I’d Rather Be Watching The Weather Channel [Friday Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. Cowabunga, dudes! It’s Friday, November 30, Two Thousand and Eighteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 42˚ & Pantone d8d4cf and somewhere, somebody is trying to find their way to The Bronx. They know that they’re supposed to take the 6 train, which is just around the corner from where they are. But they stood there for hours, as 6 train after 6 train went by, all of them going to Pelham Bay Park. But Pelham Bay Park is in Queens and Queens is not in The Bronx, this they are sure of. So instead of listening to the advice of bystanders, they will remain convinced that the 6 train to Pelham Bay Park is not what they need. They need a 6 train going to THE BRONX. And me? I told him Pelham Bay Park was in The Bronx and I am not at all bitter about the exchange that I had with the gentleman. I also have some things on my mind…

– Wowza, this one makes it 4 weeks in a row with the Friday Thoughts. The last time I’ve been consistent for a month? It was August of 2015. That was way too long ago. By gawd, I was a smoker back then! It’s felt good to get back into the habit. Of writing, not smoking or sister acting. I even woke up early last week so that I could write. I shot out of bed, had an idea and went straight to it. Rachel was bewildered by the development and to be frank, a little disgusted that I would leave bed so early. The scene went as follows:

RACHEL: But babe, you wrote LAST WEEK!
ME: Well, how would you like it if I wrote EVERY SINGLE DAY?
[RACHEL farts]
[/scene]

I’m in a very supportive relationship.

– The tagline for BFD is “A Landfill Of Content”. Zook hit it right on the nose with that sentiment. For almost 10 years, I have been extracting unfiltered meanderings and calling it content to basically dump. After a week or sometimes days [or months], new content is made, rendering the previous piece useless and dated. Rarely do I ever look back as I drive the sucker in cruise control, but I figure it’s about time that I do. Let me pull a random thought from an edition entitled “I’d Rather Listen To George Clinton B-Sides”:

– I really don’t know how to talk to kids. Most of the time, I just talk to them like I would talk to a cat: like a normal human being, but without the expectations of a human response. For example, a kid came to my register yesterday and we had the following exchange:

Kid: Hi!
Me: Sup.
Kid: How much am I worth?
Me: That depends. Are you talking monetary value or personal value? Because personal value, you might need to assess that yourself.
Kid: I’ve got 10 cents!
Me: I can sell you a jalapeño, but that’s all.
Kid: Yuck!
Me: Where’s your parents?

Kids put me on edge. They’re unpredictable, so I always end up expecting them to act like normal adults, which would be the most unpredictable thing they could do. The only other option would be to pretend that they’re stoned all the time. If I ever had kids, they would eat a lot of Funyuns.

This was from over 4 years ago. My intention was to make fun of my young self and show how much I have aged, but it really looks like something I would’ve wrote today. Kids are still frightening. I had one in my domicile the other day, she was incessantly shoving a folder in my face while I tried to hang a curtain. And then she attempted to steal my Steve Sax card. When it was all said and done, I had a slight cough and a fear that I was infected in some way. That sounds like a fever dream, but rest assured, it was real. That’s how random and terrifying kids are. Take it from me, 26 year old Coze. It doesn’t actually get easier and those babies you know right now will soon be walking, talking daymares.

– I can’t tell if I have a cold or if I’m just breathing too hard all the time. Gotta love this time of year.

– Recently, I came across a cache of discarded Vaporwave albums. Because I enjoy alienating my audience, I’ve decided to write a piece about an album every week. The Vaporwave Album of the Week is “Sunday Television” by 猫 シ Corp. I just recently learned that 猫 シ Corp translates to “Cat Systems Corp”, which makes his name even more confusing. Oh well.

After I figured out that there weren’t little people inside my TV giving me the news, I became even more fascinated with the box’s inner-workings. Not so much with actual productions that were clearly done in a studio or a soundstage, I was moreso interested in the delivery of raw information. And the Weather Channel was a goldmine of raw information. Before it was littered with disaster porn, high-tech forecasts and documentaries about radar, the Weather Channel was a simple text scroll. It all felt very personal. I imagined a guy at a keyboard, writing these messages to me and only me. Clearly, this was before the internet and the idea of free-flowing information excited me to no end. I didn’t care what it was, I wanted the scoop. It was there for me, damnit! When the messages looped, I applauded his accuracy. I rarely ever caught typos, but I would watch for hours waiting for one.

The Weather Channel was also a portal into another world. I’ve probably mentioned this before [or you deduced it from my weekly intros], I am a very weather-oriented person. I can derive any story or memory based on what the weather was. This is why I could never live in Southern California. If it’s constantly sunny outside, how can anyone remember anything? The Weather Channel served as a fantasy prompt. Knowing that it’s 69˚ & drizzling in Chicago, I can imagine being someone in that city. Maybe trying to find a cab? Or a cafe to get out of the light rain? I would think a lot about Tuscon and Phoenix because they were always the hottest cities in the forecast. I wondered what type of person would live there and how good their air conditioning must be. Their local forecast scrawls were always color-coded maroon, so I imagined that the region was in a state of perpetual sunset or sunrise. I still feel this way. I can’t picture the Southwest at night or midday. I have a lot of memories of how hot it got in the summer, but not because I was outside in it. I instead willfully sat inside while imagining other people being outside, just existing. I was a very meta child.

And then at night, I would watch the Weather Channel in bed. Not because I was intrigued by how cold it would get in San Diego after the sun went down [even though I was]. It was all about the smooth Jazz that would ease me to slumber as I dreamed about potential rainstorms in Florida and my 5 day forecast. In a Cable Television climate that was slowly morphing into the distractions, bells and whistles that we have today, one network defied all of them and kept it completely basic. And it will have a place in my heart forever.

– I was watching The Santa Clause last night and I had a very brief thought about the ending. At the end, when Tim The Tool Man Taylor FINALLY convinces his ex-wife that he’s Santa Claus, she gives him a gift. That gift is her burning the custody papers and saying, “I want you to visit him as much as possible”. This complete 360 seems very daunting. It just so happens that he’s literally the busiest man in the world. HE’S SANTA CLAUS! And in response, she goes from banishing him from seeing the kid ever again to forcing him to be around as much as humanly possible. It almost sounded like a challenge. Let’s see how good of a dad you’re going to be now, Santa, if that is your real name! Oh what, you don’t have time for your son? Well you seem to have time for every other kid in the world, what did he ever do to you?!? Scumbag. I’m going to completely ignore the fact that that’s probably the plot to the sequel. Also, please note, that shortly after this “gift” is given, the cops come and Buzz escapes via the chimney. The same chimney that was burning the custody papers. So he inhaled the smoke of that gift. It’s a part of him now and he can never take it back.

– I find it funny that washing your hair with Vo5 is a cheap alternative, but washing it with Voss is infinitely expensive. Goes to show what proper spelling can do.

– I’m heading the The Big A tomorrow, because I’m a degenerate gambler. I’m actually not a degenerate gambler, but I fantasize about such a life. The headline race is called The Cigar Mile. I’m willing to bet that the horse that wins the race is not a smoker. I’m really good at gambling.

Try this trick over the weekend: Run a mile while smoking a cigar.

Have a smelly and coughy weekend, everyone!

-TeeCoZee