RSTs Mk II: Getting More Tale

#374: The Winter of Our Discontent

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RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#374: The Winter of Our Discontent

I don’t think there is any question that driving around here has been especially tough this winter.  There were a couple days when it was colder here in Ontario than it was in Alaska!  The snowfall has been relentless, and the roads chaotic.  Although we in Canada get to work on our winter driving skills every single year, it rarely seems to help the majority.  This winter has most definitely been the winter of our discontent for driving.

The snow banks are piled high, making it hard to see cars about to turn onto the street.  Some streets are packed hard with slick ice.  Road salt is not effective below -10 degrees, and the city has been cutting down on salt usage for environmental concerns.  Meanwhile because of the plowing and piling of snow, lanes have been rendered too narrow by the massive banks on either side.  Not to mention the visibility issues of snow blowing in front of you as the sun sets in your eyeline.

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As usual, my commuting has been done to the tune of several 8 gig flash drives in my car.  Albums spun in the last several weeks included:

  • Marillion – The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra)
  • Marillion – Live in Caracas
  • Ozzy Osbourne – Diary of a Madman (2 CD set)
  • David Lee Roth – A Little Ain’t Enough
  • Rush – Roll the Bones
  • Rush – Feedback (EP)
  • Savatage – Power of the Night
  • Van Halen – Best of Volume I
  • Van Halen – A Different Kind of Truth
  • Whitesnake – Come An’ Get It (w/ bonus tracks)
  • Whitesnake – Saints An’ Sinners (w/ bonus tracks)
  • ZZ Top – ZZ Top’s First Album
  • ZZ Top – Rio Grande Mud
  • ZZ Top – Tres Hombres

That’s when I wasn’t listening to the radio.  Local radio is always helpful when one needs to find and navigate the least messy route home.  If I hear that there is an accident on King St., that means I’m taking Highway 8 home.  Most days the roads have been plugged with accidents all over the place.  My radio is good for helpful navigation, and also entertainment.  I enjoyed when, on the Friday February 27 commute home, Craig Fee played a wonderful tribute to Leonard Nimoy on the Overdrive at 5:00.  The station assembled some of the best, all time classic Spock quotes and backed them with the theatrical Trek theme.  Craig followed that with “Intergalactic” by the Beastie Boys, which of course features the line, “like a pinch on the neck from Mr. Spock.”  I think Leonard would have enjoyed his musical tribute.  It was certainly an emotional ride in the car that day for me.

Sadly, killer tunes on a flash drive or the radio can only do so much to ease the nerves when a transport truck is passing cars on the shoulder of the 401 in the middle of a snow storm.  There is, unfortunately, nothing that music can do to protect us from the idiots out there who somehow managed to wield a driver’s license and get behind the wheel in a blizzard.

I think in Canada, drivers should have to take an additional test.  Not only should they have to take their road test, but a winter road test too.  Only then can we know if they are up for the challenges of driving in a Canadian winter!

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#373: Check Yer Section!

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RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#373: Check Yer Section!

Don’t you hate shopping through a CD store that has a loose grasp on the alphabet? You could be looking for ABBA, only to find that somehow they had wandered over to the AC/DC section, or further. It’s not really the store’s fault that things go missing all over the place. It’s your own fault for not putting things back where you found them! But we came up with a method to minimize “CD drift”™ and keep the different sections looking great.

Each staff member would be assigned a section of the store that would be their responsibility to check and keep straight and organized. We might have rotated these sections among staff monthly or bi-monthly, whatever worked. The goal was to get somebody to check and reorganize every section of the store, every few days. Hard work but it was the only way to keep things where they should be.

Checking your section entailed the following duties:

1. Ensure that all CDs in your section are in their correct location.
2. Replace any CD cases found to be broken or excessively scuffed.
3. Ensure that no more than one or two copies of a CD are visible. (If we displayed all 47 copies of Collective Soul’s first album, we’d never sell any of them.)  Don’t prominently display any duplicates.
4. Correct price if discrepancies found.
5. If the header card for an artist is peeling, make a new one.
6. Make a header card for any artist that needs one.*
7. Keep section looking generally neat, even and organized. Don’t have one row with only five CDs in it, while the next row is bursting with 25. Balance them out, keep ’em even.**

Managers had to keep on top of the staff’s sections. Nobody seemed to really like checking their section. They got messy very fast, especially Rap/Dance. That section needed fixing on a daily basis, pretty much.  One of the managers used to purposely put CDs in the wrong places to see if her staff had checked.  The Rock section was bad, and so were DVDs. They were always getting thrown around, people didn’t care.  Just throw ’em back anywhere, not their problem, right?

