All too well. All too well today.
There is a man on his phone a few feet away, wheeling and dealing. He’s got a distinctive vocal tic – every other sentence finishes with “okay?”
It’s a little like the South Park character that says “m’kay”” but with a New York tint -about things like investment, money, business. It has the same nasal quality. And it cuts right through all other sound.
This coffee shop had an unusual quiet before he started talking. There was no music playing. Maybe there is still no music playing but I can’t hear the music or its absence through the “Okay, Okay – 5 million dollar deal” that reverberates through this little corner.
I hear and hear and hear and find it very challenging to not hear, to ignore, to build an aural barrier between me and the businessman. Apparently, this Al guy is at the center point of this deal.
I’ve resorted to earbuds and Donald Fagen singing to me through them. The only cure for hearing something is to drown it out with something else. Problem is: now I’m distracted by the music I like. Especially since I have to jam it pretty loud to avoid hearing all about a dude on someone’s yacht in the South of France who someone has to catch as soon as he gets off that boat.
The Hamlet Project 