vituperation

December 27, 2003

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When I bought my Jeep, the factory sound system — Infinity Gold — was the shit. Six speakers, sounding great, coupled with a decent AM-FM / cassette / CD player console. Obviously not as good as something you could have put in as a custom job, but not too shabby for a factory system.

For the last couple of years, though, my stereo has started going to hell. First, the CD player started skipping, especially on discs I made myself. (Not that I illegally pirate MP3s, in case any RIAA people are reading.) Then, the speakers sloooooowly started getting distorted on the bass, so that I had to EQ it lower and lower. Eventually, it got so bad that everything I listened to sounded like easy listening, because it was all treble.

Finally, the CD player would stop working inexplicably. I’d be taking a CD out, it would make a weird barking sound, and that was that. No more CDs until it felt like it, usually a couple of months. I kept telling myself I’d replace the whole system, since there are no plans to replace the Jeep (hell, it’s only got 71,000 miles on it), but I hadn’t gotten around to it.

Earlier this week I got a cash windfall at Christmas, more money than I ever expected to get, so I decided it was time to get a new sound system (especially since my CD player was doing the fuck you, I don’t feel like playing right now thing). I drove to the car stereo shop just around the corner from my house, ready to spend some money. In retrospect, I guess I should’ve noticed something wasn’t right when I opened the door to the store and was almost knocked off the steps by the bass thumping in the stereo room.

A handful of other customers occupied the shop: young black and Latino men, all dressed in football jerseys, super-baggy nylon pants (in my day, we called these parachute pants, but I suspect they’re called something else now. Something cooler.), their baseball caps seated backwards on their closely cropped heads.

I have never felt so old or so white in my life.

I wandered around for a bit, waiting for someone to help me, and tried to look like I knew what I was doing. All the faceplates of the car stereos looked foreign and confusing, tiny buttons with labels that made no sense. I stroked my chin a few times, and nodded knowingly at the wall of stereos. After a couple of minutes I found one that looked nice. Not only could I understand the buttons, but it also played MP3 CDs, which means I could load 100 songs onto each disc. Practically like having a 5-disc changer.

And it was on sale for $160.

"Find anything?" The salesman was roughly half my age, and dressed in the attire of the other customers in the store, sans the baseball cap. Maybe they have a dress code. The silver studs dotting his ears, nose, and chin made up for the lack of a hat.

"I think I want to get one of these," I said, pointing, "if it’ll go into my Jeep. It’s a lot smaller than the one that’s there now."

He asked the model and year, which I told him, and he said it would fit, no problem.

"This stereo has free basic labor and it comes with a remote." He looked strangely pleased with this.

"A remote?" I asked. "I’m sitting right there in the car. Why would I need a remote for the stereo?"

He had no good answer.

We talked some more, until he found out I had the Infinity Gold system, then he had to get a technician to look in my Jeep to make sure they could replace everything. Apparently some of the newer Infinity Gold systems are hard to replace, because they use specialized speakers. Fortunately my Jeep’s old as dirt, and wouldn’t present a problem.

The technician took me back inside to find speakers.

"I just need some good solid middle-of-the-road speakers. Not the cheapest you have, and not the most expensive. I’d like to have some bass, but I don’t want to sound like, um…" I looked around at the other customers. "…the cars that practically bounce because they’re thumping so hard."

He picked out some Planet Audio speakers.

"These are pretty popular with older people," he said.

The fuck.

I was agreeable to the speakers, and we went back into the stereo room so I could show him which console I wanted.

"Hey, this one comes with a remote!" He was as excited as the first guy.

"What’s with the remote? I’m sitting right there. Why would I need one?"

He launched into a complicated story about how he was 6′ 4" and his car was small, which made it hard for him to reach the stereo. Yeah, I know. I didn’t understand either, so I just nodded and smiled.

After checking the appointment book, he told me if I could bring it back at 11:00 he could get to it yesterday. I did, and it was ready to go a little before 5:00, for a total stereo replacement cost of about $450. Not too shabby.

It wasn’t until I put my first CD in — mostly Enya stuff, with a little Yanni and classical thrown in — that I realized my music was easy listening all along.

When the hell did I get so old?

Irony: hearing my whitebread middle-class niece and nephew say that something was "ghettotastic" at Christmas.

"Do you think Jean-Paul would get mad if I asked him why French people are called frogs?" I asked.

Jean-Paul is my sister’s new French boyfriend. Robyn, the spud, and I were on our way to my sister’s house to see them for Christmas.

"Yes," Robyn said, "that’s about the rudest thing you could ask him, I think."

"Well I don’t mean it rude, I’m just curious. Do you know why they’re called frogs?"

"No, and I don’t care. Don’t ask. It probably doesn’t mean anything, like the fact that Italians are called wops."

"But that means something," I said.

"What?"

"When they were first coming over from Italy, they didn’t have any identifying papers. They were said to be ‘without papers,’ which was later shortened to WOP." I smiled, smug and sure. (Note: according to things I just read, this is incorrect. Wop apparently came from an Italian word, guappo, which means ‘dark handsome man.’ It was used as a term of pride originally, until whitey came along and slurred it.)

There followed a long conversation between the spud and myself wherein she named a country and I told her what the ethnic slur for people from that country is, as well as the underlying reasoning behind the slur if I knew it.

Just doing my part to promote peace and harmony for the season, you know.

Our conversation lasted all the way to my sister’s house. We got out of the Jeep, loaded up with food and presents and made our way to the front door. I rang the bell. We waited.

"Heh," Robyn said. She was beside and a little behind me. I turned to see why she was laughing and found her looking up, a smile curling from ear to ear.

As she stared at the statuette of a frog on a trapeze, hanging over the front door.