How You Remind Me, Indeed...

Over 25? Have taste? Abhor generic music? Think all Nickelback songs sound like they were grown in a petri dish by creepy old dudes in white coats?

Auditory proof.

We were speaking of belief; beliefs and conditioning

"All belief possibly could be said to be the result of some conditioning. Thus, the study of history is simply the study of one system of beliefs deposing another, and so on and so on and so on...

A psychologically tested belief of our time is that the central nervous system, which feeds its impulses directly to the brain, the conscious and subconscious, is unable to discern between the real and the vividly imagined experience. If there is a difference, and most of us believe there is.

Am I being clear? For to examine these concepts requires tremendous energy and discipline.

To allow the unknown to occur and to occur requires clarity. And where there is clarity there is no choice. And where there is choice, there is misery.

But then, why should anyone listen to me? Why should I speak, since I know nothing?"

--The Swami, "Head", 1968

1998: A Spinal Tap moment

The life of a college student is to enjoy the simple things of life...things normal citizens take for granted. Air conditioning. Pay for your work. Cooked food. One of my simple pleasures was fast food beyond the played-out old KFC in Blazer Hall. I would save up my cashflow so I could splurge on Taco Bell for dinner on Thursdays.

Occasionally my posse and I would make a weekend stop at the Nicholasville Road Bell for a little fun time. Hey, they had a jukebox. As was my custom in those days, my order invariably included a Meximelt with no pico. This request, humble as it was, turned out to be a curveball for unsuspecting Taco Bell cashiers, who would scan their keypad furtively looking for that elusive "no pico" button. As I said before, this was my custom, so in spite of my upside-down perspective a byproduct of my consistency was my involuntarily learning where this button was.

So here I was, Friday night, and this poor guy with a 70s mustache and a too-cool-for-school black mullet was looking for the no pico button. And looking. And looking. Patient me was looking as well. Finally after a good 30 seconds I could take it no more and pointed toward the object of his quest.

"Don't touch my register," came the reply and accompanying backhanded swat. He mumbled it under his breath and didn't look up, so it took me a second to realize that it was really happening.

"I wasn't touching it, I was just pointing at it," I said. I wasn't going to touch it. I was just pointing at it. Can I look at it?

I must have really teed this guy off. I looked up later to see him still stewing behind the register, taking short paces back and forth, scowling. The manager would walk over occasionally and say something to him.

I had no desire to die, so I left as soon as we were finished. I'm not sure what happened to that guy. I didn't see him there any more.