Checking sections became such a habit that after quitting the store in ’06, I still instinctively fixed my section when visiting! Old habits die hard.  But it’s all for a good cause — even though nobody liked doing it, it absolutely needed to be done, and often!  Check yer section – a monotonous but critical part of CD store operations!

Can you spot the "section sin" in this picture?

Can you spot the “section sin” in this picture?

* Determining what artists needed header cards and which can just be filed under “misc” was a whole set of rules in itself, which I won’t bore you with.

** Trust me on this, I’ve gotten enough shit from bosses who didn’t like uneven shelves!

#372: Top Five Reasons Why I Love Kiss

KISS ARMY FRONT

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tales
#372: Top Five Reasons Why I Love Kiss

A while ago I recorded this segment for a proposed podcast over at KingCrimsonProg.  The podcast hasn’t come together yet, for the moment anyway, but I’ve decided to use my segment right here because it’s a subject of interest.  Listen to the embedded video below to hear my Top Five Reasons Why I Love Kiss!

#371: The Birth of Grunge

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RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#371: The Birth of Grunge

1991.

The pendulum of rock music was swinging back to heavy. The world had tired of Poison, Warrant, and even the once mighty David Lee Roth. His latest album (A Lil’ Ain’t Enough) had tanked and the tour poorly attended. On the other hand, Metallica were transforming from the little thrash band that could into a worldwide juggernaut. Change was in the air, but what we didn’t expect were the dark clouds blowing in from Seattle.

I had been aware of a few newer bands. Soundgarden for example had some airplay with “Loud Love”, but I wasn’t impressed. There was another new group called Temple of the Dog that had a music video with two singers. “What’s up with this new band, Temple of the Dog?” I asked my highschool friends. They shrugged. “Haven’t heard of ‘em.”  Highschool ended and I began a new adventure at Wilfrid Laurier University, majoring in History. And that’s when I saw “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Because the schism of grunge and metal had yet to occur, it was played on the Pepsi Power Hour, where Temple of the Dog had also debuted. I had even read a Nirvana concert review in an early issue of M.E.A.T Magazine, but they weren’t really on my radar. I thought the singer had a great voice even though his ratty old sweater was pretty lame. I thought he kind of looked like a dirty Sting. The singer’s voice and the drummer’s chops were the best part of this band that otherwise didn’t click for me.

Some other singles and videos trickled onto the airwaves: “Jesus Christ Pose”, “Alive”, and more. It all happened so quickly. In a matter of months, a new crop of darker, detuned bands had replaced the likes of Van Halen on the charts. These new bands didn’t concentrate on an image, which in itself became their image. Shaggy beards, unkept hair, shorter do’s – these new rock bands didn’t look much like the old. Even their onstage personas were different. Where bands used to try to entertain and give bang for the buck, these new ones seemed to take a page out of shoegazer bands’ books. Layne Stayley from Alice in Chains was noted for standing still in one place on stage much of the time. Pearl Jam replaced lights and flashbombs with jams and crowd surfing. Worst of all to me was the disrespect this new crop had for the old, just like in the punk days of old. Krist Novoselic of Nirvana said on television that he hated heavy metal because it all sounded like with was spat out of a computer. The fact that heavy metal fans were buying his albums by the hundreds of thousands didn’t seem to click with him. Mudhoney were talking about beating up Sebastian Bach. It was getting crazy and a huge split happened within heavy rock music.

It was hard to keep up with the rapid changes. What was in a few months ago was deader than dead. What never would have had a chance of charting in 1990 was now #1. Artists that once looked cool suddenly looked ridiculous. But most importantly, the fun was disappearing from rock and roll. It was no longer enough to sing about cars or girls. Now you had to have something from your soul to confess, or a social issue to address. It was a lot less fun to sing, “Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies, oh he don’t know so he chases them away,” than it was to sing, “I got it bad, got it bad, got it bad, I’m hot for teacher.”

