COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:Tables turned on Tower

It’s gone. Poof. Down the road. Out the door. No mas.

Not the Yankees’ season, which I am not yet ready to discuss thank you, but Tower Records. There it sits, on Superior and 17th Street, not only broke and busted but suffering the indignity of “Going Out of Business” banners tacked on its walls.

Tower Records is the latest fatality of that lethal combination of technology and the generation gap. No need to look any further than its name to see the problem — Tower Records. Do you realize that the people reading this who are too young to wrinkle have no idea what a record is? Never seen one, never touched one, maybe never even heard of one — LP, 45 or, gasp, 78 — just meaningless jumbles of numbers and letters to them. MP3s? iPods? Now you’re making sense. In fact, the terminally young are actually a little sketchy about what a CD is, which is what was supposed to save Tower Records and everyone else in the music industry. Oh well. Life is what happens in between all the plans we make.

For those of you who were not around in the old days — and notice I do not say “the good old days,” because some were and some weren’t — it’s hard to appreciate the kaboom with which Tower Records burst onto the scene. I first heard about it while I was in the Air Force, circa 1970, when a buddy of mine, Rick Vaughnes, who was a huge rock and R&B; fan, showed up for work one Monday morning and said he’d been in L.A. over the weekend and had seen the Promised Land.

“I thought that was in Israel,” I said. “No,” he said. “It’s in Hollywood, on Sunset, and it’s called Tower Records.” He tried to explain, but we didn’t understand. It’s like a big department store, he said, except with nothing but albums, rows and rows of albums, as far as the eye can see, perfectly organized by artist in alphabetical order -- jazz, R&B;, classical and rock, thousands and thousands of them.

“Are you drunk?” I said. “I am not,” he said. “Even when you see it, you won’t believe it.” A few weeks later, I saw it for myself. Rick was right. It was exactly as he described — a sea of albums, more than anyone could count. It was humbling. Walking into Tower Records for the first time was like going to your first big-league game. You couldn’t take your eyes off the field. No one in history had ever seen that much grass, or that many albums, in one place.

Again, for those not of a certain age, we should explain what buying records (black plastic discs that played music on something called a turntable) was like before Tower Records. You know when you’re in the middle of nowhere between Barstow and Baker, and you stop at a seedy gas station not because you need gas but because you have to go really bad, and you buy a Slim Jim you don’t really want but it’s cheaper than the bag of beef jerky as an excuse to use the bathroom? You know how there are always a few dusty CDs and audiotapes of Tammy Wynette or “Sam and Dave: I’m a Soul Man Live” or the “Best of The Spinners”? That’s how buying records used to be. Everyone from the Five and Dime to department stores sold a few records — a box of 45’s (too hard to explain) in paper sleeves and a few albums.

There were record stores, but they were nothing like Tower Records. Most of them were like small bookstores, with the same clutter and chaos. The only thing you had a decent chance of finding was the latest singles, on 45 (still too hard to explain). Finding an album, first on 78s then LPs (too hard) was a hit-or-miss affair. It was mostly a matter of whatever was red-hot at the moment. Elvis’ “Blue Hawaii” album? No problem. “Sinatra at the Sands”? Got it. But if you were looking for something specific or more obscure, you had to order it, which took anywhere from three weeks to the next decade.

It’s important to understand, though, that getting a new record was a big deal — very different than today, where everyone has a boatload of CDs or 7,500 of their favorite tunes on their iPod. People my age (and there are very few of us left) always remember the first record they bought. The first record I bought with my own money was “Speedo” by Earl Carroll and the Cadillacs. (“Well, they often call me Speedo, but my real name is Mister Earl.”) The first album I bought was “West Side Story.” It cost me $2.50 plus tax, which took me a long time to get over, and I was so paranoid about it that I refused to play it until we got a new diamond needle (impossible to explain). When we did, I played it nonstop until my brother Dom said he would strangle me in the night and bury me under the Bronx River Parkway if he heard, “When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day” one more time, at which point I went back to “They often call me Speedo but my real name is Mister Earl.”

So that’s it then. Another sad ending. So long, Tower Records. It was a good, long run. Too bad there aren’t more of us who remember what a star you were. I guess Confucius was right: Sic transit gloria. I gotta go.

Peter Buffa is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at ptr4@aol.com.