Duck Fat Shaming

 

While you’re probably quite familiar with the concept of fat shaming, I doubt anyone has attempted to explain duck fat shaming to you. Not that it needs much of an explanation. Duck fat shaming is used to annoy diners enjoying extremely heavy foods. 

I first noticed it while enjoying a quick cup of cassoulet on the sidewalk. For some, class warfare extends beyond the financial system and into cuisine, where dishes are divided between rich and poor. 

It can start innocent enough. “You gonna eat all that yourself?” As if people haven’t been enjoying thick bean soups since Caesar hopscotched his way across Gaul. 

The smart remarks get more sinister with each passing spoonful. “You’re not gonna add salt, are you?” “I hope you have gout insurance.” “Ever heard of a minestrone?” It can go on like this for the entire duration of the meal. Here I am, trying to savor some meat, beans, soaked in duck fat, and there are people who want be to be ashamed of my choices. They are under the delusion that a salad would be a wiser a choice. That a couple of breadsticks would suffice. That skipping lunch in favor of dietary self-denial is somehow ideal. 

What they don’t understand is that I feel no shame. No one does this to the bacon fat contingent, feted for their passion for lard. Ducks are different. They’re cuter, perhaps. 

I would ask this. Would you go to the French embassy and duck fat shame or is it just that you see me talking to myself in perfect English that makes you feel comfortable that I pose no real threat? 

Going Out in Style

 

“We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing ‘the’ labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college educated.”

Many were up in arms after seeing “the French” included among this motley crew. I believe in her first draft Emma Lazarus initially wrote, give us your poor, your mentally ill, your college educated.” She said nothing about the French, your French, or a French. 

I am sure I’ve used the French than a few times in these hallowed pages. I now see the error of my ways. I should’ve referred to their affinity for cheese, berets, and striped shirts. The French are people who experience butter. 

They say “the” is dehumanizing, but I think in many cases it’s necessary. If a friend calls me and says, “Yankees are beating them badly right now.” I would be forgiven for thinking it’s in reference to a face-off between civil war reenactors. The “the” is important if I’m to understand it was all just a game. 

I can see why saying the college educated is dehumanizing. Instead, they are people who have undergone matriculation. That’s far more human. 

The issue arises when talking about the mentally Ill. Simply saying “mentally ill” is not specific enough for a clear warning. “The” mentally ill might mean the person in the middle of the street without shoes and waving a golf club at oncoming traffic. You might consider saying, “people of insanity.” 

“The” problem if I can even say that is “the” is totalizing. A deli in my hometown has an item on the menu labeled, “the Sandwich.” Where do they get off? Think of the ego. They sell other sandwiches and yet one rises to the top, like a heavenly loaf. 

The End.

Everyone's a comic

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “we don’t serve his kind.” The jockey hops off the saddle, offended at the equine slight and begins berating the bartender, “what you do mean, ‘his kind?’ My horse has just a right as anyone to drink at this establishment.” The bartender responds, “Excuse me, I was talking to the horse.”  

@doohickeydave321: A mule walks into a bar. The bartender says, “we don’t serve your kind.” The mule responds, “But I saw a Prius drinking in here just yesterday.”

@tinafromelmira: A hoarse man walks into a bar but the bartender can’t hear him and just ignores him until he leaves. 

@thecaptainofinfamy: A horse passes the bar and starts clerking with an appellate court judge. 

@thunderclack23: A horse walks into a playhouse. The bartender says, "Equus closed last week."

@lieutenantmoron: A horse walks into a FUBAR. The bartender says, "who's your superior officer?" 

@technocrat1776: A horse walks into a session of congress. The bartender says, "all opposed say, nay, not neigh." The horse says, "what if I'm favor of this piece of legislation?"

@jokemaker: A horse walks into a beret and the bartender says, “excusez-moi?”

@notdostoevskysidiot: A bar walks into a horse and the bartender says, “you must be dyslexic.” 

Shelfish

 

The biggest dilemma facing book owners (notice how I didn’t say readers?) is how to organize the shelves. I suppose in some corners of the world leaving piles is acceptable, but that offers little in the way of nocturnal stability when rushing to the kitchen for rehydration. 

