Open on a wide shot of CYBERSPACE. A vast field of dark gray filled with softly pulsing lights in every color: red, green, blue, orange, yellow, violet, white, amber, indigo. Some are just dots. Others are clusters, like snow-cones lit from within. Hairline glowing traces run from dot to dot.

We track in slowly on a single lavender DOT. It pulses slightly as it speaks in a hushed voiceover, the kind you hear in planetariums.

DOT
Drew?
(beat)
Drew? It is Fortyrecords dot com.
(beat)
It is your blog, Drew. Can we talk?

DREW responds. His voice is distant, full of reverb. Not the “voice of God,” more the voice of sleepiness.

DREW
Don’t say “blog.” That word is onomatopoetic for “vomit.”
(pause)
“Blog” is the sound a person makes when they throw up.

FORTYRECORDS
You need to throw up tomorrow, Drew. We need to talk about what you will be throwing up.

DREW
Okay, fine, go back to saying “blog.”

FORTYRECORDS
Drew, you have a problem for 2002.

DREW
What’s wrong with 2002? Lots of good things happened in 2002. I got a new job ten minutes from my apartment and met the people I’d work with for over eight years. I played my first professional improv comedy show and I’m still doing that after twelve years. 2002 was cool. I’m cool with 2002.

FORTYRECORDS
There is no good choice of record for 2002.

DREW
What? There has to be. We have a list for these, right? What’s on the list?

Zoom in on the FORTYRECORDS dot, extreme closeup. There are words rendered in black, too tiny to read. As each record is mentioned, we can see TINY ALBUM COVERS appear on the surface of the dot, tinged with lavender, slightly curved, like reflections in a soap bubble.

DREW
There we go. Scarlet’s Walk. Awesome Tori Amos album. The creative peak of her mature period, a concept album that actually works, including “I Can’t See New York,” the only thing ever written about 9/11 that actually makes me cry. Perfect choice. Let’s do that.

FORTYRECORDS
Drew, you covered Tori Amos in 1996.

DREW
What? But there were so many albums we could have done in 1996! What was I thinking?

The DOT pulses patiently, all business.

DREW
Okay. Hey, look, there’s Lost in Space! That one’s great too.

FORTYRECORDS
Aimee Mann was 1995.

DREW
Hey, Rasputina…Suede…David Bowie…

FORTYRECORDS
1998, 1994, and 1976.

DREW
Fuck! Jesus. Okay. Um.
(pause)
Okay, wow. I mean, some of these look good, but I don’t know what I really have to say about them.

FORTYRECORDS
Kill the Moonlight is a classic album. You might talk about that.

DREW
Yeah, but I didn’t have any interest in Spoon at all until a couple of years ago. I kept confusing them with Train.

FORTYRECORDS
You have seen Idlewild in concert twice.

DREW
Yeah, but what do I say about The Remote Part? Good album, but they take themselves so seriously.

FORTYRECORDS
You have seen the Pretenders and the Breeders in concert once each.

DREW
Loose Screw was okay. And I guess that kinda got me back into some of their other records. But that’s two sentences. And I got rid of Title TK in that CD trading service.

FORTYRECORDS
You bought it again recently.

DREW
I don’t want to tell people that. I’ll sound like some OCD freak.

FORTYRECORDS
It is insensitive to use “OCD” as a synonym for “eccentric.”

DREW
Who says I’m using it as a synonym for anything? Just because I haven’t been diagnosed —

FORTYRECORDS
Cornershop?

DREW
Pretty sure I traded that one too. I should buy that one again if I did.

FORTYRECORDS
Low?

DREW
If Idlewild are too depressing, there’s no way I’m writing a whole essay about Low.

FORTYRECORDS
Missy Elliott. While we are on the subject of insensitivity, may I point out that every single artist whose records have been featured so far is white?

DREW
We have one coming up.

FORTYRECORDS
… “one.”

DREW
What do you want me to say? I’ve listened to Under Construction like once. Not even Prince released an album in 2002. Maybe if The-Dream had started putting out solo albums five years earlier, but I can’t pretend those were a big part of my life. I grew up whiter than Wonder Bread, you know that.

The DOT holds a pulse and then relaxes, as if sighing resignedly.

FORTYRECORDS
There is one album you are forgetting.

DREW
Okay…

The DOT pulses rapidly.

DREW
Are you going to tell me or are you going to try and give me a seizure?

FORTYRECORDS
It is insensitive to —

DREW
Shut up.

The DOT shows a picture of a white glove pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

DREW
What is this, a rebus? Just tell me what you mean.

One more album COVER appears:

DREW
Oh! Well yeah, okay, I like that album a lot. “Flicking Your Switch,” “Fire,” “Seventeen,” “Evil,” “Light and Magic,” those are all great. I love “Blue Jeans.” What else can I say? Should I talk about how Pitchfork panned it, and then they loved The Witching Hour which is boring as hell and has maybe one memorable track on it? How they always come in and love the boring album after the good one because they weren’t sure if it was cool to like the good one and don’t want to be fooled twice? This isn’t about how Pitchfork are a bunch of sad desperate would-be hipsters, or about how scary it must be to have a job where your worth depends on being right about something with no right answer. This is supposed to be about me and just loving music. And I just love Light and Magic. The first album’s also okay, but the rest haven’t done much for me. That’s it.

FORTYRECORDS
You will have to find a way to work that up into a full post.

DREW
Yeah, okay, I’ve found a way. You’ve been transcribing this whole conversation, right?

FORTYRECORDS
It is my function to do so.

DREW
Well, just format it like a script and put it up exactly as we said it. I need to get at least six hours of sleep tonight for a change.

FORTYRECORDS
But —

DREW
And throw some album images in. And a video or two. There’s a good album for tomorrow. I’ll talk about that.

FORTYRECORDS
But —

DREW
Good night.

In the dark gray of CYBERSPACE, the lavender DOT pulses. It is the only dot in its sector. It pulses…pulses…pulses. It seems to sigh again. And then it gets to work.