RIFF MARKET

Things overheard at the Tower Records on East 4th Street tonight

-Excuse me, sir, do you have The Essential Iron Maiden? Oh, ha! Wow. Here are five thousand copies.

-Hi I can take the next person down here
-Hello!
-Hi how are you
-I'm doing better now that I bought all these CDs at rock-bottom prices! How are you?
-...
-This is the best day of my life

-Hey. Hey mom. You won't fucking believe this. I just read this in New York's The Village Voice. Are you sitting down? Sit your seventy-year-old ass the fuck down, mom. You won't fucking believe this. I just read this. Tell me when you're sitting down. OK. Great. Ready? You can't tell anybody. Did you know that there's this thing--it's like this secret Chinese bus or something--that, I shit you not, you can take to Boston for only twenty dollars?!

-Do you see that girl over there? By the magazine rack? I want to set her on fire.

-Totally. I mean this is totally going to revolutionize transportation to and from Boston. Unbelievable development.

-When you guys finally close up at night, are you going to build, like a tower of records, and then like knock it down? No no no, I don't think you know what I'm trying to say here. I think you're misunderstanding me.

-Have you heard of this band Diddy?

-Oh, and another thing, mom. Don't call it Boston. Call it "Beantown."