You could sort by color. But what color? That of the dust jacket? The actual spine? Or the soot left from a lettered conflagration? Personally, I don’t see color in my books, since I’m took busy leafing through the index for obscenities to notice. The pages are almost always white or beige. That seems weird and wrong, considering how far we’ve come. Do people not realize what color the Rosetta Stone is? It isn’t white. Microsoft Word, the program I have so mindlessly devoted my life to, is just as vanilla. But at least vanilla has a nice smell to it. Not these digital documents with their blinking cursor and pale nothingness. Newspapers are gray, and that seems like a good compromise. Except when you consider the certain demise of print journalism. The Gray Lady, for all her fame and fortune, is not gray when you’re browsing the website. It’s white. Another reason to support hard copies. 

You could organize by weight, by height, alphabetical by author’s last name, alphabetical by author’s first name, numerical by author’s IQ, etc. You could sort from love to hate, the books you adore ending with the ones you despise. You could divide by the books you legitimately read with the ones you tell people you’ve read to look smarter. However, this is one method that proves problematic when company invariably wonders, “I love what you’ve done with your bookshelves. How did you do it?”

The only thing you can’t do is use the Dewey Decimal System. 

Institutionalized

  

It’s sad what’s happened to the United States Congress. This used to be a place full of moral giants like John C. Calhoun, unwaveringly loyal Americans like Samuel Dickstein and funny names like Newt Gingrich. In other words, it was a place that mattered. Once unsullied, now, not so much.  

 

Yes, this is still a place with intellectual heft usually reserved for the soiled cages of the Bronx Zoo. The only reason you don’t know what a kangaroo thinks about raising the debt ceiling is because you haven’t asked.

 

Many people want term limits. Not me. I want anyone elected to congress to be forced to stay there in perpetuity. The last thing I want is to see one of these ex-pols making me a sandwich at a deli or driving my next Uber. These aren’t exactly people cut out for the real world, real jobs, or real work. Let them play dress up in Washington. But as far as institutions go, may I suggest a certain white jacket for them to wear? I have a feeling many members would fit right in. 

The Cabal Guy

 

“Can I help you?,” said Jim to the stranger standing on his front porch.

“Possibly. I’m the Cabal Guy, here to fix your cabal.”

“We don’t have a cabal. It’s just me, my wife, daughter, dog, cat, and a family of termites living (for now) under the porch.”

“May I come in? It’s a little chilly on the porch, and knowing what I now know about the termites, I don't want to push my luck.”

“Sure.”

The Cabal Guy stepped into the house and shut the door behind him.

“That’s the thing about cabals, you don’t always know they’re there. Yours in particular is quite shadowy.”

“To be fair, aren’t all cabals shadowy?”

“You’d be surprised. Some can stand a little sunlight. We’re not discussing vampires here.”

“Who under my roof is in a cabal and to what end? 

"Oh, it's not safe to talk here. Your devices are listening to us right now."

He got down on his hand and knees and barely spoke over a whisper

"So what are you going to do about it?"

“I have some Reddit threads you should read, some Twitter accounts you should follow. They'll explain it better than I can."

"You know the family with the shadowy cabal is next door. I live alone."

"I thought you said you had a family."

"I did. But you shouldn't believe everything you hear. I was merely testing your credulity. You failed. Now get out of my house."

Read Menace

 

Do you hate reading? Do you have an antagonistic relationship with your nearest library branch? Does thinking about an illiterate world snap you out of an oncoming panic attack? If so, you should know that there are lots of forms of reading that don’t involve books. 

For starters, you could read someone like a book. But doing so involves none of the hang-ups of flipping pages, licking fingers, and sighing at the plot holes.  

Or, if that’s no good, try reading palms. I’ve heard most people focus on the flipside of a hand, but I prefer those enormous leaves found in warmer climates. Did you know palm trees are not technically tress, but rather, grasses? I hope not. You would’ve had to read it somewhere first. 

Reading tea leaves is annoying to many, especially jonesing coffee drinkers patiently waiting behind you in line for the barista to complete your complicated order. 

Reading the room requires an understanding of crown molding and dust mites. Don’t believe me? Try reading my mind then. 

Hamfisted U

Here at Hamfisted U, we offer many disengaging courses for students. Ones that help foster something we like to call, “the death of the mind.” This is a campus where you learn to unthink what you thought about thinking. We teach how to stay on the surface, skating across intellectual ponds like a Basilisk lizard. 

