It's no secret I'm obsessed with music. I've spent the majority of my career in the music industry (my current job being the single exception), many of my friends are musicians, I've been to hundreds of shows, I own thousands of CDs, a record player, plenty of records, a few iPods, etc., the list goes on.
So here's my sad, sad secret: I haven't had a functioning stereo in my car for the past three or four years.
Well, that's not exactly true. My car stereo sort of functions. Here's what happened. I'd bought a cheap new Chevy back in Houston right before I moved to San Francisco and made sure it had a factory installed CD player for the long road trip out here. And once I got here, like I would have when I was in Texas, I left a few CDs scattered on the floorboard of the passenger's side one night. My car was parked on the street near the Panhandle (that's part of Golden Gate Park for you non-Californians) and when I got to it the next morning, the window was smashed out and the CDs were gone. So some derelict had caused two hundred dollars' worth of damage to my car just to swipe maybe five CDs that they could sell for what, $25 tops? Welcome to San Francisco.
[[ Suggested soundtrack to this post: Spoon's "
Car Radio" from the must-own album A Series of Sneaks ]]
What I should have done was get the window replaced right then and there. Do not pass go, definitely do not collect $200. But I waited. I taped a trash bag over my window and figured I'd deal with it in a day or two when I was less traumatized. And then one morning I went out to my car, this time parked in relatively safe neighborhood of Bernal Heights, and saw that the trunk was wide open. Odd. Oh, I see: another derelict had ransacked my trunk and glove compartment, sawed through my dashboard and ripped the buttons off my factory-installed stereo. He left a knife and a cigarette butt inside the car as souvenirs. At that point I'd learned enough to know that the San Francisco cops weren't going to be bothered by a stolen stereo, so I didn't even bother to report it.
Truth be told, I'd had enough car woes at that point, between being broken into, backed into, burglarized and ticketed, ticketed, ticketed, that I completely gave up on my car. I figured why fix anything if it's just going to get violated again? So I didn't replace my stereo.
Out of sheer boredom, I found out that the guts of the radio it still worked. I could press the little metal rods where the volume and tuner buttons used to be and could listen to the radio just fine. Of course, there was no display to go by -- just some metal and a few rods and the slot where the CD should go (forever jammed with my Best of Stevie Nicks CD). So I learned to tune into stations I wanted to hear by turning the metal tuning rod and counting each click. There was a four-station span between 96.5 and somewhere in the 99's that I would 'shuffle' through -- click-click-click-click-click -- easy listening to slow jams, Chicago to Cameo. Each time a new person got into my car they'd see the gaping, buttonless metal expanse and invariably say, "Whoa, what happened to your stereo?" And I was happy to regale them with the woes of being a car owner in the bay area.
I've lived with my buttonless stereo for several years now. I've gotten savvy enough so that I only get maybe two or three parking tickets a year now (down from one or two each month), but you can't be savvy enough to avoid being rear ended by a taxi driver in the 15 mile per hour merge lane at SFO. And don't even ask me about Black Thursday. But I think I've reached a peace with my car in this city. We've avoided any major mishaps for probably a good year or more.
Which is maybe why I decided, finally,
to buy a new car stereo. Detachable face of course, and compatible
with my Nano. I picked it up a few days ago, and it's been overwhelming. I can tune into any station I want with pre-set buttons. I have a volume knob. And once I figure out how to hook up my Nano, I'll be able to listen to my own music. I can't wait until one of my friends hops in my car and
wants to play me their new CD, and I can finally say "Be my guest".
It's like having a whole new lease on life. I almost wish my work commute were longer than 10 minutes.
I said almost.