Fade in. When I was a teenager I got my first after school job the day after my 16th birthday. Actually, my mother found the job for me, but that is besides the point. I was the one who spent my evenings working at the local dry cleaners. I worked there day in and day out for nine months and every week’s pay went towards my most valuable and prized collection of compact discs. I’d make my trip over to Best Buy each weekend to exchange my hard earned money for a total of six of the latest releases. My operation was like clock-work: get pay check, spend it, get pay check, spend it… Smashing Pumpkins, Eminem, TLC, Wu-Tang, No Doubt, Stone Temple Pilots, and Beenie Man – I had to have them all and more.

Cut to. My family had to move to Hawaii during my Junior year of high school which placed a slight halt in my routine and weekly pay. I couldn’t stand the thought of not working and providing for myself (expanding my collection). I hit the jackpot In Hawaii though. I landed a job at a music store in Ala Moana mall and later Pearl City. A dream!! Working at the music store made it far too easy to feed my covetous ways. Every check out went right back in and more music was added to my insanely growing music library. One day when I had a lot of extra money to spend (a whole different story) I decided to buy somewhere around 55-60 CDs in one day. If it wasn’t for my store discount I would have easily spent $1,300+, but my total was about $980. No sweat. I was so impressed with myself that I took a picture with the receipt and saved the photo and the receipt. (I have the receipt around here somewhere.)

The college years rolled in before I knew it and off I was to Los Angeles for higher education in the world of arts! Because it can take a month for your goods to arrive from Hawaii to the mainland I decided my music could not be left behind. I refused to be without it. Thankfully some genius had created these CD books that could store 256 CDs in one case. I purchased two and loaded them up for the plane ride to Los Angeles too. Now for some reason my memory says hauling them through HNL was a breeze, but there is no question about the way I was feeling once I reached L.A. My scrawny little bi-ceps were burning while walking through LAX. I must have looked pathetic because a kind brother of Islam stopped selling his bean pies to ask if I needed any help. He was probably thinking something like, “Poor covetous creature…” I thanked him politely and continued to wait for my aunt to arrive.

After college and some real life work experience in the music video industry, I needed to retreat away from Los Angeles. I was in dire need to clear my head and figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. I once had a cozy apartment in West LA and some lovely IKEA furniture with credit card debt to prove it, but these things weren’t keeping me happy. I got rid of it all. Of the few things I held onto, you best believe my CD collection was one of them. It had grown somewhere into 1,000+ and I packed each of them up in alphabetical order in this great little boxes my friend got for me. He worked at Tower Records at the time so they were perfect for my music. And the story continues with me and my pal Angel hitting I-10 east bound to Florida. I came back home to mama with all of my CDs.

The escape from Los Angeles to Florida was back in 2003. Which means seven years have passed and the CDs strangely enough never came out their boxes. I listened to my favorites (Bjork, Zap Mama, Les Nubians, etc.), but the rest stayed tucked away out of sight and out of mind. Fade out.

Now I don’t want them anymore. Gasp. It isn’t that I don’t like the music anymore. W