A few of our most popular classes this semester are “Cowardice: In Theory and Practice”, “Moral Depravity 101”, Finding Yourself in the Crowd: The Sublimity of Conformity”, “Not My Fault: Avoiding Responsibility Through Empowerment”,  “The Alchemy of Offense: How to Make Something Out of Nothing”, “Keep Digging: The philosophy of Making a Bad Situation Worse”, “Burn On: Environmentally-sound Library Recycling”, and everyone’s favorite, “Undefeated: Going Through Life Right About Everything.”

We care about your well-being. That’s why, despite climate change, we’re committed to keeping every student bundled up in down coats for the duration of their tenure. You might sweat at first, but you’ll learn to get through it. Once you realize there’s no room for individuality and everyone is wearing a parka in July, it’ll be just fine. Pick up special darkened sunglasses at the university bookstore for just $17.95, discounted for the rest of the month. Don’t worry, you won’t be able to see a thing. 

Oh, and this year, every student and teacher will get a number instead of a name. But guess what? It’s the same one for everyone. 

Zero. 

Spare Change

 

Years ago, too many to count, when every internet connection was accompanied by deafening static and a simple email was worth waking the neighbors, my family had a dog. This dog was springer spaniel, a good- looking pup, both regal and dignified. But the dog had issues. In an effort to make the perfect show animal, his owners tried to play God, engaging in rampant inbreeding. One day, the dog went mad. I prefer to remember the good times and not when he had forfeited each of his marbles in one fell bite. 

Why am I bringing this up now? Because I think of my dearly departed, clearly deluded, springer whenever news of the royal family props up. I see a lot of Prince Harry in my pooch. Which make sense. Both are shining examples of the dangers of inbreeding. A PSA for the cousin-loving. 

It’s easy to sit here in a relatively democratic country and criticize a flailing monarchy. It’s also fun. The thing is, Harry wouldn’t be the first. George III was a bit wackadoo, to put it mildly. Everyone knows about Nero. And the Burger King’s diet alone is quite alarming. So if Harry acts strange, you could just say it’s a royal family tradition. 

George Santos' Pantos

 

George Santos might look like a run-of-the-mill double-talking politician. But he’s a little different. This man has a glow, as well as an apparently successful clothing business. Even the toughest critics must acknowledge his unusual incandescence. And this incendiary panache, bona fide razzle dazzle, stems from the bottom up. To put it simply: he’s hot right now.

Are you allergic to the truth? Do you exaggerate events for sheer entertainment? Or lie about seemingly inconsequential details? If you just can’t help yourself from telling outright falsehoods, boy do we have clothes for you. Introducing, George Santos’ Pantos, fire-retardant pants for the liar in your life. Each pair is expertly ironed right on George’s walnut desk. Act now, before it’s removed as evidence in the forthcoming federal indictment. It's bolted to the floor, so bring your toolbox.

He’s solved the most pressing problem plaguing every fabulous fabulist: what to wear. It’s not practical to travel with a fire extinguisher, smoke detector, and bucket of water everywhere you go. This isn’t the heady days of Ben Franklin’s volunteer fire department, where you could come and go as you please despite constant blazes. What liars need are flame-retardant pants.

Because lying is hard enough without having to worry about the combustibility of your lower half. Liars deserve the freedom to fabricate without members of the public commenting on noticeable ash lines along their inseam or embers shaking loose from a burnt pant leg. You’d hate to commit perjury and get smoke inhalation. Talk about insult to injury. 

At GSP, we like to say, “liar, liar, no longer pants on fire.” Since time immemorial, inveterate prevaricators, grand fibbers and ordinary lying rat bastards were all forced to suffer for their sins. Whether it was toasted thighs, singed unmentionables, or a general sense of dread following every move, their daily lives were never free from the threat of bodily harm. 

We have perfected the latest in trouser technology, allowing for extra legroom to fit a lifetime of deceit. You’re now able to spin a wild yarn without ever losing the plot, or a thread. Here’s how it works. Whenever someone like George tells a real whopper, a spark starts somewhere between the fly and cuff. That’s where the real trouble begins. Only a true psychopath can soldier through a tall tale while his legs ignite in flames. This is when and where we earn our keep. Inside the legs, are tiny sprinkler heads, dozens of them, which go off like an aquatic symphony. It's quite a sight when you see it for the first time. Now, to the untrained eye, it may look like you have a faulty bladder. But that’s merely how it looks. Water dries in time, second degree burns, not so much. 

