The Associated Press reported on September 23, 2024, that “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ music catalog has seem a jump in streams since his arrest last week and the unsealing of an indictment against him.” I do not stream music and I am not too familiar with the discography of Mr. Combs, with “not too familiar” heretofore meaning “I could not name one of his surely beautiful melodies.” I know enough about the allegations to get some strong Epstein vibes, although I am sure that many of the participants in his parties, some of whom are undoubtedly far more well-known than Mr. Combs, much less your humble small writing website administrator, can speak more to that with much more authority. I share this report not because I am interested in streaming statistics, Mr. Combs’ discography, or covering the very slippery allegations – but because one quote from the article reminded me of a my own story – or perhaps more accurately my observation of a peculiar thing in a former much-beloved Manhattan store. The inspirational quote comes from Mr. George Howard, who is described by the Associated Press as “a distinguished professor of music business management at Berklee College of Music.” The passage, including the quote, reads as follows:
Howard said the ‘anonymization’ of streaming is also a factor that could have led to the increase [in streaming] for Combs … ‘Imagine walking into a record store now like, ‘Yeah, I want to buy this Diddy CD,’’ he said.
This is an interesting thought and probably directionally correct, although I will submit without any supporting evidence that I am sure many rappers in the 90s did well commercially after criminal matters even without the benefit of “anonymization.” (Some non-rappers such as the late Michael Jackson seemed to come through just fine too.) But that is not here, perhaps there. What is here is my story.
Re-Introducing J&R
J&R was an electronics and music store on Park Row in lower Manhattan – about 3 minutes away from the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge – from 1971 to 2014. I liked J&R and previously told the story of when I acquired Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and Ribbit King in the games section of its electronics store on June 11, 2004. J&R is tangentially related to a few other anecdote articles. In the summer of 2007, I acquired the copy of Microsoft Publisher that I used to design the high school newspaper I would edit the next year along with the TI-89 Titanium graphing calculator that I would use in class, both at J&R. But today’s story takes us not to the electronics store, but instead to the section of J&R which sold movies. I do not recall buying too many movies at J&R – just one story from late 2008 when I bought a DVD of 2001: A Space Odyssey after school on a day in May, mostly using quarters.
But enough about stories for other articles.
The Xtra Special Booth in the J&R Music Store
I have obviously not been to the J&R movie store in at least a decade. I say obviously because J&R shut down just over 10 years ago. Thus, I am relying my recollection to describe the layout.
J&R’s movie store had a large floor space with checkout counters and cashiers on the wall adjacent to the entrance. In the center of the store there was a curious, very narrow, slightly elevated closet-sized area or booth. There was a single entrance to the booth with saloon-style doors. The area was very marked as only being open to individuals aged 21 and over. This was, of course, a special cutout for pornographic videos. To avoid any confusion, I make clear that by pornographic videos I mean physical video media in cases (I assume they were DVDs at the time I became aware of the section but having never gone “inside,” I can only speculate). It was not possible to watch the videos in J&R, only to study the cases and jackets. What was curious about the porno section of the store was that it was possible to see into it from everywhere in the store. For example, if John is browsing the selection, you can see John’s head and shoulders above the walls and his feet under the doors. You could not see the videos – those were strategically placed as to not be visible to outsiders. But you could see John.
I did not go into the J&R movie department too often. But every time I did, there would always be one guy in the adult video booth. John would be in the booth carefully studying a cassette or DVD box, maybe comparing it with another. John was very interested in the cinematic productions on display. But it struck me that John was on display – people could look up from the non-pornographic music or movies to see John looking at higher lettered-fare. How did John feel about this? Was he such a movie connoisseur that he shut out the world around him when he was evaluating the new selection and trying to figure out which one of two new movies had the best plot and acting? Did he actually enjoy having everyone know what he was looking at? I suspect it is the latter since online retail was well established by the time I was somewhat regularly going to J&R. One thing I am certain of is that John was not ashamed – John always took his time in there.
While there is certainly no shortage of pornographic content (despite my general reservations about using the word content – it is appropriate here) currently out there, I will venture that some of its consumers are young enough that they would have trouble understanding the existence of the J&R adult movies section.
Unexpectedly Coming Full Circle
This article is about to come unexpectedly full circle. I draft articles without spell check. When I am paying attention, this is not much of an issue because my spelling is usually solid. But I will confess that I ran a quick search for connoisseur before using it in the previous paragraph to avoid having to fix a spelling error later (funny enough, my spelling instinct was right but when I ran a search I had omitted the “i” in a typo). For some reason, I clicked on the first result – the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry. One reason I prefer older dictionaries is because they have better, often eloquent, usage examples than the sorts that turn up online. But in this case, the first usage example caught my attention, archived link for posterity:
Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, now starring in Broadway’s A Raisin in the Sun, takes his grooming rituals seriously. ‘I take a bath around 3 a.m. when I get home to wind down. I’m a bath connoisseur,’ says Combs, 34. ‘I have bath salts, bath beads—I can make you the best bath in the world.’
Ann Marie Cruz, People, 14 June 2004 (via Merriam Webster)
I submit for the record that I had planned to end the article with the previous section, and I thought that we were entirely done with Mr. Combs after the first paragraph. But an internet search which proved to be unnecessary followed by a link click which was even more unnecessary than the search led me right back where I started. Moreover, the People story cited to by Merriam Webster is dated just three days after I acquired Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, which I referenced above in my J&R introduction. Now we are really coming full circle.
As for the usage example itself, you may do with that as you will.
