I’d Rather Watch Discarded Porno [Friday Thoughts With TeeCoZee]

Goo Moo Moo. It’s Friday, January 17, Two Thousand and Fourteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 42˚ & sunny and somewhere, a clown’s car has broken down for the 3rd time this month, making him potentially late for his appearance at the Better Business Association of Greater Western Iowa’s Tri-Annual Potluck Extravaganza For Troubled Teens and he sits on his hood pondering the Associates Degree in Liberal Library Sciences that he should be putting to use. I can’t help the poor man, but I do have a few things on my mind.

– It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. It’s also been a while since I’ve read anything substantial, so there you go. But you know what? I don’t feel bad about it. I was on vacation. What’s your excuse? That’s what I thought. GO BACK TO YOUR CUBICLE!

– After having my flight cancelled/changed twice, Delta bumped me up to first class. You probably already know this, as I made sure to brag about it to every living human that I know. For example:

“Hey Troy, what’s up?”
“Oh, nothing”
“Then why did you call?”
“I called you? That’s odd. It’s probably because of that one time that I flew first class! Yayehhh!”

“Troy, you’re 2 hours late to work”
“That’s fine. I’ll be there soon. I just gotta grab a quick flight from LaGuardia to JFK. First class! Boom!”

“Excuse me, but do you know where I can fin–”
“I FLEW FIRST CLASS, BITCHES!”

Okay, so flying first class wasn’t really that cool. It’s not like the plane went any faster, or it stopped the snow from falling on the ground. It didn’t prevent the Colts from winning and it didn’t prevent me from missing it. There were no strippers in Rob Ford masks or fountains of Skyline Chili® to dip your complimentary truffle-paté hot dogs in. I’m sad to say that none of this stuff happened. Aside from the free booze, there’s really no reason why I found ever fly first class again. Also, I’m fortunate that the flight was only an hour long. Free booze is dangerous. Muy dangerous…

– One of the biggest struggles with going on vacation is the transition of going back. It’s hard to adjust from the passive-agressive-but-still-friendly confines of the Midwest to NY, where everyone is inherently mean and attractive. I guess it evens out. I’d rather be ridiculed by a good-looking person than sarcastically criticized by an uggo.

– If you have an argument with an MTA worker, chances are he is right. If you see someone else arguing with an MTA worker, he is probably wrong. Science.

– There’s something so thrilling and ominous about a discarded VHS tape. It’s the same object as all the ones that you may or may not have in your house, but this one contains the locked memories of somebody that you will never meet. This person went through the effort of looking at the TV Guide, finding something good on, saying “oh crap, I won’t be home for that” and setting the VCR to record. There’s no doubt that whatever is on a mystery tape was worth watching to at least one person. They also function as time capsules. I’ve always dreamed of having a set of VHS tapes that chronicle 24 hours of some guy flipping through cable TV stations. I’m just cool like that, I guess.

A few years ago, I found a box of old VHS tapes on my block. All of them seemed like movies that were taped off TV, so I just grabbed a random one, took it home and forgot about it. A few days ago, I jammed it into the VCR. Watching somebody else’s blank tape tells a lot about the person you will never meet, so as I watched, I kept all of this in mind:

*The tape starts off with the last quarter of the 1996 NBA Finals. Although I am no longer a basketball fan, this was a rare treat. It took me back to when I actually appreciated basketball. It made me want to play NBA Jam or get a flat-top haircut like Detlef Schrempf. Judging from the lottery numbers on the bottom of the screen and the fact that the commercials were seamlessly edited out, I could tell that this was a trained basketball watcher from California.

*After Michael Jordan fell to the ground crying as if he’d never won a championship before, it immediately cuts out to Nirvana Unplugged. Lucky for me, neither Zook or Skymall were Nirvana fans, or else I’d have to deal with an hour of pain. Judging from the local commercials and the year that this was taped (1996), this person was definitely a teenager living in San Francisco [or possibly Oakland]. I should also note that the term “Unplugged” is bullshit. The cameras were plugged in. So were the mics. I guess “Nirvana Acoustic” doesn’t sound that appealing. Wait, neither of them sound appealing. Fuck Nirvana.

*After that mumblefest, we were met with an actual film. According to the tape label, we were about to be watching Thelma & Louise, which does not coincide with the arch-type that I’ve pegged for this recorder. But it wasn’t Thelma, nor was it Louise. It was “Sodomania 13”. Upon seeing the title, I immediately panicked. A name like Sodomania, taped by a teenager in San Francisco? Fuck no. Nu-uh. Not watching it. But when the [5 minute long] opening credits listed mostly women, well, I felt a little better about it. It started out with an old guy at a batting cage, making cheesy jokes. Then it jumps right into Peter North having sex with a ghost, or at least I think she’s a ghost? Then we heard somebody coming up the stairs. Like any teenager would do, I scrambled to the VCR to turn it off and sit back down as if everything was normal. My roommate walked in to the 3 of us sitting in silence. I belted out, “Oh Hi, Tommy! WE’RE NOT WATCHING A PORNO!”. Smooth. Very smooth. There’s still 4 hours on the tape that have gone unexplored. Maybe someday…

– I have a major qualm with the age of the internet. It has caused us to simplify the word “Porno” into “Porn”. I used to love saying the word “porno”. I still do. You should try it. “Poooooorrrrrnnnnnooooooooo”. See? Doesn’t that just roll off the tongue? It’s got to the point now that the words have separate meanings. If you’re watching people having sex on the internet, you’re watching porn. If you’re watching people having sex on laserdisc, you’re watching a porno. If you make a joke about watching too much of it, you’re referring to porn. If you hide it underneath your bed and live in constant fear that somebody is going to find it while cleaning, you have porno [and a really snoopy maid]. Porno is made by an auteur, usually under a pseudonym, with a full crew. Porn is made by some dude with a huge dick that functions as the writer, director, DP, sound mixer, grip, gaffer, producer and lead actor. Porno may not have class, but it has a little bit more than porn. One would expect a porno to have a story. That’s called entertainment. An entertainment that’s slowly dying at the hands of The Internet and his minion, Porn.

-Top 5 Fast Food Items That I Sorely Miss Due To Proximity And Other Bullshit:

5) Arby’s Roast Beef Sandwich
4) Taco Bell’s Bean Burrito
3) Taco Bell’s Beef and Potato Burrito
2) Long John Silver’s Fish Basket
1) The Arch Deluxe®

-I started the worthless hobby of making GIFs because I’m so 2011. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but was always too lazy to learn. As it turns out, you can be lazy and still make GIFs. The only problem is finding a platform to share them to. And then you’ll quickly find that nobody cares about your GIFs. So, in honor of my wasted 3 hours, here’s some GIFs I made:

Oh, wow! A news anchor getting sucked into a game of F-Zero? Tubular! Wait, why did I do this?

Okay, I guess this one is justified. I guess.

I swear, it’d be a lot funnier if it was the year 2000! I blame Y2J…

-Try this trick over the weekend: Give somebody wrong directions and then follow them. Keep a good 30 ft distance from the subject. Once they stop walking, frustrated, run up and throw a pie in their face. Then give them proper directions, you asshole.

Have a week-ending weekend!

-TeeCoZee