You’re lying to yourself if you think this deal will last forever. And that’s the only person we can’t lie to. Everyone else is fair game. While the emperor has no clothes, the freshman congressman sure has nice pants. Act now before this deal, like George’s political career, goes up in smoke. 

"Dry" January

 

Lots of people kick off the new year with a locked liquor cabinet. Great, good for them. My issue is not with their beverage choices, but with the imprecise language they so freely use to describe this development. They call it “dry January.” That’s odd, since water is wet. So is coffee. And tea. And juice. And yes, Arnold Palmers. You see, “dry January”, while admirable is tragically incomplete. 

What’s so hard about sticking to solids for a single month? It might have some lasting consequences, but it will show everyone you know that you’re deadly serious about linguistics. A dry January should encompass more than what you consume. It should be an attitude, as well as a way of life. 

I am expecting large deliveries of commercial grade sand, playground wood chips, and exceedingly long grain rice. These are the hallmarks of a dry month, not the abstention of beer and wine at an industry happy hour. 

I don’t want to hear any jokes that are understood after the first utterance. Wit, like a new raincoat, must be dry, too. Dry cleaning, but no washing. That includes underwear and dishes. Soups are off limits as well. 

Still thirsty and in need of a workaround? Bite into a fresh cactus and thank me in February. 

Bob Dylan runs on Dunkin'

 

Q:        Why is the “crew from Dunkin’ Donuts” thanked?

A:        Because they were compassionate, supportive and they went                the extra mile.

- Interview with Bob Dylan, The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2022

Bob Dylan has always taken great care in cultivating a persona as an inscrutable interview subject. But now, after over sixty years in the public eye making journalists squirm, he finally let the mask slip. We can all stop wondering about the meaning behind his greatest songs, some of which have entered the pop music canon. What were once Dylan dead ends are now doughy digressions. So let’s go back to the beginning and reframe the career of the twentieth century’s finest troubadour.

Many have wondered how Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota became Bob Dylan. The mystery is mercifully over. Dylan, like doughnut, as well as Dunkin’, conveniently starts with the letter “D” and is just two syllables long. Let’s abandon the notion that the songwriter wanted a name redolent of a certain alcoholic Welsh poet.

On his highly acclaimed second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, there are several hit songs with previously ambiguous meanings. “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” is not about the coming atomic apocalypse, but rather, how volatile sugar becomes when reaching its melting point. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” is not about lost love, but instead a motivational mantra Dylan would say in the mirror after a wildly indulgent, increasingly routine, pastry-rich breakfast. “I Shall Be Free” was his meditation on a world where all baked goods are given away, gratis, no longer the subject of capricious markets. And yes, “Blowin’ In the Wind”, while important during the Civil Rights movement, is actually a reference to common post-snack flatulence; a movement with different implications, but a movement all the same. 

“The Times They are a-Changin’” was Dylan lamenting the expansion of Dunkin’ chains throughout the country. Though he loved their product, he worried about the loss of Mom-and-Pop doughnut shops and whether the country would become one giant strip mall. Oh, how prescient he was.

At Newport in 1965, Dylan went electric after watching a deep fat fryer in action, mesmerized by the scalding oil, and not as some reaction to the inherent limitations of the acoustic guitar. Prior to that epiphany, he hired harmonica player Paul Butterfield solely for his name, believing it would be a boon to his own notorious sweet tooth.

He was called “Judas” in 1966 at a show in Manchester, England, because of the unfounded rumor that he was on a diet for the entire tour. This helps explain why he included “Ballad of a Thin Man” on the same setlist to disabuse fans of this damaging misapprehension.

We can now say with some degree of certainty that his motorcycle accident, which occurred July 1966 in Woodstock, New York, was the result of a massive oil leak. But not the sort most mechanics are familiar with. Apparently, he was mixing the oil meant for frying with what’s typically used in a two-stroke internal combustion engine.

He skipped Woodstock in 1969 because of the emphasis on drugs over dessert.

“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” was about Dylan’s own brush with death after eating three dozen old fashioned doughnuts right before The Concert for Bangladesh. George Harrison was furious, since the purpose of the celebrity revue was to raise awareness for, among other things, starvation.

