to the buy counter, and if they look "undesirable", we underpay for the CDs and DVDs they try to sell us, which is obviously silly and untrue.

But anyway, it is true that I thoughtlessly said a bunch of stuff like that, which could be used to write a polemic against Amoeba, and unfortunately I have to stand by what I said.  I didn't realize that an anti-Amoeba polemic was what Mark Groubert had in mind, but either way, I said it, and he used it, and he got me good.  I salute him for his success on this front, and I concede defeat.  I'm sorry it wound up reflecting badly (if it did) on all my co-workers, who probably wouldn't have said what I did, or would have said some other stuff that could be used in a polemic against them.

Leaving behind my stupid statements, and my vast embarrassment over the results, I admit that I am quite confused and depressed by the article and the whole foofaraw it has engendered.  Before I start wishing it had been better written (which will commence shortly), I would like to comment on Mark's comment that his article is a little parable about the "haves" and the "have nots", of evil versus good.  Hmm... it's hard to know where to begin with this.  As he points out in his own article, CDs and DVDs have gotten cheap enough that they're hardly "luxury items", if they ever were.  Plenty of poor people buy them all the time, they're cheap and fun as I myself can attest.  And if you make some money selling CDs at Amoeba, and then you spend it all on drugs, and then you don't have enough for food, well, you may deserve sympathy, but it's not clear that you're the ideal case study for a Marxist critique of economic inequality.

And of course it's silly to claim that Amoeba employees who don't like having their place of work slandered on ridiculous grounds in print are guilty of excessive "corporate loyalty".  Amoeba employees hate big corporations just as much as Mark Groubert or any LA Weekly reader.  We view ourselves as a collection of people who work together to create the best record store we can every day, not because we get paid the big bucks but because it's important to us to do it right.  And we feel that Mark Groubert's article paints what we do in an unfair, weirdly moralizing light, which is why we're upset about it.  We'd probably care less if it weren't our store, but it is our store, so the least we can do is comment on this frickin' blog page.

I concede that lots of people haven't gotten as much money at our buy counter as they wanted to get, and I'm sure our buy counter has erred on the side of stinginess or generosity countless times in the past.  Even I have sold stuff at Amoeba, where I work, and thought that it was worth more (or less!).  But at Amoeba, as at millions of businesses everywhere in the world, we trust our employees to be as fair and knowledgeable as they can be, and to do best by the seller and the buyer as they can, and of course there's bound to be plenty of disagreement and dissatisfaction.  This is just a fact of modern economic life, everywhere in the world, and it doesn't make Amoeba the Evil Empire in and of itself.

However, I would like to acknowledge that I often encounter the same anti-Amoeba sentiment that Mark is expressing, and I'm sure there's something to it.  Love it or hate it, Amoeba is a huge independent record store, full of all different kinds of people with all different points of view, and its size alone suggests material success.  We have a big building, with a lot of neon on it.  We seem like a big economic powerhouse, and shortly after we moved in, Aron's folded, so it seems like that was our fault.  To a certain mindset, we seem like jerks.  I respect that.  There are certain things that I like done small, and certain things I like done big.  I hate Target, and Wal-Mart, and in some ways Amoeba seems big and crazy like those places.  Some people like a cool little record store, like Wombleton or Atomic or Record Surplus, and I love those places too.  So I certainly respect a mindset that resents Amoeba for being big and hectic -- I often dislike places that are big and hectic myself.

My own reasons for liking Amoeba, despite how big and populous it is, are that (1) I think that to properly represent the entirety of music under one roof, which we try to do, it needs to be a pretty big place and (2) it's full of amazing people, both employees and customers, and it's hard to complain about being surrounded by amazing people.  And of course, it's full of a vast, wild diversity of music, both amazing and not, and that makes it a wonderful place to be.

