More Useless Knowledge?

By Andrew Davie

Andrew Davie's MORE USELESS KNOWLEDGE? is a collection of informal essays. Everything from attending the Macau Grand Prix to various examinations of recovery from a ruptured brain aneurysm are explored.

Pop culture is at the forefront of most of these stories, whether it involves the music of Bad Religion and Black Sabbath or explaining the subtle nuances of the film Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor.

If you’re looking for philosophical insight and a different perspective, these essays are for you. There’s something for everyone in this collection where the mantra is that comedy = tragedy + time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Dec 6, 2023

Book preview

More Useless Knowledge?

MORE USELESS KNOWLEDGE?

ANDREW DAVIE

Copyright (C) 2023 Andrew Davie

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter

Published 2023 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Jaylord Bonnit

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

For Charles Bukowski

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful to Heather and Mom for the enduring support, Shawn, Chris, and David for publishing versions of some of these essays.

VERSIONS OF THESE STORIES HAVE APPEARED IN

The Accuracy of Third Eye Blind (The Daily Drunk)

An Aneurysm is Nothing Like the Song by the Band Nirvana (All Due Respect)

Elvis Played the Cow Palace (HOPE Magazine)

Comfortably Numb (HOPE Magazine)

The Left Hand That Drills Intestines (The Daily Drunk)

Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (Drunk Monkeys)

Weird Al, Dexter, and Greg Graffin (The Daily Drunk)

CONTENTS

The Accuracy of Third Eye Blind

An Aneurysm is Nothing like the song by the Band Nirvana

Elvis Played the Cow Palace

Comfortably Numb

ŝāy thalwng s̄ị̂ (ซ้ายทะลวงไส้) The Left Hand That Drills Intestines

Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor

Lightning in a Bottle

Weird Al, Dexter, and Greg Graffin

The Atrocity Exhibition

The House That Freddy Built

The Macau Grand Prix

Point/Counterpoint

Black Tooth Grin

Margins

In Vino Veritas

Stormy Monday

The Legend

Approaching Year Five

The Accuracy of Muse

About the Author

THE ACCURACY OF THIRD EYE BLIND

How Third Eye Blind’s Debut Album Third Eye Blind Predicted the Major Events of My Life from 2010 to 2019

I’d heard an interesting theory, in which music pundit Chuck Klosterman wrote about how Radiohead’s album Kid A predicted the events of 9/11. After I’d listened to the first few tracks of Third Eye Blind, I realized they lined up almost perfectly with major events in my life.

Track 1: Losing a Whole Year

This track represents the final year of my relationship with my then-girlfriend. I had been given to her as a birthday present. Basically, I was at a bar, met two girls who were headed to their friend’s birthday party, and they invited me to go with them. Since they hadn’t gotten her a gift, they joked that I would be the birthday present. For the rest of the evening, after the gifts were bestowed, one of her friends (who’d had a little too much to drink) kept yelling, Unwrap your present! And yes, one day I thought I’d be telling this story on a talk show.

So, wait a second, the host would begin.

I’m thinking Conan O’Brien, although beggars can’t be choosers.

You were your wife’s birthday present? He would have just the right amount of awe in his voice.

Yes, I would reply, and wait for the applause to die down before I continued with the story.

Earlier that year, my girlfriend and I had moved in together. Our cohabitation would last for ten months. We had been in a relationship for four years before we decided to find an apartment. This was 2010, and I was almost thirty-two years old. I was not yet wise enough to realize that our moving in together was a last-ditch effort on her part to save our relationship from disintegrating entirely. At the time, I recall telling her how certain I was about our relationship, and that it was fine if she felt anxious or doubtful. When playing Blackjack, this is similar to feeling confident enough to double down on your bet when you don’t have a face card.

Back then, I was working with my father, day-trading options. I was probably in the mindset to gamble. Mostly, I was trading covered call options. Options are financial instruments. They allow you to either buy or sell a certain amount of shares of stock at a fixed price at a future time. Covered calls mean you already own the underlying stock, so you’re hedging if the price goes down by selling the right to own the stock to someone else. If the strike price (the price at which you are going to buy/sell) is more than the underlying stock price, then the option expires, and the seller keeps the premium (money paid for the chance to own the stock option). Of course, the subprime mortgage crisis hit around this time. There are a multitude of reasons for the subprime mortgage crisis which include a housing bubble and predatory loan lending tactics. As it became more difficult to navigate the stock market, I talked with my dad, who foresaw the end of our business venture and suggested I look for an alternate means of income.

At that point in my life, the only thing I had ever been passionate about was writing. So I applied to graduate schools. I only looked at programs within the greater New York area since my girlfriend was an aspiring actress and needed to stay near the city. She had done some off-off-Broadway work. Who knows whether I would have been able to get into any programs out of state? It’s easy to look back and reflect on missed opportunities. Of course,