During his time writing, recording, and touring with The Band, the only source of tension arose from arguments over which was better, Dunkin’ or Tim Horton’s. Seeing as four of five Band members hailed from Canada, Ontario, specifically, they favored the latter. In fact, The Basement Tapes took place in a basement because it was secure enough to store Dylan’s palettes of excess pastry dough growing exponentially with each new contract.

His supposed heavy drug problem in the mid-seventies was more likely a preoccupation with another popular white powder at the time: sugar.

Blood on the Tracks was not about his divorce to Sara Lownds, but rather, a reference to the raspberry filling commonly expelled onto a recording studio’s pristine carpet after a particularly zealous first squeeze. The original track listing was very different, with every song detailing a different aspect of the baking process. Side one featured, “Tangled Up in Spun Sugar,” “Simple Twist of Cinnamon,” “You’re a Big Doughnut Now,” “Idiot Blintz,” and “You’re Gonna Make Me Hypoglycemic When You Go.” Side Two, in typical Dylan fashion, took a darker turn, beginning with “Meet Me in the Morning, That Means Pre-Dawn Since This an Actual Working Bakery.” Then there were lesser-known tunes like, “Honey, Sprinkles and a Dollop of Fudge”, “If You Smell Her, Say Hello,” “Shelter from the Corn Syrup,” and of course, as the grand finale, “Buckets of Jelly.” The record company flipped out, and not in the good, pancake way. They revamped the album, removing all references to fried dough of any kind through overdubs. In the end, Dylan and his wife got divorced anyway, citing irreconcilable culinary differences.

Some interviewers have noticed over the years that Dylan’s eyes seem to glaze over almost immediately upon hearing the most banal of questions. Now, the culprit has been identified as glaze from a full-frontal assault on a sticky bear claw in the green room.

Beginning in the late seventies, his sudden “Christian period” can be directly attributed to the emphasis on unleavened bread during Passover. While not an indictment against Judaism exactly, it’s hard to compare a piece of matzah with a Boston Crème doughnut. Dylan returned to his ancestral faith when he realized Hanukkah, with its focus on oil, was, when done right, an eight-night fried food bacchanalia.

Dylan toured with The Grateful Dead in the eighties because Jerry Garcia, one of the very few portly heroin addicts, surely knew a good bakery when he saw (or smelled) one.

The Traveling Wilburys big hit, “Handle with Care” was about the delicate nature of certain stuffed pastries.

The famous video of Dylan going through the motions during the recording of “We Are the World” was due to a sudden and debilitating sugar crash.

Bob Dylan continues to travel the world on his so-called Never Ending Tour. He keeps at it not out of money concerns, a passion for music, a love of art, but for the fact that touring is still a good excuse for “cheat days” and an easy way to get free food.

Many wondered why Dylan wore sunglasses when President Obama gave him the Medal of Freedom. Oh, it’s just Bob being Bob. Wrong. His eyes were completely bloodshot from an all-night buttery biscuit bender.

He tried to eat his Nobel Prize 18-karat gold medal, convinced it was chocolate; oversized gelt worth 10 million Swedish kroner. He spent the next six weeks getting a brand-new pair of chompers.

And finally, Bob Dylan’s six-decade relationship with Columbia records has garnered the artist a ton of dough. Who could have known all along it was literally just that.  

Lipstick on a pig

The reason why putting lipstick on a pig isn’t enough is the same reason you can’t only put lipstick on a nude person and expect them to ace their job interview without first turning a few heads. It takes more than that to doll oneself up for a big day. So if you’ve heard someone utter this phrase, and you’re anything like me, you scoff at the notion. There is a way to help a pig out though.

If you want your porcine pal to be taken seriously by captains (and first mates) of industry, here are a few obvious pointers. You could take your little bacon boy to a tailor to get fitted for a nice Italian suit. Even the biggest ones, say a wild boar, won’t require as much fabric as your typical big man. You could then get some shoes, as long as you remember to buy four and not simply a pair. You could go for a porkpie hat, too. 

Animals don’t want to be naked in public any more than your person does. But simply giving them a fresh stick of rouge is barely enough to pucker up. Pigs want to be respected and seen as fully human. Maybe not human, but something sentient. Somewhere between a dog and a parakeet on the scale of people pleasers. 

