Good Bye, Best Buy

To preface everything: this was all my fault.
Also, none of it matters.
This is one of the most egregious examples of a first world problem I've experienced in recent memory and I accept that...because I live in a first world country.
Please, remember all that.

Now, as I was saying...this was all my fault; I had my item in my Amazon cart, it was in stock (a pre-order item, two weeks before release), and would have been delivered on the day of its release. I did my research, decided this was exactly the product I wanted...and then, for whatever reason*...I forgot...to click..."pre-order".
Flash forward to a day before the release of said item: I found it odd that I hadn't received the usual six emails from Amazon, letting me know my product was taken off the shelf, letting me know my product was being prepared to be placed into a box, letting me know the people placing said product into said box were very nice and thought I smelled good. So I popped over to Amazon to find, to my horror, my soul-wrenching, gut-churning horror...that I had forgotten to order my item...and it was now "currently unavailable".
That phrase, "currently unavailable", to someone in a first world country must be the equivalent of "pogram" or "no water" to those in third world countries.
"What do you mean the Unicorn Frappuccino is 'currently unavailable'?! I'll die!" "What do you mean Netflix in 'currently unavailable'?! I'll dehydrate!"
"What do you mean my copy of Injustice 2: Ultimate Edition for the Playstation 4 with Darkseid as a pre-order bonus is 'currently unavailable'?! Hundreds of thousands of refugees and their families will be slaughtered!"
Yes. This is about a video game.
You may leave now, if you'd like.
Still here?
All right, first world warriors...come with me...
After I ceased shrieking, caught my breath, and my mind stopped reeling from seeing those two words arranged next to one another**, I said out loud, "Fuck it. This is New York." I figured it would be harder to not purchase a copy of this game here. I redirected my internetting to Best Buy dot com. I saw the game listed and checked for in-store pick up locations since I live in New York and there are five I can get to within twenty minutes. I was informed that "there are no stores within 250 miles of my zip code that have this game in store". Perhaps I should have just killed myself then...but no...I persisted.
Oh, it's the day before release, that makes sense.
I felt relief come rushing in.
Jump forward again to the next morning. Injustice 2 had been released! It was a thing that people could purchase and own and have and bring home to their mothers and fathers and kiss and cherish!!!**** I realized after spending two weeks playing the first game and reading all the supplemental material, that I was officially hyped.
So! Back to Best Buy dot com, when the game was now available for purchase and in store pick up at the most convenient location for me, 23rd and 6th, literally, yards from the M train. Door to door? 30 minutes. I make my purchase and everything is ducky.
Another jump forward!
I show up at the store, ready to pick up my game. At the store pick up location, I wait for about five minutes while the woman behind the counter helps a blind man find an "introduction to Keith Sweat" CD*****, then...I meet Oliver. Oliver is short, has close cropped blond hair, and thin-rimmed, black glasses. I show him my order number and he disappears for ten minutes. When he returns he informs me that the store does not have my game. Before I can say anything he says that the Union Square location (about ten to fifteen minutes away between one stop on the M and a few avenues) has "300 copies". I did not make this number up, but, as it turns out, Oliver did.
"And if I go there now and show them my order number, they'll just hand me a copy?" I ask.
"Absolutely, They have 300 copies."
Why does he keep telling me they have 300 copies? Is this man all right?
"You're sure?" I ask.
"Yes. They have 300 copies."
"All right, I'll head there now." I put my phone and wallet away.
"I'm very sorry about that," he adds.
"Not your fault," I say, and I mean that; I've worked retail, I know he didn't steal my copy of the game, Best Buy fucked up, as they have been known to in the past, "thanks."
About fifteen minutes later, I enter the Union Square Best Buy.
Here are some highlights of my exchange with their store pick up department:
"We don't have this."
"I was told you had '300 copies'."
"'300 copies'?"
"Yes."
"We had less than 20, now they're all gone."
"So you don't have 300 copies?"
"We never had 300 copies. Who told you that?"
"The guy at the 23rd street store. Was he just making that number up?"
"Yes."
At this point, I have become irate, but just as the 23rd street store not having my copy of the game wasn't Oliver's fault, this woman not having the invented number of copies of the game was definitely not her fault. My being at this location with an invented number of copies of the game, however, was Oliver's fault.
"Can you call the store pick up at the 23rd street store?"
"You want me to call them?"
"Yes, I'd like to ask why they lied to me."
She paused...because...really...what do you say to a sweating, 6'8 man whose brows are clouding like a summer sky before a thunderstorm?
I describe the person I spoke to because I did not, as yet, have his name, and, after some time, she hands me the phone.
"...hello?"
"Hi. I'm the very tall man who was in there fifteen minutes ago and you didn't have my copy of Injustice 2: Ultimate Edition."
"...yes?"
"Why did you tell me there were 300 copies of the game at the Union Square store? They had less than 20 and now they're all gone."
"Sir...I...I hope you don't think I gave you the wrong information and sent you there intentionally."
"I'd just like to know why you told me they had 300 copies when they have none."
"Sir...I...look, we're getting another shipment of the game at 6:00 today. I can call you the moment they're in and then I'll give you a 20% discount."
I did not believe him.
"Okay, fine, I'll see you at 6:00."
I handed the phone back to the lady, who hung it up.
"Why did he tell you we had 300 copies?"
"I still don't know."
"No one has 300 copies."
I left and went about my day.
Just before 3:00, my phone rings. The caller ID...Best Buy.
For a moment...I had hope. Why do I hope?

