WASHINGTON, D.C.--Terming it "hitting the ground running like has never been seen before," President-elect Donald Trump announced today on his social media site Truth Social that the United States of America, an independent nation since 1776, has been sold to Russia for 10 U.S. dollars and a gold statue of Trump himself.
While details of the deal have not been officially released, it is believed that the statue will be life sized and will depict Trump either dancing, mocking a disabled person or getting shot at, considered his defining moments as a political figure. It will be displayed at the National Mall in Washington, and the unveiling will be attended by the largest crowd ever to gather there in history. Miniature versions will also be made available to supporters and "investors" for around $150,000.
Possible designs for the new statue.
The deal is expected to be approved by the Republican-controlled congress with no defections from that side of the aisle, with House Speaker Mike Johnson stating, "we have to support him on this to show the world a unified nation, and not because of any threats or anything, because that almost certainly didn't happen, nor did I just pee down my leg thinking about it."
Senator Susan Collins of Maine expressed her concern for the terms of the deal, but felt that "he will learn his lesson from this" and indicated she will vote for the bill, which will be introduced immediately when the new Senate convenes in January.
It is also reported that Russia will not be assuming America's national debt, some $34 trillion, but rather the U.S. will carry that as a debt to the new owners, a group led by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump will also claim a 15 per cent "finder's fee," to be paid immediately upon the sale being approved by congress. The payments will likely be funded by cutting wasteful social spending on Americans and imposing new tariffs on America's trade partners, although Trump would not rule out convincing Mexico to pay for it.
Trump supporters around the country rejoiced at the news, hailing Trump as a "genius," saying things like "what a smart businessman," and "I bet he took those Russian clowns to the cleaners!"
"I can just taste the liberal tears," said one man, dressed as Uncle Sam while lighting his farts on fire.
In possibly related news, internet searches of the term "indentured servitude" were reported to have spiked in several of the battleground states that Trump won, shortly after the initial enthusiastic public approval and accolades were expressed.
Trump also said on Truth Social that he would have a concept of an explanation of why the sale will "make America great again" in two weeks.
Everybody loves listicles. They are the dominant format for communication on the internet, and for very good reasons. They are organized, orderly, and hierarchical, just the way we love things. Everything in its box, clearly ranked and labeled and identified. Not at all like the messy, uncontained, undifferentiated goo that is our daily lives.
Now, most listicles are simply lists of famous actors, great movies, bad songs, scary things that live in your nose, that sort of thing. But those are easy--they practically write themselves. I know mine do. This time, I wanted a greater challenge. So here, without further ado, is a list of seven things that I find to be totally unrelated. Not only does each reside in its own box, those boxes might as well be on different continents.
They are ranked according to how weird they made my brain feel when I put them on the list.
7. Plywood
It seems like plywood is everywhere. We use it to build our homes. We make tables out of it. We make boxes out of it. We lean it up against the garage and leave it because we just know we can use it for something, someday. We throw it in piles, leave it for years, and if it's not stacked too neatly, small animals can live in the little cavities created underneath. If you're really clever, you can reach in and try to get them.
My dad even used plywood to make me a little guitar to replace the aluminum toy one that I accidentally sat on and bent the shit out of when I was seven years old. He only put four strings on it, though, the beginning of a musical career in which I got stuck playing the bass with every band I was ever in. Nobody pays attention to the bass player. I'm still bitter. But I seem to have wandered a bit.
Now you may think something so ubiquitous would have no place on a list like this, but you'd be wrong. So wrong. How can something that is literally all around us be closely tied to anything else in particular? How, indeed? So, plywood has a place on this list; however, due to the fact that it is so common, it doesn't make my brain feel very weird, so long as I don't think too much about my music career. Hence, it comes in at number seven.
6. Chopin's Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2
As anyone could tell you, there are few things in this world that have less to do with plywood than Chopin's Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2. That's common knowledge. But did you know that the Nocturnes were written by this man Frederic Chopin, between 1831 and 1832? And that he was Polish? And performed almost entirely in salons? No, you didn't.
But more to the point: Chopin would have had little use for plywood. This is certain. Plywood may have been invented, more or less, by the ancient Egyptians, but 1832 is still early for the modern version of plywood to have been in mass production to the extent that it would have influenced a romantic composer like Chopin. Remember, even today, we don't make pianos out of plywood, because, scientifically speaking, they would sound horseshit. They would only have four strings. And plywood inspires no one romantically, I hope.
So this piece is on its own as regards to plywood. But here, judge for yourself:
I rest my case.
