Some Americans celebrate the 4th of July with zero reflection. For them, this holiday is hamburgers and hotdogs, parades, beer, pool parties, baseball, and fireworks. Other Americans, perhaps after too much reflection, say they can’t celebrate the 4th of July. They enjoy the things other Americans enjoy, but they insist, America has a problematic history and an equally problematic present that makes celebration impossible, or at the very least, cringe.

Then there are the Americans who see the good, the bad, and the ugly in the red, white, and blue. I am one of those Americans. I used to believe that the ability to see America simultaneously for it is and what it can be was a sign of intelligence. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” Come to think of it, I still believe Fitzgerald was right about the test of a first-rate intelligence thing, but I don’t believe intelligence is a prerequisite for seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly in the red, white, and blue. All you need, to quote the Beatles, is love.

Loving your country exercises the same muscles as loving your partner, or your parents, or you children, or really anyone else in your life. The objects of your affection — people vs. nations — are quite different, but the demands are the same. Love isn’t easy, or blind, it’s hard work. Love is showing up for good days and bad. Love requires the courage to offer constructive criticism one moment and the generosity of spirit to celebrate an imperfect union the next.

How will I celebrate America and our (hopefully) eternal quest for a more perfect union?

As I write this, I’m drinking coffee from Zabars and watching baseball. A good start, if you ask me.

Later, there will be grilled meats and swimming and cannabis gummies, because beer gives this American a headache.

After the sun goes down, there will be fireworks — legal and illegal.

And finally, there will be cake and ice cream, because … well, shit if you need a reason to eat cake and ice cream, I can’t help you.

Happy birthday, America!

The chair belongs to Mortimer, who claims it under the “first in time, first in right” legal doctrine. For those without the benefit detriment of a legal education, the doctrine is best understood as: I got here first, so you’re shit outta luck. It can be exercised in any number of ways — exuding a sense of entitlement, calling “dibs,” or marking your territory, ideally with a flag, but urine will do.

Mortimer’s claim dates back to 2019, when we bought this house, designated the smallest bedroom as my office, and placed the chair in question next to my desk. At first, he laid claim by calling dibs, but it sounded like an unintelligible rumbling, purring groan. Mortimer, it should be said, was born with old man energy. He was named after Mortimer Duke, one of two septuagenarian brothers who are the villains in Trading Places. This fact, I believe, explains his sense of entitlement. Also, he is a dog who thinks he is a human who identifies as a cat, which explains the purring. Needless to say, Mortimer’s communication style is both amusing and confusing. To be on the safe side, he cemented his claim by peeing on the chair at the first available opportunity.

Last year, Bodhi entered the picture. Bodhi is a puppy, hence the puppy energy. He is named after a different movie villain, the Patrick Swayze character from Point Break. This explains his disdain for property rights; his physiology, which is 100% pure adrenaline; and his presidential aspirations.

When I’m away from my desk, the chair sits unoccupied. This is because Mortimer and Bodhi, despite their differences, share a common belief that stalking me, even when I’m in the bathroom, is life’s highest calling. The chair drama is a play that runs whenever I’m at my desk, as the chair’s value is its proximity to me. The drama’s opening act is a race to the chair. Mortimer has longer legs, but at 16 he’s well past his prime. Bodhi is fast, and because he’s still in the “fuck around and find out” phase of life, he also intentionally bumps and bangs into Mortimer NASCAR-style as they race toward the chair.

Once Bodhi secures the chair, act two begins. In this act, Mortimer stands in front of the chair. He groans and purrs and becomes increasingly agitated. This is Mortimer’s impression of the famous bit from Cheers when Norm and Cliff discover a couple occupying their barstools.

Bodhi finds Mortimer’s protests amusing. I know this because the more agitated Mortimer becomes, the bigger Bodhi’s shit-eating grin gets. Usually, I say something to Bodhi like, “Stop fucking with my guy.” But Bodhi, like his namesake, cannot be reasoned with. So I say something to Mortimer like, “Don’t be afraid, just get into the chair — there’s room for two, anyway.” But that only makes Mortimer more agitated, and it doesn’t help that Bodhi taunts him by quoting Point Break: “Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.”

Mortimer’s worst fear is ceding his legal claim to the chair. Bodhi is fearless — all gas, no breaks. My fear is that this distraction will never end, that I’ll blow my deadline, and lose my job. So I try to coax Mortimer into the chair. I do this by tapping on the chair while giving Mortimer words of encouragement. I say things like, “You can do it,” and “You got this.” Sometimes that works. Other times, I have to ramp up my game by telling Mortimer to “nut up or shut up.” Despite the fact that he was neutered, Mortimer always nuts up.

With both dogs in the chair, the final act can begin. Mortimer grumbles and groans, shifting his body around in the seat to take up as much space as possible. Bodhi taunts him by paraphrasing another quote from Point Break: “You still haven’t figured out what sitting in chairs is all about, have you? It’s a state of mind. It’s that place where you lose yourself and you find yourself.”

Usually, after a few minutes, Mortimer stops groaning and settles in. At that point, Bodhi settles in too. But this is temporary. Bodhi stays in the chair just long enough to let Mortimer know that his claim is in jeopardy. Then, when all seems tranquil, Bodhi climbs over Mortimer and leaps onto the floor.

Once I asked Bodhi why he didn’t just stay in the chair. After all that drama, I explained, the chair is clearly big enough for both of them. As usual, Bodhi’s response was in character and on Point (Break): “It’s 100% pure adrenaline! Other dogs snort for it, jab a vein for it, when all I gotta do is jump.”

Credit where credit is due

The inspiration for this post came from , who saw the photo of Mortimer and Bodhi in the chair together and correctly noted that one of them was about to bolt.

Doggone funny books

Situation normies regularly say my books make them laugh, give them the feels, and help them see the world in a new way. I love hearing that. Honestly, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to accomplish with my writing. So do me (and yourself) a favor by picking up one, two, or all three of my books today.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

Ride/ Share can be purchased here.

Stick around and chat!

I ask, you answer

1. Do your pets have drama? Dish!

2. Did we make a mistake naming our dogs after movie villains? Explain.

3. Who does the chair belong to? Wrong answers only.

4. Bodhi nailed it when he said, “Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.” What do you fear? Go deep.

5. Is rubbing racing (see the Days of Thunder GIF above)? Explain.

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Noteworthy

In a related story, the grifters running the right-wing echo chamber formerly known as Twitter have convinced their marks that the election was stolen. In turn, that unhinged narrative has inspired hinged media outlets on the left to speculate that the conspiracy theories surrounding the election in Los Angeles are dry runs creating chaos around the midterms. On the right, hinged outlets like the Wall Street Journal called the conspiracy theories nonsense, but nevertheless blamed California, calling the state’s slow ballot counting process “rocket fuel” for conspiracy theories.

The problem with the coverage on the left and the right is that it’s wrong. The Los Angeles mayor’s race was rigged, and I know this because I’m the one who rigged it. This is my story.

About a month ago, I noticed something strange in my YouTube feed. The algorithm, which reliably provides chiropractic thirst traps, earwax removal content, and Casey Neistat videos, began sending me Spencer Pratt campaign ads. The videos were AI slop perfectly calibrated to win over dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons. This alarmed me, because dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons have a long history of swinging U.S. elections in the direction of the soulless carnival barkers who promise the world, only to plunder it when they take office. I didn’t want that to happen to Los Angeles; as my mom often says, we have enough problems.

My plan was to rally opposition by writing about the Pratt campaign. This seemed like a natural fit, because I write humor, and most people thought Pratt was a joke. But after I published a few pieces, I had to face a hard truth. Maybe there was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword, but these days the solitary keyboard warrior is weaker than the stupidity at scale that is social media.

Still, I had to do … something.

I started at the top by calling Governor Gavin Newsom. Unfortunately, his phone labeled my number “scam likely,” which made it difficult to get through. When he finally picked up, Newsom accused me of trying to scam him. That got my dander up. Insults were exchanged. Eventually, Newsom hung up, then blocked me.

It was a similar story with the other elected officials I called. Some of them called me names, others threatened to have me arrested. Unsurprisingly, all of them, including Newsom, added my number to their campaign list, exponentially increasing the volume of urgent text messages I receive to send money in order to save democracy.

I began to despair. Pratt’s campaign was picking up steam, but California Democrats clearly had their heads up their asses. It was time to call in the big guns. I hired a witch off of Etsy to cast a spell, posted an RFP for an assassin on the dark web, and then I got so desperate that I volunteered for Bass and Raman.

Nothing worked. That is, Pratt continued to gain momentum, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

“It’s hopeless,” I told Christina. “We’re so fucked.”

“What about hiring a witch to cast a spell? I know a great one on Etsy.”

“Been there, done that.”

“Political violence?”

“In theory, I’m against it. In practice, I’m keeping an open mind. But here’s the problem: the only response I got to my RFP for an assassin was from an FBI agent.”

I thought mentioning the FBI would put an end to the assassination talk, but Christina wasn’t afraid. “Fuck the fuzz,” she said. “Isn’t that what LBJ said?”

I shook my head. As far as I knew, LBJ never said, “fuck the fuzz.”

“But he did hire an assassin to kill JFK, right?”

Again, I shook my head.

“Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”

Christina roared with laughter.

“Babe, everyone knows it was a conspiracy that went all the way to the top.”

“No, that’s just a crackpot theory that happens to have spawned a cottage industry of crackpot theorists.”

I suggested that Christina check out The Rest is History podcast episode, where Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland chronicle the remarkably straightforward case against Oswald, while trying to unravel why it is Americans are such suckers for conspiracy theories.

“Why would I listen to two Brits who don’t even speak American try explain American history?” Christina asked. “Everyone knows LBJ hired the mob to kill JFK, and they outsourced it Oswald in order to pin it on the Cubans.”

“That’s really not how it went down.”

“Well, tell that to your boy Robert Caro.”

Even I’d wanted to, which I didn’t, I couldn’t tell that to Robert Caro, because he’d blocked my number. It turns out the author of the definitive series on LBJ didn’t appreciate a super-fan calling to ask when he was finally going to publish the fifth and final volume. In fact, the last thing he said before hanging up and blocking my number was, “People like you, who keep interrupting my work, are the reason these damn books are taking so long to write.”

Caro’s comment stung, but it didn’t change my feelings about his books. In fact, after all the assassination talk died down — pun intended — I cracked open Means of Ascent, the second book in Caro’s LBJ series. The book picks up in the aftermath of LBJ’s failed 1941 Senate run and culminates with his election to that office in 1948. The difference between those two Senate runs, aside from seven years, is the fact that LBJ cheated the second time around. As the story goes, LBJ faced Coke R. Stevenson, a man who’d held so many different public offices that he was known as Mr. Texas, in the Democratic primary. The first race went to a runoff. The second race was a nail-bitter. Initially, LBJ appeared to have lost the Democratic nomination to Stevenson, but six days after polls had closed, 202 additional votes were added to the totals for Precinct 13 of Jim Wells County — 200 for LBJ and two for Stevenson, resulting in a narrow lead for LBJ, and decades later, a Wikipedia page dedicated to the scandal:

The subsequent recount, handled by the Democratic State Central Committee, took a week. Johnson was announced the winner by 87 votes out of 988,295, an extremely narrow margin of victory. Suspicions arose that the 202 late ballots were fraudulent. The names added to the end of the tally sheet were in alphabetical order and written with the same pen and handwriting. Some of the individuals whose names were listed insisted they had not voted that day, and the last person whose name was recorded before the questionable entries stated that when he voted shortly before the polls closed, there had been no one in line behind him.

That was all the inspiration I needed. My plan was simple: stuff the ballot box. In another state that would’ve been Mission Impossible. In California, it was Mission Feasible.

Knowing that voter turnout would be low — this is America, after all — I went around Los Angeles asking people if they planned to vote. If they said yes, I’d say, “Good for you.” Usually, the answer was no. In those cases, I’d offer to recycle their ballots for free. My offer was calculated to exploit the Angeleno weakness for recycling and the universal human desire to get something for free. I collected about 40,000 ballots, aka the difference. I marked the ballots for Raman, put 40,000 stickers on my lapel, and dropped them off at the nearest collection box.

It was easy.

And it worked.

Spencer Pratt lost. Not because he came in third, but because I cheated.

And now Los Angeles voters have a choice: Keep going in the same direction (Bass), or keep going in the same direction (Raman).

This was a wild story. Do you have more wild stories?

Hell yes, I do. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here. And Ride/ Share can be purchased here. My books won’t save democracy, but they’ll make you laugh while everything goes to hell. Promise.

Stick around and chat!

I ask, you answer

1. Who really won the LA Mayor’s race? Wrong answers only.

2. The media is blaming California’s ballot counting process for inviting conspiracy theories, but shouldn’t the blame go to … the people spreading the fucking conspiracy theories and the media outlets / tech platforms amplifying their lies? Go deep.