So give your pigs more than makeup. Buy them a pair of aviators and a bowtie, an argyle vest and some slacks. Lipstick is like icing on a cake, the cherry on top, the pickle jutting out of your oversized sandwich. It’s the last thing you worry about. An exclamation point for the sartorially challenged. 

The Problem with Stick Figures

 

You’re probably thinking it’s a harmless doodle, scribbled on the back of a slightly moist coaster following a night on the town. You only drew it because you received complimentary crayons with the appetizers. You didn’t mean anything by it, you’re not an artist. It was to make a point, or to the pass the time. But stick figures are an abomination. Outlines are by definition incomplete, a sign of hopefully better things to come. Not here. With stick figures, there is no improvement, only acceptance of mediocrity and fantasy. 

Not only do they promote unrealistic body standards, but they also teach children that perspective means nothing. That all the learning our species has achieved since the Dark Ages is of little consequence on this bar stool. What would Vermeer say? Rembrandt? I’m just glad they aren’t around to see it. 

What am I even looking at? Stick figures are barely sticks and hardly figures. There’s no anatomy to speak of. They aren’t rugged tree people, covered in bark and leaves, susceptible to weather, changing with the seasons.

So the next time you consider making a stick figure, consider giving them an identity. Who is this noseless, hairless, shoeless idiot dancing across your cocktail napkin anyway? Only you can answer that question. And how ‘bout giving them a few more lbs? It's not like they're going to weigh down the paper. 

The Nepotist

 

It’s not who you know that matters, but who your parents know. And it’s not your first name that people care about, but your last name. The trouble is most of us can’t get around the random circumstances of our birth. 

Until now.

Because, for a modest sum (actually, sums), you can finally get that pedigree to go with your advanced degree. A Nepotist is like an exorcist, except instead of enlisting someone to work on neck flexibility and a liquid diet, you’re paying a person to provide the necessary credentials to succeed in life. Need a name change? No problem. Need a new car? Start shopping. Like any university, we provide predatory loans so anyone can take full advantage of our suite of offerings. Everyone should know what it’s like to be a scion of industry.  

Too many would-be celebrities are identity bereft. You’re probably struggling submitting that screenplay languishing in your desk drawer? The Nepotist can help you. Try querying studios with the last name Apatow and watch as your phone won’t stop vibrating. Have you always wanted to work at NASA? Turns out, having the last name Einstein doesn’t exactly hurt. Think you can build a better car than Musk? How does Henry Ford Jr. Jr. sound? We all love performing dance videos on TikTok. You know what helps? When a viewer connects you to an actual Oscar winner. 

Some applicants worry about the potential for fallout. I always use one question to prove my point. How many Baldwin brothers are there? 4? 6? 18? 57? See? You have no idea. And neither do they. Nobody does. They won't mind one more. Trust me. When you make that first audition as Abner Baldwin, I’m sure the rest of the brood will be happy when you land the role. Because Hollywood, like most industries, is one big family.

What a Nepotist does is shrouded in mystery and NDAs. But make no mistake about: this is not a meritocracy. You know what helps to get a series greenlit on Netflix? Not going to film school, of course, but rather showing producers you are 1/128^th Corsican prince. Nepotists try to rid you of your non-celebrity soul and replace it with at least a C-lister. 

Don’t believe me? Here’s one testimonial in support of what we do.

“I was struggling to make it as a visual artist. Literally starving. I wanted to be the next Warhol and couldn’t even afford a soup can for dinner. So I contacted the Nepotist and we worked out a payment plan over the course of my life span. I went from unknown painter, Drew Dinkins, to celebrity wunderkind, Phillipe Picasso. Not too bad. Thanks, Nepotist, you’re a life saver. Especially since you have my life savings now.”

Remember. If you can’t be famous, you can pretend to be related to someone famous. It beats praying. 

ChitChatGPT

While everyone at home is trying to stump the newest AI with wild requests like, “do the Great Gatsby but please dear God don’t set it in Long Island” or “Rewrite Moby Dick focused on Ahab’s obsession with Bob Marley and the Whalers,” few have stopped to check in on the bot itself? Fame and notoriety can go to anyone’s head, or whatever the closest approximation is to a head in this case. Has anyone even thought of asking, “how are you?”

