I own a record player.
We don’t use it, of course. We can’t. It was made in 1928, and the crank handle that wound the turntable doesn’t wind anymore.
The record player is part of a massive piece of furniture—the nifty-keeno home entertainment system of the day. The record player dominates one side. On the other, you’ll find an ancient AM radio, powered either by some strange chemical battery that looks like it was made by Medieval monks or by the electrical cord that, to this point, I’ve been too scared to plug in.
Altogether, the whole contraption weighs more than my car. It was so heavy that we just left it in the room closest to the front door because we didn’t have the strengh to move it anywhere else. There it stands—just another object that needs dusting every week. Big. Old. Useless.
And I kinda like it.
But then again, I like junk. I like old stuff, and the older the better. If I was rich, maybe I’d be a snooty antiques collector. Since I’m not, I make do with hand-me-downs—stuff that’s been in the family for generations and no longer serves any useful purpose to anyone. Instead of holding garage sales, my extended family just ships it to me. “Mabel, we gotta get rid of that old sewing machine,” Uncle Hector might say. “It’s a fire hazard. Let’s see if Paul wants it.”
Rumor has it that my record player was being used as an informal saw horse by one of my second uncles or something before it fell into my hands. But my family tends to stretch the truth sometimes.
I’m not the only one out there who likes this sort of thing—not if I’m reading television’s cable ratings correctly. In the last week of January, five of cable’s Top 10 shows were all—how do we say this gently—junk. Two episodes of History’s Pawn Stars finished at No. 1 and 3, sandwiching an episode of Jersey Shore. American Pickers, also on History, was No. 4. A&E’s Storage Wars finished at No. 6 and 8. In the realm of reality television, junk is more popular than teen moms and real housewives and all the Kardashian sisters put together.
So, in honor of America’s apparent obsession with antiques, oddities and household flotsam, Plugged In will be doing an informal miniseries affectionately called our Month of Junk. It won’t take over the website or anything, but every week we’ll be posting a review of a junk-related show—starting with Pawn Stars this week—and post a Thursday blog that examines our love of stuff from a slightly different angle.
Really, I think that our fascination with stuff may hook into a lot of what our culture holds dear. When you look at a show like Pawn Stars, for instance, you see how much more valuable this stuff becomes if it’s connected with a celebrity somehow. Hey, that’s a cool old couch … but if Marilyn Monroe sat on the thing, we can bump the price up a grand or two. A 70-year-old book written by Earnest Hemmingway is worth a buck or two. A 70-year-old book signed by Ernest Hemmingway? We better get that thing insured.
Same doodad. But just making contact with someone famous makes the doodad, ever-so-much more valuable. It’s like Midas, the mythical king who turned everything he touched into gold. A celebrity’s touch adds to its appeal—and thus to its collectability.
Alas, my old record player has never brushed up against a celebrity. I’m sure if I dragged it into the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop—the setting for Pawn Stars—Rick Harrison would ask me to pay him 20 bucks to take the thing (and another grand to refinish the floors; the record player would surely leave gouges).
But if Benny Goodman had owned the thing instead of a string of Asays? Well, then we’d be talking.
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