High Fidelity-Stephen Frears

Towards the end of July 2024, I started working at my friend Al's record store, Late Nite Records, in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood of Cleveland. The neighborhood isn't the greatest (Ariel Castro's former lot that served host to his house of horrors is only two blocks away), the pay is about what you would expect for a part-time gig, and the hours aren't within the realm of normalcy for a retail establishment—we open Mon-Fri at 5 PM and close at midnight (hence the name). But if that's the ledger of negatives then the positives drastically tilt the scale to their side. I could use extra bucks in my pocket to perform a job that doesn't demand too much from behind the counter. Al is a great friend and an amazing boss who doesn't exploit the fact that you work for him as a license to be a financial sadist (as some have in my previous experience) and meddle in every aspect of the job. It is a low-stress atmosphere where, in addition to pay, I reap the benefits of a musical library that works to expand my knowledge of both music and vinyl daily and provides a background of harmony in previously uncharted territories of music. And, most importantly, as opposed to a universal condemnation of the losers who walked through casino doors, I actually enjoy the interactions with customers and realized that I am pretty good at customer service.

Suffice it to say I cherish this blessing of a gig very much.

But with all of these benefits comes the sobering reality of being humbled. I thought that because I had traversed state lines to see countless bands across a wide realm of genres, I was knowledgeable about music.

Au contraire.

I don't know shit.

But, in the golden years of my fourth decade on this planet where vanity has eroded, I can at least admit that without getting pissy about it and embrace the challenge of seeking to find the elusive gem cherished by one person (the customer) while the other is completely ignorant to (myself) its existence. And thus the beauty of digging plays out. It is this very act of traveling miles to arrive at a brick-and-mortar record store and stretching onto your tip toes or bending at the knees to flip through the sections of plastic and paper-coated wax with the unbridled anticipation of finding that one record that will carry vinyl through the flames of this digital realm onto victory with a refined iron-clad coating.

Human beings, by nature, are stubborn. Obstinate. And while there is no stopping the influx of streaming nor denying that we have now entered the digital age (these are just the facts of life), there are also several constants that, while antiquated, will always persevere no matter how far we seem to want to drift away from reality.

Two of which are books and vinyl.

There is an associative feeling unattainable through dollars and cents that comes with flipping through the pages of a book and becoming lost within that world and hearing the bacon sizzle when the stylus drops down into the waxy grooves that will forever reign superior over Kindle scrolling and Spotify streaming. A phone is just a phone, everyone has one, and no matter what the placating oohs and ahhhs of a friend may sing into your ears while you flip through a list of books read or minutes spent upon one particular artist, they don't care. Now, if you invite that same friend into your home and allow them to browse your bookshelf or wax rack, they are sure to become enthralled with your world and will take the time to peruse your titles. And there also is another feeling unattainable by the medium of currency. The sense of pride that settles in when who you are is broadcast to the world. And that, in essence, is what your library of books and music summate. Who we are as people. Where our intimate passions lie. The mediums by which we gravitate towards the most that comprise our little galaxies of the self.

These also, are the facts of life.

In so far as the similarities of working at Late Nite Records vs. Championship Vinyl, there are a few and then again there are some nowhere near the same. I never condescend to the tastes of folks who walk through the door which are different than mine like Barry does. But when Will (my relief) comes in and Al happens to be there and Jim (our security) coagulates into a rare congregation within the store then ya, we'll shoot the shit about a wide varietal of vinyl aspects. Worth, rarity, catalogs, etc. And when me and Al are working together to clear shelf space or brainstorm ideas for extracting value out of the limited real estate then yeah, we'll bullshit as guys often do about previous relationships or former mutual friends that have drifted out of life.

But now that I think about it, sometimes, from behind the counter, I do find that I play psychologist to an assorted amount of people who come in to blow off steam. Much more often than I ever did at the casino. And unlike the casino, where every inane conversation centered around gambling, I rather enjoy the organic flow of banter at the record shop. It is refreshing to talk about Jazz, sports, rock, politics, geography, and world travel. Sports aside, none of these topics were ever really breached at any one of the three casinos I worked at. It was more or less a collection of losers coming in seeking pity for their dumbfounded investments and trying to figure out what went wrong.

So far as reaching the level of turbulence within relationships that Rob experiences throughout the saga of High Fidelity, there is one individual who comes in almost weekly when it is warm out to commiserate over a female who has him trapped within her grasp. Mind you, this guy doesn't immediately come through the door with guns blazing, but the emergence of the subject, who is the object of his befuddlement with women, is inevitable.

"Wow! I haven't seen that 45 in years! I can't believe you got that. Shit, man…that reminds me of the time me and nameless went on a date and it played in the background…"

And off to the races we go. From this point forward I generally forfeit any contribution to the conversation and act merely as the ears while he deduces her shady behavior as a symptom of her bipolar disorder and then picks apart her deceptive methods as archaeologists decipher pyramid hieroglyphics.

So, I guess, in a sense, it is much like Championship Vinyl. Because if you were to beef up the scene of Barry and Rob analyzing the semantics of the conjecture "yet" with White Claw and obscenities, well…you'd be within the same ballpark.

Yeah, High Fidelity gets it. The aesthetics, lifeblood, and mannerisms that pulsate through a record store. But you could also substitute Championship Vinyl with a coffee shop, bar, bowling alley, garage, or hunting lodge and probably achieve the same story. Much like women need their hair salons and restrooms to vent their frustrations over men, so too do we as men need our oasis of refuge to commiserate over our inability to figure out the enigma that forever perplexes us: Women.

Rob's character though reminded me a lot of Benjamin Braddock. Incredibly insecure and socially inept. Narcissistic and self-loathing. Negative qualities of which, unless you have the money to make them tolerable (Rob doesn't), women despise. These types bumble their way through life and rarely reach the finish line of any endeavor with women. So I found it hard to believe that Rob would be able to even acquire five relationships in his life. Let alone the squad of 10's like Iben Hjejle, Lisa Bonet, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Natasha Gregson Wagner.

It just doesn't add up.

Guys who go about their life loathing the opposite sex because things don't work out with one—unless they dig deep within and figure out how to improve their self-esteem—generally don't make it to another. That's just reality. Rob just doesn't strike me as someone who would be able to land at the end of this tale in a happily ever after send off, and instead would spend the rest of his days in isolation at Championship Vinyl, where Wax would ultimately take the place of companionship, and that would forever be his fate.

But that's just me.

Overall I've never found Jack Black to be amusing, so his high-speed antics and sharp-witted tongue didn't add anything. I didn't care much for Rob either and the story wasn't very realistic.

Cool how they used the record store atmosphere as a sort of character, but this one was a dud.

Stars: **1/2

Verdict: Skip

Cousins: Empire Records, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Clerks, Office Space