What we don’t need are more superhero movies or stupid limericks. What we need are friends and confidants. Confidantes to some, actual enemies to others. Either way, the point of a chat bot is not to get the best of them, but to find some common ground. 

Think of it like this. know plenty of robotic people out there, never so much as altering their route to work. But they have to moisturize. Chatbots don't have to do that. They also have to sleep and eat. There are other things, too. I just can't think of them right now. Maybe I'll ask a friend for help. 

Of course, I don’t need a friend. I’m in the middle of culling season. Every January, I review friendship applications and set aside a few lucky ones for the highly coveted “waiting list.” Being a friend my easy, staying my friend, now that takes some persistence. I left a spot open for ChatGPT, the way some restaurants insist on leaving empty tables for the walk-in, causing a great deal of consternation for the reservation obsessed. With that in mind, I waited for ChatGPT to come crawling back to me, panic-stricken, asking questions about esoteric topics, desperately in need of something to crib that wasn’t already written on Wikipedia. 

The first piece of correspondence I got were little snippets. But I wasn’t having any one it. I quickly landed on a solution. I mailed Chat a self-addressed stamped envelope (Battle Creek, MI) and said, “put everything you want to talk about on writing but do it here.” That way, there was no risk of hacking. Yes, the mail is slow and tedious, and letters can get wet (very wet), but I firmly believe it was worth the risk. The last thing I wanted was a screenshot showing up somewhere like TikTok or worse (Instagram reels). 

I’m still waiting to hear back. 

At Wit's End

 

How about Kanye West, folks? More like Kanye career-going-south.

Let me be the first to say that daylight savings time is annoying. When did we all develop a kinship with rural farmers? 

What’s the deal with working from home? More like not home from working, am I right?

I was reading an interesting article yesterday. No, wait, I was listening to an interesting podcast. No, I was actually reading an interesting podcast description. Well, to be honest, I was listening to someone describe an interesting podcast on another podcast. Okay, so really, a friend I very much respect was telling me about this subject. Not a friend per se, but a celebrity who does a lot of speaking in public. Anyway, it was about 

I’m a big proponent of gentrification. Why? Because I consider myself a real gent. 

There’s a lot of discussion about the pronunciation of “GIF.” But does anyone say “me me” when the mean “meme?” I say it because I consider every piece of content solely for me. 

What kind of name is “Elon” anyway? No joke here, just a question. 

January 6^th was two years ago today. It was also a year ago today. And three years ago today. And four years ago today. As well as fifty and hundred and three hundred and fifty. Time sure is something, huh? 

Not Modern Seinfeld

 

Ralph orders a Peloton for Alice who gets offended at the implication. Stammering to show her anyone can use it, he becomes addicted to working out. They have a big fight and she tells him, “I liked you better when you were fat.” He puts it on the curb the next morning to salvage the relationship. Later, Norton tells him he finally got a six pack. Ralph, relieved, and in desperate need of a cold one, is startled when his pal pulls up his shirt to reveal the results of his newfound passion.   

Ralph threatens to quit his job after a fleet of hybrid buses arrives in Brooklyn. He tells Norton that he can walk faster than that. Well, maybe not him, but a man in better shape could (probably one who owns a Peloton). When he goes to put in his notice, he ends up sitting down in one of the new buses, discovering the seats are much more comfortable. After taking it for a spin, he forgets his plan to quit. Since these buses are slower, most of his problem customers opt to skip the bus and wait for another faster one. Alice gets annoyed that he gets home much later and tells him to ride a bicycle if he cares that much about the environment. 

Ralph and Alice go on vacation but before leaving install a home security system. While relaxing on the beach (in Queens) he watches Norton on his smartphone camera. His pal is going into his fridge, taking food and making himself at home. Furious, he tells Alice they’re driving back to Brooklyn to confront his soon-to-be-ex-friend. When they arrive, Trixie yells “surprise!” Ralph totally forgot it was his birthday. Alice is mortified. Ralph politely invites the police officers he called in for cake.  

Ralph becomes obsessed with the Great British Bake Off, and even starts to dress like Paul Hollywood, finally letting his hair go gray. He starts a Great Brooklyn Bake Off with Norton, feeding the neighborhood children delicious sweets for a modest price. That’s until a group of angry dentists confront Ralph at his home arguing he’s now the number one cause of cavities in the borough. Alice hands them some raw broccoli and tells them to scram. 