But anyway, I get that some people don't like (physically) big businesses, they're sometimes more impersonal than little businesses, you get lost in the shuffle sometimes, and eventually they can seem like the Evil Empire.  And if you have a bad enough experience at a big business, as you can have at a big or small business, it's a turnoff, and a big business means more opportunities for bad (and good) experiences.  So if you have had a bad experience at Amoeba, you're entitled to that, and you're entitled to dislike Amoeba, no one would say everyone has to like it.  Plenty of my best friends find it too big and hectic, and prefer smaller shops.  I totally get it when people say they dislike Amoeba, and I'm just glad that there's plenty of people like myself who love it.  Nothing wrong with disliking it, or disagreeing with it, lots of people do and they're fully entitled to.  And fortunately, there are plenty of other places to find music in California, and online, we fully support (and utilize) that whole musical ecosystem!

So, to me the "haves" versus the "have-nots" thing is just simplistic and inaccurate, but I acknowledge that it's a common reaction people have to places like Amoeba, and I won't deny anyone's right to feel that way.

Alright, where are we... I admitted that I said stupid stuff, and I admitted that Amoeba is big and people sometimes have bad experiences there...

Okay.  So, although I salute Mark for his success in cobbling together a venemous polemic out of stuff his sources actually said, like myself, I unfortunately cannot salute the quality of the article itself.  This article just kind of sucks.  And that's not because it's wrong to hate Amoeba, or wrong to side with crackheads and junkies... you could make a GREAT, really hilarious, trenchant, funny, truly effective article out of the raw materials here.  You could write an amazing article about the lameness of Amoeba.  You could write an amazing article about the travails of people trying to sell stuff at Amoeba to get money to buy drugs.  Lord knows, we who work at Amoeba could furnish hours, hours of insane tales on this very subject.  We have BEEN there.  But unfortunately, this article is not it.  It's just a bunch of juvenile, tedious blather, with no grasp on reality, that often descends into total incoherence.  It could have been really interesting, but it is truly terrible.  That is my consolation for having been made to look like a total asshole by Mark Groubert (which maybe I am, but it's still humiliating to have been made to look like one).

It would have been better if it weren't an anti-Amoeba polemic, not because Amoeba doesn't deserve an anti-Amoeba polemic, but because polemics theselves are tiresome and one-sided.  And this is truly a polemic.  Mark Groubert is so desperate to show how evil Amoeba is, that he doesn't care how he does it, and he repeatedly goofs up and contradicts himself.  Are our prices so low that junkies can't make a living selling to us, or are they so high that you can never buy your stuff back from us?  Are we guilty of giving druggies too much money to buy drugs, or too little?  Which is it?  Do junkies like beer, or are they so shocked by masturbation that they hurl beers at masturbators?  It doesn't matter, the point is, Amoeba is evil.

What would have made this a better polemic is some INSIGHT into WHY Amoeba is evil.  Are we all evil, or just some of us?  What has made us evil?  Is it principled evil, or sordid, random evil?  Are there evil and good people among the staff, or are we all just pure evil?  Or do we just sometimes present crackheads with insufficiently high offers on the CDs they try to sell us?  Anyway, evil is everywhere, but it helps to have a little insight into it, otherwise the evil people just sound like Batman villains... they're just evil, dammit!

Anyway.  I'm sure we can all agree that it would be more effective to cast things more realistically, with real people getting screwed by other real people for real reasons, not just a parade of junkies "waiting in line to die" in the Auschwitz of Amoeba.  It would make for better reading if we could sympathize a little more with both sides, by understanding them better, rather than it just being a "parable" of the little guy getting screwed by the machine.  I feel that if this article had been more realistic, on both sides of the buy counter, it would have been a whole lot better.  As it is, it just sounded like a bunch of silly stories told to a guy who ate them right up and regurgitated them without any insight.

