Posts Tagged ‘random’


Random things.

March 27th, 2004 by Oskar Kennedy

  Some whack-ass weirdos are shopping at the grocery store at 2320 on a Friday night. There were maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot, and yet I was surrounded by some severely strange people.
  This afternoon, I had a customer who looked exactly like my friend Jen Browne will look in about 15 years, provided Jen grows about nine inches.
  I would make a lousy vigilante.
  I spoke to my District Manager today. Just a quick chat, to let her know how things have been improving since I took over. She was quite pleased, and said that I’d been getting “rave reviews.” Man, is it going to suck for her when I tell her that I’m quitting to go to grad school.
  It occured to me just how odd my sense of humor is when I had to work to restrain myself from trying to drag a joke about teenagers taking drugs and dancing until 0600, as a play on the word “rave.”
  My Father was in the National guard when I was growing up, and he and my Mother both grew up with fathers who were in the Army. I like to use the 24 hour clock, because that’s what Mom and Dad use when they write notes to us and each other.
  When there’s no one around to remind me, I sometimes forget to eat enough. That’s why I’m light-headed, and having trouble staying upright in my chair.
  I love my girlfriend very much. Then again, if you’re even a casual reader here, you’ve probably picked up on that. So, I’ll remind you again. She rocks.
  My District Manager asked me to pass something on to my Store Manager. When I told my Musicseller this, he said “gas?” “Yes,” I replied sardonically, “the DM wants me to fart on the SM’s head.” The Musicseller made a comment about that being the way to get into management at the store, then tried to pass the whole thing off to several people as my joke. It probably irked me a lot more than it should have.
  I get a dirty little corporate/consumer America thrill about being able to say things like “my Musicseller.” “My section.” Ooooh. I am a bad iconoclast. I’ll never get to work for Adbusters with an attitude like that.
  Amy’s birthday is going to rule like the Pharoahs, man. People will be using next weekend as an example in articles on how to make your girlfriend’s birthday a special one for decades to come.
  Sometimes, I think the only thing that qualifies me to be a manager is my desire to see items alphabetized, and my willingness to make other people put those items in order.
  I’m starting to wonder whether I’m going to run out of ideas, or pass out from hunger first.
  I think it’s time to drop my one-bastard protest against Cingular. They seem to have pretty good plans, and that rollover thing is so common freakin’ sense that it just seems like a stroke of genius.
  I was protesting Cingular because they used Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech in an advertisement. When I emailed them with my displeasure, I didn’t hear anything back. That pissed me off.
  In retrospect, I guess there wasn’t much for them to do. It’s not like complaining about a bad bag of corn chips or something. They couldn’t have very well sent me a coupon for free cellular service.
  Could they?
  Still, they should have at least emailed me back. But I guess two years of withholding my business is enough punishment.
  Okay, hunger wins. I’m going to eat. Sleep tight, America.

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Cinco de Mayo

May 5th, 2005 by Oskar Kennedy

Huh. It’s 05/05/05. Go figure.

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In Case You’re Wondering, Too

September 1st, 2005 by Oskar Kennedy

  An old friend/former colleague sent me an email asking what I thought.

  I think about a lot of things. I’m reminded of the Chinese parable about the man whose son breaks his leg falling off the horse. I don’t remember it word for word, but the point is that life is unpredictable, and that things which seem like a blessing may be a curse, and vice versa.

  Everybody was so quick to point out how New Orleans was spared the worst of the storm, and some people were still talking about it while the levees were crumbling and water was flowing into the city. I can’t think of a clearer warning against rushing to judgment than that.

  I feel a sense of guilt, because I’m getting on with my life while millions of people try to absorb the fact that they’re now homeless. I fight a morbid fascination, and try not to start spewing my fears about chaos and social breakdown.

  I think about small things. I recently opened my home to a dog for the first time in my life. I’m very fond of him and our cats, and I feel a measure of grief for the thousands if not millions of pets whose owners left them at home, thinking they’d be gone for only a day or two.

  I think about big things. I think about the stupidity of building an entire city below sea level, between a lake and a river. Except that’s a mental cop-out. Nobody ever said “hey, let’s build a big city here!” Like most cities, it just sort of grew up around natural resources. By the time it was big enough for people to start worrying about a major catastrophe, it was already too large to move.

