March 23, 2006

# 68



I was invited to a function today. Nobody asked me to stand before the congregation, bow or to speak my mind of how poor I think the state of recent affairs has been. So I didn't. It wasn't that I was offended by the non-gesture. Oh, fuck no! Far from it. I was relieved. You see, I find it beyond reproach and arrogant to the extreme, like a Coca-Cola advertisement narrated by Sam Kinison, that someone ought to assume that s/he should be asked to speak when all they've done to contribute to the assembled throng is to devote his/her time, energy, and pursuit of unrivalled excellence to the very cause that's biting him/her in the ass.

Ah, I'm just fucking around, pretending to have a whinge because it's been many a day since I've whinged for real. *twirls index finger high above head*

Next paragraph begins very much like this: So there I was, dressed in my blue tailor made original Khan Thuy label suit: matching dimensions for the dark brown long-sleeved shirt underneath and guilty by colour-association light brown tie to complete the nostalgic gangster look; its knot as perfectly tied as any computer generated single-frame image could hope to achieve. I felt hot, in the sense that I was warm, borderline ill to my stomach. I wondered briefly about the physical properties of dark colours then nodded off into a light sleep where a gang of talking Snickers bars instructed that I eat them without second guessing why.

Much to my relief, nobody, as far as I could determine, had noticed my actions of sliding into nod or how I had strayed from the superbly crafted pink programme. I picked up my lens and snapped a few dozen frames, more out of frustration at having unknowingly raised myself from the sweat-based, thoroughly deserved accidental sleep than anything. You won't see those shots here because I say so.

And then realisation hit me, smack-bangola at the bridge of the snout. It fucken woke me up for good as well. As I tossed the rubber baseball back to the guilty party I realised these third-year cadets were on the way out: their crafts had survived the war; their bodies and minds had withstood the pressure; their mission had been accomplished.

'Had it been another year?' I asked myself much to amusement of those who couldn't understand my language; John Howard's prickly racist variation of English. To them I was merely a fat foreign bastard in a cheap Vietnamese suit armed with a camera partaking in a one-sided conversation with thin air.

It had, indeed, been another year. By rights, the third year cadets were now packing the type of mental muscle that could floor a rampaging bulldozer at thirty paces, if unleashed according to methods which I, and others like but different to me, had shown them. It was frightening to the point of making next to fuck-all difference to me, seeing as I'd most likely never need to console them again. But I wondered whether the third year cadets were worthy of progressing to the next phase of life's bewilderment. The answer, sadly but truthfully, was maybe. After all, who was I, a foreign man sans head hair, to determine otherwise?

Third-year cadets of the two-year Andy Kaufman Programme, I salute you. Go forth, experience life for what it is, come back and tell me what you've learned once you do, and don't ever ask me for money.

P.S. This post was supposed to carry an image of Sam Kinison. The blogger photos bot determined it would not be so.










9 comments:

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

Once upon a time, I fell asleep during a two hour seminar outlining how a new computer system would work within our company.

The slide show of screenshots and the insidiously dull monotone of the Epsilon-Minor narrator sent me to the land of nod within half an hour.

I woke up only when the angry scrape of metal chairlegs rocketed through my lugholes.

The computer system was never utilised.

..and that is the most successfull time management scenario I have ever undertaken.

Between daisies said...

Man, I had the same thing today. Luckily I had one of the special kids shouting all the way through. Translated:

Idiot! idiot!

First years are idiots!

Loud yawn

The headmaster is an idiot too!

etc.

UTMG - people who institute new computer systems should be shot, starting with the guy who did ours. Admittedly before we only had one PC that connected to the internet but now we have about 35 that don't including the one that did before. One computer type that will look very WAN after I RAM his head through the VDU for using too many TLAs.

Kaufman said...

UTMG: I have no idea what I can add to make that story better. Suffice to say that imagining the scenario, in which you look like Leonardo Di Caprio in Catch Me If You Can, makes me laugh.

There I go again. Ha-ha!

UTR: Priceless. I would've enjoyed that a lot.

Chris Benjamin said...

First year English, Dalhousie University, Benjibopper stays up all night cramming for an accounting exam. Falls asleep during an 'orientation to the library system'. Somehow during said sleep all the fluid in his brain seeps onto his desk, which he is face down upon. Wakes up in a pond of his own drool. Big fat guy next to him cracks up, leaving young BB in a panic to cover his disgusting mess. Grabs the handout on the library system and absorbs the puddle as best he can. Fat dude cracks up again. Benji avoids the library for a year. True story.

Aminah said...

As soon as someone utilises any sort of visual aid in any sort of presentation I can feel my eye-lids becoming heavy. But, that could be because it's usually the people who sound like brainwashed local government robots who feel the need to use them.

It must be very disconcerting for them with the chorus of dull thuds as heads hit desks and the reverberation of snores.

Between daisies said...

Oh-yeah! I usually give stuff out for people to play with and hide little pieces of snidiness in the handouts to keep people awake.

I got a reprimand from head office the other day for writing "We admired the beauty and powers of the words of the vice president. FOR TWENTY Minutes!!" in the minutes from a meeting. I could have sworn that nobody read them.

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

I like Benji's karmic salival justice. Bodily fluids have a habit of dropping you in it without warning.

I think management types are genetically engineered to filter out the dull thud of heads hitting desks. They might malfunction and turn on their audience in a fit of crippling self-loathing lest it be revealed that what they are saying is of little or no importance.

Kaufman said...

Everyone: Stop posting comments on this post.

Let's talk about huge blokes, their blubber and their inappropriate garments in a square battle ring.

MTF.

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

That's absolutely no way to talk about the House of Commons.