"Hello?"
"Your order is going to be cancelled because it didn't arrive at our store."
This was not Oliver. This was an Angry Man.
"What do you mean?"
"*irritated sigh* Because your order didn't show up in our store, it's going to be cancelled. Or you can pick it up at the store on 44th and 5th three days from now."
Apparently, it was my fault my order didn't show up.
"I was told that you're getting a new shipment at 6:00 and that I can pick it up-"
"That's not current information! You can pick it up in three days or it's going to be cancelled!"
I was done with this cocksucker yelling at me because his organization had fucked up.
"Cancel it."
He hung up.
Guess who has two thumbs and didn't get a phone call at 6:00 pm.
The next morning, Wednesday, I was heading to an audition about a block away from the 23rd street Best Buy, so I decided to stop in and have a chat with the person who had lied to me twice. I approach the store pick up window and ask the woman if there's a shortish, white guy with close cropped blond hair and thin-rimmed, black glasses working there. After ascertaining that I was not talking about an Apple rep(?), she asks me if he's "chubby".
"Sure." I respond.
She then gets a smile on her face and asks, "Oliver?"
Ah. Yes. This person was definitely an "Oliver".
"That sounds about right. When is Oliver in today?"
"At 3:00."
"Thank you."
I leave.
After my audition, I meet a friend, Ryan, for lunch and, afterwards, I ask if he would like to come with me to intimidate someone. He knows me well enough to know that, aside from my height and Resting Asshole Face, I'm kind of a teddy bear. He laughs and says yes. As we approach the 23rd street Best Buy, I tell him to not say a word, "just put on your sunglasses and stare, blankly, in his direction." We stalk up and there he is...Oliver.
Here is where I start to feel bad. I don't know why I never realized that, under the right circumstances, I can, perhaps, come off as...a threatening presence. It was clear by the look on Oliver's little face that that was happening...right now. I was being a threatening presence. And, while I did realize just how threatening of a presence I was being and how this might affect little Oliver...I was also kind of done getting fucked around. Plus, I'm an actor and had already committed myself to the role of Threatening Presence.
"Oliver".
"...yes..."
"Can you guess why I'm here?"
"I...the game..."
I counted on my horrible, spidery fingers.
One...
"You sent to me to the Union Square store."
Two...
"You lied and told me they had 300 copies."
Three...
"You said you'd call me yesterday and have the game for me."
I paused.
"What's going on, Oliver?"
"It...it didn't come in. The shipment. I don't...right now...we have the shipment coming in Friday morning, early. 8:00 am. I'll put one aside and give you the discount."
"You're sure."
"Yes."
"100%."
"Yes!"
I did not believe him.
"I received a call yesterday-"
"From corporate? Ignore them."
"-about cancelling my order-"
"Ignore them."
"Okay, I'll ignore corporate."
"Okay."
At this point, I could tell I had ruined Oliver's day, maybe week, and that I was making him uncomfortable. So I decided to make things better.
"Best Buy fucked up, but you're making it right."
I held out my hand.
"Thank you, Oliver."
He shook my hand, and I left.