  I think about how we treat the Earth like it’s ours to do with as we wish. We cut down forests, we pump tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Everybody is screaming about the high price of gasoline. Do they realize that oil drilling operations in the Gulf Of Mexico directly contribute to the destruction of coastal wetlands, which could have helped to absorb the tide and diminish the storm surge that eventually overwhelmed the man-made barriers?

  So many people believe that this entire complex ecosystem was designed just for us. They cling to this belief so fiercely that, when nature does something dangerous, they attribute the destruction to the wrath of the designer. I guess it’s easier, in a way, to believe that God is smiting the wicked than to take collective responsibility for our wanton and wasteful ways.

  Actually, I think the hardest thing for most people to accept is that life is by and large a craps shoot. Sure, you can nudge the odds in your favor. Don’t smoke, buy a car with airbags, don’t juggle chainsaws while drinking gin. Still, at the end of the day, there’s a lot of Universe out there, and not a lot of you. If something good happens to you, cherish it. If something bad happens, be upset and angry. You deserve it. Just stop trying to explain it as divine fury. Gays and prostitutes and anti-war protestors don’t cause hurricanes, and thinking pure thoughts won’t keep you from getting hit by a car. Life happens. Welcome to the world.

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Odd Things Pop Into My Head When I Walk The Dogs

May 15th, 2006 by Oskar Kennedy

No, not like those creepy brain-worm things from Wrath Of Khan. I’m guess it’s more accurate to say pop up in my head, like some damned existential toaster. For instance, this little gem, which welled up so fast and hard that I recited most of it out load before I realized I was talking to my dogs, and they were ignoring me. Anyway, here it is for posterity, with minimal editing.

  You know what I like? Things that have their own time. How cool is that? Like “go time.” It’s go time! Action is immediately happening! It’s time, and you’re gonna go. Granted, you don’t know where you’re going, or what you’ll be doing when you get there, but you’re a man of action! Silly details like that don’t bother you.
  Or Miller time. It’s Miller time! That sounds like a great time. I think there’s something sort of cool about a beer so crappy, it can alter the very fabric of the Universe. The only thing better than Miller time would be “good beer time,” but if that time ever appeared on my clock, I think my liver would leap right out of my body and crawl away under its own power. Like a rat from a sinking ship, my liver.
  And then, there’s the big daddy of them all, the time that makes all other times pale by comparison. That’s right, I’m talking about Hammer time. Man, do you remember when it used to be Hammer time about four dozen times a day? Now it’s only Hammer time when you’re drunk and looking through your old cassettes, or in the last half-hour of a wedding DJ’s set, or on one of those new radio stations with no announcers that only plays the most mortifying hit singles of your childhood.
  Here’s a question? What would happen if it was Miller time and Hammer time at the same time? I don’t know the answer, but I suspect it’s something horrifying. Maybe the producers of Fear Factor will try it one of these days, as long as they can find an approriate testicle for the contestants to eat while it happens.

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Random Internal Soundtrack

August 27th, 2007 by Oskar Kennedy

  Ever since I managed to wash my iPod in the pocket of my jacket, the soundtrack of my commute has been a collection of overheard conversation, transit engine noise, and the tinny buzz of music from out of the headphones of the future deaf community. On days when I forget to bring something to read, my brain often fills the background noise with snatches of poorly remembered songs. I can usually only recall a few bars or so, and that short bit invariably lodges in my brain like a tumor with ninja training, repeating on an endless, maddening loop until I get involved in some task or other.

  This morning, for some unfathomable reason, I got brain-smacked by the opening verse of the showtune Big Spender. I haven’t heard it in years, but that’s de rigueur for these random songbombs. What made it notable was that my stunted, malformed psyche managed to conjure up a version I’ve never heard before. I was hearing it sung by bathhouse-era Bette Midler. Loud, brassy, lungs that could power a small wind farm. I didn’t even know that she’d recorded the song; thirty seconds on Google revealed 2005’s Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook, containing Midler’s recording of the song, a version arranged by her old bathhouse piano player, Barry Manilow.

  I haven’t ever heard this version of the song, nor do I plan to, so I guess I’ll never know how similar it is to the one my brain vomited up. I just found the whole episode mildly disconcerting, and I thought I’d share my disquiet with the Internet. Isn’t this the kind of thing that convinces the credulous that they’re psychic?

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