September 1, 2009
I hadn’t been in a video store in ages, so you’d think there’d be lots of quality movies to choose from, right? It was mind numbing – shelf after shelf of crap, rack after rack of twaddle, a store full of piffle. If I were brain dead, a horny adolescent, or right into serial killers, there was lots of choice. This poor excuse for cinematic entertainment is the result of letting accountants and profiteers run a business that is, by the very nature of the product, artistic and creative. They disconnect from the product’s inherent worth and align with the lowest common denominator, brain dead horny adolescent serial killer boys. If that’s not a road to ruin, I don’t know what is.
September 2, 2009
What is the most pervasive thing on Earth? What is everywhere. What are we literally enveloped in; what do we move through; what moves through us? Air. Could air be the caretaker of the illusion of reality? Because without it, this reality doesn’t exist. Nothing survives. One couldn’t stay alive to experience it. Also miraculous is the fact that air seems to cleanse itself, be it from a forest fire or halitosis. It’s never permanently besmirched, always breathable, never in shortage, never all bunched up over here and nothing over there, advanced to the point where we take it for granted. But what if that’s what it wants us to do? What if air is intelligent?! I’m just sayin’.
September 3 2009
As a kid, my dentist told me that gum was bad for you. And I remember thinking, If it’s bad for you, why do they make it? What a naive boy.
September 4, 2009
Picture as a meditation.
PerOlaWiberg
September 5, 2009
Last night we watched this crummy movie about corporate espionage and what struck me was how everybody in this turgid tripe were doing all they illegally could to make more money for the ooh, corporation. Death, dismemberment, all for their mighty corporate overlords - who turned out to be cranky, underdeveloped, old white men - shock! In this movie, some people were in it for themselves, and the audience was supposed to root for them, but they were mostly unlikable, shackled as they were by poor dialogue and dubious chemistry. We didn’t even finish it. Eventually, at some point with cinematic trash such as this, you always say, Is this worth my precious valuable time as we only live so long?
September 6, 2009
His name was Gerard Tunney and he was a mama’s boy. As with all things Gerard, the most remarkable part of his photo was the way his coat pocket was cut on the bias to match up the vertical stripes.
September 7, 2009
It’s Labor Day. And I’ve got work to finish. How appropriate. Ta.
September 8, 2009
I’m still laboring. Mañana, my pretties.
September 9, 2009
You know how they say a male can’t understand the pain of birth? The reverse can be said for a kick in the groin. At the actual moment of the kick/birth, is the pain equivalent? Is that what it feels like for the other gender? If so, then I know what it feels like to give birth; and a mother knows exactly how it feels to get kicked in the balls.
September 11, 2009
So there I am, fourth in line at a store when a man comes up from behind and says, Excuse me, as he pushes his way past me. Same thing to the next person, two more excuse me’s and he’s at the front of the line. The cashier beckons, he walks up, puts his stuff down, pays for it, and casually walks out. All four of us in line were gobsmacked. To make a perfect ending, number two says, Well, I never!
September 12, 2009
I am currently developing a new social network that will sweep the Internet and make me a household name, or not. I can’t tell you what it is, or what it will do, or who I’m doing it with. I also can't tell you what it's going to be called or where it'll be on your dial. Frankly, I can’t tell you anything about it other than I am currently developing a new social network that will sweep the Internet and make me a household name, or not.
September 13, 2009
I was cleaning out old files and came across a review of KeithSpeak written a very long time ago by a defunct self-proclaimed Internet blog reviewer. He said though I was clever, my ideas were crazy, even dangerous, but he especially hated the way every day was something different – he never knew what to expect! As if that were a bad thing, as if variety wasn’t the spice of life. Sigh.
September 14, 2009
bobster855
In his time, Carl had heard him some bad flautists, but Zeb was by far the worst. At first it was funny. Four months later, Carl was to invent wax ear plugs; two years after that, ear protecting head phones; five years later, he was experimenting with sound wave cancellation when he killed Zeb with a rock after butchering Turkey In The Straw twenty-eight times in a row.
September 15, 2009
So Dave says to me, “What kind of name is Keith anyway?” I told him I didn’t know what kind of name it was. I told him I didn’t even know what that question meant. I said, “What kind of name is any name?” And he shot back, “Dave is cool. That’s a cool name.” And I thought to myself, Proof, the world is an illusion created in one’s mind. “Larry too," he added, "Larry’s pretty cool.” Proof and reproof.
September 16, 2009
A liar and a thief once told me that the best way to protect your stuff is to not fear losing what you have. The fear of losing something is actually the very thing that allows it to be stolen. Deep, eh?
