FA+
Shop
I might not walk Green Street no more.
2 years ago
Ears down. Like Mister Foxy. Their faces wet. Their eyes tired.
Greetings again Fellow FA Artists, Writers, Musicians, Composers, Dreamers, Fursuiters and other highly creative people.
Late in October or early in November I visited the Gameology store in old town Pasadena, and the folks there seemed glad to see me, and called me by name. I picked up the paints and finishing supplies I needed, and set my eyes on another Bandai Gundam model kit, assuring myself that I'll pick it up the next time I visited the shop, after my Social Security deposit was in the bank. I would visit that shop every two weeks or so, sometimes three times a month. A week later, I was in for a surprise.
I visited the Gameology, now listed as "Games at my place" the next Friday, and as I approached the shop, I noticed the lights were out, and there seemed to be no signs of activity in the normally bustling shop. I thought that maybe there was a power outage or something, but when I yanked on the door, I found it securely locked. No notes on the door, No email notifications of the shop changing hours. It was a total mystery to me why the shop that had been such a busy place, just the week before was closed and dark.
A quick check on the Gamology website noted that the location had been closed but it didn't say "Permanently." Well, that explained some of the mystery, but what happened the following Friday was something of a rude shock. There might have been a chance that given the hundreds of thousands of items they had in stock, I was hoping for a "Store Closing" or a reduced-price sale, but when I looked inside the door that time, I saw the saddest sight I could have ever seen. The once nicely stocked shelves, the gaming tables the counters, the paint racks, even the posters on the walls were gone, and all that was left was a remarkably clean and polished, EMPTY wooden floor. My heart sank. It was kind of like finding out one of your friends had died, without any word of what had happened. Sadder still, the new tenants let no grass grow under their treads. On the walls of the shop signage was already in place giving a hint of what was going to be sold at the location.
"La-Z-Boy" recliners and "Orthopedic Mattresses On sale here!" the posters and signage boasted. "A @%&#- Furniture Store?" My mind shrieked. "Couldn't something a bit more Interesting at least have replaced my favorite store?" It wasn't the sudden closing of the store that surprised me so. It seems to me that there might have been more than met my eyes to the situation. It would have taken quite a lot of people to clear out that place so fast. I even suspected that there might have been some "Political Motivation" between the city and the building's owners going on.
On the plus side, I can still take the bus to the original Game Masters on the other side of town, and I'm certain I could figure out how to take the inter-city transit to get to the Burbank house of hobbies, but maybe... just maybe it's the Good Lord's way of telling me to save my money to get a car and take driving lessons.
I'm not quite ready for that... Or maybe I am.
"Peace.
Greetings again Fellow FA Artists, Writers, Musicians, Composers, Dreamers, Fursuiters and other highly creative people.
Late in October or early in November I visited the Gameology store in old town Pasadena, and the folks there seemed glad to see me, and called me by name. I picked up the paints and finishing supplies I needed, and set my eyes on another Bandai Gundam model kit, assuring myself that I'll pick it up the next time I visited the shop, after my Social Security deposit was in the bank. I would visit that shop every two weeks or so, sometimes three times a month. A week later, I was in for a surprise.
I visited the Gameology, now listed as "Games at my place" the next Friday, and as I approached the shop, I noticed the lights were out, and there seemed to be no signs of activity in the normally bustling shop. I thought that maybe there was a power outage or something, but when I yanked on the door, I found it securely locked. No notes on the door, No email notifications of the shop changing hours. It was a total mystery to me why the shop that had been such a busy place, just the week before was closed and dark.
A quick check on the Gamology website noted that the location had been closed but it didn't say "Permanently." Well, that explained some of the mystery, but what happened the following Friday was something of a rude shock. There might have been a chance that given the hundreds of thousands of items they had in stock, I was hoping for a "Store Closing" or a reduced-price sale, but when I looked inside the door that time, I saw the saddest sight I could have ever seen. The once nicely stocked shelves, the gaming tables the counters, the paint racks, even the posters on the walls were gone, and all that was left was a remarkably clean and polished, EMPTY wooden floor. My heart sank. It was kind of like finding out one of your friends had died, without any word of what had happened. Sadder still, the new tenants let no grass grow under their treads. On the walls of the shop signage was already in place giving a hint of what was going to be sold at the location.