I resisted the change. I owned no grunge albums until late ’92, when I was finally drawn in by the song “Would” by Alice in Chains. The Dirt album took some getting used to, but it was at least built upon metal riffs. Pearl Jam and Nirvana remained all but incomprehensible to me. A couple years later, Soundgarden managed to suck me in with “Spoonman”. I had to admit that these bands had a lot of talented players: guys like Matt Cameron and Jerry Cantrell were earning mainstream respect among musicians. As these bands grew in popularity, I would always advise kids to keep an eye on the rearview mirror. “Yeah, Soundgarden are great. But have you ever heard original Black Sabbath? They were the original Soundgarden.” I didn’t want the roots (and my roots!) to be forgotten.

Grunge and I had an uneasy relationship for a few years, but soon it no longer mattered. Other types of music were coming to the forefront now, even more heinous and evil: pop punk, boy bands, and the post-grunge onslaught. I slowly grew to enjoy Pearl Jam and some Nirvana. I even own a Stone Temple Pilots CD or two. But my heart will always remain with the music that grunge nearly destroyed forever – hard rock!

Hard rock went into a sort of hibernation for a while, but it could never be killed.  Not even by something as all-consuming as grunge was.  Today, hard rock is back in business again.

The Four Horsemen: “Back in Business Again”

You never met a man like me
You wouldn’t understand
I’m in the rock’n’roll business honey
I’m in a rock’n’roll band
And we were headed for the top babe
Way back in ’91
Some record business scumbags took it from us
Well they forgot my gun
Well now we’re back in business folks
I’ve come to claim what’s mine
See we’re the Four fucking Horsemen
Back for a second time

I’m a fast talkin’, woman lovin’, whiskey drinkin’, good for nothin’ rock n roll star
In a hell raisin’, trouble lovin’, whiskey drinkin’, mother f***in’ rock n roll band
I make my dirty little fortune
In this rock n roll band
We’re here to entertain you
We’re back in business again
Hahahaha

Moron after moron at the meet and greet
They’d do just about anything for a front row seat
When you see me on the stage one thing you’ll understand
It’s what I do, it’s what I am, I’m just a rock n roll man
And you don’t hear me whining about my fame and fortune

I’m a hell raisin’, trouble lovin’, fast talkin’, good for nothin’ rock n roll star
In a trail blazin’, skin lovin’, whiskey drinkin’, mother f***in’ rock n roll band
I make my dirty little fortune
In this rock n roll band
We’re here to rock n roll you
We’re back in business again

Now pay attention
I got a little story here to tell ya
It kinda goes like this
You know I had a couple years off there babe
To kinda take some time
And I heard a bunch of whining, little wussy rock n rollers
Complaining about how fame and fortune’s got them down
I say we gather up all these little bastards
Shove them back to their lil’ nowhere town
See I was born on this stage
And I plan to stick around!

#370: “I use that bucket for everything now!”

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RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#370: “I use that bucket for everything now!”

Am I ever glad that I started journaling 10 or 15 years ago. Most of what I recorded is nonsense that I can barely relate to, but every once in a while I stumble across relevant entries from the Record Store. Just a glimpse of Record Store life — the bad times, the good times, and a laugh or two!

Date: 2004/06/01 16:57

God I’m tired. I slept well but work has been non-stop since I got here. I hate that kind of day, you need to breathe some times! And Matt is late, so I can’t eat my lunch. I am having a Bad Retail Day. Everything and everybody is making things worse.

Date: 2004/07/30 12:47

BENAROYAI am expecting the new Pearl Jam to arrive today (late).  [That would have been Live at Benaroya Hall, released officially on July 27.]  I can’t wait to hear it.  Two discs of unplugged Pearl Jam?  Count me in.   The best “grunge” bands weren’t “grunge” at all.  What’s so grungy about Pearl Jam?  Nothing.  They are just good rock rooted in the 70’s and in the willingness to try anything once.  Hence, Eddie Vedder doing drunken covers of ridiculous stuff onstage.  I love it.

Date: 2004/07/30 16:15

An actual conversation at work today between myself and the accountant Jonathan.  We were talking about staying in hotels on the road:

Me:  I like to steal bars of soap and shampoos from hotels.  I mean, I’m paying like $120 for my room, I want some goddamn soap!

J:  I hear ya, man.