September 17, 2009
Très suggestive, oui?
adamsofen
September 18, 2009
A friend who has never used computers, but was thinking about getting one, asked me if computers had gotten any easier to use. Now I’ve been computing for 25 years and it has definitely gotten better - I haven’t had an IRQ interrupt since 1995. But if one was brand new to everything about a computer, how easy is it really? Sadly, I have to say it's still kind of overwhelming. Everything from the terminology to the GUI have no context for a new user. It’s a true uphill learning curve. I told him this. He shrugged and said, Ah, I can wait.
September 19, 2009
A local mall. A mother yelling at her child in public. Child is bawling in the middle of the lobby in the middle of the mall. Security arrives. Mother yells at security. Security urges her to leave. In front of a stopped mall with everyone watching, mother spanks the child twice, wap wap, before yanking her out of the mall. Child is still screaming. Mother is still yanking, still yelling. The mall doors close. The place reanimates. All anyone can talk about is the mother and child. I think to myself, Could our lives be any littler?
September 20, 2009
Susan visited a local nursery and found six good sized trees to her liking. They will look splendid here, I’m sure, once they’re planted, once the holes to plant them in are dug, once I dig by hard manual labor the six good sized holes to plant the six good sized root balls of the trees that will look splendid here, in. I went to bed last night thinking that perhaps something mystical might intervene whilst I snoozed with the angels and in the morning I would find six good sized holes dug in exactly the right places. Alas, what I saw was as notable for what wasn’t there, the holes, as what was, an eager pick and shovel. Later, my pretties.
September 21, 2009
anyjazz65
‘Alone again, in yet another hotel room, after grueling flights to nowhere and back. The job used to be fun. There was an excitement about flying; feeling part of the team. Now it’s a chore. The people are awful. Everyone's awful. What happened? No husband, no kids, no white picket fence, just a 4AM wakeup call for an awful flight to Omaha... I used to love this job.’
September 22, 2009
Today is one of those days where there are so many things scheduled on my overcrowded calendar that I have run out of empty space in which to write any more, thank goodness. You should see it. Looks bad. All this stuff, all crammed in there on the page - there’s even things to do in the margins. What was I thinking?
September 23, 2009
Two teenaged lads were talking about the fact that our little town has a new sex shop. One fellow asked the other if he’d been in the store yet? The guy shook his head no, said he prefers to get his sex the old fashioned way – from the Internet, ha ha, they both laughed. Awkward pause. Then one blurted, We should go right now! The other one said, Okay, let’s do it! And off they scurried to see the new sex shop in town. Cute, huh?
September 25, 2009
This was pretty neat. I’m at a ball diamond hitting fly balls to a friend in center field when his cell phone goes off. He halts our activity to take the call. While I’m waiting at the plate, an older fellow behind the backstop beckons me to the fence; says he wants to show me something. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an old baseball. He holds it up and points, “Can you read that?” On this smudged up, dirty old baseball is a signature, but I can’t make it out. “Wee Willie Keeler”, he says. “This baseball is probably worth millions, but I’ll never sell it, because it was my Dad’s. Willie was playing for the Baltimore Orioles. He had 216 hits that year, and one home run - this ball, caught by my Dad and signed by Willie after the game. It's probably worth millions, but I’ll never sell it.”
September 26, 2009
My office has reached a state of disgrace. It’s just the usual – books, DVDs, papers, sports equipment, electronics, dust – but they’ve run amok, like little wild ponies. Of course, I admonished the office for not keeping up with itself, corralling the livestock as it were – I even questioned its dedication to tidiness, but felt badly about that because deep in my heart, when I got right down to it, I knew I was probably the one who created this mess...not the office. I believe I am a better man for admitting that.
September 27, 2009
The look.
HamedMasoumi
September 28, 2009
I was tiptoeing around a delicate issue when she said, Just come out with it. So I did, but that didn’t go too well (she wanted to hear something else). The irrevocable damage was evident by the smothering tension in the air. Her friend tried to smooth things over by changing the subject, but even her ribald story of debauchery in Kamloops couldn’t alter the fact that we were stuck. I haven’t spoken to her in weeks. She has avoided me as well. The human condition strikes again.
September 29, 2009
My new social network is coming along nicely. I would love to tell you all about it, but I can’t, mostly because I haven’t finished writing it yet. And who knows how it will end? There could be a tight little twist right at the very finale and wallah!, there you are, who knew? See what I mean? But listen, if I could, I would, talk, spill the beans, tell all, you know? But I can’t.
September 30, 2009
I remember when this year started, way back in January, and now here it is almost October. In all those months in between, I, my wife, our family, our friends, everyone we know, all lived a life. Everybody went through exactly what happened to them, and none of it was the same for anybody. Your thoughts are your own. Your life is your own. Do you really need politicians, clergy, “experts” telling you how to live it? Focus on yourself. Do what feels right. Be cognizant. You can do anything you want with your life. Why not make the most of it? I’m just sayin’...
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KeithSpeak October 2009