You're probably about done with this whole thing, so here's the rest...
No, I didn't get a call on Friday morning. I called the Best Buy on 23rd and after eight minutes listening to their goddamn insipid holdbot, a woman in a "call center" picked up. I told her everything, she called the store and spoke to Oliver who told her fucking guess what. It was then, right then, I asked myself: why is there still a Best Buy? Amazon has drones, they do same day delivery, their customer service is astonishing while 95% of all Best Buy employees I've interacted with have been either uninformed, misinformed, unpleasant, unhelpful, and/or staggeringly (almost surely intentionally) doltish...how is this still something that exists? For whom is this blue and yellow hell of shitty retail intended?
And then I remembered that first day trying to pick up the product that I had purchased...I remembered the blind man...looking for Keith Sweat CDs.
Well, that answers my question.
I've been a customer of Best Buy since I was in high school, for almost 25 years, a quarter of a fucking century...but after this, I'm good. I'll forgo that specific and false feeling of accomplishment which comes from going into a place and walking out with something you did not have before in exchange for never having to experience anything like this, ever again. Vote with your wallets, right? I know I'm just one person and that I don't even frequent Best Buy enough to actually have a real impact on their empire, but at least I can spare myself that particular retail gulag for the rest of my natural life.
This is for me.

* Let's blame the president.

** Probably should have mentioned this earlier, but every time you read the words "currently unavailable" from this point on, here and out in the world, picture them being spoken by Vincent Price with a fair amount of reverb***

*** To better achieve that specific sense of dread and horror-from-beyond-the-grave

**** Yet another aside: in the time leading up to the release of I2, I was on the fence about buying it. Not only do I have a huge stack of video games that I really need to get though, you guys, but, while I did enjoy the first game, it wasn't the greatest game ever made and, since I don't use the multiplayer features on most games I purchase, I was only going to get most of the enjoyment intended out of this game. But, fickle me! I decided to replay the first game, just to remind me of the story. I enjoyed it very much, perhaps more than I remember. Then, as I am wont to do...I took things up a notch. Okay, bear with me...in a nutshell, Injustice creates an alternate reality in the DC Comic universe. The catalyzing event is that Joker, who's grown tired of messing with Batman, decides to mess with Superman. He does so by kidnapping Lois Lane (who is newly pregnant with Superman's child), attaching a trigger to her heart that, if it stops, will detonate a nuclear bomb in Metropolis, then gassing Superman with Scarecrow's fear toxin laced with kryptonite, casing him to perceive Lois as Doomsday and kill her. It's actually a pretty cool story. So, Superman sees what he's done; his wife and child dead by his hand, and the millions of casualties from the bomb, and absolutely freaks out. He finds the Joker, who teases him and asks if he thinks he'll ever love again, then Superman kills Joker. Puts his hand right through his chest.
What results over the next five years is Superman becoming a dictator and "protecting" the world, while Batman and other heroes try to stop him. Eventually, the good guys pull heroes from a different reality over to this fucked up reality and that's where the game starts. While the story in the game in about three to four hours long, a comic was created to expand upon the events of those five years which led up to the events of the game. This comic came out in real time over five years, over a hundred and fifty issues.
And I read every issue.
I like a fleshed out universe, what can I say?
All that to say: I had put some "effort" into this endeavor.

***** In the end, he bought two.

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - April 2017

Nine Inch Nails
The wait is becoming a palpable thing...

Beck
The wait is becoming an even fatter man, sitting on my chest and eating a paste made of Velveeta cheese powder, mayonnaise, and olive oil. His name for it is Yummy Glue, and sometimes, Tasti-Paste.

They Might Be Giants
In the midst of recording their latest, can't say much except there seems to be some funky Linnell shit in the mix.

Guess who's disappointed by the new Gorillaz? Yeah, while I reviewed it for Soundblab and gave it a 9 out of 10, that's because, while I don't like it all that much, I do recognize it is a good album...one that does not really appeal to me.
what wrong me.
Review here.

I also reviewed the new (and pretty awesome, Dan Bejar-less) album from the New Pornographers, Whiteout Conditions. HERE! THE REVIEW IS HERE!

Mother Feather are in the studio* recording the follow up to their 2015 self-titled debut. Spoilers: it might be my favorite album of 2017.

I'll be reviewing the new Drew McDowall album, Unnatural Channel, due out 5/27.

Finally, exactly eleven years ago today, the music video Ray Zablocki and I did for Nine Inch Nails' "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" went up on YouTube. Since then, it's garnered over 2.6 million views and thousands of comments referring to either porpoises**, faggots***, and the fact that the audio and video quality is that of a mud-smeared ass.
Well.
Ray went back and gave the whole thing a slap**** and now it looks fantastic. You can watch it here. If we get 2.6 million views by 2029, you'll get the original Nine Inch Nails version which we were sent as an example of what not to do.

* THE SAME STUDIO IN WHICH GORILLAZ RECORDED THEIR GREAT NEW ALBUM WHICH I DON'T REALLY LIKE!!!

** Try to open your mouth a little wider when you speak, Trent.

*** Hi, I'm the Internet, I'm constructed of awful, awful people.

**** Or "complete top-to-bottom re-edit", whatever you tech nerds call it.