So the Barnes & Noble location right near my house is closing (closed?), here’s a “photo” (blackberry) of them taking down the last letter. But B & N is a gross megastore like Borders, Virgin, or Tower Records, and it’s great that it’s closing, right?

Dix Hills, the town I grew up in on Long Island, is a sad place to spend one’s formative years, there really isn’t anything in Dix Hills besides a bunch of fancy real estate, though some cool people lived there (Walt Whitman, John Coltrane, Ralph Maccio, 50 Cent, etc). Mainly, though, because it’s a Sprawlin’ Suburb, there is no culture, arts scene, music venues, anything, just a bunch of strip malls and sad people * … (((( I know, I’m describing a zillion other suburbs including the one you grew up in, and I know Arcade Fire are wack for capitalizing on the same gimmick I’ve been writing about for 10 minutes now, I know, I’m sorry I’m sorry…  )))) —-> also Huntington (nearby) is a little better…

Anyway, the closest thing I’ve had to anything “local” in my entire life was this fucking Barnes & Noble, that’s actually 2.0 miles away from my house ** (or a 40 minute walk, which I did, once) - I’ve just spent a lot of time there, so I figured upon it’s closing that I would share some precious moments with you.

1) I used to read a lot when I was younger (sadly, a lot more than I do now…), and I would go with my dad once every couple of weeks and get the new Goosebumps book (they came out once a month, right?), I was sad when the series eventually stopped, and sadder when R.L. Stine stopped writing them himself…

2) John McCain was interviewed there sometime in the 90s. I must have been young because I remember running through people’s legs, and it was really crowded / in an awkward part of the store…he looked OLD

3) I didn’t have many friends on Long Island until right before I graduated high school, in January of 2008. I befriended three people sitting next to me at the Starbucks cafe in B & N, which was the friend chain reaction that led to me meeting Lauren and Martin and Nick and Kubra most of the people I’m friends with today…

4) My last time in the store was earlier last month, but I didn’t realize it at the time. Like if this store were The Giving Tree, this is the point where it’s just a stump and I’m just sitting on it as an old man (21), and all I did was start reading Martin Eden before I bought it and left the store for the last time. Which is probably what I would of done had I had known anyway.

Nobody is buying books anymore, and Tower Records next door closed a few years ago as well (speaking of culture I mizzed out on, those punx back in the day used to play kickball in that parking lot every weekend). Soon even CDs will cease to exist! 

It makes me happy when unsustainable things like warehouses full of books / plastic CDs on major roads can’t sustain themselves, and that someday, in a Planet of the Apes scenario in 2080, Charlton Heston will dust off a dusty wall and see “THE WALT WHITMAN MALL” written on a crumbling abandoned building…

I just hope Book Revue isn’t next 

*NOTE, there WAS (is?) a punk scene that my brother tapped into pretty well about 10 years ago. But I couldn’t do the same and we grew up in the same environs! So maybe this is my fault…

**since there aren’t any stores in Dix Hills, it’s technically ‘Huntington Station’ anyway!

***pity party