I’d Rather Not Play Red Rover On Ice [Friday Thoughts With TeeCoZee]

Good morning, Myanmar! It’s still morning there, right? Who am I kidding, it’s ALWAYS morning there! It’s Friday, February 7, Two Thousand and Fourteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 29˚ & sunny and somewhere, a man is writhing in bed with massive regrets about sending his ex-girlfriend pictures of his moobs. Real men show shame. I may not be a real man, but I have a few things on my mind…

– I had to go for a walk last night to clear my head, which didn’t work at all. There’s something mildly deranged about going for a leisurely stroll along a frozen river. If the water doesn’t move, you shouldn’t have to either. That’s science. Regardless, I go for this walk and just like every time I leave the house, I have to pee. Which was fine, as there’s a convenient abundance of restrooms along Hudson River Park. In fact, it’s the only area in all of the 5 boroughs that have ample bladder-emptying amenities. There’s one almost every 10 blocks and they’re all moderately clean. But I encountered a problem last night. Even though it was well before closing time and all of the lights were on, all the doors were locked shut. What’s the point of keeping a bathroom lit when nobody’s allowed to use it? Do they want me to pee on the door? Do they expect the cold weather to cause all bladders to hibernate? If anything, cold weather makes you pee more frequently. The only logic I can find is that they’re afraid of homeless dudes using them as warming shelters. Get over yourself, Hudson River Park! All the hobos are warming up in Penn Station, where they won’t get claustrophobic. They wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out in Battery Park City. What’re they gonna do? Cruise the Stuyvesant chicks until they get bored with smoking cloves? Get real. All hobos fly north for the Winter.

– On a side note, every time I open the door to a Port-A-John, I always expect to see a hobo hanging out, which is contrary to my previous thesis. Textbook misconceptions spawned from my paranoid upbringing.

– I was walking by a garbage truck depot the other day, because I do cool shit like that. I saw a snow plow about to go out into the snowy world. In its path was a snow pile, probably about 2-3 ft. I stop for a moment to witness this truck in its habitat, spotting snow and plowing it. Instead, the truck drives over the snow pile. WHAT IN THE HELL ARE WE PAYING THESE GUYS FOR?!?

– It’s true that sanitation workers get paid too much. In the city, they start at 50K+ per year because if we gave them any less, they’d just go on strike. Out of all the unions in the world, the sanitation union has to be the biggest bully. Nobody wants to see trash pile up, so we try our best to keep them happy. We can complain all we want about the Postal Service, but at least we know that they’re somewhat underpaid and still deliver our mail regardless of the weather. I was supposed to have trash pickup Monday morning. Because it snowed 2 inches, they didn’t come. Wednesday rolls around and we get a little ice. The garbage still sits out front. Now, it’s Friday, and the mountain of garbage we left out Sunday night is still sitting there. Were the garbage men too busy driving plows? There’s a lot more garbage out there than snow. But then again, if our trash got picked up and the roads weren’t plowed, we’d all just bitch about that. We can’t win in this stupid city. We just can’t. It’s in our nature.

– A couple years back, I posted a rant about an MTA pilot program that removed all the trash cans from a few subway stations. The only real logic behind the idea was to see if straphangers would have the decency to carry their trash onto the streets and dispose of it there. Even two years ago, people thought it was a stupid idea, but now they’re expanding it to an entire line. For those who don’t know, the J line is elevated for 85% of its route. It’s not a good sample for gauging how much trash is thrown, because it will just fall to the street. On top of that, the line goes down the whole stretch of Broadway, which is already covered in trash 24/7/365. Now it’s going to be covered in falling trash. Call me a pessimist, but when I see people throw broken umbrellas onto the tracks [in a station that has multiple trash cans], I don’t think removing trash cans is going to change their littering mentality. It’s only going to make matters worse. I hear their next pilot project involves removing all the cops, station agents and security cameras. Studies have shown that people behave more politely when there’s no presence of menacing authority. Also, it’s 1982. Deal with it.

– It’s time to answer a letter from one of my loyal readers. This one comes from Mr. Jones in Los Angeles:

Dear Mr Coze,

Every time I’m in the kitchen, you in the kitchen. In the goddamn refrigerator. Eating up all the food. All the chitlins. All the pigs feet. All the collard greens. All the hog maws. I wanna eat them chitlins! I like pigs feet!

Now when I went to bed last night, didn’t I tell you to take out the trash? So, why didn’t you do it? You fell asleep? I wish you was sleeping right now, I knock you upside your head with a left hook make your ass wake up and take out that damn trash!

Sincerely,
Mr Jones

Alright, we need to stop talking about trash! There are more issues in this world! Besides, those were my collard greens!

– If you need a job and I give you a full-time position, it would make sense for you to go to that job. It seems like the problem with trainees is that going to work is 80% of the battle. And why do we wonder why unemployment is so high? Maybe it’s the unemployed population that’s high. High on that ganjaweed.

– The two-week investigation on my strange dating review continues. The only intel that I got this week was the the photo sent [pictured here] was derived from an app called Lulu. Essentially, it’s an evil creation that allows women to rate the guys they had sex with. This makes the investigation even more confusing, as I have never cooked or danced for anybody that I’ve had sex with. If you have any information about who this deranged person could be, please shoot me an email at mailteecozee@gmail.com.

– In case you’re wondering, yes, it feels really good to not be tied down to football! Now I finally have two days off per week! I don’t have to sit in front of the TV anymore! And I won’t be a slave for another 6 weeks until Baseball starts up. Ah fuck. I’ll make a good run out of it.

– I think I might finally be sick of winter. Until it ends, I’m going to keep throwing out things that I hate about it. This week, I particularly hate the abandonment of pedestrian traffic rules. The inclusion of snow makes most NYC sidewalks into one-way streets instead of the 4-lane highways that they are most of the time. And people don’t know how to adapt. If you’re walking with two friends, it is impossible for a person to walk in the other direction. They will stare right at you while they run into you. They all expect you to climb the snow bank to get through. Or they’re trying to play Red Rover.

– I started playing video games again, which is a big mistake. My killer this time was the NES classic with updated rosters, RBI Baseball 2013. I could easily play a new baseball game, but for some reason, I always opt out for shitty graphics and unfair AI. After 5 hours of playing, I can’t figure out how to win a single game. It’s impossible to field, but the CPU is immaculate at it. I can keep it scoreless for 6 innings, but then I put in a new pitcher and they rally me into a mercy. There’s a reason why I don’t play video games. I really suck at them.

– This week, the following items are on The Trading Block™:

* Go to an art museum blindfolded – $200
* Walk through midtown with my arms swinging for 20 minutes – $3000
* Get a tramp stamp that reads “Deaf Leper” – $20,000
* Move to Oklahoma – $50,000
* Watch every episode of Family Matters in one sitting – $20, two pizzas and a bag of Chili Fritos
* Fight a pitbull – $100,000 + immunity
* Fight Pitbull – $100 + proper immunizations

– Try this trick over the weekend: Go to a narrow sidewalk. Spot a couple that are holding hands. Stop 50 feet away from them and shout “Red rover, red rover, send [insert your name here] over!”. Then run through their arms at full speed. That’ll teach those lovebirds.

Have a childish weekend, everyone!

-TeeCoZee