Me:  Last time I even stole the little tea packets.  Like, fuck, I want tea!  Coffee, too.

J:  I stole the bucket that you put the ice in.

Me:  Really?

J:  Shit yeah.  I use that bucket for everything now!

Date: 2004/09/30 21:32

Doing a bank run to get change for the register and do deposits.  On the way to the bank, this one kid asked me to buy a candy bar today.  I told him I had no money.  Then he asked me again on the way back from the bank.  I told him I still had no money.  Then he went into my store and asked me to buy a candy bar.  I told him I still had no money!

Just one more drop in the bucket.

#369: Grocery Store Rock

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RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#369: Grocery Store Rock

The lovely Mrs. LeBrain finally came home from the hospital just before Valentine’s Day.  Three weeks in that place, or close to it, monitoring for seizure activity.  Mission accomplished, Mrs. LeBrain returned home to find my nearly empty fridge and cupboards.  A weekend grocery shopping trip was arranged and we restocked the essentials.

Normally I don’t really spend a lot of time at the grocery store, but this was an extended trip and I found myself noticing the songs that were playing.  I was hearing 80’s rock, oldies, classic rock, and a variety of tunes that I didn’t expect at the grocery store.

I remember growing up, going to the store with my mom as a kid, and they were playing Muzak.  Same store, same location, Muzak was playing 30 years ago.  When did this change?  I didn’t notice.  I worked in a grocery store myself when I was in highschool, but I’ll be damned I could tell you what music was playing.  Therefore it was most likely Muzak.  That same old Muzak that always sounded like a watered down version of the M.A.S.H. theme.  I’ll take classic rock over that any day.

Here are the tunes I remember from the Great Snowstorm Grocery Shop of Feb 2015:

1. Blondie – “Atomic”.  Blondie is coming to town this July as part of Big Music Fest, so that was totally appropriate.

2. ‎The Beau Brummels – “Laugh Laugh”.  I recognized this old classic from an episode of the Flintstones!

3.The Kinks – “Come Dancing”.  I have been on a serious Kinks kick since December.  “Come Dancing” and “Apeman” are currently my two favourite Kinks songs, but the tropical feel of “Come Dancing” hits the spot when it’s -16 degrees outside.

4. The Tokens – “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”.  This one killed the momentum for me, so I went to the junk food isle.

5. The Doors – “Break on Through”.  Morrison’s tormented screams haunted me in the cereal section.

6. Tommy Tutone – “867-5309 (Jenny Jenny)”.  By amusing coincidence, this song came on as I wandered away from Jen, and went looking for her.  I had a laugh over that, and I’m sure shoppers wondered why I was chuckling.  Jen couldn’t hear the song over the sound of the refrigeration in the produce section.


7. A Taste of Honey – “Boogie Oogie Oogie”.  I first heard this Disco classic on the Craig Fee Show.

8. Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Sweet Home Alabama”.  Moms listen to this now.  That’s the reality of the world we live in today.

Not a bad batch of tunes for a grocery shopping trip.  Certainly better than Muzak, you must agree!  It wouldn’t have been so bad working at the grocery store with those kinds of tunes.

#368: On Call in Canada – What are your rights?

 

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#368: On Call in Canada – What are your rights?

I was wary to post more on this subject, but here goes!  The last time I brought this subject up, it resulted in behind-the-scenes fallout with two guys that used to work under me at the Record Store, who did not agree with my stance. They did get me thinking though, and since that time I have tried to find out more about worker’s rights in Ontario on this specific issue…and I finally got my answer!

My question was this:  Can an employer order you to use your own personal cell phone, for work (specifically retail) purposes, without compensation or prior agreement?

Some additional details to fill in the blanks:

1. I was a store manager.  Managers were required to make themselves available when needed.

2. I bought my cell phone myself in May of 2000.  It was purchased after getting lost on a weekend trip up to Huntsville in the middle of the night.  I decided, “Well, I never want to feel that isolated again,” so I went to the Bell store at the mall with my buddy T-Rev and selected a phone.  That phone lasted me until 2006, which wasn’t bad at all.

3. I did allow work to call my cell phone in the past.  I did not keep the number secret and I posted it so that I could be called in case of emergency.  This was my secondary contact number, because most of the time the phone was shut off.  My landline was my primary contact.  My cell wasn’t even all that helpful, much of time.  There was no cell phone reception up at the cottage, where I spent most of my summer weekends, but for years this was not a problem.