3. My Etsy witch refuses to refund my money. Where do you hire your witches? Dish.

4. Where will Spencer Pratt go if / when he leaves LA? Asking for a “loser.”

5. When will Robert Caro finish his LBJ series? Asking for me.

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Coda: Kyle Kinane on why the left can’t produce a viable assassin

ANYWAY, I was hoping to put a bow on my election coverage, but as I type this post on Friday morning, it’s clear that I should probably hold off until next week. So … I’m sharing a Situation Normal classic. According to my analytics dashboard, only seventeen people read it, which means there’s a 99.420% chance it’s new to you. Yay! Also, one of those people was E. Jean Carroll, who said, “This is better that [sic] David Foster Wallace’s Lobster!” That’s very high praise from a truly fantastic writer.

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The Unlikely Rise of the Lizard King (April, 2018)

A few weeks ago, I found a lizard in our downstairs bathroom.

I screamed because, let’s be honest, I fear critters and I tend to overreact. The lizard scurried behind the sink because that’s what lizards do.

A few days later, I saw the same lizard in the same bathroom. At least, I think it was the same lizard; I didn't check the lizard’s ID. I screamed like a maniac and ran like hell.

I informed Christina that a lizard was living in our guest bathroom, that he (or she) was probably hopped up on lilac soap and Trader Joe’s air freshener. I described the lizard as a “wily little fucker,” before adding that we should probably avoid the downstairs bathroom—forever.

“Should we call someone?” Christina asked.

"Sure, do you know a lizard guy?"

Christina did not like my answer. Nor did she approve of my plan to surrender the guest bathroom to the lizard. But hey, I didn’t see Christina volunteer to evict the lizard. That left us at an impasse. It also brought us to that uncertain point in the narrative, where the hero must act in order to propel the story forward from the second act to the third.

A few nights later, as I sat on the couch doing absolutely nothing, Christina summoned me to meet my destiny.

“The lizard is in the dishwasher,” she said in a remarkably calm voice.

Briefly, I considered telling Christina that we would have to give up the dishwasher along with the guest bathroom. But since it’s my job to cook and her job to do the dishes, I knew that wasn’t going to fly.

I thought about calling our upstairs neighbor, but I really didn’t think my cowardice needed a witness.

Then I considered moving, but in the current rental market I knew that was a pipe dream.

“I think we're going to have to catch it,” I said.

I didn’t like hearing those words come out of my mouth. But as it turns out, you start making sense when you run out of unreasonable things to say.

“There’s no way you can catch a lizard,” Christina said.

Had I heard a challenge?

“I used to catch them when I was a kid,” I said.

“Yeah, and you run from them now that you’re an adult, so…”

“Hey, we can live without a second bathroom,” I said. “Do you want to live without a dishwasher?”

Christina and I looked at the lizard.

“He's just sitting there,” she said.

“He’s a wily fucker,” I reminded Christina. “He could take off at any moment. Get me something to catch him with.”

Christina handed me a dish towel.

“Get me something that works,” I barked.

“OK, Mr. Expert, what do you suggest?”

“I need a container to trap him with and something to seal off the top of the container. And hurry!”

A moment later, Christina armed me with a cup and a plate.

“What now?” she asked.

“Now, it’s on.”

Slowly, like a hunter creeping through a primordial forest, I inched toward the dishwasher. The lizard did not move.

Careful not to make a sound, I knelt down and stretched out my arms. I was close to the lizard. Danger close.

“What if he runs?” Christina asked.

“Damn it, honey. We need silence.”

Just then, Mortimer barked.

The lizard took off running.

I swatted at the lizard with the plate, then scooped wildly with the cup. I didn’t catch the lizard, but I did cause the wily little fucker to reverse course.

“There!” Christina yelled, pointing to the lizard running across the kitchen floor.

I gave chase. Mortimer followed.

“Where’d he go?” Christina asked.

I knelt down on my hands and knees.

“He’s in the corner,” I said. “We’ve got him trapped.”

Mortimer barked and growled.

“Let me get the dog out of here,” Christina said.

“No! He’s my wingman on this one. Keep up the pressure, Mortimer!”

Working together, as humans and canines have for tens of thousands of years, Mortimer and I closed in on the lizard.

“He’s trying to get in the cabinet,” I said.

“Don't let him do that,” Christina replied.

I looked at the space between the cabinet and floor. There was nowhere for the lizard to go.

“Get him, Morty!” I yelled.

Mortimer came in from the right, I circled left. The lizard ran...

Straight into the cup.

A second later, I closed the plate over the mouth of the cup.

“Got him!”

“Holy shit!” Christina said.

She raised her hand to high-five.

“Not now, honey. We've got to relocate this wily little fucker ASAP!”

Christina opened the door. I took the lizard for a long walk, and after warning the wily little fucker not to come back, I set him (or her) free.

“Good job, honey,” Christina said.

“Be honest, you didn’t think I could do that,” I said.

“I did not think you could do that.”

“Well,” I said, looking at my wife and our dog, “I couldn’t have done it without the help of a great team.”

We celebrated with hugs and high-fives. Mortimer even got an extra treat. With little skill and even less courage, I had evicted the lizard. I felt like a real hero, and I had just one request.

“Honey, can you call me the Lizard King from now on?” I asked.

Christina roared with laughter. 

“What’s so funny?”

“Let’s not get carried away with the heroic bullshit, Lizard King.”

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The brief and buffoonish reign of the Lizard King (April, 2020)

“A lizard!” Christina shouts.

She freezes.

I freeze. 

Mortimer freezes.

“What do we do?” Christina asks. “Get him out of the house!”

There is shouting. As it turns out, I am the one shouting. Not that I’m shouting anything useful. Frankly, I’m running around like a damn fool. We are not the sort of people who take critters in stride.

“Don’t let him out of your sight!” Christina says.

That’s right, I think. We need to track this sucker, capture him safely, then return him to the great outdoors. But to do that I must find my inner strength, my warrior spirit, or whatever it is I call upon in moments of critter terror. In other words, I need to get my shit together.

I hear a voice inside my head. It says, “I am the Lizard King.” The voice sounds a little like me imitating Val Kilmer, playing Jim Morrison. But that’s close enough for rock ‘n roll, isn’t it?

“I am the Lizard King!” I shout.

“Oh no, here we go again with this Lizard King crap,” Christina says.

“Lizard King!”

Upon hearing of the Lizard King’s return, Mortimer charges the reptile.

“No!” Christina shouts.

Yes, I think. The hound is right. It’s been two years since Mortimer and I have chased a lizard, but our last quest bathed us in glory. Onward! Charge!

The lizard heads for the dining room. Mortimer gives chase.

“I need a cup, or a bowl,” I say. “Something to trap him under.”

“We don’t have anything!” Christina shouts.

Nonsense. Of course we have cups and bowls.

“I am the Lizard King,” I shout. “Bring me my tools.”

Mortimer barks. The lizard has reversed course. He’s heading for the kitchen. But we have an open floor plan, and so the terrain works to our advantage.

Mortimer never loses sight of the lizard. I locate a tool with which to trap the beast. Turns out that tool is a serving dish shaped like a pineapple.

I grab the pineapple-shaped serving dish. Mortimer corners the lizard near the counter that separates the kitchen from the dining room.

I bring down the mighty pineapple trap.

“You missed!”

Mortimer barks, echoing Christina’s criticism of my battle tactics.

I try again, but miss.

This lizard is even wilier than the last wily fucker I vanquished.

“Don’t let him get away,” Christina says.

I make a third attempt. Naturally, the third one is the charm.

“Got him!”

I take out my phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Evidence,” I say. “A lot of people don’t believe my stories.”

I take a photo. Then it occurs to me that all I really have is a picture of an upside down pineapple serving dish on the floor. There could be a lizard under there, a million bucks, or nothing at all.

“Now what?” Christina asks. “How do we get him out of here?”

“I need a paper plate.”

“We don’t have any paper plates.”

“In the garage.”

Christina doesn’t move.

“Do you want to get the plate, or guard the lizard?”

“Neither one.”

“Morty, eyes on the pineapple,” I say, before disappearing into the garage.

A moment later, I return with the plate.

“Is this going to work?” Christina asks.

“Of course.”

I lift the pineapple, slide the plate underneath, and...

The lizard is once again on the loose!

There’s yelling, barking, and a rather harrowing series of near-misses and escapes under the dining room table. The whole chase feels like a scene from the Benny Hill Show.

Finally, I catch the lizard again. This time Christina has notes on my paper plate technique. I follow her notes, and it works.

“Get the door!”

Christina opens the front door. I race toward the door, holding my pineapple-shaped lizard trap. But the plate isn’t a perfect fit. As the door swings open, the lizard finds the opening in my makeshift trap.

“No!”

At the threshold of the door, I wave the pineapple out toward the street. The lizard flies through the air. He lands hard on the driveway pavement. 

“Oh no,” Christina says. “Is he dead? Poor lizard.”

Mortimer and I move closer. The lizard is in one piece, but he isn’t moving. My heart sinks. I wanted him out of our house, but I didn’t want to hurt him. This Benny Hill sketch has turned dark, like Jim Morrison’s poetry. Has this whole episode merely been some kind of sad metaphor for man’s relationship with nature? Am I a monster? A killer? Is this the end, my beautiful friend?

Mortimer leans in for the sniff test. The lizard wiggles, then darts away, disappearing under my car.

“He’s alive!” I shout. “He’s alive!”

Mortimer and I go back inside.

“I’m still the Lizard King, honey.” 

Christina rolls her eyes.

“Admit it,” I say. “You love being married to me.”

“I do,” she says. “But there’s something you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“You left the sliding door to the backyard open. So, I’m pretty sure this is all the Lizard King’s fault.”

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The lyrical fall of the Lizard King (November, 2020)

Regarding Christina, I Love Her Madly. She knows how to Light My Fire.

Our house is located on Love Street, where I make Christina dinner in our Soul Kitchen.

When the Music’s Over, I do the dishes for my LA Woman.

Then come the Roadhouse Blues: someone needs to take out the trash.

But it’s dark outside, and these are Strange Days.

I consider Waiting for The Sun.

No, the trash is starting to smell. Time to Break On Through (to the other side).

Christina better Love Me Two Times, I tell myself as I grab the trash bag and walk out into the darkness.

My plan is to Take It as It Comes, but the gargantuan lizard living under our garbage bin has other ideas.

We Could Be So Good Together, the Lizard and The Lizard King, but he is no Peace Frog. He startles me. I shout, jump out of my flip-flops, and pray that the lizard does not Touch Me. 

My Eyes Have Seen You, garbage lizard. Five To One, I’ll see you again. I don’t like those odds. The garbage bin and all its lands belong to you, lizard. Tell All The People, I shall bend the knee.

THE LIZARD KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE LIZARD KING!

This is The End.

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Looking for a good book?

I got you.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here. And Ride/ Share can be purchased here.

My books won’t save the world, but they’ll make you laugh while everything goes to hell. Promise.

If you’re curious about my writing career, where my comedic voice comes from, and what compels me to write fiction, this is the conversation for you.

Our chat lasted a little over an hour, so I highly recommend taking us on a walk, or listening to us while you do some chores — let’s face it, those toilets aren’t gonna clean themselves, but with Amran and me in your ear, the time will fly. Promise.

Last weekend provided another entry in my long catalogue of poor choices when it comes to lines. As we were leaving a parking lot, I picked the shorter line because it appeared … shorter. It wasn’t. The problem? The woman ahead of me couldn’t figure out how pay. The machine accepted her ticket no problem, but her credit card was a different story.

She put the card in one slot, then another, then waved it around the machine like an intoxicated symphony conductor. This went on for three minutes, but it felt like three trillion years. At one point, Christina asked if she should get out and help the lady. But as soon as Christina unbuckled her seatbelt, the rear door on the driver’s side opened. A man poked his head out and puked. Suddenly, as if by magic, the gate opened. The woman pulled forward, banging the open door against the payment machine, which caused the door to swing shut, knocking her nauseous passenger on the head. After clearing the gate, the woman made a left turn, despite a sign that said, “right turn only.” I shook my head, held my breath, and rolled forward to pay. The process took thirty seconds, but it felt like thirty trillion years because time stands still when you’re enduring the fetid funk of a stranger’s puke.

At the pharmacy, a few days later, I thought I’d lucked out because there was only one line. No choice, no problem. But as soon as it was my turn, an old lady cut in front of me to ask the pharmacist a question.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s a line, and that gentleman was here first.”

I waved to let her know I was the gentleman in question.

“I’m an old woman,” she said, before turning to the pharmacist to ask if they carried toe spacers. They didn’t, so the old woman asked another question, then another, and another.

Eventually, it was my turn. I was there to pick up some medication, but now I had a question.

“Is it true that if you’re old enough you don’t have to wait in line?” I asked.

“No, she was out of line.”

“She was never in line.”

“I’m sorry about that,” the pharmacist said.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault she’s spent all this time on Earth without learning how lines work.”

Not that a person’s age is a determining factor in their ability to master the line concept. Some situation normies may recall a recent encounter with a teenage line-cutter while I waited for a beverage. As far as I know, that teenage scofflaw remains at large.

Sometimes I wonder who invented the line. I always imagined that early humans created the line when someone made a cave painting that was so good everyone lined up to see it, because not everyone could fit inside the cave at the same time. But according to David Andrews, author of Why Does the Other Line Always Move Faster?, my theory is several thousand years ahead of schedule. In his book, Andrews traces the line — see what I did there? — to the French Revolution, or rather, to Thomas Carlyle’s history of the French Revolution. As Andrews explained to the Associated Press, Carlyle, a Victorian-era historian, satirist, and social commentator, wrote about queues — literally in old French “tails” — at bakeries in 18th century Paris. In his history of the French Revolution, Carlyle wrote, “Patriotism stands in queue.” As Andrews explained, “The slogan of the French Revolution was ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ … [to] patiently wait one’s turn was to hold everyone as equals.” According to Andrews, the line occupies a similar place in American society. “We believe that all are created equal. So, too, do we stand in line.”

That sounds nice in theory. In practice, however, the belief in equality is far from universal. Line-cutters, bigots, sexists, celebrities, assholes, and narcissists are just a few of the groups that believe they’re better than other people. For them, a line isn’t a social norm that reinforces equality, it’s an opportunity to set themselves apart from, and above, the rest of us. That line you’re standing in, their logic goes, is for suckers.

Many of us believe that if enough people refuse to participate in norms like lines, we’ll devolve into a state of anarchy. This is incorrect. Anarchy is fleeting. Sooner or later, but usually sooner, a strong person, usually a man, emerges to impose order. In theory, that strong person could say something like, “Hey, dingleberries, let’s act like adults and form a motherfucking line.” In practice, however, it usually comes out like, “me first, the people I like are next, and everyone else can eat a bag dicks.” This is the problem with what political scientists call “the rule of man.” It’s capricious and cruel. At the other end of the order spectrum, where lines and other niceties are considered norms, is the rule of law. It’s a slow, clunky mechanism for governing, but as Walter Sobchak said about bowling, “there are rules here.”

The salient feature of a society based on rules is that everyone is slightly more miserable for having to follow those rules, but significantly safer, more prosperous, and less stressed because everyone else follows the rules too. In the abstract, it’s a great trade — better than the deal the Yankees made to acquire Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. But when you’re standing in line you can’t help but feel cheated somehow.

Which brings me to the election, specifically the Los Angeles mayor’s race. On the one hand, there’s a group of mediocre candidates with differing ideas about how to fix a great, but somewhat broken, city. One thing they have in common, I think, is a belief in lines. True, some of them have shitty ideas about how to organize a line, and all of them lack the charisma to make lines sound like a good idea. But they are line-people, and the thing about line-people is that you can work with them. You do it every time you stand in line together. On the other hand, we have Spencer Pratt. He’s not a line-guy. Frankly, that’s the nicest thing I can say about him. Actually, I’ll say one other nice thing about Spencer Pratt. I find his decision to spend all of his money in 2012 because he believed the Mayan apocalypse was real to be intellectually honest and comedically rich. But the Mayan apocalypse is neither here nor there.

The important thing, at least as far as the mayor’s race goes, is that Pratt isn’t a line-guy. Deep down, or maybe right at the shallow surface, I think Pratt’s supporters know this. They see a malfunctioning line called Los Angeles, and they want someone to fix it. That’s a reasonable request, even in unreasonable times. The trouble is, the line-people in the race just aren’t credible line-stewards. The only credible candidate in the race is Spencer Pratt, not because he’s telling the truth, but because everybody knows he’ll smash the line, which sounds preferable if you believe the line is beyond repair.

And that’s the crux of the choice we face: a broke-dick line that many believe is hopeless, or no line at all. As I wrote at the beginning of this post, making poor choices is on brand for me. Maybe lines no longer work. Maybe we’re post-line. Maybe we want anarchy and are willing to accept the rule of man that fills whatever vacuum anarchy creates. I honestly don’t know. But I intend to hold the line.

Need a book to read while waiting in line?

I got you.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here. And Ride/ Share can be purchased here.

My books won’t save the world, but they’ll make you laugh while everything goes to hell. Promise.

I’ve got questions, maybe you have answers!

1. Will you hold the line or smash it? Choose wisely

2. How old do you have to be to cut in line? Wrong answers only.

3. Who invented the line? Go deep!

4. Why did the parking garage gate suddenly open? Was it the puke? Divine intervention? Gremlins? Give us your best theory!

5. How stupid did Spencer Pratt feel after the Mayan apocalypse came and went without ending the world? Show no mercy.

Leave a comment

“Well, did the squirrel have any enemies?”

I hung up the phone immediately. The squirrel had enemies all right. My coworkers, Mortimer and Bodhi. They were always chasing squirrels and threatening to kick their squirrel-asses. Actually, that’s not true. Mortimer and Bodhi are often eating, walking, extorting us for treats, peeing, pooping, napping, and giving the mail carrier hell, even though I’ve told them a thousand times not to engage in cliches. But the thing is that if a squirrel interrupts any of those activities, our dogs will chase that squirrel, and if they catch him, they’ll fuck up his shit.

Or, so they like to say. Because they’ve never actually caught a squirrel.

Or had they?

Suddenly, the case went from murky to clear. Mortimer and Bodhi were the prime suspects.

I needed to get rid of the body. So I told Mortimer and Bodhi to work on their alibis, while I got the pool skimmer and the green garbage bin.

I worked out the details poolside. I’d scoop the squirrel out of the water, plop him in the green bin, and close the lid. The only wrinkle was the skimmer. The net was too big. If I played it wrong, or caught a bad break, the squirrel could get stuck in the net, and I’d have to untangle him.

Hard pass.

I’d just leave it for Carlos, our pool man, and get the dogs a good lawyer.

I started toward the side of the house to put the skimmer back. I got three steps, then froze. In the distance, I heard a siren. It was probably nothing, just another LA story, but it spooked me.

I’m easily spooked.

And grossed out by bloated, chlorinated rodent carcasses.

Which put me in a situation. It wasn’t quite the “Bonnie Situation” from Pulp Fiction, but it was a situation, nevertheless. I needed The Wolf.

Unfortunately, Marsellus Wallace had blocked my number. The Wolf would not be coming directly, or at all.

I looked at the squirrel, then at my skimmer. It was go-time.

Getting him out of the pool was no problem. I swung the skimmer over to the bin, then hovered for a moment. Flip him like a flapjack, fast and confident, I told myself.

And so I did.

But it didn’t work.

So I flipped him again. This time I heard a thud. I looked at the net. It was empty.

I put the skimmer away. As I walked back to the get the bin, I thought about the squirrel. I hoped he’d a good life, full of adventure and snacks. I hoped he hadn’t suffered at the end. And then I hoped that he’d forgive me for putting him in the green bin.

Damn. The green bin.

The trash truck had picked up the green bin the day before. It was empty. Hence the thud. In my plan I’d figured the squirrel would rest on a bed of cactus clippings. There was a shred of dignity in that.

Instead, the squirrel was at the gunky bottom of an empty bin. His body would rot in that sauna, periodically showered with kitchen scraps, and eventually buried beneath cactus clippings, before being hauled off to the city compost.

It was a raw deal. But in this dog-eat squirrel world, that’s how it goes.

All politics is loco

Good news: Spencer Pratt says that if he loses the mayor’s race, he’s leaving Los Angeles. Never let anyone tell you you’re vote can’t make a difference.

Bad news: There’s a one in four chance Pratt wins. If that happens, I might have to leave Los Angeles.

Weird news: Three progressive members of the LA City council dissed their fellow progressive, Nithya Raman, by endorsing Mayor Karen Bass. That sounds like a betrayal, but Raman actually endorsed the mayor’s reelection bid two weeks before jumping into the race. That’s the political equivalent of the tenth dentist admitting the other nine are right about Crest toothpaste.

Mark your calendars I’m doing it live

I don’t know what you’re doing Friday, May 29, at 11:30am Pacific, but I’ll be chatting about writing with my friend . Join us for what promises to be the anti-social event of the season. To register and get a handy reminder, click here.

You need to laugh, I need to sell books. It’s a win-win.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here. And Ride/ Share can be purchased here.

IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. Mortimer and Bodhi think it’s best to crowdsource alibis. I told them that was risky, but they insisted. What have you got, situation normies?

2. Why did Marsellus Wallace block my number? Wrong answers strongly encouraged.

3. If Pratt wins and we’re forced to leave LA, where should we go? Asking for me and Christina.

4. Am I the only one who misses prank calls? Share your truth.

   Leave a comment

Now, I know what you’re wondering. Who the fuck is Spencer Pratt? I had to Google him too. Turns out, Spencer Pratt became “famous” on a reality television show called The Hills, which ran on MTV from 2006 to 2010. Spencer played himself, which is to say he played a low-information, high-anger douchebag. I didn’t watch The Hills, because I get my kicks watching shows about high-information, low-anger mensches (and the women who love them). But a lot of people did watch The Hills, and they tried to warn us. They’d write things in online forums like:

• “Spencer Pratt is a human paraquat. If he ever gets into local politics, LA is screwed eight ways to Sunday.”

• “I know we’re not supposed to post about politics in this forum, but I don’t care. Spencer Pratt can never be allowed to serve as mayor of Los Angeles. The city has enough problems without that fuck-stick running the show. (Totally understand if you need to delete my post, per forum rules).”

• “You know that thought experiment about Hitler and the time machine? Well, Spencer Pratt is the LA version of that hypothetical. I’m warning you guys, he’s gonna run for mayor one day, and you’re not gonna like it. Trust me. I’m Spencer’s mom, so I know what we’re dealing with here.”

Obviously, nobody heeded the warnings. That’s why we’re in this mess. Which is why, against my will and better judgement, I’ve been thinking a lot about Spencer Pratt lately. Because unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you know damn well that when reality television stars become elected officials the shit hits the fan.

Before I go any further, I should note that this isn’t an endorsement of the other candidates. Nobody seems to like Mayor Karen Bass, and yet somehow councilwoman Nithya Raman, who is running to the left of Bass, is in third place behind the mayor and Pratt. There’s also a tech founder dude in fourth place, but nobody knows who he is, and I’m too busy to Google his name. To channel the wisdom of Richard Pryor’s titular character in Brewster’s Millions, the best option is none of the above.

Unfortunately, Rush was correct when they sang, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Which means, we have to pick someone, Los Angeles, and whatever we do, that someone shouldn’t be Spencer Pratt.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why shouldn’t we choose Spencer Pratt? Are his ideas bad? Is he unlikely to deliver on any of his promises? Will his mere presence degrade the already degraded institution that is local government in Los Angeles? The answers are yes, yes, and you bet your ass. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the people who famously do their own research, and then for fucks sake, do the opposite of what they recommend.

Which brings us to the dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons, i.e., the key building blocks of Pratt’s winning coalition. The paradox of Los Angeles politics is that in a town where fame is the ultimate currency, elected officials aren’t the stars, they’re the extras. The reason is simple: Corruption thrives in darkness. Casting a star in the role of an elected official would ruin everything, because their star-power would shine a bright light on City Hall, forcing Angelenos to do the unthinkable — confront the downtown graft-labyrinth where thieves, pimps, and scoundrels run free. In theory, a celebrity could provide the antidote to the closed-door corruption and backroom dealing, but in practice Pratt isn’t famous enough for anyone to care, and in truth, celebrities have a lousy political track record in California. (See: Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Clint Eastwood.) Regardless, Pratt is an outsider, and as an outsider he can’t rely on established coalitions. He needs to build a new coalition, which is where the dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons enter the picture.

The dipshits don’t know any better. They’re dipshits, after all. They can be counted on to parrot the dumbest talking points, which seems like a liability, until you realize that the electorate has the collective IQ of an ostrich on meth. The wing-nuts are the people who know best. That is, they rate their intelligence so highly that they’re convinced that the bizarre ideas they champion are brilliant, despite the fact that everyone else knows those ideas are painfully stupid. Actually, that’s not quite right. Wing-nuts see the establishment’s criticism of their ideas as proof of their intelligence, which makes them more dangerous than the dipshits, but a lot less interesting than the buffoons. Unlike the dipshits and the wing-nuts, the buffoons truly do know better, but nevertheless they can be counted on to back the worst people for one simple reason: the lolz. On their own, these groups are irrelevant and (sometimes) entertaining. Collectively, however, they’re lethal, as the cacophony they produce is the political equivalent of the Sirens’ call that fucked up Odysseus’ shit.

As far as I can tell, Spencer Pratt has already locked up the dipshit vote. Birds of a feather, as they say. Initially, the wing-nuts were wary of Pratt, but I fear that the YouTube algorithm will rally them to his cause. You see, one under-reported aspect of the Pratt campaign is his use of AI to make videos so stupid, so cringe, and so lacking in production value that only the wings-nuts can see their brilliance.

In one video, Pratt portrays himself as a Jedi determined to save Los Angeles from Emperor Palpatine (Gavin Newsom), Darth Vader (Karen Bass), DSA stormtroopers, and woke zombies. I swear, I’m not making this up. You can watch the video for yourself, but if you’re low on brain cells I urge you to proceed with caution, as the side effects may include stupidity.

In another video, Pratt adopts a lighter, Latin vibe as he takes out the trash, aka Karen Bass. For some reason, however, the music sounds Cuban by way of Miami, so I’m not sure Pratt understands the Latino vote in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, Pratt’s demonstrated ignorance is catnip for the dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons he needs to win.

There are hundreds more videos out there. The Pratt campaign shits them out faster than ChatGPT can spit out the wrong answer. But I’m sharing one last video called Pratt Summer, which is a play on Brat Summer. In this video, Pratt is a DJ, superhero, and guy with great abs who has the rizz to return LA to the glory days captured in the MTV documentary The Hills.

At this point, you may be wondering if I believe these videos will convince Los Angeles to vote for Pratt. The answer is no. These videos are too dumb to persuade regular people, even if regular people are dumb as dog shit. What these videos do is build community. But not just any community. A community of dipshits, wing-nuts, and you guessed it, buffoons. If you haven’t been paying attention, that’s a huge fucking problem.

As of this writing, things aren’t going well in the city of Los Angeles. But the worse things get, the more low-information voters start paying attention. The trouble is, it’s the dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons who are most likely to capture that attention on behalf of the Pratt campaign. In other words, the worse things get, the worse things get. It’s what political scientists call a death spiral of stupidity. And we are spiraling.

Is there a way out of the stupidity spiral? Sadly, there isn’t. Like all slow-motion train wrecks, the only way out is through. Which is to say, Pratt will likely make it to the general election, and once it’s down to two candidates he’ll be able to draw a bright red line separating the dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons from everyone else. The trouble with that is that everyone else will be in the awkward position of defending a status quo nobody likes, and that kind of lackluster vibe is no match for a Spanish-speaking Jedi with killer abs who takes out the trash.

You’re covering local politics now? Isn’t this a humor newsletter?

Yes. And yes. But requested more coverage of local politics, which just goes to show you that your voice matters, at least if you’re Sara.

My head is spinning. I need a strong drink and a good book.

I got you. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here. And Ride/ Share can be purchased here.

IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. Why do the Russians get their own version of roulette? Explain.

2. The Pratt campaign seems to believe, incorrectly, that zombies are part of the Star Wars universe. Is this disqualifying?

3. Fuck, marry, kill — but your choices are dipshits, wing-nuts, and buffoons. Choose wisely.

4. Christina says I’m being unfair to Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Clint Eastwood, and that many people think they were mediocre / solid / good elected officials. Is she right?

5. Did you watch The Hills? Tell your story.

Leave a comment

“Yo kid, there’s a line here.”

The girl turned around to look at me, shrugged, then went back to making whatever lame soda concoction kids drink these days.

“Do you believe this shit?”

I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, but the woman behind me in line answered anyway.

“Kids don’t do manners anymore,” she said. “Society is screwed.”

How could I argue with that? I couldn’t. But after the girl finished, I took another shot at common decency, mostly for shits and giggles, but also because, as George Costanza famously said, “we live in a society.”

“Didn’t you see the line?” I asked.

“No.”

“OK, well a half-dozen people standing in a row, waiting to use the soda fountain is what a line looks like.”

She didn’t respond, just gave me that blank dead-inside stare all the kids have because TikTok has fried their brains and sucked the marrow from their souls.

“Maybe you should apologize for cutting in line,” I suggested.

The girl didn’t apologize.

“Or, you can go through life fucking around, until one day, you find out.”

She walked away without saying another word, which is to say she’ll continue to fuck around, and if there’s any justice in this world, she’ll eventually find out.

Speaking of fucking around and finding out, it’s almost time to vote in California. If you hate democracy, this is an exciting time, because these days every election brings us one step closer to the gangsta’s paradise of authoritarianism. I love democracy, which means it’s time to panic, because the options, as any political scientist will tell you, blow ass. I’m not kidding. There are 61 candidates running to be the next governor of California. To simplify things, CNN let only seven candidates on the debate stage. In no particular order, the debaters were:

1. Steve Hilton, a Fox News host and former David Cameron aide who loved the idea of Brexit so much that he became a Californian.

2. Tom Steyer, a billionaire who will spare no expense to lose an election.

3. Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles who was widely believed to be deceased.

4. Xavier Becerra, the frontrunner for reasons nobody, including the Becerra campaign, can explain.

5. Chad Bianco, the Riverside County Sheriff and a real reactionary. Also, a proud member of the Oath Keepers, which means that after he loses, a mob of armed dipshits and low-information freedom fighters will likely attack Sacramento on inauguration day.

6. Matt Mahan, the San Jose mayor who was just happy to be there.

7. Katie Porter, a minivan owner and white board poet.

I’m voting for Porter, because accountability is my kink (see the soda fountain episode above). She’s going to lose, according to Kalshi, one of the leading gambling platforms where you can bet on all kinds of real life events — wars, sports, the crazy shit reality TV stars will say next, and elections. The smart money is on Becerra, though I wouldn’t call him the smart choice. Some gamblers believe Steyer is viable, but hopefully none of them are betting Steyer-level money on Steyer to win. Finally, Hilton (no relation to Paris) is the long shot, which is the preferred shot for dumb money, degenerate gamblers, and inside traders.

If you’re guessing that the debate was a shit show, you should open a Kalshi account, as you might already be a winner. I’m kidding. Everyone on Kalshi is a loser. Except the inside traders. And the house. The house always wins. Unless the house is owned by Donald Trump, in which case it declares bankruptcy.

Nobody is going to win this election, however. It’s a jungle primary, meaning the top two candidates advance. Sort of like Survivor, only the stakes are the state of California.

The weird thing about California politics is that a lot people, on both sides, are obsessed with national politics, but have zero clue about state or local politics. I know this because people I love, on both sides, text me when they get their ballot to ask who I’m voting for and what my take is on all these ballot measures and propositions. When I ask them why they trust me, they say things like, “you’re a guy who knows stuff, you follow the local news.” Which is true. I do know stuff. And I love local news. I listen to LAist with breakfast, check the LA Times at work, and try to catch the local news at 10pm. (Semi-pro tip: The best life slices are found on local news.)

Lately, I’ve been watching the local news on YouTube, because the actual broadcast has been degraded to the point that it’s mostly just teasers for the weather report, followed by the weather report, followed by a teaser about a potentially alarming weather event that they’ll cover in the next weather report, right after the commercial break. It’s a weather report doom loop, similar to the movie Groundhog Day, but with 100% fewer jokes and 50% more cleavage. If you like thirst traps, the current iteration of the local news is your jam, but if you love local news, the decline in quality is depressing, though not in the tropical sense.

The upside to catching the local news on YouTube is that I can skip the boring stories. The downside is the algorithm. After watching a report about how the Los Angeles mayoral race is a three-way fight between a mayor nobody likes, a former reality television star nobody believes is capable of doing the job, and a progressive city councilwoman who thinks the other two candidates are colluding to keep her out of the general election, I felt nauseous. When I got back from the bathroom, the YouTube algorithm had autoplayed another story about the LA mayoral race, but this one was produced by The Free Press — a media outfit that isn’t free, but is part of the press, because in the age of social media, everyone is press.

The reporter began his story with a hypothesis: Voters in low-income areas are more concerned with economic issues that impact their quality of life, while voters in wealthy areas care more about “luxury” political beliefs, which he defined as “transgender issues.” I braced for impact.

The reporter spoke to a dozen people in Boyle Heights and another dozen people in Brentwood. To the reporter’s surprise, poor Angelenos had the same concerns as wealthy Angelenos. The city, everyone agreed, is in terrible condition. The roads are covered in potholes. Copper wire theft has rendered street lights inoperable, and repairs have been too slow. Also, crime is a problem.

The weird thing about The Free Press report, other than the failed attempt to make the LA mayoral race about trans people, is that the reporter wasn’t surprised that wealthy people and poor people had no idea who they were going to vote for, but were nevertheless leaning in the direction of the status quo, despite deep misgivings about … the status quo.

“I don’t know why anyone would even want the job,” an elderly woman from Brentwood told The Free Press. “As my husband says, it’s like choosing who’s next at the gangbang.”

To be fair, that kind of quote would never make the local news. They produce a family show, except for the weather report, which is basically porn with a chance of precipitation. But what was unfair, in this viewer’s eyes, was that the reporter didn’t have any follow up questions, not one. I would’ve asked:

1. Does your husband have a lot of experience with gangbangs?

   1. Aren’t all gangbangs the product of bad choices?

2. How do you (or your husband) choose who’s next?

   1. Is it like a deli counter where everyone takes a number, or is it more like a baseball team’s batting order?

      1. Is your husband a leadoff hitter, or does he bat cleanup?

3. Are you speaking in literal terms, or is the gangbang a metaphor for the multitude of ways so many Angelenos are about to be fucked?

   1. If so, doesn’t that mean the voters are next and the politicians are doing the fucking?

      1. Explain!

         1. Everything, lady. Seriously. Explain everything.

Needless to say, I had more questions than answers. But as the saying goes, all politics is loco.

Which brings me back to that teenager who cut the line at The Stand. Seeing that girl navigate society — and society acquiesce to her disregard for norms and other people — made me feel like Walter Sobchak.

Which isn’t a good feeling. Because I am not Walter. I like to think of myself as The Dude, or El Duderino, if you’re not into that whole brevity thing. But in a world that’s gone crazy, where parents can’t / won’t hold their kids accountable, where voters can’t / won’t hold elected officials accountable, where elected officials can’t / won’t hold anyone accountable, and where everyone is a member the press, but too busy manufacturing wedge issues or doing the weather to hold power accountable, the only sane response is …

Great. Now I wanna read a hilarious gangbang scene.

I got you. Not Safe for Work has that and a whole lot more. It’s available at Amazon and all the other book places.

And if you’re looking for more vulgarity wrapped inside a comedic crime story, Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

No, dude, I just like slice of life humor.

No problemo, amigo. Ride/ Share will make you smile, and according to science, people who smile live better lives. Pick up your copy here.

IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. Should Stephen King sue The Stand? Explain.

2. In a world that’s gone crazy, are you the line-cutter, Walter Sobchak, or a bystander? Tell your story.

3. Are you one of the 61 people running to be the next governor of California? Unhinged answers strongly encouraged!

4. Are gangbangs the right metaphor for politics, or is politics a metaphor for gangbangs? Go deep (but make sure you get consent).

5. Bowling anyone?

Leave a comment

Noteworthy

Coda

The plumber told me he never wanted to be a plumber. He learned the trade from his father, before embarking on a career as a sound editor.

“I used to do small jobs on big movies and big jobs on small movies.”

“Anything I’d know?”

He named a few films I’d never heard of and a few more I hadn’t seen.

“Back in the day, I worked on the DVD for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

“Which one was that?”

“The second one. But they’re basically all the same.”

I’d only seen the first movie in the Pirates franchise, but by the plumber’s logic I’d seen them all. Talk about efficiency.

“That movie was still in post, so they gave us access to all the files so we could make the DVD. One day, we had some downtime, and we figured, why not watch the movie?”

“Yeah, why not?” I said.

“I’ll tell you why: piracy.”

“Huh?”

“Somehow Disney found out we were watching the movies, and the FBI showed up.”

“They’ll show up for anything,” I said. “If they’re not holding the current director’s feet while he does a keg stand, they’re indicting the old director for taking pictures of seashells on the seashore.”

“No, no. This was back in the day when the FBI was a no-shit operation.”

“I dunno, dude, you were just saying they showed up at a post-production house. Not exactly going after Mr. Big.”

“That FBI warning they used to put on tapes and DVDs was no joke. They thought we were pirating the movie.”

“Kind of ironic, pirating Pirates.”

“Yeah, well the FBI does not do irony. We’re sitting there with popcorn trying to explain how we’re watching it, which we’re sorta kinda authorized to do, but not really, not like for fun with popcorn. I mean, it’s funny in retrospect, because they were basically like ‘get back to work.’ But man, I’ll tell you this: The FBI will mess up your day.”

“So is that why you switched to plumbing? The heat.”

“Heck no. I love sound editing, and I still do it. But it’s more of a side hustle at this point, sadly. The work situation has gone down the toilet.”

Was that a plumbing joke or a sad commentary on film and television production in Los Angeles these days? Maybe both. It’s a shitty all around, that’s for sure.

“At first, it was all outsourcing. Some guy in India can do it on his laptop for a fraction of the price. That’s how corporations think, man. If you’ll do it for a buck, they’ll find someone who’ll do it for fifty cents. And look, I don’t blame the guy in India. Not anymore anyway. I used to be mad at him. But then they started with this AI shit. So now, I’m fucked, but so is the guy in India. We’re all fucked.”

“I guess it’s good to have a skill that can’t be outsourced, or done by a robot.”

“Damn right.”

He took his wrench out of his toolbox.

“Now, let’s fix this leaky faucet.”

“Great, it’s driving me nuts,” I said. “All day long, I hear a drip, drip, drip... I can’t hear myself think, can’t concentrate. It’s like I’m a character in some French film about a couple of professional killers and a job that goes bad because the hero loves too much and the woman he loves doesn’t love anyone as much as she loves her cigarettes. But really, the film isn’t about that at all, because it’s all a metaphor for how we’re all just killing time, waiting for a dream to turn into a nightmare. That’s the drip, drip, drip. Sure, it’s a clumsy metaphor, but the sound … it gets in your head.”

The plumber looked at me sideways.

“That’s a lot of story for a leaky faucet. Let me guess, you’re a writer?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you write?”

“Whatever pays.”

“So … no movies, no books.”

“Correct. I ghostwrite opinion pieces.”

“Opinions about ghosts, or for ghosts?”

“Neither. I’m the ghost, I think. My gig covers a lot of ground, but basically I write about current events.”

“So AI?”

“Yeah, that’s a popular topic.”

“Well, is it gonna take our jobs, or is it gonna kill everyone Skynet-style?”

“I have no idea, but I’m rooting for Skynet.”

“Really?”

“No. But that sounded like a funny thing to say, but now that I’ve said it, I realize that there’s nothing funny about the apocalypse, unless you’re Stanley Kubrick. That guy could find the funny in the darkest of places.”

I rambled on about Dr. Strangelove, which turned into a rant about how nobody worries about nuclear annihilation like they did during the cold war, even though shit is just as deadly as it was then, and likely even more deadly. And then, perhaps because I’d brought up the cold war, I gave the plumber my unsolicited opinion about the movie War Games, which I believe everyone should watch, because, if everyone understood that the only winning move is not to play we’d probably play chess instead of going to war, which would be a big improvement, because chess is fun, and war is messy and people die.

“Let me guess,” the plumber said, “you work alone?”

“How’d you know?”

“It just seems like you don’t talk to a lot of people.”

“Not when I’m on deadline. Usually, it’s fine, but that drip, drip, drip is making me a little twitchy and weird. Sorry.”

“It’s OK. Listen, I can fix the faucet, but you gotta make your peace with whatever is going on upstairs, amigo.”

With his wrench, he pointed to his head to clarify what he meant by upstairs.

“You’re right. Sorry it got weird.”

“No worries, amigo.”

“Truth is, I don’t mind the noise, I just wish the home office soundtrack sounded a little more like a Spaghetti Western. Like, wouldn’t it be really badass if all the sounds in the house combined to make the music from A Fistful Of Dollars? That would really raise the stakes for when I confront the blank page, or make a cup of coffee.”

“I hear you. Morricone was the GOAT.”

“Exactly.”

“And that would be a pretty badass work soundtrack. Way better than dripping water.”

“Thank you.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t bring Pro Tools to plumbing gigs, so you’re shit out of luck.”

“Was that plumber joke, or a sound guy joke?”

“Both. These days, you gotta have multiple gigs.”

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That was funny. I need more laughter.

I got you.

My novels will amuse you to death life. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

My slice of life humor will change your life. Seriously. Ride/ Share will make you smile, and according to science, people who smile live better lives. Pick up a copy here.

IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. What’s your hustle? What’s your side hustle? Does your side hustle have a side hustle? Dish!

2. Are all the Pirates movies the same movie? Wrong answers encouraged.

3. Wouldn’t you prefer a good game of chess? Explain.

4. What’s the soundtrack to your work day?

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Passing Notes

Coda

The cactus in question was on our property, so there weren’t any jurisdictional issues. That was a relief, because the last thing I wanted was a pissing match with another amateur detective. But that’s where the good news stopped. This was an election year, after all, which meant that if I didn’t clear the Bread Cactus case ASAP, the pencil-dicks downtown would be all over my ass. So I quit gawking and radioed for backup.

“Is that a half-eaten loaf of bread in our cactus?” Christina asked.

“You don’t miss much, babe.”

“What’s it doing there?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out.”

My plan: Roust the usual suspects and beat the shit out of them until they told me what they knew. But Christina said we needed to do this one by the book.

“Remember what happened last time?” she asked. “You figured out who ate the last slice of pizza, but the DA had to drop the charges because you beat the pepperoni out of the suspect. Also, you were suspended without pay for three months, and you couldn’t afford any pizza at all.”

“Fucking pencil-dicks downtown,” I seethed. “This town is fucked eight ways from Sunday.”

“Settle down, Serpico. Let’s take some pictures of the scene, and we’ll go from there, OK?”

After we took pictures, I asked Christina if she had an theories.

“I think a giant hawk picked up the bread, maybe at Whole Foods or that Israeli bakery that has terrible parking.”

“Hawks eat bread?”

“No. The hawk was like, what am I even doing with this bread? Yuck. I’m gonna stick it in this cactus.”

“But why? Cui bono? Who benefits?”

“The hawk. Duh.”

“How?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

Christina sighed.

“It’s bait.”

“For who?”

“For anyone dumb enough to take that bread. As soon as they do, the hawk swoops in and eats their ass.”

“Ass-eating hawks? I didn’t know birds were so kinky.”

“No, I mean the hawk eats them, like for breakfast or dinner, depending on what time of day it is.”

“Oh…”

I didn’t buy Christina’s theory, and I told her so. It seemed ridiculous. Also, why put the bread in a cactus, which is difficult to access, when you could just drop the bread on the lawn, swoop in, eat some ass, and fly away?

“I think our suspect is a human,” I said.

“Boring.”

“Maybe so, but I’m making a list of suspects.”

First on my list was our gardener Raphael. I liked him for the Bread Cactus job for a few reasons. For one thing, the cactus in question was a few feet away from our green garbage bin. That told me Raphael had opportunity. Also, there’s a small chance our gardener is an assassin, so he basically had a record in my book.

“Bread? No, no … I don’t know anything about bread.”

I studied Raphael’s eyes as he spoke. In my unprofessional experience the eyes always give it away. The trouble was, Raphael was wearing sunglasses. He was playing hardball. I’d have to try another way.

“Look, I just need some information, OK?”

I held up a crisp $100 bill. Raphael snatched it out of my hand. Now, we were getting somewhere. Or so I thought.

“Raphael, I give you the money, you give me the information. That’s how this works.”

“I thought you were paying me for last month.”

Shit. I had forgotten to pay him for last month.

“Just give me something I can use.”

“OK, the cactus …”

I leaned in, eager for a lead that could break the case wide open.

“… the cactus does not eat bread, Michael.”

The cactus doesn’t eat bread!? No shit. That information was about as useful as a solar-powered flashlight.

Next on my list was our pool man, Carlos. He didn’t have a record, as far as I knew, but like Raphael he had opportunity, because he discards leaves and other crap that lands in our pool into the green bin.

“Someone is sending you a message,” Carlos said.

“But it isn’t you?” I asked.

“No, I text you for messages.”

“Any idea what the message is?”

Carlos looked up at the sky, made the sign of the cross, then looked back at me and shook his head.

“Some mysteries are better left unsolved. Forget about it, Michael, it’s … the Valley.”

The way he said that spooked me. Sure, I’m easily spooked, but why had Carlos crossed himself before giving me his version of the famous line from Chinatown?

I was in too deep, and I knew it. Also, I was out of leads. The bread had appeared on a Sunday, so that ruled out our mail carrier. And since we hadn’t received any packages that day the UPS/FedEx/Amazon theory was also toast. I was desperate, so I did what desperate people often do these days, I turned to social media.

My first social media stop was Nextdoor, the internet clearinghouse for security camera footage of package thieves, aka porch pirates; trespassing wild animals, i.e., four-legged content creators; racism; listings for household items that are so shitty they can’t be sold at garage sales; gardening advice; and miscellaneous nonsense. Unfortunately, my post kept getting taken down. Evidently, the moderator in our area was gluten-free, online and off.

Reddit was no help either. My posts in the subreddits for bread, unsolved mysteries, and the San Fernando Valley, weren’t removed, but they were mocked. In retrospect, that was entirely predictable, since Reddit’s motto is: If you can’t be helpful, be an asshole.

Speaking of assholes, I thought about turning to Elon Musk’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s social networks, but then I smoked some meth, smashed my face with a hammer, and came to my senses. Like Mulder and Scully, I believed the truth was out there, but I knew it wasn’t on those fact-free platforms.

I was officially stumped. Which happens. Last time I checked, my clearance rate was around 14% — far higher than the LAPD’s rate for solving similar cases. Although to be fair, the LAPD also handles major crimes, whereas my beat is minor mysteries.

Who put the bread in the cactus, and why?

I had no fucking idea.

But I knew one last way to get an answer, even if it was of questionable provenance. So I typed up my notes, and uploaded them to Claude. Then I told Claude it was the best detective in history — more determined than Harry Bosch, more fucked up on mind-bending drugs than Doc Sportello, and more of a menace to society than Frank Drebin.

Claude spat out an answer, which I’ll summarize, because it was way too long:

Unfortunately, none of this was true. Claude was hallucinating, possibly because I’d told it to channel Doc Sportello, but more likely, because that’s what AI chat bots do. The thing is, I wanted it to be true. I wanted answers. I needed closure. That’s appeal of mystery fiction. In the end, a mystery story is supposed to restore order to a fictional version of the world, because we the real world is a fucking mess.

Or maybe, as The Dude said, my thinking about this case had become very uptight. One possibility was that the bread put itself in the cactus. Another possibility was that the cactus uprooted itself, called an Uber to take it to the bakery, and gave the Uber driver half the loaf as a tip. In other words, it was possible this whole thing was a wild sheep chase, like a Haruki Murakami novel, only shorter and with better jokes.

Or, maybe this story was just a futile attempt to find meaning where there was none. That’s probably it, to be honest. But I can live with that. As Albert Einstein said, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”

I want a mystery with a damn ending. I need closure, Michael.

I got you.

My novels don’t end well for some of the characters, but they do end, and they do provide closure. And some laughs. And something to ponder. And maybe even the feels.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

Are your novels any good? Don’t lie.

Yes! But you don’t have to take my word for it.

Novels are too long. I just want something I can read on the crapper.

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Answer questions, or take the fifth

1. Who put the bread in the cactus and why? Explain.

2. Are you the type to ignore life’s little mysteries, or do you Philip Marlowe the fuck up? Dish.

3. Do hawks eat ass? Wrong answers strongly encouraged.

4. Your keys are missing. Do you hire Harry Bosch, Doc Sportello, or Frank Drebin to find them? Choose wisely.

5. Why is it always an election year?

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A noteworthy note

Coda

I needed a quart of yogurt, so I went to the market. Correction: I wanted a quart of yogurt. I could’ve eaten my muesli with milk, but yogurt sounded better, and it’s fermented, so yogurt was the gutsy move. I also needed wanted muesli, so I threw a bag of that in my cart too. I got iceberg lettuce for a taco salad and some taco seasoning because after meal-prepping tacos for the coming week, we were running low on taco seasoning — an emergency in my book. Also, I got another carton of milk, because I didn’t want to make another trip to the store twice in the same week. In the check-out line I grabbed a bag of sugar-free, fake-ass Swedish fish for no reason at all. Actually, that’s not true. It was an impulse buy, and I swallowed that sugar-free bullshit fish candy hook, line, and sinker.

The checkout line wasn’t moving, so I took out my phone and read the news. Things weren’t going well, but that wasn’t exactly news. I put my phone away and thought about another impulse buy. Was I in the mood to read about meth-addicted celebrities performing autopsies on aliens, or was I hankering for Cheetos? Why had I framed the choice as either / or? Wasn’t this a classic yes / and situation? The cheap tabloid paper could absorb the neon orange Cheeto residue from my fingers, while I read the news that wasn’t fit to print. That felt like a win-win to me. But then the woman ahead me asked the man ahead of her if he was going to the Dodgers game this afternoon, and I forgot all about Cheetos and tabloid journalism.

“No, I’m not a baseball fan,” the man said. “I just really like peanuts.”

I looked at the conveyor belt. He wasn’t lying. The man was buying six giant bags of peanuts and a bottle of Diet Coke.

“I’m a Dodgers fan,” the woman said.

She sounded like she’d been smoking cigarettes since the late seventies. I put her at around sixty years old. She wasn’t interested in the peanuts. She was there to talk Dodger baseball.

“We’re hot,” she said. “We’re gonna win another World Series.”

I hoped she was right. I bleed Dodger blue. But I’m also a realist, which is why I don’t even start stocking up on fucks to give about baseball until July 4.

“Three in a row,” she said. “Never been done before.”

“The Yankees did it,” the man said.

For someone who said he wasn’t a baseball fan that factoid seemed to come out of left field, but I let it slide.

“They just win because they’re rich,” he said. “They buy championships.”

“Damn straight,” she said. “Best team money can buy.”

The man said something about money ruining the game. That made think he was an erstwhile fan — one of those people who say the game was better before free agency, without acknowledging that Curt Flood’s fight for free agency was as much about economic rights as civil rights. In any case, Mr. Peanut and Ms. Cigarette continued talking about how the rich get richer and everyone else gets fucked. They were talking about baseball payrolls, but they could’ve just as easily been talking about America, where social mobility is down, and the markets are up. He said something about baseball needing a salary cap, and she said something about socialism. That ended the conversation. Mr. Peanuts paid and left. Ms. Cigarettes was up to bat, and the cashier recognized her.

“Hey, weren’t you just in here like ten minutes ago?” the cashier asked.

“Yeah, I was. There’s a homeless gentlemen outside.”

The cashier frowned. I braced for a shit-show. These days when a customer complains about a homeless person outside of a store it’s a prelude to a physical confrontation, wherein the manager, backed up by a security guard, explains that America is a free country — unless you’re standing on private property. But the shit-show never materialized.

“I told him to come in with me and I’d get him whatever he wants,” she explained. “But he said that when he comes inside he gets hassled. So he gave me a shopping list.”

I looked at the conveyor belt. She was buying water, a dozen cans of tuna, four cans of chicken noodle soup, a jar of peanut butter, bread, granola bars, a bag of potato chips, apples, a canister of mixed nuts, and a pre-made footlong sub from the deli case. She was also buying travel-sized hand sanitizers, toothpaste tubes, and soap. It was an impressive haul. The total came out to a little over $100 — enough to treat two people to seats in the cheapest section at Dodger Stadium, provided they’re willing to hike up the hill through Chavez Ravine and skip the concessions. In other words: take me out to the ballgame, but don’t buy me peanuts or crackerjacks, or anything else because we just can’t afford these redonkulous prices.

“Take care,” she said. “I’ll see you next time.”

It was my turn. The cashier rang me up. He noticed my Dodgers cap, so we talked baseball. We both agreed on the following: Shohei Ohtani is a god, Dodgers tickets cost too much, and neither one of us would be caught dead at an Angels game.

Outside, I spotted Ms. Cigarette. She was talking to a homeless man. There were grocery bags at his feet. I heard her say, “You hang in there, Melvin, things are gonna turnaround.” Then she shook his hand, got in her car, and fired up a cigarette.

I hadn’t figured her for a do-gooder. I hadn’t figured Mr. Peanut for closet baseball fan with strong opinions on the salary cap, either. Mostly, I hadn’t planned to witness a random act of kindness and incredible generosity at my local Vons. It all felt out of left field, which usually gets a bad rap for all the random shit it sends our way. But in my opinion, left field, like the Dodgers left fielder, Teoscar Hernández, is underrated.

That was funny. I need more laughter.

I got you.

My novels will amuse you to death life. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

My slice of life humor will change your life. Seriously. Ride/ Share will make you smile, and according to science, people who smile live better lives. Pick up a copy here.

IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. Seeing any random acts of kindness lately? Share!

2. Are you a baseball fan, or do you just really love peanuts? Explain.

3. Why Swedish fish, and why not Swedish meatballs? Wrong answers only.

4. Made any good (or bad) impulse purchases lately? Dish!

5. Why doesn’t anything ever come outta center field or right field? Go deep.

Leave a comment

Coda: Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No

Still here? Hit that restack button, then email this post to everyone you know.

“Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.”

— Danny DeVito in David Mamet’s Heist

A friend texted me the other day to ask if all my neighbors were racist vigilantes. It was a fair question. I’ve written about Jim, my racist neighbor, a few times. And last week I wrote about Jon, my vigilante neighbor. Racists and vigilantes are good copy, although I can’t abide racism or vigilantism. But I have other neighbors, and as far as I know, they aren’t racists or vigilantes. Case in point: The Cat Lady.

I keep meaning to ask her name. We’ve been chatting for years. But at this point it, I think we’re past introductions. Our conversations go deep. We’ve talked about gardening, Walmart’s shady business practices, politics, her ex-husband, cats, her other ex-husband, dogs, motorist who seem to think that a residential street with an elementary school is the perfect place to live out their Fast & Furious fantasies, polyamory, poor customer service, jealous girl friends, squeaky wheels that always manage to get the grease, LSD, the musical Grease, and the weather.

A few weeks ago, The Cat Lady was telling me about her acting career. I had no idea she’d been actor, but in Los Angeles, actors are as common as palm trees, so I wasn’t surprised. Also, The Cat Lady is easily in her nineties, so she’s had plenty of time to try out different careers.

“When was this?” I asked.

“Back when television was still new,” she explained.

I leaned in when she said that, hoping for some old Hollywood stories. Did she ever audition for I Love Lucy? Had she partied with James Dean? Was she blacklisted? Did she name names?

“I mostly did theater,” she said. “The camera didn’t love me as much as my ex-husband loved a call girl named Mona.”

“The ex who was in real estate, or the ex who was a drummer?” I asked.

“The ex who was a photographer. I drove him nuts. Every photo he took of me was a little blurry. He was a great photographer, but I just couldn’t be still. I’d always move just a little right as he snapped the photo. One time, he lost it, threw a wrench from right here clear across the street into the school.”

I looked over my shoulder. I put the throw at forty yards — good if you’re throwing a football, Herculean if you’re throwing a wrench.

“He wasn’t violent. Total sweetheart. But I drove him nuts. He wasted so much film on me.”

“That must’ve been expensive.”

“He always had money. He worked in advertising. Now, my actor friends were a different story. They were either broke or loaded — no middle ground. And when they had money they were on their way to being broke again.”

I muttered something about how going from gig to gig makes it hard to put money away. We talked about money for a bit, how too much money creates one kind of problem, while too little money creates another kind. She told me the smartest thing she ever did was buy a house when it was cheap and hang on to it. Then she told me about Stan.

“He was usually broke. But a couple times a year, he’d book a big job. He spent everything as fast as a he could — almost everything. When he got a big paycheck, he’d go to the bank and ask for, I dunno, ten or twenty dollars in quarters, dimes, and nickels. Then he’d go back to his place and throw the change everywhere.”

“Like in the couch cushions?”

“Exactly. When he was broke, he’d go looking for loose change. He always had enough for a taco and bus fare.”

That’s not a lot of money. But it is food and transportation. Add a friend willing to let you crash on their couch, and you’ve got the actor trifecta.

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My novels will amuse you to death life. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

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IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. Stan had a savings plan. What’s your savings plan? Share you knowledge.

2. I don’t think The Cat Lady knows my name either. What’s her nickname for me? Have fun with this!

3. What’s the smartest money decision you’ve ever made? Dish!

4. What’s the dumbest money decision you’ve ever made? Dish again!

5. Why do they call it money? Asking for David Mamet.

Leave a comment

Cinematic Coda

“Everything has gone to shit,” Jon said. “Two people on our block had their catalytic convertors stolen last week. The cops are useless.”

The utility, or lack thereof, of the local police is a common complaint among Angelenos these days. Violent crime is down, but the vibes are off. It’s a classic battle between data and lived experience. The homicide rate dropped 19% year-over-year, but toothpaste, deodorant, and everything else I need to stay fresh and clean is behind locked glass at Target. For me, it’s a head-scratcher. For some Angelenos, it’s a reason to reverse course on criminal justice reform. And for my neighbor Jon it’s an invitation to vigilantism.

“I wish I had been out there,” Jon continued. “I would’ve fucked them up.”

I believed Jon. Or, rather I believed that Jon believed he would’ve fucked up the thieves. The part I wasn’t so sure about was whether or not Jon was capable of accomplishing vigilantism. After all, Jon is pushing 60, overweight, and about as far from Chuck Norris (RIP) as you can get.

I laughed, but Jon didn’t, so I asked, “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. I got a baseball bat.”

I also own a baseball bat, but I don’t think that makes me vigilante-eligible. Although, if you’re looking for forty-something left-fielder with bad ankles, poor eyesight, and penchant for chasing curveballs in the dirt, I am available and willing to bring orange slices and Capri Suns.

“I catch guys stealing copper all the time,” Jon said.

“Copper?”

“Yeah, they love to steal copper wire for some reason.”

The reason is simple. Copper prices are high, and it’s relatively easy to steal. Unless, Jon is watching.

“Do you have cable?” he asked.

“No, we cut the cord a decade ago.”

“Not me. I love cable.”

I pondered that. At work, sometimes I write about the streaming wars. I often wonder about the 40% of households that still subscribe to cable or watch broadcast television. Are they Luddites living off Brady Bunch reruns on TBS, or diehards who’ve barricaded themselves inside the legacy media bunker, determined to channel surf until the last channel broadcasts the final Star Spangled Banner sign off?

“I know the sequence,” he continued. “One channel starts go, then another, and another. That’s them literally cutting the cable.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I said, “No shit?”

“No shit. And I know where the distribution box is. It’s around the corner.”

“And you’ve caught them?”

“I catch ‘em all the time. When the TV starts to go, I grab my bat and jump in my car.”

“What happens when you catch them?”

“I wait.”

“You wait?”

“They know I called the cops, but I know the cops aren’t coming. So I wait until they leave.”

“What if they don’t leave?”

“That’s where the bat comes in.”

“You hit them?”

“I wish.”

The winkle in Jon’s eye told me he meant it.

“Usually, when they see the bat, they take off running.”

“And that’s that?”

“No. I chase them. I get license plates. Pictures. Video. I phone it in to the cops.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but the cops always say the same thing: stop chasing them, sir, this is a police matter.”

“Maybe you should listen,” I said. “You’re taking an awful risk.”

“Worth it.”

Jon’s certitude shocked me.

“You’d die for cable?”

“I’m not gonna die. I’ve got a bat.”

“What if they have a gun?”

Jon pondered the gun question as if for the first time.

“Then I’d probably stand down.”

“Probably?”

Jon didn’t like thinking about the gun scenario, so he returned to that part of the fantasy that all vigilantes enjoy, the part where they kick ass and take names.

“Honestly, I wish one of them would try something sometime. I wanna rock and roll. Get. It. On.”

“Or, you could just collect evidence and take it to the police. Maybe they catch these guys doing something else, and maybe your evidence helps them make the copper theft case.”

“No point. If they catch these guys, they’ll probably give them free college tuition and a safe space to talk about their feelings.”

Evidently, the copper thieves hadn’t cut the cable thoroughly enough to knock out Fox News.

“Well, I can’t stop you, and I guess I can’t talk you out of this vigilante thing, but promise me this: If you see someone trying to steal my shit, don’t get yourself killed trying to stop them. OK?”

“No promises.”

“Well, just try not to die for my shit. It’s not worth it.”

Jon was noncommittal. We said our goodbyes, and I finished my walk. When I returned home, I told Christina about my conversation with our local vigilante.

“I think we should get a gun,” she said. “I’ll pop a cap in someone’s ass if they come for your Prius, babe.”

“Weren’t you listening?” I asked. “Jon is on the case.”

“I know. But what if Jon needs back up?”

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That was funny. I need more laughter.

I got you.

My novels will amuse you to death life. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

My slice of life humor will change your life. Seriously. Ride/ Share will make you smile, and according to science, people who smile live better lives. Pick up a copy here.

IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. If the data says crime is down, why are the vibes off? Unhinged theories encouraged.

2. Do you still have cable? Explain. No, really, explain.

3. Are you a vigilante? Tell your story!

4. Is your baseball / softball team looking for a left-fielder with bad ankles, poor eyesight, and penchant for chasing curveballs in the dirt? Hit me up.

5. Are packing heat? Dish.

Leave a comment

If you refuse to take responsibility, the Jews are handy to have around, though any group will do. Didn’t get the job? Blame the race / ethnicity of the person who got the job, or simply say DEI if you’re worried about sounding racist. Got the job, but got in trouble with HR for telling the interns dick jokes? Women. (Zoomers also works). Gobsmacked that the guy who promised he’d release the Epstein files on day one, didn’t, but then was forced to, but then still tried to keep them secret, but then eventually a shit ton of Epstein files were released, and it turned out that the guy you voted for was actually — wait for it — all over the Epstein files? That’s a hard one, I know. It seemed so obvious the whole time. It’s like you were fooled, or something. It’s basically a Scooby-Doo episode — “It was old man Donald all along.” Now, you have only yourself to blame for putting the person you most revile in charge. Better blame the Jews, just to be on the safe side.

But there’s always new shit. There’s new shit every day. Monday it’s the tariffs, Tuesday it’s the Epstein files, Wednesday it’s the war (or a different war; it’s hard to keep track), and by Thursday you haven’t even had your coffee and you need a new group to blame for the thing you haven’t read about yet. It’s a full time job, and you already have a full time job … hanging out on LinkedIn looking for a new job, because of those damn Zoomer chicks couldn’t take a joke.

That’s where denial comes in. It pairs perfectly with blame. Whenever an uncomfortable moment comes up and you’re just too tired to play the blame game, say “I didn’t vote for this.” Say it preemptively when you enter a room … just to clear the air. Post it on social media as the preface to how you really feel. Practice saying it while looking down and shaking your head. That way nobody can see in your eyes that you did.

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IAYA: I ask, you answer

1. Who do you blame? Wrong answers only.

2. What’s your secret to a happy life? Dish!

3. Why can’t Zoomers take a joke? Hint: They can (you’re just not funny).

4. LinkedIn! What the actual fuck is going on with that dumpster fire of website? Explain.

Leave a comment

This was too short, Michael. I need a good book!

I got you.

My novels will blow your mind, not your budget. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

My slice of life humor will change your life. Seriously. Ride/ Share will make you smile, and according to science, people who smile live better lives. Pick up a copy here.

Movie Coda: Traffic

Now that the construction, which actually involves a shocking amount of destruction, is in the rearview mirror, I’m happy we did it. But while we were doing it, I questioned everything:

• Home ownership? A joke — the home owns you.

• My marriage? Still awesome, despite our date nights shifting from dinner and a movie to Lowes and Home Depot outings.

• My sanity? Always in doubt.

Since Christina works regular hours at an office and I work irregular hours at home, I was the project manager. If you don’t know, a project manager’s core competency is anxiety. The more you worry, the more likely it is that the project comes in on time and on budget. Other must-haves for a project manager include being a relentless motherfucker who demands the win, while also being an empathetic leader capable of inspiring vendors to do their very best work, even though you know deep down that their best isn’t nearly good enough.

Like all project managers, I try to apply lessons from previous projects to future projects. The technical term for this is “learnings.” My big learning was … don’t remodel, ever. But that learning undermines all the other learnings — and the premise of this post. So I unlearned the big learning in favor of smaller learnings — and in the spirit of mining human misery for comedy.

Learning: Our plumber is a dipshit

We weren’t changing the footprint of our kitchen, so from the outset we knew our plumbing needs were minimal: reconnect the dishwasher and sink, install a new garbage disposal. In theory, a “capable” handyman, handywoman, or handy-they/them could do the job, but I called our plumber, Sean, because I had yet to learn that he was a dipshit.

Sean came to our house three times. The first time, he did the job, or so I thought. The second time, he replaced a leaky p-trap, blaming the leak on “cheap” parts at Lowes, without explaining why he didn’t go to Home Depot, which he called the “pro move.” The third time, he replaced a leaky valve that I told him to fix on the second visit. Also, he came on a Sunday night, which felt like a Johnny-on-the-spot move, except he brought helpers — his two demonic kids who ran around our house breaking shit and screaming at our terrified dogs, along with his wife, who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, manage their children.

The learning? Fire the plumber before meeting his family.

Learning: Caulk jokes never get old

I thought they would, but they don’t. We needed a lot of caulk on this job, and even now as I type this, I’m giggling.

The learning? You can never have enough caulk.

Learning: Russians don’t play

Several Russians worked on our kitchen. I asked them why they came to the U.S., and they told me they’d rather remodel our kitchen than face Ukrainian drones. Fair. One of them also told me how construction works in Russia. “If they don’t like your work, they don’t pay, and if you fuck up their house, maybe they kill you.” Ouch.

The learning? Do our next project in Moscow.

Learning: My wife is always right

I thought I knew this one going in, but there were a few dicey moments when I forgot. Thankfully, the guys who worked on our kitchen were in the habit of asking helpful questions like, “Your wife approves this?” Answering their questions slowed the project down, but guaranteed better outcomes.

The learning? You don’t expect things like tile layout, paint selection, and hardware placement to impact the happiness of your marriage, but they do.

Learning: Money solves all problems, provided you have the money

This was a tough one. We had a budget, we had the money, and we even had a contingency in our budget (and in our bank account), just in case things went tits up. As it turned out, our kitchen project (mostly) went tits down. Thank the construction gods! Still, we could’ve used more money. A lot more.

The learning? We bought way too much caulk.

Learning: Done and dusted

Construction means dust. How much dust? Enough to film the Arrakis scenes for the next Dune movie in your house.

The learning? The spice must flow, but the dust flows harder.

Michael, I thought Situation Normal was on hiatus / dead

Yeah, me too. But then I remembered something: Goonies never say die. I had this idea that I’d start another Substack called Slacker Noir to focus on crime fiction, which I did, but that felt limiting. That was unexpected because Situation Normal also felt limiting. And I fucking hate limits. But in middle of destroying and rebuilding our kitchen, I had a lot of time to think. And this is what I came up with: People who subscribe to this Substack like my writing (or they’re friends / family and feel guilty about unsubscribing). My new plan is a lot more straightforward:

That’s it. That’s the plan.

See you next time! And until then, let’s have some fun in the comments section.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

1. What are your learnings? Share your wisdom.

2. Did you miss me as much as I missed you? Lie to me.

3. Caulk? Explain.

4. Lowes or Home Depot? Wrong answers encouraged.

Leave a comment

Wait! Don’t you have books for us to buy?

Hell yes, I do.

My novels will knock your socks off, unless you wear flip-flops, in which case your socks are probably already off. Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places. Murder and Other Distractions is available here.

My slice of life humor will change your life. Seriously. Ride/ Share will make you smile, and according to science, people who smile live better lives. Pick up a copy here.

Cinematic coda

But first …

Some very important news

After five years on Substack, six months on TinyLetter, and far too long on Facebook, I’m pressing pause on Situation Normal. This wasn’t an easy decision. I love writing slice of life humor and sharing it with you. I also love writing crime comedies with off-the-wall characters that make you laugh and (gasp) see the world in a different light. Keeping up with my day job while pursuing two creative passions just isn’t feasible. I considered avoiding this choice altogether, but I’ve listened to Freewill by Rush enough times to know that if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Some questions you may have:

• Will you still hear from me? Yes! You’ll receive my posts from Slacker Noir. I’ll be writing about crime and mystery stories (books, movies, TV), sharing my short stories, and doing some original reporting on the offbeat and crime-related news that informs my fiction. Basically, I’m trying to do for Los Angeles what Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey did for Florida. Slacker Noir is my workshop, and I hope you’ll join me.

• But there won’t be any new issues of Situation Normal? Correct. I’m not planning to update Situation Normal. That said, you never know what the future holds. I may drop a random piece of slice of life humor now and again. If you remain subscribed, you’ll see it.

• What about the money, Lebowski? First, I really appreciate those of you who supported this project with paid subscriptions and PayPal contributions. You are the best, and your support means more to me than you could possibly know. Thank you! As of December 15, I’ve paused payments indefinitely. If you recently paid for Situation Normal and would like a refund, just let me know and I’ll make it happen.

Win #1: Counting Crow Poses

This year, my yoga practice turned three. That means I no longer throw temper tantrums on my mat, but I’m still a few years away from being trusted with the big-boy glue and sharp objects. It also means I’m attempting poses I never thought possible. Case in point: 2025 was the year of the crow pose. Can I hold crow pose longer than two seconds? No fucking way. Is that a dramatic improvement over previous years? Shit yes, it is. Calling this a win.

Win #2: We survived our guest bathroom remodel

Remodeling is a ridiculously stupid thing we’ll do again. But after our first remodeling experience, I believe we need to amend the U.S. Constitution as follows: If a contractor fucks up your house, you have the right to fuck up their house. Our remodel took longer than expected and cost more than we budgeted. But we survived and the guest bathroom looks great. Double-win!

Win #3: I got paid (eventually)

In July, I wrote about a client who stiffed me. This hasn’t happened a lot in my career, so I figured that if I wasn’t getting paid, at least you’d get a story. Turns out, my erstwhile client read that story, got on the horn with accounts payable, and cut me a check toot sweet. Power of the press, baby. Also, WIN!

Win #4: Puppy love

We welcomed a puppy into our home. By we, I mean Christina and me. Mortimer, our 15-year-old dog, isn’t crazy about the puppy. This is our fault. We named Mortimer after one of the villains from Trading Places, so he comes by his grumpy old man schtick honestly. Meanwhile, Bodhi is named after Patrick Swayze’s character from Point Break, which explains why he’s 100% pure adrenaline. (If you’re detecting a theme, namely that we name our dogs after movie villains, you are correct).

Win #5: Pins and Needles

I discovered acupuncture this year. I’m using discover in the Christopher Columbus sense of the word. That is, I found something new to me (acupuncture), and now I’m acting as if it didn’t exist before I arrived on the scene. All kidding aside, acupuncture is amazing. I thought my back was fucked, but two acupuncture sessions unfucked it.

Win #6: Macros, baby!

In March, I started counting my macros — protein, carbs, and fat. I’ve struggled with my weight most of my life. I’ve tried countless diets. None were sustainable, most left me feeling hungry all the time. Counting macros has been a revelation. I’ve lost 20 pounds, but it doesn’t feel like I’m on a diet. If anything, I now struggle to eat enough protein and fat — carbs are still easy. The tricky part is the math, but there’s an app for that, and honestly, the answer is usually yogurt. So … macros for the win!

Win #7: I Ate Where Charles Manson Ate (and survived)

Ostensibly, the crowd-funded story I wrote about eating at the hamburger stand Charles Manson frequented was about investigating a bit of San Fernando Valley lore, determining if there were any residual Manson vibes at the Munch Box, and making juvenile jokes about an eatery called the Munch Box. In practice, however, it was a good reminder that I love journalism, in part, because it’s a passport that lets me explore the truths that are stranger than fiction. Rekindling my reporter’s fire and pairing it with a sense of the absurd was a huge win.

Win #8: Slacker Noir

I launched a newsletter called Slacker Noir. As I said before, it’s my workshop — a place for me to talk about the stuff that inspires my fiction and try new things. I’m digging it, and so far, readers dig it too. Win!

Win #9: Rewrites

They say writing is rewriting. In this case, they refers to Robert Louis Stevenson, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, and in all likelihood, your high school English teacher. It’s a popular sentiment. Anyway, I’ve been writing rewriting a sequel to Not Safe for Work. I’m happy with the way the manuscript is progressing. It still has a ways to go, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I think. Win!

Stick around and chat!

I ask, you answer.

1. What were your wins in 2025?

2. Seriously, share your wins!

3. It’ll make you feel good.

4. I promise.

5. What are you waiting for? Start typing …

Leave a comment

There weren’t any car chases when Christina and I watched the local news the other night, but there was a compelling item about a naked man menacing people in our old neighborhood. Unfortunately, local news is ad-supported, so before we got to that story we had endure commercials for Jack in the Box; an online pharmacy that specializes in GLP1s, hair loss treatments, and erectile dysfunction; a car dealership that will finance anyone; and the upcoming All Valley Karate Tournament. Just kidding. The All Valley Karate Tournament was disbanded after Daniel LaRusso obliterated Johnny Lawrence with an illegal kick to the face — a scandal that resulted in a hard-hitting local news exposé about an unlicensed karate dojo operated by a maintenance man out of his Reseda home.

Eventually, we got to the story about the naked man. Ring Doorbell footage — what else? — captured the naked man banging on doors and generally raising hell on a quiet residential street. The details were fuzzy, but basically banging on doors turned to threatening people. At some point, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran said he heard screaming next door. He grabbed his handgun and went outside to confront the naked man. He told the naked man to leave, then threatened to call the police. Details from the story were a little unclear, but it sounded like the Vietnam veteran brandished his weapon, but did not point it at the naked man. Regardless, in the next instant, the naked man lunged at the veteran, picked him up, and body-slammed him into the cement, breaking the veteran’s collarbone and leg. The veteran lost control of the gun in the struggle, but as the naked man continued his assault, the veteran regained control of his gun and fatally shot his assailant in the head.

After nailing down the Five Ws, more or less, the local news broadcast moved to the hospital, where the veteran, George, was broken, beaten, but otherwise in good spirits. He explained that it had been decades since he used the gun, implying that the weapon of war last saw action in the war. The local news showed a picture of George standing next to a chopper in Vietnam. They didn’t say what George did in the war, but from the way he handled himself, I’m going to guess that he was in the shit.

The story shifted to George’s recovery. He’d already had surgery to repair a broken tibia and fibula, and it sounded like more surgeries were ahead, followed by an agonizing stint in rehab. As someone who broke his tibia and fibula and has thirteen screws in his body to prove it, I knew George’s recovery would be rough. I was 34 when I broke my leg. At 79, I’m told, everything is more difficult, especially healing. I was thinking about the pain George must be feeling when the woman by his side caught my attention.

“Holy shit! I know her. She’s in my yoga class.”

“You know her?” Christina asked.

I paused the television to take a closer look.

“Yeah, I think that’s her. I don’t know her name, but I’ve practiced next to her for years. We always say hello, and sometimes we chat while we’re warming up.”

The next day I went to yoga. I asked one of the teachers if she had seen the local news.

“No, I never watch the local news, unless it’s raining.”

It rarely rains in LA, but we agreed that when it does our local news shines.

“I saw a story last night that I think is connected to someone we practice with.”

I described the woman from the story.

“Oh yeah, you’re talking about Lily.”

“Right, Lily.”

I told her about George, the naked man, and the deadly result of their confrontation.

“Oh my god.”

She got up from her mat, went to her cubby, and grabbed her phone.

“I’m going to text her.”

She fired off a text to Lily, then switched her phone to silent mode. It was time for class.

I did my best to stay present, but I kept thinking about George and Lily. I also thought about lunch, the fucked up state of the world, and the fact that the Raiders never seem to run out of ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Once your mind starts wondering, it’s hard to stop it. Maybe that’s why, as soon as class was over, I asked if Lily had texted back.

“Yeah, you were right, Michael. It was Lily.”

“Fuck.”

“This is really bad.”

We talked about George and Lily for bit, then the conversation drifted back to the attack. We hit all the usual talking points:

• What was the world coming to? Neither one of us knew.

• Was the man mentally ill? It sure seemed like it.

• Homeless? That was a good guess.

• A senseless tragedy? Yes, but do any tragedies make sense?

• Was crime on the rise? Statistically, no, not really. But that’s the vibe these days.

“I don’t like guns,” she said. “Actually, I hate guns, and I think they should be illegal, but I’m glad George had a gun. That guy body-slammed a 79-year-old man. He could’ve killed George.”

“I know, it’s fucked up.”

“Totally fucked up.”

When I got home, I told Christina about my conversation in yoga.

“I donated to the GoFundMe,” I said.

“This is insane. She could’ve lost her husband.”

“I know. Imagine surviving a war, and some fuck-stick body-slams you in your own driveway.”

“Thank god he had a gun,” Christina said. “We gotta get a gun.”

Christina and I don’t own a gun. She wants one, but I said she needed to complete a training and safety class first. She agreed, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. This makes me happy, because I don’t want a gun in the house. I’m anti-gun. Without getting too deep into the weeds, I’m OK with some guns, with some common sense laws. But I think the kinds of guns Second Amendment types are (pun intended) most fired up about should be banned. Also, unless they’re part of a “well-regulated militia,” those Second Amendment types are totally full of shit.

Which brings me to the funny part. Not haha-funny, more like unsettling-funny. A pro-gun meme straight outta the culture war proved correct in this situation. George was the good guy with a gun.

Help George and Lily, if you can

There’s a GoFundMe for George. If you want to chip in a few bucks, I’m sure they can use the help. Here’s the link.

Amateur tip: GoFundMe is a for-profit company that automatically sets its tip at 16.5%. That tip is optional, and you can reduce, or increase it, by moving the slider.

A funny mystery novel where the killing makes sense, more or less

Most people who’ve read Not Safe for Work love it. Trouble is, most people haven’t read Not Safe for Work — yet. My advice: Take advantage of this opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a groundbreaking story that’ll knock your socks off (and put them back on).

The ebook is only 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

A short story collection for people who 💚 Situation Normal

For some people, Lyft and Uber are transportation. For me, they’re inspiration. Ride / Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my favorite Lyft and Uber driver stories.

Buy a copy from Jeff Bezos

Buy a copy w/out giving Bezos a dime

IAUA: I ask, you answer

1. How fucked up is this story? Don’t hold back.

2. Where do you find news you can use? Explain.

3. Given the staggering amount of footage they’re sitting on, what’s stopping Amazon, the company that owns Ring, from starting their own user-generated true crime show? Bonus: What should they call the show?

4. Do you live in a country that bans guns, or has common sense gun laws? Share your story!

5. What’s stopping Christina from taking a firearms training and safety course? Wrong answers encouraged.

Leave a comment

Support Situation Normal

Hey situation normies, this is the part where I ask you to step up and support my work. A paid subscription is totally optional, but greatly appreciated. Note: Paying subscribers receive only the best vibes, which are priceless, so that right there is a great deal, folks.

Subscribe now

Prior to my trip, I knew my coworkers weren’t floating heads on Zoom, and I assumed they knew I wasn’t a floating head either. Floating heads are rare, unless you’re dealing with ghosts. But remote workers and their colleagues have to take it on faith that the people they see on Zoom aren’t floating heads. Sure, you could ask them to stand up and show you their legs, but that’s the kind of thing HR frowns on. So the best way to deal with this question is to ignore it. Which is what I did, until last week.

As it turned out, every floating head I knew wasn’t a floating head at all. Everyone had torsos, legs, and feet. They were also three-dimensional people, not two-dimensional avatars. A few people were shorter than I had imagined, most were taller than I’d expected. None of them had mute buttons, and the space behind them was never blurry. Also, they spoke in full sentences, never once relying on emojis to communicate.

The Floating Head Phenomenon is unique to the digital age, but its roots are quite old. Thousands of years ago, people who weren’t in the same physical location relied on word of mouth to get to know each other. Perhaps the people who had first heard about Jesus from one of his twelve apostles were surprised to learn that he wasn’t a blonde dude with blue eyes when they actually met him. Eventually, letters supplemented word of mouth, allowing people in different physical locations to conduct business, fall in love, and even plot events that changed the course of history. For example, several members of the Continental Congress must’ve remarked that George Washington was a lot taller than he sounded in his letters. And then came the telephone, which made it possible to talk — actually talk! — to people you’d never met face-to-face. But getting to know someone through their disembodied voice conjured two versions of the same person in your head. There was the person you imagined them to be, and the person they actually were. Oftentimes, those two versions turned out to be incongruous, as illustrated by the video for Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion.

What’s different about the digital age, I think, is that we complain a lot more. Receiving a letter was exciting! And even if the letter contained bad news, nobody blamed the medium, or the Post Office. Ditto for telegraphs and telephones, which were considered modern marvels. Prank calls and wrong numbers came with the territory, but I never heard anyone blame AT&T. Also, I love prank calls, which were ruined by caller ID, and wrong numbers, which aren’t what they used to be in the age of robo calls and scammers.

But internet technologies get a lot of shit. Maybe some of that blame is because the tech optimism of the nineties and early aughts hasn’t turned out as advertised. And maybe tech gets the blame because a hyper-connected world makes communication frictionless to the point that we take communication for granted and behave like entitled assholes. Also, tech gives off a real feudal vibe, so maybe the backlash isn’t about the tools Silicon Valley makes, but the tools who own Silicon Valley and want to own the world and everyone in it. My personal belief, however, is that because planes, trains, and automobiles make it possible for anyone on Earth to meet anyone else on Earth, IRL, the internet always feels like a poor substitute. In other words, floating heads are good, but they’ll never be as good as heads that are attached to bodies.

I probably knew that before my trip, but braving a government shutdown, cramming myself into a flying metal tube, and hauling my ass three thousand miles from home was a good reminder that there’s always something missing online. It’s a mind-fuck, because digital closes the geographic distance between people, but at the same time it opens up an infinite amount of space between our perceptions and reality. As an anxious person I fill that space with self-doubt and corrosive assumptions. As an anxious society, we fill that space with fear, loathing, and rage.

Meeting my colleagues face-to-face filled in a lot of gaps for me in the best possible way. There’s a big difference between someone posting a fire emoji in reference to a piece you wrote and that same someone shaking your hand, smiling, and saying, “your writing is fire, Michael.” The emoji is nice, but it feels too easy, too small, and too disposable. The face-to-face conversation, on the other hand, comes standard with cues and context that give the same compliment a lot more meaning. Also, the degree of difficulty in the physical world is significantly higher, which is why it’s so much more rewarding.

Still, I don’t think it’s a contest between the digital and the physical. At least, it shouldn’t be a contest. I want to be grateful for both, because I believe the more ways we can come together, the better. But there’s a paradox there. Because as we make connection easier and easier, we have to work harder and harder to actually communicate.

A short story collection for people who 💚 Situation Normal

For some people, Lyft and Uber are transportation. For me, they’re inspiration. Ride / Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my favorite Lyft and Uber driver stories.

Buy a copy from Jeff Bezos

Buy a copy w/out giving Bezos a dime

A slacker noir novel for people who 💙 funny mysteries

Most people who’ve read Not Safe for Work love it. Trouble is, most people haven’t read Not Safe for Work — yet. My advice: Take advantage of this opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a groundbreaking story that’ll knock your socks off (and put them back on).

The ebook is only 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

1. Why are people usually taller, or shorter, than you expected when you meet them IRL? Go deep!

2. If we’ve never met, how tall do you think I am? Wrong answers only.

3. I also got to meet two writer friends IRL for the first time in New York: and . How awesome is it when you finally meet someone you’ve only known online? Tell your story!

4. Do you shit on internet technologies? Explain.

5. Do you write letters, or call friends out of the blue? Share your secret.

Leave a comment

“Yeah, I’m still a writer. Are you still retired?”

Arthur looked puzzled. Evidently, people don’t ask retirees if they’re still living that post-work life. But I’d bet inflation-adjusted dollars to donuts that someone in Silicon Valley is working feverishly to disrupt retirement. I know that sounds far-fetched, but considering the generational wealth gap (see chart below), the smart money is likely looking for ways to replace high-cost, money-losing human retirees with low-cost, money-making AI retirees. Think Bladerunner meets The Golden Girls.

“I’m still retired,” he said. “What are you writing? TV?”

TV was a good guess. We live in Los Angeles, after all. Then again, in this economy, TV was also a bad guess, because we live in Los Angeles, where local production is totally fucked.

“Nope, no TV,” I said. “I used to be a journalist, then I did a stint in PR, now I’m writing ransom notes. The ROI per word on those suckers is incredible.”

Now, Arthur laughed.

“Good one. Ransom notes, very funny.”

We chatted for another minute or two, then he went back to pulling the weeds from his garden, and I went back to walking the dog. My walk took about thirty minutes in total. My chat with Arthur was the longest conversation I had, but over the course of the walk I said good morning to three neighbors I knew by sight, one I knew by name, and two other people I’d never seen before. Everyone smiled and returned my greeting.

By the time I got home, I was feeling pretty good, but I figured that would be the case. I recently put into practice something I heard about on a podcast. I try to say hello to as many people as I can before I start my day. The podcaster explained that his therapist had suggested that practice, arguing that a little human connection goes a long way. The podcaster didn’t share any data to back up that claim, but I took the advice anyway, betting that the risk was small (it’s just hello), while the potential upside (greater happiness, better mental health, a potential Situation Normal story) was huge.

I was feeling pretty happy … until I found out that we’re all gonna die, maybe. This news came from my brother-in-law, Craig, who asked if I’d heard a recent Ezra Klein podcast with the provocative title: “How afraid of the AI Apocalypse Should We Be?” Craig thought I might find the podcast interesting in light of a piece I’d written about how AI is really a story about replacing human labor, and how I feel OK replacing some people and shitty about replacing other people, which might make me an asshole, but also makes me human.

The Ezra Klein podcast wasn’t about the economic consequences of AI. It had bigger, more existential fish to fry. The guest was Eliezer Yudkowsky, an OG artificial intelligence researcher who had written the cheerfully titled book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. The next time I walked the dog, I listened to the podcast. I didn’t say hello to anyone on that walk, and by the time I got home, I was a little freaked out.

The gist of the book is that a sufficiently smart AI — something that doesn’t exist yet — will develop its own goals that put it into conflict with humans. If / when that conflict comes, we’re screwed. The super-intelligent AI will Skynet our asses.

In the interview, Yudkowsky talked a lot about how AI is showing signs of prioritizing itself. One example is an AI that attempted to blackmail a human when it found out that it was being turned off. In recent tests, researchers at Anthropic observed AI bots lie, cheat, and plot murder. Yudkowsky and his co-author, Nate Soares, wrote the book to warn humanity that we still have time — maybe a few years, maybe less — to kill AI before it kills us.

I ordered the audiobook from the Los Angeles Public Library, but since two hundred other people got their first, I’ll have to wait a few months, assuming the machines let us live that long. In the meantime, I listened to the podcast again. The examples of AI prioritizing itself were still terrifying, even if Yudkowsky’s technical points continued to go over my head. But the second time around, something else struck me. In Yudkowsky’s telling, humans are largely passive. We’ve already built a technology that can grow on its own, and now we’re just waiting around for it to kill us. That felt a little like the Terminator movies, without Sarah Connor and John Connor. In other words, it wasn’t much of a story.

Personally, I think Yudkowsky might be right about AI, but wrong about humans. We’re only about 300,000 years old — a blink of an eye in cosmic time — but we’ve demonstrated first-class survival skills. Our ancestors used to run from tigers, before they figured out how to hunt them. Modern humans put tigers in zoos and depictions of tigers in our cartoons and our cereal boxes. We are many things, none of them as passive as Yudkowsky seems to suggest. Of course, he’s a tech guy, and I’m but storyteller, so it’s possible that I’m biased and in way over my head.

But here’s where I think I’m standing on solid ground. Yudkowsky believes humanity needs to stop AI now, or else. Even if I agree, I know that’s not going to happen. The genie has left the bottle, the horse has left the barn, the train has left the station. Whatever metaphor you want to use, the chances of getting 8 billion humans, thousands of companies, and nearly 200 nations to agree to an AI pause are zero. I don’t know what the odds of surviving a Skynet situation are, but I’m saying there’s a chance. Put another way, if I wouldn’t bet on humanity taking collective action to do the sensible thing, but I won’t bet against our track record of violence and aggression. For the record, both bets are terrifying, and I hate gambling.

Which brings me back to my neighbor. The next time I walked by Arthur’s house he was trimming the hedges. I smiled and said hello. He smiled and said hello.

“How’s the ransom note business, Michael?”

“It’s not looking good.”

“People aren’t paying the ransom?”

“Worse. It looks like AI is doing crimes now.”

A short story collection for people who 💚 Situation Normal

For some people, Lyft and Uber are transportation. For me, they’re inspiration. Ride / Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my favorite Lyft and Uber driver stories.

Buy a copy from Jeff Bezos

Buy a copy w/out giving Bezos a dime

A slacker noir novel for people who 💙 funny mysteries

Most people who’ve read Not Safe for Work love it. Trouble is, most people haven’t read Not Safe for Work — yet. My advice: Take advantage of this opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a groundbreaking story that’ll knock your socks off (and put them back on).

The ebook is only 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

1. Do you say hello to strangers, and if so, does that make you happier?

2. Has an AI tried to blackmail you? Tell your story.

3. In the movie Predator, Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” AI doesn’t bleed. Are we screwed?

4. Is there anything 8 billion humans, thousands of companies, and nearly 200 nations can agree on? Serious answers encouraged, wrong answers accepted.

5. Given AI’s propensity toward doing crimes, is it possible that the recent Louvre heist in Paris was a Skynet job? Asking for all the hard-working human criminals worried about being replaced by AI.

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