O Kevin! My Kevin!
Your fearful trip has just begun*
Jeffrey Denny
“Nominative determinism” says thy name is destiny.
For instance, don’t name your sweet newborn “Henry Charles Albert David, Prince Harold, Duke of Sussex.”
He/they might grow up to look eerily like a keto Seth Rogen and “write” a New York Times best-selling memoir about your terrible horrible no good very bad family.
Naming your baby “Donald J. Trump” boosts the odds that he/they will grow up to be the worst lying, cheating, lawless, democracy-destroying and unindicted criminal president in U.S. history since @realDonaldTrump.
On the other hand, if you name your baby “Barack H. Obama,” she/they might become the best president since Obama, whose greatness is underscored by the dregs who hate him and not because he’s not white, of course, but for policy reasons.
What if you named your baby “Kevin”?
Seems like an excellent choice.
According to TheBump.com — which is not about the hip-displacing 1970s dance craze but offers pregnancy, parenting and baby information — Kevin means “handsome.”
Specifically, Kevin derives from the Irish name Caoimhín combining coém (handsome) and gein (birth). (But, you ask, aren’t all babies born good-looking, at least to the parents?)
My life has been enhanced by knowing and working with many wonderful Kevins, some better looking than others.
The world is blessed with many famous great Kevins. Filmmaker Kevin Smith (“Clerks,” “Mallrats,” “Yoga Hosers”). Basketball star Kevin Durant. Actor Kevin Kline and “actor” Kevin James.
Salt in a few infamous Kevins. Like Kevin Spacey, Kevin Hart and Kevin Costner, all canceled by cancelers for canceling reasons.
What about Kevin Bacon? Not canceled. Except for his plural streaming TV series “City on a Hill,” “Tremors,” and “The Following.”
Defying expectations, the 2011 “Footloose” remake starring Kenny Wormald was not canceled by Rotten Tomatoes. In fact it beat the 1984 original with Kevin Bacon (68% v. 52% on the Tomatometer).
The old “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” was canceled by eyerolling. Nobody cares anymore about who’s related to Kevin Bacon.
Kevin Bacon himself was fake mortally cancelled when viral rumors of “Kevin Bacon dead” murdered the internet. But ’twas a mere namesake who was murdered. (Or was he?)
We all knew Kevins in school.
Some were born great. Others achieved greatness.
Others thrusted infamy upon themselves for eating their boogers or classmate boogers. Or did whatever necessary to be popular, yet kids still sneered at the Kevins’ refusal to get treatment for clinical insecurity. Kids can be both emotionally woke and cruel that way.
The Kevins got their revenge. Surely more than the Karens who continue to be laughing stocks of the universe.
People respect bad Kevins more than bad Karens due to misogyny. Witness how the most powerful human in our solar system is named Kevin, not Karen.
The “Honorable” “Distinguished” U.S. House “Speaker” Kevin McCarthy is a hero to every Kevin ever born.
He knew exactly how to deal with bullies.
According to new House rules that Kevin commanded so the MAGA Gang of 20 would stop holding his head in a toilet and flushing it while administering an atomic wedgie, he can be canceled any time, for any reason. Like if the House cafeteria failed to cancel Socialist vegan burgers to protect good old American patriotic hamburders.
No, Kevin McCarthy didn’t negotiate with domestic terrorists. He would never degrade Kevins or McCarthys. Or America for that matter.
He merely prostrated to the Alpha power of a certain heroic but humble MAGA gang leader named Matt, a name of Hebrew origin meaning “gift of God.” (And if your full name is Matt Gaetz, it means “you love children to an almost criminal degree.”)
Studies show attractive people are more likely to be leaders.
It’s superficial, lookist, and unfair to normies.
Kevin of McCarthy, befitting his name, is a reasonably lookable gent.
But as he bangs his “Speaker” gavel and it makes a faint and hollow sound, his plight proves, in spite of Instagram, even Kevins cannot live on looks alone.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
*Apologies to Walt Whitman and his paean to Lincoln