5. The Death of George Peppard
If you thought Chopin's opus was easy to differentiate from plywood, consider this: since the 1994 death of actor George Peppard, thirty years ago now, there has still been no specific, positive link made between his demise and any of the other items on this list. Nothing, not even a rumor, much less a good tabloid headline. Yes, he well may have used or at least been near plywood on occasion, but so what? Since when does that make a guy special? He gets a pass because he was in The A Team? Please. There's just no real connection here. The man was an actor. And he did not die of plywood. So shut up.
And we know he must have held Chopin's Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2 in low regard, having never spoken of it once in his 65 years. I don't think it was played at his funeral, either. Even if it was, I doubt he ever heard it.
And it certainly didn't kill him. It's not that bad.
4. That German Letter That Looks Like a B
It's called an eszett, and while it looks like a B, it's actually pronounced like a double S. At least it is as far as I read here. It's almost entirely irrelevant now, just an historical curiosity, as far as I can ascertain, or at least can be bothered to research. Not even the Germans use it much anymore, probably because it looks sort of pansy-ish and doesn't properly represent that guttural coughing and spitting and retching that is the German language we all know and love. Achtung!
But, as I'm sure we can all agree, the eszett has no real connection to anything else on this list. We can all agree on that, can't we? Can't we all just get along?
3. Wombats
Wombats are marsupials. Which means Australia, natch. Which means that when Chopin composed his nocturne, the nearest wombat was 8,664 miles away.
Furthermore, wombats lack the opposable thumbs needed to manipulate plywood, and much of their evolutionary history occurred before the written German language even existed.
Nor has any wombat been conclusively linked to the death of George Peppard. There are probably theories being discussed online, but that is not a wombat hole I wish to go down.
Because they are rare outside their native Australia, there probably isn't one living under that pile of plywood in your driveway, either. Although, if you think there is, you should definitely reach in and see if you can get him.
2. Dish Soap
Yes, dish soap. We're all familiar with the stuff, usually blue or green, in a bottle promising to cut grease, clean the dirtiest dishes, and maybe clean up baby birds covered in crude oil. We all have some in our homes, but really, what does it have to do with anything else on this list? Nothing.
Actually, that was a rhetorical question.
Now, you might suggest that dish soap could be used to clean plywood, or point out that George Peppard probably used the stuff, but you'd be reaching. Really reaching. George Peppard was a wealthy Hollywood actor. He almost certainly had a dishwasher, and used the powdery stuff specially made for machines, not the liquid blue shit. And that's what we're talking about here, make no mistake. Real dish soap. He may have even paid someone to do his dishes and housecleaning for him, and never came into contact with cleaning agents at all. We just don't know.
So you can quit going on about how dish soap doesn't belong on this list; it absolutely does. Let it go, already. Dish soap stays, and I don't know why you keep prattling on about it, anyway. What's your problem with dish soap?
Lately I'm wondering just what the hell is wrong with you.
1. Accidentally Tucking Your Shirt Inside Your Underwear
You probably haven't done this. Or, more likely, you think you haven't done this. You probably have, but it's been a while. But if you have (and you certainly have), it didn't require dish soap and your clothes were not made of plywood. No wombats witnessed it, and George Peppard was probably already dead. This one simply belongs at the top of the list, no question.
I suppose it is possible, though, that when you did accidentally tuck your shirt inside your underwear, you could have been playing Chopin's Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2, and if so, it was probably in some sort of public recital. Because that's the kind of kid you were. Good Christ, everybody saw you! How we all laughed. Remember?
Wait, are you not laughing about that yet? Shit, sorry. Just be glad there aren't any pictures. At least, not among the free stock images I searched.
OK, that's my list. Hope it made you think, and maybe, just maybe, helped you heal just a tiny bit.
Who hasn't had the experience of having that one special song take up residence in one's forebrain, playing the same verse or chorus repeatedly, maddeningly, for hours, days, weeks, months, or, if at least one account is to be believed, for years at a time?
A formal study has shown that 98% of individuals have experienced the earworm. This means that everyone, across all walks of life, in other cultures with totally different musical traditions, is susceptible to these insidious parasites. So what's the deal?
Scientific Studies
As I wrote above, a study (by one James Kellaris) showed that 98% of people experience earworms. Men and women experience the phenomenon equally often, although women tend to have longer lasting, more irritating earworms. I will not speculate on why this is, although no doubt there are songs about it.
