Guest Shoegaze: Retail Worker Finds “Tip” On The Floor

Found: A friend of The Shoegazer (and roommate to DJ Fabulous) works at a local boutique in Boston, where one of her duties includes keeping the store neat when stuff lands on the floor.  Normally what ends up on the floor is receipts, gum wrappers, and occasionally coins.  Unfortunately, working retail and finding coins on the floor often leads to poverty, and in the case of this guest shoegazer, she was down to her last ten bucks when she spotted a wad of cash lying on the floor by a rack of very expensive jeans.  When nobody was looking, she swooped over and quickly pocketed the cash, coming up with a cool $25 – one twenty and one five, folded together.

Location: This find was reported at the Diesel store on Newbury Streeet in Boston, MA.  The exact location of the cash was in front of a portable rack of $200 jeans toward the front of the store.

Source: Probably somebody who realized that $25 wasn’t going to get them very far at Diesel.  The Shoegazer is with Obama when he talks about “spreading the wealth” around, and what better place to start than spreading it from rich college students to hard working retail clerks?

Destination: The finder of this money reported being extremely grateful, as she was down to her last $10 when the discovery was made.  She reported making a purchase of Campbell’s Chunky soup with the found cash, though when The Shoegazer next saw her, she was drinking an extremely large beer at a Hooters restaurant in Saugus, MA.

FOUND: 2 Bones at St. Jerome’s

Found: The Shoegazer recently spent several days down in NYC, trying out his luck in unfamiliar territory while at the same time checking out bands as part of the CMJ Music Marathon and getting together with NY-area friends. While looking downward frequently during long walks around the city and visits to dark, cramped bars, The Shoegazer came up short again and again. It’s certainly possible that New Yorkers are just less careless with their cash, or that the price of drinks in Gotham means little change is coming back across the bar.

However, there’s another possible reason for The Shoegazer’s brief dry spell. While enjoying free drinks at The Annex in the Lower East Side on Friday, October 24, along came proof that New Yorkers just try a little harder at some things. You see, there was a “Professional Shoegazer” inside the club! A guy was walking around with a flashlight, shining it under bar stools and down at people’s feet, stopping to focus on fallen napkins, limes, and gum wrappers. Perhaps it was just a club employee looking for a missing bottle opener or something, but whatever he was doing, the flashlight allowed him to find any money that may have been on the floor.

Having met his match by running into a pro, The Shoegazer departed that bar, undeterred by what he had just seen. A few blocks later, The Shoegazer met up with Boston co-workers at a tiny bar called St. Jerome’s, cramming into the crowded spot to enjoy reasonably priced (for NYC anyway) domestic beer and a mix of classic and ironic rock provided by a DJ. And there, in the final bar in a 3+ day visit that included many bars, The Shoegazer’s luck finally changed, with two singles revealing themselves at your intrepid narrator’s tired feet.

Location: These two singles were on the floor by the bar – the bar being St. Jerome’s on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side, Manhattan.

Source: Quite possibly somebody from The Shoegazer’s own party, as several of them were rather intoxicated.

Destination: These dollars never left the Lower East Side, as they were spent on a delicious slice of white pizza at Ray’s on Houston Street. The Shoegazer, with his peksy tomato allergy and love of NYC-style pizza, is known to gorge himself on the readily available varieties of white pizza available by the slice at many neighborhood pizzerias.

a promise of "rawk" inside lured the shoegazer in as well

FOUND: Good Karma; $30

Found: After coming up with $7 worth of floor cash on Friday, October 10, The Shoegazer fearlessly ventured back to Great Scott to see if lightning might in fact strike twice.  Bringing back the lucky seven from the previous night, your intrepid narrator returned on Saturday, October 11 to catch a show featuring Age Rings, Hooray For Earth and Viva Viva, with DJ’s Die Young and Baltimoroder spinning between and after the bands. 

It didn’t take long for The Shoegazer’s luck to continue.  Lying on the floor near the bar was a folded up $20 bill, lying directly beneath its likely source.  The Shoegazer picked up the bill, asked the source (a tall, intoxicated woman) had she lost anything, quickly realizing at her ass had been saved by the keen eye of The Shoegazer.  This marks the first find in quite awhile that was successfully returned to its source.