4. Not all store managers even had cell phones.  Joe aka “Big Nose” did not have a cell phone that I knew of.  If he did, he was smart enough not to tell anyone about it.  I was a friend of his and I didn’t have his cell number, if it existed.

So when my direct supervisor stormed in on the morning of December 19, 2005 after a weekend crisis while I was out of the house for an hour and unavailable on the phone, they demanded that I leave my personal phone on “from now on”.  I have always assumed that I must have had some rights on that issue.  Allowing work to call my cell is one thing, but being ordered to leave my phone on 24/7?

Since I had been looking for an “exit strategy” for a while, I used this cell phone disagreement as a justification in my mind to give them my notice.  I did not feel “entitled” to any special treatment, I simply wanted to be treated fairly.  But I had no fight left in me, and I wanted out more than I wanted to stay.  But if I had stayed…could they have made me keep my cell phone on 24/7?

A legal source informed me that no, an employer cannot order you to use a cell phone that they didn’t pay for.  End of story. Period.

“You did nothing wrong,” said the lawyer. “You’re weren’t working for the Fire Department.”  And I finally know that I was right.

I have no regrets today, and the store that I used to work for continues to thrive.  I am glad for that; the store was a huge chunk (28.5%) of my life on Earth.  The parting was done amicably, and I am proud of everything we achieved as a team.  I am left with these wonderful Record Store Tales to remember one of the most exciting and interesting times in my life!

SAM_3211

#367: Greatest Hits 2

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RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#367: Greatest Hits 2
A sequel to #364: Greatest Hits

The last time we talked about greatest hits albums, I listed seven reasons that die-hard fans usually shun them.  Readers came up with some of their own, and also arguments to defend greatest hits albums.  I usually advise fans to buy key studio albums rather than compilations, depending on the person.  Yet I still own a few hundred greatest hits albums. There have to be good reasons.

And what about you?  How many do you own?  What are your favourites?  Why did you buy them?  I asked myself those three questions too.  #1. I don’t know.  #2. There are many, but Double Platinum and Killers by Kiss are up there.  #3.  Let’s talk about that in depth…I broke it down into seven points:

KENNY_00011. There are some artists that I barely know. Neil Diamond or Kenny Rogers, for example.  There might be a handful of songs I like, but not enough that I have heard to take the plunge and buy an actual album. Or, I know it’s an artist that I don’t want many albums from.  I have a feeling that I only want one or two CDs, so one of them is usually a greatest hits.  I collect a lot of music, but I can’t collect everybody. Sometimes I’ve done the research to know that I need one or two CDs and nothing more.

2. Exclusive tracks are often dangled as bait. But sometimes greatest hits albums are stuffed with exclusive radio edits and remixes that aren’t obviously credited. Kiss’ Double Platinum is one such album. Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits had a number of special edits of songs. Collectors like myself often look for such versions. They make for an enjoyable way to hear a familiar song with a slightly different slant.

SAM_17443. Artwork. Younger folks might not understand why this matters, but I come from the age of physical product. With some bands, you don’t want just the music. You want all the album covers too; they are sometimes as important as any other aspect of the music. Iron Maiden is the first, obvious example. I own several Iron Maiden greatest hits discs simply because I wanted to own all the Eddies. There is a certain satisfaction in viewing them all lined up in order.

4. Historical importance. Some greatest hits albums are just historically important. Best of Van Halen Volume I for example – even if I didn’t buy it for the two new songs, I would have wanted it for the significant role it played in breaking up Van Hagar! You might want to own Their Greatest Hits by the Eagles for the fact it’s the top selling hits album of all time.

5. Sometimes, I actually do listen to greatest hits! Sure, not often by comparison. But if I’m in the car with the Mrs., she might prefer a Deep Purple greatest hits set to a 5 disc version of Made in Japan. I own ‘em, so if they’re good I may as well play ‘em. Also, If I’m going somewhere and I only have an hour or so to listen to music, a greatest hits album often scratches whatever itch I have.

6. Gateway music. My entrance into the world of Thin Lizzy was one CD (Dedication: The Very Best of).

DEDICATIONThat point is the most important one.  Using a greatest hits album to delve further in the discography is such an excellent experience.  My first two Deep Purple’s were greatest hits.  Now my Purple collection is of a prodigious size.  I don’t even know how many I have.  100 maybe?  More?  And it keeps growing!