"La-Z-Boy" recliners and "Orthopedic Mattresses On sale here!" the posters and signage boasted. "A @%&#- Furniture Store?" My mind shrieked. "Couldn't something a bit more Interesting at least have replaced my favorite store?" It wasn't the sudden closing of the store that surprised me so. It seems to me that there might have been more than met my eyes to the situation. It would have taken quite a lot of people to clear out that place so fast. I even suspected that there might have been some "Political Motivation" between the city and the building's owners going on.
On the plus side, I can still take the bus to the original Game Masters on the other side of town, and I'm certain I could figure out how to take the inter-city transit to get to the Burbank house of hobbies, but maybe... just maybe it's the Good Lord's way of telling me to save my money to get a car and take driving lessons.
I'm not quite ready for that... Or maybe I am.
"Peace.
But now, going downtown, and only watching shops closing by the dozens is heartbreaking. And they are replaced either by another cell phone store or kept empty, which is the most depressing sight.
Well, time is moving on, these old times probably won't come back again, especially not the era of a bustling city with big department stores (those are going down here since the late 90s), and some old geezer like me has to accept it, but damn, it is depressing, seeing old times just swept over.
"He remembered the last book he bought there, his tenure as infrequent but sustained custom spanning a little more than a decade, a fraction of the old shoppe's tenure in that small, second-floor efficiency whose small footprint met the south side of Queen Street, across from the limit of the University of Toronto's unofficial, open campus boundaries. The Engineering Annex was there, and learned that at least once at least in the past that was where FurryMUCK's hard server and storage was kept, in transit and before the Great Rewrite From Memory.
"He grinned to himself, considering intimately that important Easter Egg: FurryMUCK exists at all today because someone he loved and yet loves dearly also loved that MUCK and the people and places thereupon enough that she wrote all of what could not be dredged and recovered by the operator and owner of the MUCK's mechanical storage hardware and backups from her own memory, remotely, coupled with her madwand skill at coding. Nothing like that kind of love and devotion, and good manual skill, he knows, oh, he knows. He learned both his narrative trade and his profession of humanity and identity from the best, the perfect storm on two bare feet.
-{Case fell into the prison of his own flesh. But that's okay, I'm not Case, just the Artiste of the Slightly Funny Deal. I know when Chiba needs me, and I come running. I'm good at running and knowing where to go; I just get shit done, and if I complain that comes out of my own budget for the Run. That's my Tactical Juggernaughtcy.}-
-{...and Goddamnit, man, don't touch my rig. Do you desire a visit by Gibson's Percussive Maintenance, then applied thrice and Vogon songs be sung in your audience? Then know your limits, and be wise. I have a long reach.}--
"He got to say goodbye to the World-House and its loyal Mistress that day in early winter, 2003- roughly but otherwise on the dot of twenty years prior this present post, for argument's sake- which the wolf rather thought a privilege, rather than returning six months later and knowing the old rental property, now too expensive to be sustained by their modern body of custom, had been sublet. Had he stronger connection to the operators (or made more of an effort to, really, he thought; the ball I must understand is in my court when it comes to those things) there might have been room for further contact, but that would never be so. He was really rather shite with names and still was, but 20 years ago he was worse at even feeling the personal worth of asking.
"He was welcome there and that never changed, nor would it ever past the endpoint terminus of the physical House of the Rolling Dice, because its memory would welcome him, as his would welcome it. It wouldn't hurt any less, because as death always is, it is without the mask of loss, change.
And Change, chaotic perfection, is but only a fair and honoured roll of the dice.
-2Paw.
I recall one Wednesday going into a favorite restaurant and all was fine. Saturday the building was empty except for a (like yours) polished floor. A favorite theatre was open one week-end and two weeks later it was a vacant lot.
=^.^=
When I think back on some of the businesses I grew up with that haven't survived over the years it can be really sad. I really miss some of them dearly.
Then after a decade an a half, they were bought out by Gamestop, and then promptly closed down and liquidated because it competed with the Gamestop that was a block away.
I still miss it. It was an odd looking little store with a wooden boardwalk and pylons because it used to be a seafood restaurant lol. Was the only place I bought and sold games at, was the place where I bought my first ever game console from (A Dreamcast, RIP best system ever.) Usually the only way I got game systems was when people threw them away. Yeah, I was a dumpster diver, but that was how I got all my Gameboys and NESs and SNESs and Playstations and N64s. Not that time. I saved up my money and store credit and plonked down $150 for that Dreamcast. And one time, when I brought in a game that wasn't worth all that much, but was one that the Manager had been looking for for a while. Instead of paying me the $10 in credit, he gave me $15 out of his own pocket, and let me grab a free strategy guide of my choice.
