Woke up, fell outta bed, dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, and looking up I noticed I was late…

When Tim walked into work at Tower Records, he was annoyed to find Bob B. from Atlantic Records waiting for him. Tim just wanted to chill out, do some paperwork and start the day slowly instead of dealing with a record company geek first thing. So he "accidentally" stepped on Bob's Kenneth Cole designer shoes and left a Chuck Taylor imprint on their mirror shine. He looked around his office and saw a stack of The Streets Original Pirate Material CDs on his desk. "What's this?" he asked.

"Goodies for you babe," Bob replied. "With Rolling Stone saying it's the best debut album of 2002, and the NY Times saying it's the best hip-hop album of the year, we gotta start pushing this thing again. So I wanted to bring by a bunch and see if you'd turn your staff and favorite customers on to them."

Tim sat there with a shit-eating grin. There were a hundred different responses running through his mind, but he dropped the most direct one: "That would be really cool if it didn't suck so bad."

"C'mon."

"C'mon nothing. You know that every time I play that CD people either laugh or ask me to take it off. It's as wack as wack gets. British guys sound ridiculous when they try to rap. And it's not even hip-hop – it's lame, Euro-trash, electronic, 'garage', whatever music and it just doesn't cut it. So please get that crap outta here."

Bob started to argue his case, but Tim wasn't having it, and practically shoved him out the door.



I read the news today oh boy. About a lucky man who made the grade. And though the news was rather sad…

Around lunch time, Tim figured out why he was in a grumpy mood. His best buddy Wally was leaving Tower to go work at a cool indie record label. He was happy for Wally because he was dying to get out of Tower, but Tim was sad for himself because he would miss his pal. He was also jealous that Wally made the leap from retail to label before he did, but Tim wanted to be the bigger man about it, so he walked out to the stock floor to find Wally and offer to treat him to lunch. He saw Wally standing by the Norah Jones display talking to Eva Brown. As he walked up he heard Eva say, "…she deserved to win all those Grammies. Hell, she's the most promising artist out there now."

Wally jumped in while Tim held in a belly laugh. "You're such a poseur. Last week you were raving about the Donnas, the week before about Me'Shell NdegeOcello, and now Norah Jones. I can understand being all for the non-conformist music chicks, but Norah Jones?"

Eva laughed. "Ok," she said. "Maybe I just want to fuck her. But she's not so bad. She's got her own little hybrid going with that jazz-country-soul thing. It's not like she's Britney Spears or something. And she looked so cute in that black dress at the Grammys. Can you imagine laying next to her while she crooned 'Come Away With Me?' Yum!"

They laughed, bullshitted some more, and then Tim and Wally went to the Cozy Burger. Tim told him about Bob B. coming by and trying to pawn off The Streets on him.

"Fuckin' major label dorks," Wally ranted. "They just don't get it. Let some dweeby critic write something decent about a band, and they take it as gospel. That dude Skinner from the Streets is frontin'. He don't know hip-hop. We got visionaries like Talib Kweli and the Roots tryin' to take hip-hop to another level, and these record label suckas wanna talk about the Streets. Ain't that some shit."

Wally was worked up and went on for a while. But Tim enjoyed it because he knew he wouldn't get to hear 'Wally Wisdom' as often anymore.



Found my way upstairs and had a smoke. Somebody spoke and I went into a dream…

When he got home, he played his answering machine and heard the message from Lilly inviting him over. Perfect, he thought. A shower, shave, bottles of wine, fat doobie, and some mood music and he'd be in like Flint. But the right mood music was key. Lilly had exceptional taste for a chick, but he had to be careful with the adventurous stuff. This was a crucial decision. He and Lilly had been friends since college and they were at a point in their friendship where they each were flying solo. They'd been hanging out regularly on the weekends, and he knew it was do or die time. Tim knew that making the leap from friends to boyfriend/ girlfriend wasn't going to be easy, so he at least wanted the right music on hand to celebrate or soothe.

His instinct led him to Al Green. But his instincts had always been bad with Lilly, so he started thinking about it. Isaac Hayes? Not cuddly enough. Portishead? Too stiff and mechanical. Norah Jones? Hmmmm. He'd bring it, but not make any big moves to it. Jeff Buckley? No groove and too sad. Frankly, he'd feel her up to the strains of Metallica if it were up to him. And when he realized that, he went right back to Reverend Al.

It might be a cliché, but Al's voice was like butter – it would just melt you when things heated up. Actually, Al Green's voice conveyed so many different emotions so well, that you had no choice but to love him. And the grooves were so tight and music so warm, that he just knew he'd end up snuggling with Lilly.

So he grabbed Let's Stay Together, put it in his bag, and decided that no matter what, when "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" came on, he'd make his move and see if they could finally get together to stay together.

~ ~ ~

Next episode: Tim finds the truth in the old cliché "be careful what you wish for...." as he seeks shelter in the shadow from the oncoming storm.

(Mike Webb is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine and has never worked at Tower Records.)