My first Floyd? Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.  My first Rush?  Chronicles.  First ZZ Top? Greatest Hits.  See where I’m going with this?  These are bands that, today, I am still collecting.  I still buy whatever’s coming out.  Which brings me to my last point.

7. Personal history.  I’ve developed a relationship with some of those greatest hits albums over the years, even if they have been superseded by better ones.  Something about the familiarity, I suppose.  But even though all my first greatest hits albums were on cassette, I still went and bought CD copies of them all.  In some cases, vinyl too!

What are your favourites?  Does it bother you to own multiple copies of the same songs?  If your favourite band came out with a greatest hits album tomorrow, would you consider buying it?  Let me know!

 

#366: 50 Shades of Piss

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RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#366: 50 Shades of Piss

A sequel to #355 “The man’s hot piss warmed my freezing hands”

STOPARRET
Sensitive readers might be best advised to not read on, unless on an empty stomach.

Regular readers have already met Joe aka “Big Nose”, the most unique Record Store manager in the history of record stores. Still there today, slinging CDs to the masses, Joe is a phenomenon. The only thing he likes more than baseball might be taking a pee with the door wide open. He is a very different person, with a heart of gold and a bladder of steel.

However, sometimes when you gotta pee, you just gotta pee…door or no door.

Joe was living in an apartment in Waterloo with a couple guys. One morning after a long night of partying, Joe awoke to find his path to the washroom blocked by passed-out bodies. When you gotta pee, you gotta pee, so Joe improvised.

He fashioned a piss bag from an old plastic grocery bag he found on the floor. After relieving himself into the bag, he tied it off securely and looked for a way to get rid of it. The only easily accessible option was the window, so out it went, onto the lawn below.

I believe that Joe enjoyed this new method of relieving oneself, because he tells me that he launched more than one piss bag out the window over the course of the next few days. Until the landlord complained.

“I keep finding these grocery bags outside,” said the landlord. “Stop throwing them on the grass!”

If only he knew!

But that’s Joe. He seems to get some kind of perverse enjoyment out of relieving himself in the least labor-intensive way. In fact it has been confirmed that me that the stories are true: Joe has indeed shit in the shower. Way back in Record Store Tales Part 41, I wrote that somebody I knew claimed to shit in the shower.  Today, an informant named “Uncle Meat” has since told me that this is true.  Joe would either poop directly into his hands and drop the deuce into the toilet; or if it was a smaller shit, he would simply mash it down the drain with his foot. I had long considered these tales to be nothing more than myths.  But the stories were so bizarre, I really wanted them to be true.  Just so I can say I know a guy who proudly shits in the shower, you know?

Even though Joe is just a lil’ different from the average bear, he’s always been a solid, stand-up trustworthy guy.  He is a man of integrity and a serious who-gives-a-shit attitude when it comes to the norms of society.  I just don’t want to share an apartment with him, or need to use the shower at his place.

#365: SuperShadow

SS1

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#365:  SuperShadow

“Legendary Iconic SuperShadow Ultra Infinite Mega Genius”

“As you would expect, all information about the world famous and legendary SuperShadow (SS) is above top secret (classified at the highest level).” 

“Heralded by fans as the most important, influential and ingenious Star Wars expert in history, SuperShadow completely revolutionized the way Star Wars movies are created.  SuperShadow.com played a crucial and pivotal role in the development of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.  Man fan ideas submitted at SS.com were integrated by George Lucas into the final scripts and screenplays of The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith….Lucas has acknowledged many times in public that SuperShadow is the best thing to ever happen to Star Wars.”

SS

Beginning around the time of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, a new online “source” began “leaking” plot information for future Star Wars movies.  When he started out in 1998/1999, a lot of the rumours he was posting were legit leaks based in reality, albeit copied from other sites.  By Episode II, he went completely crazy with ludicrous “leaks” that were obviously fabrications.  This “source” went by the online name SuperShadow and he claimed to be close, personal friends with George Lucas.  He wrote that he had cameos in the movies, which he also claimed to co-write.  As if Star Wars alone wasn’t enough, Shadow also said that he was going to persuade his buddy George to include new music from Guns N’ Roses in Episode III!

