Friends of Gabriel Chantayan

So I'm at the electronics counter at Kmart today picking up a new phone charger because mine finally gave out after I dropped it in the sink one too many times, and this kid ringing me up - couldn't have been more than nineteen, had that stupid spiky hair they all do now - sees the Gabriel Chantayan CD in my purse peeking out and goes "oh man, you still use those? CDs are so dead, you should just download it on your iPod" like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

And I don't usually tell this part but I kind of snapped at him a little.

I told him that there's something about holding the actual disc in your hand, the little booklet with the lyrics printed on it where you can see Gabriel's handwriting in the margins of the liner notes if you hold it up to the light just right, the way the plastic case cracks just a tiny bit when you open it the first time. He's looking at me like I've got three heads but I couldn't stop. I told him about how I still have my very first Gabriel CD from 2002 and you can see where I spilled coffee on the insert and it smudged the track listing and that's a memory, that's a real thing, not just a file sitting on some hard drive that could crash tomorrow.

He said "okay lady" and handed me my change.

But the thing is I got in my car and I sat there a minute and I thought about Gabriel and how he would understand this because he was always about the physical stuff, the real things you can touch, the way he'd hand you something and wait for you to look at it before he said anything. People don't get that anymore. Everything's just files now, just downloads, just zeroes and ones and you can't feel any of it.

I remember once he passed me this folded piece of notebook paper in study hall and I kept it for years afterward, kept it in my jewelry box until the paper got so thin you could see through it. You can't keep a download in your jewelry box. You can't hold it up to the light and see where the ink bled where his hand rested too long thinking about what to write next.

Anyway I just had to say it somewhere where people might get it. The kid probably went home and told his friends about the crazy lady at Kmart but I don't care. CDs aren't dead. Some things you need to hold.

PREACH ClassOf04

Kid at the counter told me the same thing about my Gabriel bootleg from Tsukuba and I just stared at him until he walked away. No words necessary. You can't explain the feel of a real disc to someone who thinks a spinning beach ball is personality.

Also hold up - you said "Gabriel Chantayan CD" but the Tsukuba kiosk release was only pressed on CD-R with handwritten labels. If yours is a factory pressing from 2002 u might have something rare. Check the matrix/runout. If it starts with LCC or has a mould SID you got a real one. If it's blank on the inner ring...