The Waiting Room of Hell

There was a time, back in the day, when the employees of Big Bookstore had some control over the music that is played "overhead". There were rules - nothing with lyrics, nothing too "hard" or "poppy" - but generally, if we stocked it, we could play it. Nowadays, the music we play overhead is dictated to us by Big Bookstore headquarters, and as a general rule, it is complete ass (™ Meateater). There are six CDs that rotate on the overhead sound system. In any given month there will be at least one CD (if not more) from the following set of artists: Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Brightman, the Three Tenors, or the Irish Tenors. For the last six months the selection has included a CD put together by the local easy listening station to support a cure for breast cancer. This CD includes songs by Billy Joel, Madonna, and Dido. Dido. Like I said. Ass. And we can't stop playing it until we've sold all the CDs. There are 78 left. I have actually considered taking up a collection to purchase the remaining CDs just so we can finally be free again.

We used to have live music at Big Bookstore every Friday night in the Cafe. The artists were local, and ranged from jazz combos to Celtic groups to folk singers. Once, during Hannukah, we had a Klezmer band which led the customers in an impromptu horah throughout the store. The music was always too loud, and occasionally very bad. Sometimes it was very, very bad. Banjer Dan comes to mind. Banjer Dan played the, um, Banjo. And told really inappropriate and bigoted jokes about the Middle East in between songs. To this day, if you mention his name, you will elicit shudders of remembered revulsion from the Big Bookstore staff. Then there was the "classically trained" singer who came during the holidays and insisted on having her own precious nativity set as a prop while she sang. Just in case people didn't get the message that her Christmas carols were about, you know, the birth of Christ and shit.

This past weekend, Big Bookstore hosted a special event. It was a live music event to promote a Christmas CD by a guy who used to be the lead singer for a big rock band that's been around since the late 60s. In the 60s and early 70s this band Did Not Suck. However, the cheeze factor on this band's output began to steadily rise, along with the singer's falsetto, from the late 70s onward, until it reached a peak of Cheddarosity in the mid-80s. So the Has Been singer has been a solo artist for the last twenty years or so, trading off of his association with the band, but never quite achieving the same success and fame.

We had strict instructions for this event. The Has Been needed the employee bathroom to be vacated for 30 minutes prior to his arrival. It made me wonder if the Has Been knew about the Big Man - our Saturday night music seller whom we love, but for whom a 30-minute Zone of Exclusion must be established after he graces the employee restroom. Also, we were not permitted the barest whisper of a mention of the Has Been's former band.

The Has Been was glossy. He was shiny. His fake tan practically glowed with a radioactive luminosity. His hair was bleached and blowdried to perfection. I was reminded of nothing so much as Abba. He sang for 20 minutes, emoting his way through such slices of holiday Camembert as "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Rivulets of molten Velveeta flowed downwards from the Music section as his audience received this performance with the enthusiasm that only the freaks who worship C-list celebrities can muster. Afterwards, he signed his CD, while the burlier supervisors kept his insistent fans at a safe distance.

Then the Has Been was off into the night, and we returned to our previously scheduled overhead listening: Christmas with the Beach Boys.