When that store was gone, it left a wound in me that still hasn't fully closed. I have since found kindred spirits in a new place called GameXchange, but those times in Funcoland are long gone and will never be repeated again.
downtown stuttgart there was a toy shop, founded I think 1885? they suffered a lot from online sales and stuff and people reluctant to go shopping... shopping space is pricey in german cities, in times I wonder how thisortat shop can survive at all at their spot. but coming 2018 Spielwaren Kurtz ceased to exist, leaving a coffee lounge behind that looks gloomy and not inviting to me at all.
a few streets down there used to be a model railway shop, specializing too in modeling materials and rare model kits (though Walthers never saw sense in delivering any custom order to germany it seems). they closed because the building owner wanted to renovate everything and the raise in rent fees went over the top, thus it's only online selling anymore.
same is for a model car shop I used to frequent, who could import the obscurest of models from countries you never heard of. what's öeft is a little shop in the countryside and online sales.
the most obscure ending was a shop two villages away, which specialiszed in model kits, mostly cars&trucks, and also sold occasional die-cast models and promotionals (usually Ertl, which were of course, never sold in germany). haven't been there for a while when I mentioned it to a buddy. who then went there and found a dark, empty space. the owners' mother, running the dolls/puppet supplies shop at the front of the building even didn't know what happened, only that the guy just closed everything, shoved the wares into his van, and vanished. :( I never found out what happened... hope the guy is allright.
but really; the reasons to go downtown to spend money are getting fewer every year. these days the saturday fleamarket is the only real reason for it, since everythign else has closed already, replaced by smart phones shops, shoe shops, fancy-clothes shops and shops selling clothes nobody could afford.
curiously enough a drugstore from a chain, sells also toys and media stuff, and there is still alarge bookstore there. but considering how much books cost these days, and that it's hard to find somethign original either, I don't go there that often.
best thing are the two malls they built at adjacent ends of the main shopping street. it starts with the shops inside mostly being what you find at the city core, and they aren't cheaper or anything. so more and more shop spaces become empty, and are rented as storage rooms, hidden behind billboards so people can't see that half of the building isn't indeed sellign anything... and the trend goes on.
I was broken by spending some time growing up in England. Saw 800 year old Castles, and 400 year old National Trust houses and got the belief that things persisted.
The house I grew up in, Torn down.
The house my parents moved to after that house, Torn down.
The house my sister owned, that I and my parents lived at while 'homeless', Torn down.
The house I used to own in Florida, well it's still there, but it's one bad Hurricane away from being blown away.
To say nothing of stores and features, and some suburb streets where the name and numbers haven't changed but all the houses are McMansions less than 10 years old.
Wish I'd absorbed the message that doing something well and with care is pointless, it's all going to get torn down in my lifetime, instead. Half-ass it like everyone else and go further.
But I'm not bitter...
I'm just glad that while we did part company for a while neither of us forgot the other, and we've not parted in friendship even though our contact was postponed on a human delay line until we first met again on Tapestries and here on FA. I may be shite with appropriate name-association a lot of the time with a great many people but I am very happy I've never been crap when it came to my friends.
If I have anything that's mine, it's the friendships I share and asked nothing but those friendships and our sharing therein the sharing if I've had my druthers about that. I may not always have known myself but I am blessed to know my friends, and they know me when I've forgotten for a spell.
Good to see you, Wolf, and good to know you. I hope your evening's been restricted on unworthy shite.
-2Paw.
Not only that but we couldn't BUY advertisement anywhere. "D&D is the devils work, you know?". After the last "forced move" we gave up. Could not find another affordable building (funny how the rent seemed to go up once we told them why we were interested) and we lost one of the founders to a sudden demise. I have a LOT of fond memories of those days.
So you might never know what happened to your store. Things can change quickly without even those in place knowing about it until too late.
What a nasty shock.
My most similar similar experience was finding out my favourite local restaurant was gone. Me and Mom used to eat there weekly; then one day we went and it was empty and locked. Six months later or so and it was gone and a bloody Taco Bell built on its remains. Right next to a Del Taco too, I always thought that was a weird placement decision.