Robot Monster

We've been given a pitch at Robot Monster; we being my wife and myself, and Robot Monster being a record store on St. Mary's, next to El Milagrito. Robot Monster is named after a b-movie from 1953, itself named after its central villain, an alien being resembling a man in a gorilla suit wearing a space helmet. Robot Monster is often recalled as having been one of the worst movies of all time, a status I doubt given other supposed worst movies of all time which I've actually seen, and which are usually just a bit cheap, and which generally piss all over the majority of contemporary tat, regardless of budget. Anyway, Robot Monster the store seems to stand in relation to conventional retail establishments much as does its filmic inspiration to anything involving Harry Potter. It sells vinyl records, but it also sells musical instruments, effects pedals, t-shirts, action figures, and anything else to which a price tag may be attached once all the crap has been cleaned off. Rusting single seater spaceships and automobiles from ancient fairground rides are parked on the roof and around the sides of the building, which itself is decorated in the colours with which Mexicans traditionally paint their houses. So Robot Monster isn't too easy on the eye, but nevertheless serves as an example of what made America great, and of what still makes America great in those places where the very worst of our shitheads never dare to venture for fear of either Communism or catching something.

Either Pie or Alba are related to the guy who runs Robot Monster, or they know him, so that's how we came to be invited. He asked either Pie or Alba if they wanted to set up a craft stall selling stuff in anticipation of Halloween, which they did, and here we are. Bess has known both Pie and Alba a long time. Pie got her name due to a love of pie during her teenage years. I'm not actually sure which one of them is here today, and I'm almost certainly getting my wife's friends confused with one another; but one of them has a table from which she is selling hand crafted spooky goods in black, orange and purple. There's a small paved patio in front of the store with iron fencing running around, so that's where we are. We set out our stall, I attach my canvases to the frame upon which I display them, Bess arranges all of her stones and painted things across the table; and we sit and wait to become rich.

We're next to an old guy selling photographs he's taken of Mexico, and I recognise a lot of the places because I've been to them. I wait for an opportunity to talk to him, but he's entertaining Alamo Heights types for about an hour - well dressed face lifty women who are probably having a cultural experience, but don't actually - after all that - buy anything, because they never do. By the time they've moved on, I've decided I can't be bothered, plus I've realised that his photographs are just snaps he's taken on a bog standard digital camera and then printed off on his PC.

On the other side is a family of hillbillies selling baked goods and wooden things embossed with crowd pleasing slogans about America or local sports teams.

The crowds, however, fail to materialise.

Around lunch I drift next door to El Milagrito and order migas to go along with various sweet teas for everyone else. Migas is essentially an omelette cooked with cheese, salsa and corn chips for texture, usually with refried beans and fried potatoes on the side. It has become my late breakfast of choice in recent years, and the El Milagrito version is as wonderful as their reputation has promised.

After lunch I succumb to the gravitational pull of Robot Monster. I'd been holding out, fearing the inevitability of this being one of those sales where I spend a lot more than I make. Their vinyl section leans strongly towards punky metal and bands with names like Crematoria or the Satan Likers rendered in hand-drawn barbed wire letters, because that sort of thing seems to be San Antonio's default setting, musically speaking. This means that I find an album by the Varukers, which is weird because they're from Leamington Spa back in England, where I took art foundation. Unfortunately, beyond the sheer novelty, they were never really my sort of thing so I keep on browsing. I'm sort of tempted by the Charles Manson album, but eventually pop for Hey Jude, a compilation of Beatles singles I've had my eye on for a few months, and the first X-Ray Spex album, which I only have on compact disc.

'I used to deliver her mail, you know,' I tell the bloke at the counter, because I still can't get over the fact and am therefore still telling anyone to whom it will mean anything. 'She was lovely.'

I'm referring to the late Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex. I used to see her out and about in Dulwich with some frequency. She had a lovely smile and, as claimed, I briefly delivered her mail. This is significant within my own personal mythology because Germ Free Adolescence by X-Ray Spex was one of my wake up records, one of a couple which vividly heralded my transformation into whatever the fuck I was as a teenager.

