Day 154: I’d Rather Not Listen To Modern Hold Muzak [Friday Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. Kids, you tried your best and failed miserably. Lesson is, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose. It’s how drunk you get. It’s Friday, February 19th, King-Queen & Jack-Ace. The weather in Queens is 33˚ & Pantone 17-5104 & somewhere, somebody is riding a train. That’s it. I have nothing else to say about him. Nor do I have anything to say about the train. I’m as sick of writing about trains as you are reading about them. I do, however, have some things on my mind…

– I was on the train yesterday [god damnit] and pulling into 42nd street, there was a Q across the platform. At the last second, a woman bolted from the Q train and tried to get in ours. Her arms made it in, as did the box she was holding. The rest of her body didn’t. The brakes hissed, so she panicked and let go of the box to free her arms. The doors did not reopen. She chased down the train and pounded on the windows to no avail. At one point, the train stopped so she would stop chasing it, but in the end, it had no choice but to keep going. A guy took the box and waited for her at the next station. I’ll never know if she’ll ever be reunited with that box. But one thing I know for sure is that she knows what it’s like to have a gyro stolen by Al Roker.

– You know you’re in Queens when the guy working at Old Navy compliments your Sami Zayn shirt and then chats you up about wrestling. I feel like that wouldn’t happen in many other places.

– After being on hold for 3 of the last 24 hours, I’ve come to the conclusion that Hold Muzak has never changed. It’s 2021 and yet, the stuff still screams 1994. You’d think there’d be a lot of starving artists out there that would be chomping at the bit to make some corporate projects for a few bucks. Instead, all hotlines use the same recycled music from the Clinton Administration. But then again, maybe they are all new songs and the artists just adhere to the nostalgic aesthetic. Maybe this is what Vaporwave artists turn to when they want to sell out. As I was having these wandering thoughts, a new song came up on the phone. It was fucking around with electric guitars and an organ. And you know what? It sounded like shit. It all makes sense now. Hold music has maintained the same aesthetic over the years because it’s specifically formulated to sound unscathing on a tinny phone speaker. Anything more elaborate just sounds like noise pollution. This is probably why your second cousin Jeffy don’t have his P.O.D. ringback anymore.

– My hair is now officially long enough for me to tie it into a pony tail with minimal effort. It even fits in the back of a snapback, which is the dream. There’s no punchline, I just wanted to brag about my hair. Carry on.

– They need to stop making 7-Eleven employees do so damn much. Back when it was just a Slurpee machine, Big Gulp fountain and a pot of coffee, it was perfect. But now there’s 7 different coffees, nachos, hot dogs, corn dogs, sausages, taquitos, pizza, buffalo wings, beef patties, empanadas and probably some other crap. The employees are just to overwhelmed and it’s not at all their fault. But because of this, the Slurpee machines are never properly tended to. If you’re lucky, 2 out of the 8 flavors are actually drinkable. Today, it was just Pina Colada, which I had to cut with cherry syrup which turned into a flowing syrup bomb, because I’m a misguided dolt. Cherry syrup got everywhere and there were of course no napkins to be found. Everything was just a mess. It was a miserable experience. And it’s nobody’s fault except for the assholes at 7-Eleven corporate that thought, “You know what? Our employees are too lazy! We should make them bake donuts!”

– I know it’s been cold as hell lately, but just remember that it could be worse. It could be 120˚ outside. Remember: you can always layer up. But you can’t rip your skin off.

– Try this trick over the weekend: Pump up the volume, pump up the volume, pump up the volume, dance, dance.

Have a MARRSy weekend, everyone!

-TeeCoZee