As you may have noticed, this site hasn’t been updated in a long time. I hesitated to write a final coda, I thought I’d just let the archive lie here in the amber of the internet, but then I remembered that the point was to share our stories.

Ruined Music began as an offhand idea over a plate of Thai noodles one afternoon in Brooklyn; somehow this became an MTV News crew telling me to “look like you’re really posting something to the site” as they filmed over my shoulder. (For those of you who saw the clip and asked, yes, Buckley the cat is still available for commercial work.) Now we — and by ‘we’ I mean those of us responsible for running, updating, and otherwise steering the site — have moved on to other projects, other agendas. Ruined Music didn’t get dumped; it just ran its course.

Co-founder Bryan Bruchman and I were always amazed, though in retrospect we should have stopped being so, by the emails we received. We couldn’t post everything that came in, but we read every message you wrote, the funny ones and the sad ones, the profanity-laced ones, the ones that still believed in love, the ones that didn’t want to give up. I think, looking back on it, that the ones I will remember longest were those we received from young girls in faraway countries – places where a relationship can be ruined by parental decree, social mores, and customs that mean nothing to teenagers in love to the sound of the radio. I hope everything worked out for them. I hope everything worked out for everyone.

There’s a long list of people who deserve thanks, but I’ll keep this as concise as I can. MC Rob Holmes wrote order cialis onlinebuy generic viagrathe very first Ruined Music story on request so the site could go live. Fun fact: Rob is about to celebrate his first wedding anniversary, and yes, he played Superdrag at the reception. The nice folks at WNYC had me on the air soon after the launch, and I’m convinced that brought the site to an audience it wouldn’t have reached otherwise. Several friends contributed stories, advice, and encouragement, including Liz, Emily, Brendan, Annie, Annette, Mike, Carrie, Felicia, Eric, the entire Serious Business family, and many more. Very special thanks to the Shondes, Beat Radio, the Unsacred Hearts, Nichelle Stephens, Mick Stingley, and Brandy Barber for making the site anniversary party at the Delancey such a success.

Most of all, thanks to the people who sent stories, read the stories, linked to RM on their blogs, contacted us for interviews, and helped spread the word in whatever way they could. This little project is over but it isn’t: next time someone or something leaves us with a gaping hole in our record collections, we’ll know that it will hurt but we will live to tell the tale. And that’s exactly what we’ll do, all of us.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for writing.

For RM HQ,

Mary

ps. If you’d like to stay in touch, and I hope you do, I can be found generic cialisgeneric viagrahere and order levitrageneric viagrahere and order cialis onlinebuy cheap levitrahere. Bryan is order cialis onlinebuy viagrahere and generic cialisbuy generic cialishere and buy cheap levitrabuy viagrahere.

“Come here. You’ve got to hear this song – it’s my favorite. You know Phil Collins, right?” Mark clicked through his iTunes library, finally landing on “Sussudio.”

It was getting late, probably around three in the morning. The party downstairs was starting to die down. This boy was irresistible.

It was late September of my freshman year in college. I’d had the best summer of my life, emancipated from the shackles of responsibility. Untied. Liberated. Self-governed. I belonged to no one, to no foundation, no institution. In between the bonds of high school and college I celebrated myself. My friends felt it, too. That summer we laughed harder. We stayed out longer. Everyone and everything seemed to be at peace. And nothing, even the uncertain future ahead, was anything to fret about. We breathed in the summer sky and felt limitless.

But now, the air was starting to cool and the sun began to set earlier each day. There was something magnetic about his eyes. Green or hazel? I couldn’t tell. There was something in those eyes I couldn’t read, or touch – something wild.

I had met him a few nights earlier at a party. He was a junior. We had glanced at each other across the room. I felt that I already knew him; he looked like the kind of guys I knew in high school.

When the cops came to issue a noise complaint I followed him down to the basement of the house – I was underage, trying not to sway when I spoke. We ended up talking in that basement for hours. He wore seersucker shorts and a white polo shirt. We smoked cigarettes and talked about eighties music: The Band, Phil Collins and The Talking Heads billowed over the smoky room and left us buzzing, humming, smiling about the promise of someone and something new.

Eventually we moved to his room on the third floor of the frat house. We sat on a moldy, beer-stained couch, but I overlooked the squalor of the setting and felt my chest flutter.

Then paint-chipped door of his room burst open. Three of his friends fell in, toppling over each other. They sat down and nodded in my direction. I sat quietly, shifting in my seat between the couch cushions.

“Does she…?” Mark’s best friend asked, lifting his chin toward me.

“No, I don’t think so,” Mark answered.

Do I what? I shifted in my seat again. The crust on the cushions grazed my legs. Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” played in the background; the metallic rhythm of the song drilled against frat photo composites lining the walls. A cool breeze floated in through the open windows. What were they talking about? Do I what?

An awkward silence radiated. Phil Collins persisted quietly in the background. Mark scooted away from me. He leaned back into the couch cushions and reached into his front jean pocket. He pulled out a small clear pink plastic bag, the smallest bag I had ever seen. I stared. Phil Collins droned on about being too young, his love just begun. One of the frat brothers handed me a framed picture of Mark and his family. I held it briefly before turning it over to Mark. He looked young in the photograph. He was smiling and holding a diploma, his dad’s hand on his
shoulder.

Mark lay the picture face up on the coffee table in front of the couch. His friends sat across from us, listening to the music and bobbing along, grinning. He emptied the bag onto the picture. White crystals scattered across the glass. I looked at Mark, but his face was expressionless, his eyes focused on the frame before him. He mechanically removed a twenty-dollar bill and credit card from his wallet.

My cheeks felt hot. I’d heard numerous accounts, warnings and nicknames for the substance in front of me. But I had never seen it, I’d never sat down with it poured out in front of me. The breeze had faded and the the room felt suddenly stuffy. Stuffy and still. Motionless.

The metallic beat of “Sussudio” fell hollow in the background.