'Very cool!' Bob, as the bloke at the counter will eventually introduce himself, is gratifyingly impressed. 'I've played in England a couple of times. It's a great place!'

'You're in a band?' I'm actually very relieved to hear this because it shifts our conversational focus away from my name dropping.

'Used to be, man - not these days. I play bass.'

'What was the name of the band?'

'We were called Pigface.'

'Holy shit! You mean with Martin Atkins?'

'Yeah, man.' He's surprised I've heard of them. 'Martin's a great guy. You know I never played on the records, but he gives me a call when they tour.'

I feel slightly embarrassed that I've never knowingly heard anything by Pigface, having regarded them with suspicion as being Martin Atkins surrounding himself with famous pals in the absence of inspiration. Naturally I keep my mouth shut because I like Bob.

'Small world,' he laughs.

I also laugh, then tell him about how the guy who installed our washing machine used to be in Brujeria, a Mexican band featuring Shane Embury of Napalm Death, with whom I shared a couple of distantly mutual friends back in England. My distended name dropping has begun to sound a bit wackadoodle, as my wife would put it, even to me; but Bob smiles regardless.

'Sixty dollars,' he says, ringing up the sale.

'Holy shit! What? Are you sure?'

'The X-Ray Spex is fourty-five.'

'Oh bugger.' I take the record from the counter. 'It was fourteen, I'm sure.' Fourty-five is written on a red circular sticker attached to the plastic outer sleeve, but it hadn't occurred to me that this could be a price, there being no dollar symbol. On the other hand, $14 is specifically printed on a label on the inside of the record sleeve. The Beatles record also has its price denoted in this way.

'Well okay, then - fourteen, I guess. Sorry about that.' Bob seems embarrassed and I get the impression he's only filling in at the counter for a buddy. 'He really needs to get his pricing sorted out.'

I pay and get out, telling Bob it has been nice to meet him. I later realise there's something odd about the X-Ray Spex album - a couple of additional titles have been added to the track listing on the cover in a different font and with the dubious spelling of Oh Bondage Up Jours. Also, it's on the Art-I-Ficial Records label, which seems dubious. Discogs lists it as a bootleg, although the sound quality is great. I'd been wondering whether it really was priced at $45, and the $14 sticker was only a leftover from the original sale. I don't want to have gotten Bob into trouble, but then the pricing did seem ambiguous, and I don't feel so bad given that the thing is obviously a bootleg.

Bess's uncle Carl has turned up at our stall with his family in tow, two sons and two daughters. They've bought two of my canvases while I was inside boasting about having delivered mail to Poly Styrene. Selling work to relatives, even if only to relatives by marriage, somehow feels like cheating, but a sale is a sale, which is itself gratifying regardless of other considerations.

They ask after my mother's health because I was visiting her in England about a month ago.

Carl, presumably now thinking about English things, tells me something about some Beatles record purchased from Robot Monster, qualifying the report with, 'although I know you've never cared for the Beatles.'

I take up the carrier bag from the store and slide the Hey Jude album up from within, adding, 'I don't know what gave you that idea,' because I truly don't. Carl is ever a man of mystery.

He laughs.

'Talking of the Beatles,' I continue, 'you know my mother grew up in Liverpool, right?'

'I didn't know that!'

'Well, all this time I've thought she occasionally saw them wandering around the city, just as fellow teenagers, and she didn't think anything much of them. That was the story I remember.'

'Wow,' says Carl, not yet caught up to the implication of an incoming twist ending.

'Well, it seems I've remembered the story wrong all this time. She actually saw them play at the Cavern Club, but wasn't impressed for whatever reason.'

'Wow,' he says again with added feeling.

I can hear myself saying all of this as I'm saying it, and I find myself exhausting, but I say it anyway.

It's probably why Martin Atkins never listens to any of my records.