With a stockpile of good karma, it was only a matter of time before The Shoegazer spotted another lost bill, its former owner long since departed.  This time it was an oddly folded $5 bill near the edge of the dance floor.  But even that wasn’t the end of it – The Shoegazer found yet another $5 bill under one of the tables in the bar area toward the end of the night. 

Location: All of these finds, of course, happened at the venerable Great Scott.   What is it about this venue?  The Shoegazer ventured to two other popular live music venues later in the week, hitting up shows at The Middle East and TT The Bear’s.  Despite conditions eerily similar to those at Great Scott, The Shoegazer spotted nary a quarter on the floor of either venue.  One shoegazing disciple theorizes that the tight pants worn by the Great Scott crowd result in pockets that may handle a couple of ATM-fresh $20’s fine, but when ones, fives and coins are added to the equation, the cup runneth over.  It’s a fine theory, except tight pants are often prevalent at other venues where far less cash has turned up on the floor.

Source: The source of the $20 bill was the tall intoxicated woman.  The Shoegazer handed her a business card requesting an email that might lead to her identification, but with no word yet she will go down as Tall Drunk Girl.  The former owners of the $5 bills remain at large.

Destination: The Shoegazer has little doubt that the $20 was spent frivolously on girly cocktails.  The Shoegazer spent the fivers equally frivolously on post-work beers on the evening of Sunday, October 12.

FOUND: Next Week’s Cover Charge

FOUND:  The Shoegazer ventured back to the fertile grounds of The Pill, Fridays at Great Scott in Allston, MA, only to walk into a goldmine (or paper mine, anyway) of lost bills.  It’s getting to the point were finding money on the ground at this night is as common as hearing a dancefloor classic from Pulp or Blur.  This night was special because The Shoegazer made not one lucky find, but two.  Find #1 occured around 1 AM on Saturday, October 11, when two $1 bills, folded together, were spotted under some bar stools.  Had it ended there, it still would have been a good night, but around 2 AM, The Shoegazer was on the stage after the last song of the night had ended, when he spotted a $5 bill lying on the stage.  The fiver is one of the “new” bills featuring the watermarks, yellow “05″s raining down upon the Lincoln Memorial, and of course, the big purple “5″ on the lower right corner of the reverse side. 

photo credit: Phlegm; hand: The Shoegazer

Location: Both finds occured at Great Scott in Allston, MA, at the corner of Commonwealth and Harvard Avenues.  Find #1 happened by the bar, with Find #2 revealing itself on the stage.

Source: Find #1 appears to be the result of someone being less than careful putting bills back in their pocket or purse following a bar transaction.  Find #2 appears to have wiggled free from some dancing fool. 

Destination: Per usual, The Shoegazer witnessed neither of these finds wrestling free from their rightful owners, and as such the funds were pocketed by the still-underemployed Shoegazer.  Fittingly, these bills have a date to return to Great Scott, where they will once again change hands at the Allston music club.  From there, they will potentially be given as change to other bar patrons, and at Great Scott that means anything could happen.

Note: because The Pill has been so kind to The Shoegazer, it’s only right that the favor be repayed in the form of a plug for their upcoming Halloween show.

The Pill Halloween Show. The original, and best, local music Halloween show

Guest Shoegaze: A Misplaced Shoebox Greeting

Found: Last weekend The Shoegazer’s intrepid radio show sidekick, DJ Fabulous (she requested a fabulous pseudonym, so there goes) was strolling about the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY when she came across an envelope leaning against the side of a building.  Familiar with this blog and the bounties that can be had by looking downward, she picked up the envelope to reveal a misplaced birthday card and a personal check for $350.00.  It sounds like a lot of money for “Pop” to be sending to “Dylan”, but bear in mind that “Dylan” probably lives in a shoebox with the monthly rent of $2600 out in Bushwick somewhere, and 350 bones is probably chump change.  The card itself features a dog wearing what appears to be a bandana around his neck and some sort of Amish-looking hat atop his head.

Location: Leaning against the side of the Southpaw music club in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  It looked like it had been found before and left in a semi-conspicuous position awaiting Dylan’s return.

Source: Even though I was not there, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that either Dylan or Pop is responsible for this find.

Destination: The card and check, useless to anyone not named Dylan, were left where they were found, leaning against the side of the Southpaw club – but only after some amusing pictures were taken and a good larf had been had by all.  Whether Dylan returned to retrieve both items, or maybe just the check, is unknown.

DJ Fabulous with the jettisoned birthday greeting