But I would like to propose, that it shouldn't have been an anti-Amoeba polemic anyway.  Who wants to sit around and read a polemic?  Polemics are neither enlightening nor entertaining.  It should have been a rich, humorous, nuanced portrait of life on both sides of Amoeba's buy counter, which is what Mark Groubert led me to believe it would be, and which it so clearly wasn't.  It was just a crappy polemic.  Amoeba is evil, it's the haves "versus" the have nots.  That's why this article is a piece of crap.  It's a silly, overblown rant, rather than a meaningful look at a real situation, which is full of humor, pathos, solidity and weight.  Couldn't the author even weigh in on what he thought the accuracy of some of these stories might be, especially the epic tale that closes the piece, full of violence, salvation, alcohol and masturbation?  Which seemed (to everyone I know who read it) to be so ridiculous it should never have been reproduced in print as gospel truth, with nary a caveat?  Anyway.  I get the impression that Mark Groubert is into writers like Bukowski.  But what sets him apart from writers like Groubert, is that Bukowski would have made this story live, he would have made it rich, funny and human.  He would have stuck it to the man.  But Groubert's story just sags into oblivion, and I haven't met anyone who hasn't slogged through it without emerging thoroughly nonplussed.

I salute Mr. Groubert, I salute his concept, I salute those who told him stories, and I salute his desire to defend the "have nots" from the "haves".  All of this is laudable stuff.  It was a fire built of dry kindling, wanting only Mr. Groubert to light the match of fine storytelling and crack journalism.  But he has saddened and soddened us all with his limp, cruddy inability to rise to the fine occasion.

Well..this sub-moron proves once again that the Food Writer is the only reason that people still pick up this cage-liner off the stand

The absence of a retort by Daniel Tures in the comments is bewildering, unles.....

Frank Humphries for Governor!!!! you got my vote brother!!!!!

I think this article is cool. It makes strange light of the crazy situations that alot of us found ourselves in over the last few decades weather it be drug addiction, late bills, or an empty stomach. ALL very common things with musicians, music lovers, record collectors. I have been on both sides of the buying counter in record stores my whole life, ive been the junkie selling and ive been the buyer behind the counter, and as far as them "ripping you off" get over it, records aren't really meant to be sold, they are meant to be kept and listened to, and in this (brave?) new iWorld it is a miracle there are even stores that still buy stuff! As far as people knocking the aforementioned "Junkie" did ANYONE keep into mind before they hastily responded that HE IS NOW CLEAN AND WORKING AS AN ARCHEOLOGIST????? One can only wonder from where you write this response?? maybe you are living at your parents house using there computer to type this, maybe not, you could be successful,  or just lucky. In any case, I think the article is great!

I don't know why people are so mad. This article does not mean Amoeba supports Junkies. There are plenty of reasons why people sell, this is just one of them.  This is stuff that really happened to me.  I love amoeba it is a rock-n-roll store and rock-n-roll things happen, although, I think they made it hard for the little record stores to compete once they moved to town but that is a different story.  xooxoxox

One thing I have learned from writing about institutions is that the first people to attack a story are the people who work at that particular institution. Regular people don't care. Disgruntled employees don't care. It is usually the employees who are overly loyal to the institution that are outraged. The addiction and loyalty to institutions and corporations, as opposed to people, in this country has partially led to the situation we are currently in. This is a story about the "haves" and the "have nots" on a small local scale. The people complaining are obviously the "haves" while the people I am writing about are the "have nots." In general, if you can afford to buy luxury items such as dvds, records and cds in this incredible depressed economy - guess what - you are a have. I am writing about the people who can't even scrape two cents together to get a piece of chicken or to prevent dope sickness. As a side note, the employees who are defending Amoeba should ask the former employees of Aaron Records and the other mom and pop record stores that have been put out of business by Amoeba how they feel about this mega-store. I could not fit in the amount of stories I heard about the humiliating experience people had selling their stuff to Amoeba. Let me just say this: do you want to be "profiled" as a record seller? Judged by the clothes you wear, how you act, your hairstyle, by folks behind the counter there so they can determine how much money to give you for your stuff? They admit to what they call, "record profiling".  It is degrading and most of the "have nots" feel degraded. If you notice, the people complaining here do not mention selling their stuff to Amoeba, because they are not sellers - they are buyers or employees in disguise. This story is simply a small parable of the "haves" and "have nots." Now everyone - get back to work.