Be careful what you wish for

See this record? It's by a band called Bitter Tears, and it was pressed by a label that also put out The Coctails, Archer Prewitt, Tall Dwarfs, and others. Their entire operation just moved around the corner from our house.

You have to believe me when I tell you: This is unprecedented.

That same block features a currency exchange, a parking lot, a taqueria, a shuttered banquet hall, and several vacant storefronts in a row.

But these new neighbors have decided to plunk a record label in the heart of what even the most objective would call a wasteland. Not only will they expand their successful warehouse and distribution business, but they also plan to open a full-service record store that specializes in music that you (if you were me) would actually like to listen to. My sweetie had a tour of their warehouse this week, and when I asked him what kind of stuff they carried, he said, "Basically my entire record collection." He may have swooned.

So this is all good news, right?

A viable, longstanding business willing to take a chance on this corridor can only be a welcome development. And heck, who doesn't want a great record store right around the corner? Right? Right?

So why do I have such misgivings?

I'll tell you why, but don't spread it around. My cred in certain circles may be on the line.

What I love about my neighborhood, and what I've always loved about this place, is the way different populations so gracefully and intentionally intersect. As long as John and I have been here, and certainly long before that, young and old, Latino and white, working people and artistic dabblers, have formed an easy cohabitation.

You see it in the restaurants, the grocery stores, or just in conversations among neighbors. John can get a veggie tamale at the same place I get my carnitas torta. Our supermarket carries lard and chicharrones in one aisle, organic milk in another. Native Spanish speakers try out their English while native English speakers muddle through their Spanish. For most of us, including the Latino families who have every right to feel encroached upon, there's a premium placed on that interchange.

But this record distributor, I have to say, is a very different animal. The other night we attended a zoning meeting at their building, and the owners seem like nice folks. Amazingly nice. And they're doing such a good and important thing for the area. Truth be told, we'll probably lose our retirement savings to this place and have a damn fine time doing it. We'll probably know the proprieters by name in no time. We may even have them over for an occasional margarita on our porch.

But this is the first sign I've seen, at least in our neck of the woods, of a new business destined to be monochromatic. And while I can of course name at least a dozen people I'll bump into browsing those bins at the shop, I can also name a dozen that I won't.

Without a doubt, there's still much to put this in the win column, and I'm sure I'll be singing the place's praises and doing my part to keep them afloat. But deep down, something will always nag at me, and I'll probably feel better and cleaner about the money I'm spending across the street at Tony's Certisaver Supermarket, even if it's on fancy, elitist, organic half and half.