AXLStar Wars and Guns N’ Roses – two of the most secretive brands in the world, and apparently SuperShadow has inside scoops to both!  I’m sure Axl wasn’t even aware of this guy’s existence.  I’m not sure which is the more absurd of the two claims: that he was friends with George Lucas, or that he could get Axl Rose to release new music!

Online sleuths traced his website, supershadow.com, to a person named “Mickey Suttle” in North Carolina.  Nobody knows if that’s a real name or an alias.  SuperShadow quickly built up both a legion of followers, and a much larger number of haters.  He posted a picture of himself with chiseled looks in a white T-shirt, and also a picture of a mystery nameless “girlfriend”.  Every day, SuperShadow would tell his fans how much he “scores”.  (Apparently, 24/7.)

SuperShadow infuriated many fans with his wild claims and “quotes” from his friend George Lucas.  Shadow eventually caught the attention of Lucasfilm, who were quick to put out official statements clarifying that Shadow had “absolutely no relationship with Lucasfilm or George Lucas.”  They also had to issue cease and desist orders when SuperShadow started soliciting fans for money, to access special “spoilers” and plot outlines for future movies.  Today, supershadow.com no longer exists.

I read the SuperShadow drama with amusement, and wondered how a guy like that had convinced thousands of fans that he was indeed an insider with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of George Lucas’ mind.  It seemed like a massive, obvious piss-take to me.  I thought he had to be a joke, and everybody was falling for it.  In fact I couldn’t see how anybody could view the SuperShadow website as anything but one huge prank, up until he started asking for money.  It was either a gigantic joke that nobody got, or the guy was just an obsessed, lonely megafan.  But nobody had ever succeeded in unveiling the real SuperShadow/Mickey Suttle, so I wondered if I could try to draw him out myself.

Setting my plan in motion, I set up a fake MySpace page for SuperShadow.  It was the first; there were no others, official or fake.

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By the time my fake SuperShadow began making his first posts, fandom had already found him.  He received “friend requests” daily from “believers” and “non-believers” alike.  I could hardly fathom that people were buying this.  All I did was put up the same picture from the official SuperShadow site and some fake information and posts.  “SuperShadow” made waves on the Star Wars message boards, and Shadow’s fans and haters announced that they had “discovered” his MySpace account.

I wanted to try an experiment on the internet.  I decided to spread a false rumour to see if fandom would pick up on it, and they did.  I told one guy who had been sending me questions that “SuperShadow” was in fact several people who set up the site as a big spoof.  Sure enough, within a few dayss I found information on various wiki-type sites that “Supershadow” could be a collective made up of several people who had pulled a massive prank on the internet.

It was funny for a few months, but then two more fake SuperShadow MySpace accounts showed up.  One was “Supershadows” and the other was “SSupershadow”.  Having lost interest myself, I told the guy who had been interrogating me earlier that I was just goofing and had nothing to do with SuperShadow.  I was surprised when he asked me if he could take over the account!  He wanted to see if he could suss him out, himself.  So I gave him the password, and passed the fake account on to a new nerd, who continued with the fake posts and pictures.  I lost interest then.  It was amusing while it lasted, and I saw how quickly rumours spready on the web.

I never succeeded in drawing out the “real” SuperShadow, or finding out if it was just a massive joke that went way too far.  I can however finally confess:  I, LeBrain, was the REAL fake SuperShadow!

Below: a sample of SuperShadow’s Q&A-style posts.

Q: SS, this site is like a fine wine, gets better with time. (SuperShadow: Excellent analogy.) Anyway I have a question: 1) How did you and George Lucas become close friends? (SuperShadow: In early 1994, Lucas watched one of my brilliant extra-terrestrial documentaries on the A&E TV cable channel. Lucas contacted me to congratulate me on the best documentary of its kind ever produced. He completely agreed with my position that the Citix Black Ops project had secretly implanted microscopic alien life forms into the minds of the world’s population. Lucas wanted to learn more so I told him all about the mysterious truth about extra-terrestrials. I told Lucas that I was sort of a Star Wars fan kinda. He invited me to Skywalker Ranch and we discussed the prequel trilogy. I spent several weeks at Skywalker Ranch in 1994 hashing ideas with Lucas that would be integrated into the prequel-trilogy plot line. We have been close friends ever since.)