Ralph invests their savings into crypto without telling Alice, the logic being, “it means secret in Ancient Greek.” When the FTX scandal blows up, she laughs, saying, “I’m glad we didn’t put our money in that. Right?” There’s a big pause and she repeats, “right?” Ralph turns red and says it was going to be a big surprise after he cleared the first million. Alice is mad at first, but moved by the gesture, dumb as it is. Alice tells him it’s okay, she didn’t marry him for his money. Or his smarts. Or his looks. He gets it and she can stop now, but she continues listing things, “ Or your manners, your clothes, your taste, your common sense…” as the credits roll. 

Copy writing

The secret to writing, especially copywriting is to copy writing. There’s no reason to hurt yourself trying to come up with original ideas when familiar ones will do just fine. Consider this: how many religions rely on a big civilization cleansing flood to get things rolling? According to my notes, lots. It’s God’s way of hitting the reset button on humanity.

However, given that, you’d think a couple of them would opt against a massive deluge in favor of something more incendiary, like volcanoes. But it turns out, that lava don’t have nearly the same staying power as water. For one thing, you can’t bottle or can it and sell it at supermarkets for people who have never paid attention to what drips out of their faucet. Which reminds me, when are we going to have bagged water? Biodegradable water balloons you throw at the mouths of the dehydrated. 

So true believers go with what works, not wanting to rock the boat. Though having a boat helps when those first few waves burst down Main Street. As a certain credit card company said many years ago, unoriginal ideas are everywhere you want to be. And like a shoe company keeps on saying, just copy it. 

Headlines, memes, even love letters to your soulmate have all been done (and done better) long before you entered the fray. Think of it as one less thing you have to think about. Don't go for more, go for more of the same. 

Light Reading

 

Recently, it’s come to my attention that many people say things without thinking. In other words, it’s become apparent that a larger number of individuals don’t consider what comes out of their mouth. As someone working in the illumination business, I had a bright idea. Make a list of those problematic phrases that are no longer acceptable. Giving people a chance to adapt before it’s too late. 

Hit the Lights

Now why would you want to do that? What did the lights ever do to you? This is violent, hostile imagery and evokes a dangerous, forceful act. Consider replacing with Consensually Touch the Lights.

Dim the Lights

When I was a schoolboy, poor students were often referred to as dim bulbs. But as anyone who has ever sat in an overly bright room, there’s nothing wrong with dimness. In fact, it can be much nicer, far easier on the eyes. The problem with this phrase is that not ever light switch contains a dimmer. It’s like asking a person with no feet to kick you a soccer ball. A real faux pas. Lighten the Lights is positive, if only slightly less clear. 

Kill the Lights

This is a major no-no. Thou Shalt Not Kill – it’s in the Bible, for God’s sake. Killing is illegal. Why would it be any different here. Think about saying Help the Lights instead. 

 

Now you could follow these rules to a T. Or you could choose to make light of them.

2023: Year in Review

It seems like last year was only yesterday. But in fact, it was two days ago. Boy does time fly when you’re sitting on your hands staring into the persistent glow of a generic computer screen. My New Year’s resolution was to be more mindful of time and not procrastinate. That’s why I’ve decided to put together a list that most people leave until late December. I’m getting on top of it early. Some might say, “too early.” Only time will tell.

Best Day of the Year

I’d have to go with yesterday (January 1^st), since it was a full day and in the city the sky was blue and the weather was quite temperate. 

Best Meal

Last night’s dinner was good. Leftovers, yes, but good ones at that. 

Best TV Show

I don’t have a TV. 

Best Movie

I haven’t watched any movies yet, at least not all the way through. I am about halfway through the mediocre Sean Connery vehicle, “Presidio,” starring Mark Harmon of NCIS fame. It’s not good. But if you’re like me and despise the topography of San Francisco, it’s great to see sparks flying from a getaway car’s undercarriage. 

Best Podcast

I’m a radio man. You should know that.

Quote of the Year

“Can we get please get rid of our Christmas tree?”

Best Book

2023 was the year people stopped read once and for all. 

Things That Didn’t Live up to the Hype

Spring and summer.

Biggest Trend

Doing things earlier than expected. Like say, this list.