Category Archives: fiction

Happy Xmas — or is it Groundhog Day?

Posted on December 11, 2011 by oddmanout215

I run past Dan’s store on Passyunk Avenue, I see his Christmas trees for sale at curbside, breathe the scent of pine and hear “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” skipping from the speakers above his storefront. Each time … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, fiction, humor, Philadelphia, pop music | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bush, Obama rolled lucky 7s for banksters

Posted on December 2, 2011 by oddmanout215

Did anyone else see the lame TV movie Too Big To Fail, which dramatized the Fall 2008 financial crisis? If not, you didn’t miss anything honest. It was based on the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, the NYT reporter and … Continue reading →

Posted in economic collapse, fiction, finance reform bill, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

From dystopia to reality, via NYPD

Posted on November 18, 2011 by oddmanout215

At what point does the near-future depicted in a novel stop seeming dystopian and become more-or-less realistic? This is from Super Sad True Love Story, the bestseller by Gary Shteyngart, who read Wednesday at Rutgers-Camden: An armored personnel carrier bearing … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, Camden, economic collapse, fiction, globalization, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Great lit to great film? Well, there’s ‘The Dead’

Posted on November 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

How often have great literary works been made into great movies? Certainly more often than the Eagles have won the Super Bowl (never), but only slightly more often than the Phillies have won the National League championship (seven times). What’s … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, fiction, movies | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do, sugar…

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

The perfect Saturday night song if you’re looking to sit at a bar and drown your lust for someone, or to start a fight if you can’t drink enough to drown it. I don’t sit at bars anymore, but I … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, fiction, humor, pop music | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Nicos Gun, laughing at tornadoes

Posted on October 12, 2011 by oddmanout215

From Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test: Coming up over the Blue Ridge Mountains, everybody was stoned on acid, Cassady included, and it was at that moment that he decided to make it down the steepest, awfulest windingest mountain … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, fiction, Philadelphia, pop music | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Do you know a gal, or guy, like Nicole?

Posted on October 8, 2011 by oddmanout215

I was re-reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night (1934) and ran across this masterful description of the great divide between rich and poor, in the 1920s and now: … She bought a dozen bathing suits, a rubber alligator, … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, economic collapse, fiction, globalization, The New Depression | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Fiction reading Wed. at Rutgers-Camden

Posted on October 3, 2011 by oddmanout215

7 pm Wednesday, Oct. 5 Walt Whitman Arts Center, 2nd Floor 101 Cooper St. Camden, NJ David McKenna, a.k.a. Odd Man Out, will read “Chokepoint,” from Idiot Lights, his collection of thematically related short stories set in Atlantic City and … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, Camden, fiction, NJ, Philadelphia | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘You’re way wrong… I read Erica Jong’

Posted on September 30, 2011 by oddmanout215

Whither the zipless fuck? I’ll back up… One thing you can count on these days is the bizarre ubiquity of Facebook, which is always “on” and always ready to introduce you to new friends — or, more accurately, to friends … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, fiction, humor, mainstream media, movies, Politics, The New Depression, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

When serfs fight back, GOP cries ‘Class warfare!’

Posted on September 19, 2011 by oddmanout215

This week’s winner of the chutzpah award is libertarian con man Paul Ryan, for accusing the Democratic Party of “class warfare.” Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand, the Benzedrine-addled academic who wrote two door-stopper novels that celebrated “the morality … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, Congress, economic collapse, fiction, globalization, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments