Which Way to Oxford?

Dear Mr. Eccentric,

I’m a bachelor, 30 years of age, living in Burbank California. My nephew from a brother I’ve not spoken with for a good 12 years (out of his own volition) has phoned me. He’s 18 and wants to stay with me a while whilst searching out Californian colleges.

Yes, he’s blood, but do I have an obligation room and board the son of a man I barely know anymore?

Please advise,
Anonymous

Say, you aren’t the Anonymous are you? I mean, some of the world’s greatest prose came from some dude named Anonymous. And I must say, your note shows verbosity there Shakespeare.

Anyhoot, you want to know if you have to hole up this nephew of yours. The short answer is no. I mean, you got a deadbolt right? If you don’t, and live in Burbank, then you sir are a brave brave man.

But, I’ve never been one for short answers.

You don’t honestly think this kid is gonna travel all the way to scenic downtown Burbank to scout out colleges do you? I mean you got, what, a cosmetics school and piloting school without an airstrip?

No my friend, the tot’s got a script… and you’re in it. Think of it, a well written gentleman takes in his estranged nephew into his swanky bachelor pad filled with priceless heirlooms… the same heirlooms that split apart two brothers years ago because mom liked you best! The nephew attends the local community college and decides to make the arrangement permanent. He joins the basketball team, invites his new found teammates over for tea and crumpets and they manage to break every last chochkey (in hilarious fashion!). So, enlisting the help of the geeks in the chess / nuclear physics / renaissance actors guild, the lot of you go back in time to stop the the destruction. But, due to the over zealous nature of a rogue renaissance actor, you over shoot your target by 600 years and 5500 miles and you land in Merry Olde England, where you live out your days writing plays under a pseudonym.

It’s gold I tells ya! GOLD! Let the boy in. I’ll be your agent. We’ll call it “Which way to Oxford?” Alec Baldwin will play you, Liv Tyler can play him (re-write… hey, it happens). Think of the sequels! Call me. Your people and my people will do lunch while we’ll get some hookers. It’ll be a kick.

Ozzy Under Cover

It’s really hard to remember that Ozzy Osbourne has been doing music for close to 40 years. Yet, it’s never surprising when an Ozzy tribute album crops up. What is surprising is when it’s Ozzy doing a tribute album – to his contemporaries. Not his modern contemporaries, but his legendary contemporaries, like the Beatles.

Thats’ what Ozzy Under Cover is – a tribute to his influences and equals. Some you can easily see like King Crimson, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Joe Walsh, Rolling Stones, Cream,and Mountain – you know the raucous weirdos. It takes a stretch imagining covers of The Beatles, Lennon solo, Buffalo Springfield, Eric Burdon, Mott the Hoople and the Moody Blues.

Notable tracks include In My Life (the Beatles) – by far the best track of the album. There’s definitively feeling in Ozzy’s trademark rasp and it sounds more like a confession than a cover.

Sunshine of Your Love by Cream sounds as if it were written for Ozzy, and its obvious that this was a key influence on the Wizard.

The Moody Blue’s Go Now was a nice surprise, because not even the Moody Blues does it anymore. Though, oddly enough it was that type of blues rock that Ozzy started with (before Black Sabbath was Black Sabbath), so maybe this is more of a tribute to the musical path he never went down. Still, this is one of the better tracks from the album.

On the other hand, some tracks like All the Young Dudes (Mott the Hoople) and Buffalo Springfield’s For What its Worth (’There’s something happenin’ here, and it ain’t exactly clear…’) are meh. The first sounded flat and phoned in, the latter is a protest song and not even in the same town as Ozzy’s alley.

Still, a pretty decent endeavor overall.

The Verdict

A respectable 4.9 out of 6 on the arbitrary NWOt scale. Points were deducted for the couple of meh tracks. If they were gone then it could be a 6 just for In My Life and Lennon’s Working Class Hero alone. But hey, 11 out 13 tracks aint bad.

Conspicuous by it’s absence, by the way, is the often existence-denied cover of the Bee Gee’s Stayin Alive (not even as a hidden track) - although I’m sure everyone has it downloaded somewhere.

Headphonability – none of the tracks are “heavy” and will blow out your eardrums. However, this is Ozzy we’re talking about, and he’s as high pitched as ever.

Travelicity – Not road music! Maybe you can add Rocky Mountain Way or Fire to a compilation or something.

Replayability – This isn’t the type of thing I’d stick in the CD player and forget about. Break it up into various disks and playlists and it’ll be appreciated longer.

Apparently there’s a Dual Disk version out there with video, but my mishugena music club sent me the album only!

How Money Loses Its Fools

or Extended Tales of Poor Customer Service

or or This is the Last One of These, I Swear

On walking towards the store one Saturday morn I noticed, on the corner across from my store, a tattered man with equally tattered clothing. Besides him stood an eight foot tall picket sign. As the signs on this particular corner are usually of a “end of the world” or “work for food” nature, I didn’t pay it any read at first. Just before I crossed, however, I glanced at the sign.

Sure enough, it was the end of the world… “OfficeMax Store Closing Sale – Everything up to 30% off!”

Our normal clientele has already given us their condolences and moved on to the competition. The majority of shoppers we’re getting these days are strangers. They’ve been lured in by our state of the art SPHP network – Strategic Placed Homeless Person network.

Kicked out of vans at key locations throughout town, they stand on street corners funneling the savvy consumers toward us. And, in this age of cell phones and bluebe… blackberries, one savvy shopper can beget another, who’ll beget another.

Theoretically, such begetting becomes easier when both parties are in the same building. Thus should have been the case when the lady in aisle 4 called her friend about the “deals” we were having. Unbeknownst to her, said friend was in aisle 2. I was in aisle 3 listening to each end of the conversation:

“Where are you?”
“Aisle two.”
“Where?”
“Two”
“Your breaking up…”
“SHE’S IN AILSE TWO!”

Hey, somebody had to end the chatter…

It was about that time I took my leave of aisle 3 because the daily turnip truck was due by with it’s delivery of dolts ready to buy anything in sight.

These are the types who stand underneath a 4×40 ft neon yellow banner reading “Store Closing” and ask “You’re closing?” To which the agreed upon reply has been that this is just a clever marketing campaign designed to boost sales, and promptly follow that with a pair of child safety scissors up the nose!

These are the types who’ll buy the Telzon (our pricing tricorder) just because it had a wad of price stickers all over it.

“Ma’am, why do you have our gun?”
“Wha?”
“The Telzon.”
“Huh?”
*rip* “THIS THING!”
“I’m buying it.”
“It’s not for sale.”
“But, it’s got a sticker on it.”
“Ma’am, do you know what this is?”
“No.”
“Then why are you buying it?”
“It’s eight dollars, that’s a good price.”

There is just no answer that can adequately combat that logic except walking away.