The Talk of Creatures

Huddled Masses was released fairly early in my Residents fandom.  I didn't have many of their albums, and this became an easy way to sample them in order to select which I would acquire next (yes, kids, there was a time before YouTube and Spotify and being able to hear anything instantly... to hear new Residents music meant seeking out a physical copy, and since they weren't super popular I couldn't just borrow a friends copy, so special orders were made and that made it all pretty expensive).  The album concentrates were the perfect answer to a very 90s problem.  I remember Scott Colburn was also making concentrates around this time, those being Real Audio samples one could play on the Ralph America site.  I think the concept is great, and when WFMU asked for one-minute mixes ten years later, of course I included my own take on a Rz album: http://www.planga-la.com/_60seconds/Residents-GodInThree20SecondChunks.mp3

But to me Huddled Masses will always be intimately linked with my mother.  This was a big expensive box set and I was a child, so I requested it as a birthday present that year.  My mother called Ralph America to purchase it (she said she'd give me the money to buy it myself, but for some reason I felt it wouldn't be right... I don't know why I felt that way, other than perhaps an intuition about the near future that would make it all worthwhile - read on).

So mom's on the phone with Sarah and/or Molly, and she and/or she asks if my mother has an account with them.  She says no, so then they want to make a new account.  "But my son has one... you can just put it on his, no need to make another one for me."  Sure thing... what's his account number?  "I don't know... I can tell you his name."  That probably won't help us.  "His name is Chris Combs."  Yeah, no, sorry, I need the account number or we need to make a new account.   "I'm Goat Boy's mom."  Oh hi!  No problem, you're all set!

[Goat Note: my stupid nickname began life as Goat Boy, though it was slightly less stupid because Jim Breuer hadn't come around yet to ruin it, and when he did I was kinda stuck with it.  Most everyone called me goatie so I eventually just started using that as an online handle.  Not a great story, but at least it's extremely boring.]

Oh you think the story is over?  No, there's another punchline.  They shipped the package, not to me, but to "Goat Boy's Mom."  She also had it delivered to her place of business, which was in a small strip mall kinda thing (she managed a video store).  Extra fun is that they left out part of the address, so while it was 1041G - which would point directly to the video store - the package only had 1041, which meant any of the dozen or so businesses in the structure.  But, somehow, the UPS guy knew to only approach my mother with it.  A further punchline, less impactful but still true, is that afterward we received additional Ralph America catalogues addressed to "Goat Boy's Mom."

And that is what America means to me.