Four cartoons and why I haven’t responded to your Facebook friend request

I have vague goals (which pretty much describes my entire personal philosophy) to post something about three times a week, so once I write an essay I usually wait at least a day before writing something else, but tomorrow morning I’m getting on an airplane and don’t know when I’ll get a chance to write during my vacation, so you’re getting articles two days in a row because it’s kinda like you’re about to walk across the Death Valley of entertainment and I’m offering you a Big Gulp full of Mountain Dew before you start.

Which makes my literary contributions seem way more important than they actually are, but let’s ignore that because it kinda makes me look pompous and focus on the name “Death Valley” because according to the internet 300 people actually live there and with a name like that I gotta think the real estate agent that sold them their houses was the best real estate agent on the planet Earth.

“We have a nice little three bedroom in Kick the Bucket Estates located on Dirt Nap Lane and I think you’d be very happy there for the three months you’ve got left to live before your brain explodes from the 120 degree heat.” 

Which makes me wonder about the people who settled the West and the bad judgment it requires to hit a place like Death Valley and say, “Honey, this is it…our new home” and not keep going and looking for something better like Bakersfield, California (it was a breezy 103 there yesterday) and once again a name like “Bakersfield” might be a clue that you want to keep looking until you find a Shangri La like Fresno, California because it was only 102 there yesterday, so I’m assuming Fresno residents were bundling up and looking for that scarf and knit cap they haven’t worn since that recent 95 degree cold snap.  

OK, so we seem to have wandered off my intended path (I warned you about vague goals) and the bottom line is I’m writing two days in a row because I don’t know when I’ll write again because by Thursday I’m going to be staring at the Pacific Ocean and drinking Angel’s Envy Rye (look it up…it tastes kinda like butterscotch that can get you shitfaced) and I’ve been warned to bring a sweatshirt because it gets pretty cool at night.

So suck on that.

(No idea where that unwarranted aggression came from, but like a lot of people I’m going to blame my childhood for dumb things I do 60 years later. And if it makes you feel any better, I’m going to be driving through both Bakersfield and Fresno before my trip is over so what goes around comes around unless you set the AC on high which I definitely plan on doing.)

Anyway…

Dr. Anthony Fauci recently warned that something worse than the Delta Variant was coming and for some reason the cartoon at the top of this post came to mind.

As somebody (and I’m pretty sure it was me) previously pointed out, in the newspaper business a he-said-she-said story is one in which a man and a woman tell very different stories about a private encounter and there’s no way to know which story is accurate so you just print what he said and what she said.

But as somebody pointed out (me again…apparently I’ve got way too much time on my hands), once there are 11 women telling similar stories the scales tip in their favor.

So when it became apparent that people believed the women claiming Governor Andrew Cuomo harassed them and he was about to be impeached, Cuomo resigned and the cynical thinking is he resigned because if he got impeached he couldn’t hold office again, but if he quit he could and all he has to do is wait until everybody forgets he’s a titanic horse’s ass, which by my calendar ought to be sometime in the year 2525, which was a big hit for a duo called Zager & Evans in 1969 and if you’re old enough, I bet you’re thinking of that song right now.

Here’s a link:

After watching this video in which they appear to be performing at Stonehenge on a foggy day, I gotta think you wouldn’t want to take Zager or Evans on a camping trip because they make Debbie Downer seem like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which indicates I need to update my cultural references, but have no plans on doing so because if I said they make Gorgoron seem like Bobby McFerrin I’m afraid I’d lose too many of you on the curve, probably because I didn’t know Gorgoron existed until I Googled “shit I definitely don’t want to hear.”

The Democrats didn’t give a Giant Sumatran Rat’s Ass that Cuomo had a reputation for treating his staff badly because he was popular for his series of Pandemic Press Conferences, but once the tide turned the same Democrats were happy to throw Andy to the wolves and I have to stop writing about this now because I’m only allowed two clichés per paragraph.  

 And that’s a Giant Sumatran Rat which as rats go is almost as big as Andrew Cuomo.

The shit hit the fan (new paragraph and that’s only one cliché, so get off my back) when Apple announced it was going to scan the contents of people’s phones for child pornography and if it would stop right there a lot of people would probably be OK with that.

But the fact that it’s possible to scan the contents of your phone in your pocket is scary because you just know some government official is going to say: “OK, we’re going after the pedophiles, now how about drug users…or radicals…or people who think heavy petting is OK on the first date?”

And now…

Why I haven’t responded to your Facebook Friend request

According to Facebook I have 515 friend requests and I’m already dangerously close to exceeding my friend limit which is 5,000 which seems pretty unlikely and a product of the Social Media Age because I’m guessing Mahatma Gandhi didn’t have 5,000 friends. (Plus somebody shot him so however many friends Gandhi thought he had it was one less than that.)

Anyway…

I’m not writing to brag about how many people want to be my “friends” because most of the requests come from people who don’t actually know me and if you think the desire to be my “friend” and a lack of information about me personally are unrelated, think again.

I’ve got plenty of people who have actually spent time with me and look at the chance to also be my “friend” on Facebook and say: “Nah, I’ve had more than enough of that guy.”

I’m writing this because a while back Facebook sent me a message that included a list of “friends” I should consider dropping to make room for new “friends” which seems kind of cold even for a company that appears to be run by an android who has yet to have human emotions programmed into his circuitry.

It’s kind of like we’re all in a crowded lifeboat and we have to shove somebody overboard and Mark Zuckerberg leans over and whispers in my ear, “What about Bob? What’s he done for you lately?”

Word to the wise: Facebook is actually plotting against some of you and trying to get me to throw you out of the boat.

So if you’ve made friend request and I haven’t responded it’s probably because I’ve got only a few seats in the lifeboat left and I’m kinda saving those in case some former high school classmate asks for a seat because I don’t want to turn them down and have them talk shit about me at our 50th high school reunion which should take place this summer, but probably won’t because of the pandemic and the fact that once you get old enough you really don’t give a shit.

Besides, who wants to show up for a 50th reunion and find out that cute cheerleader you had a crush is now a great grandmother and recently had a hip replacement (too many cartwheels) and the captain of the football team now wears a colostomy bag.

Hey, I didn’t design the lifeboat and say it could only hold 5,000 people and when I asked someone why Facebook would set a limit, they said it’s because Facebook considers people with more than 5,000 friends an “influencer” which may or may not be true, but is pretty goddamned funny since I can’t influence my own kids, much less strangers who occasionally see some rant I put on Facebook.

But just in case I am an unwitting influencer: get vaccinated and buy Throwback, the best book about baseball ever written…at least by me.

If it were up to me, I’d let everybody be my friend, so if you made a friend request and I haven’t responded – like a lot of other modern problems – it’s pretty much Mark Zuckerberg’s fault.

And you’ll hear from me again when the Angel’s Envy runs out.