thursday vs. ebay

so, rewind five years ago to 2003. fresh out of college, i got a dream job working for universal music in the washington dc branch. i was convinced i had a long career ahead of me working in the music industry. funny how things change, right? i quit that job to record an album with brand new disaster and go on tour and the rest is history.

at the time, one of my favorite bands was thursday. out of all the bands i listened to at the time, they were the first to reach some degree of mainstream success. they signed with island records (unheard of at the time) in 2002 and i was excited that, through my job, i was going to play a role in helping one of my favorite bands.

i got a chance to meet them at an acoustic in-store in philadelphia. i was unbelievably nervous and young and kinda silly about the whole thing, but it meant a lot to me. i had a brief conversation about my aspirations in music with the singer, geoff, and he was really encouraging and friendly about the whole thing. i was so excited that i had talked to this dude who i considered to be somewhat of a hero of mine. he was really encouraging and friendly and told me to pursue music. looking back, it was a big catalyst to get me to quit the job and pursue music full-time.

i always took that experience with me as i continued along my path in music. once i had been in bands for a few years and talked to a lot of kids in the same way geoff talked to me, i realized that geoff was just a dude in a band and probably felt the same way i did. but for a bunch of kids, he was totally inspiring. i made sure that whenever a kid wanted to talk at a show, i would go out of my way to be friendly and encouraging in the same way that geoff had been to me, on the off chance that it might have the same kind of impact that my conversation once had.

anyway, the guy who orchestrated my trip to philly and meeting the band was this dude named todd, who was the island records rep at my office. he was a completely solid dude and was one of my favorite co-workers. almost two years after leaving universal, i got a surprise package in the mail from todd. it was this giant 8 ft. x 8 ft. thursday banner from the in-store we went to that day. i'm sure as tower records closed, they were getting rid of all that stuff and todd got hold of it somehow. i was really impressed that he had remembered! it was a really thoughtful gift.

by that point, my love for thursday had kind of diminished. still liked the band, and still listened to them regularly, but i didn't have quite the love for them that 2003 phil had. at least not the level of love that required hanging a gigantic banner in my house. so it stayed in a box. every time i'd move, i'd rediscover this gigantic banner and kick myself for not doing something with it.

when i discovered it again this time, moving into the new apartment, i promised myself i would find a way to get it to a thursday fan that would be able to do something awesome with it. i posted it on ebay and then posted about it on a few thursday messageboards. i've never sold anything on ebay before, so this was a totally new experience for me. i've already got 9 bids and the thing is up to $40 which is right about where i was hoping it would sell for. it's still got a few more days left, so things could get crazy.. who knows, i might get way more than i was expecting!

it's a little sad to sell the thing off, but it's even more sad to keep it in a box when it could be someone's favorite piece of memorabilia.

the original purpose of this post was to talk about how fucking awesome it was that i figured out how to sell shit on ebay, but i guess i dropped some nostalgia all over it and now i don't know what the hell to make of this post. if you've made it this far, feel free to leave me a comment telling me that i've wasted a good five minutes of your time.