Statistics suggest that songs with lyrics account for about 74% of all earworms, while instrumental pieces account for roughly eight per cent. Not sure about the other 18%, unless the researchers meant music without meaningful lyrics or musical instruments, such as that produced by boy bands.
It is thought that obsessive-compulsive traits, like intrusive thoughts, make one more likely to experience earworms. It is also thought that musical expertise and education creates an effect of "sophistication" with respect to earworms.
Mine are so sophisticated they can include French augmented sixth chords. Suck it, Philistines.
Countless remedies have been tried to eradicate earworms, the most common of which is replacing them with "cure songs," catchy songs that push out the offending music, hopefully without themselves getting stuck. Two popular choices are "God Save The King," and "Happy Birthday." Warning, though: last I checked, "Happy Birthday" was not yet in the common domain, and you may owe royalties if you try that one. If it becomes an earworm, this could be financially ruinous, like forgetting to hang up after phone sex.
Other suggested solutions include anagrams, puzzles, reading, and even chewing gum. My experience tells me that none of them work, however, and chewing gum actually makes things worse by making me think of the 60s-70s genre of "bubblegum music," and results in an earworm of "Yummy Yummy Yummy (I Got Love In My Tummy)" by the Ohio Express, a condition which cannot be cured but only managed.
Earworms in Literature
The earliest known use of the word "earworm" in English language literature is in Desmond Bagley's 1978 novel Flyaway. The concept, however, was referred to much, much earlier. It goes back at least to 1876, when Mark Twain wrote a story, "A Literary Nightmare," which tells of a jingle so relentlessly catchy that one could only get rid of it by giving it to another person. Yes, the idea existed way back before recorded music, before moving pictures, before radio or television, before even Spotify or TikTok.
Even then, he knew.
The story is clearly fantasy, however; if earworms were that easy to get rid of, everyone would try, and our cities and towns would be full of people going about with their fingers in their ears, LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU I CAN'T HEAR YOU, walking down the street revolving the whole way to make sure no one was sneaking up behind them.
Alfred Bester wrote a novel in 1953 called The Demolished Man in which the protagonist crafts a catchy jingle to block mind readers from reading his mind. I don't know if that would work, but it would at least punish them severely for the intrusion. Read my thoughts, willya? Here, have some freaking "MacArthur Park," mind flayer.
The great Arthur C. Clarke, in his 1957 short story "The Ultimate Melody," features a scientist who crafts a piece of music that "resonates with the fundamental electrical rhythms going on in the brain." He is later found catatonic and unresponsive and never awakens. Which, if my own experience is any indication, provides no escape. These things will follow you into your sleep. Like Freddy Krueger, only with more yodeling. It's possible they will follow you through the portal of death. But only if there are lyrics, I suppose.
"Turn off the music, HAL." "Sorry, Dave..."
One other notable literary reference comes from 1933, a short story by E.B. White called "The Supremacy of Uruguay." In this, the writer posits a powerful earworm discovered in a popular American song, weaponized by the Uruguayan military and deployed through the use of "pilotless aircraft" with powerful loudspeakers. This weapon conquers the world by reducing humanity to mindless beasts wallowing in complete insanity.
This one is not only possible, it is likely inevitable. Elon Musk will probably be involved. Humanity is certainly doomed, it's music's fault, and no amount of autotuning or even a special dance remix can change that.
My Personal Story
I have always been exceptionally susceptible to earworms, beyond all reason and well beyond the norm. I don't know if this is a natural tendency, or if my four years of music school training possibly took a natural ability and made it worse. I was trained, after all, to hear, understand, and retain musical information through a carefully planned program of drills, practice, and study. It didn't lead to much in the way of a lucrative career, unless you consider "twitchy guy involuntarily conducting unheard symphony at the bus stop" a career. But I did gain some "skills."
About 10 years ago, I was innocently surfing through the television channels, trying to find that rare something on over-the-air TV worth watching, when I happened across my local PBS affiliate re-running a Neil Diamond concert from the late 1980s. This did not interest me at all, really, because while I've never had strong feelings about his music either way and have at least some respect for his songwriting (hey, he did write "I'm a Believer"), this was a little later in his career, after he had become an overly dramatic and mildly bilious self-parody in his performances.
So I only watched and listened for maybe 30 seconds, not even close to hearing a complete song. Just a single verse or so.
I dare not write or even think the name of the song he was singing out of fear of re-activating the currently dormant parasite in my vulnerable ♫CRACKLIN' ROSIE GET ON BOARD ♫ WE'RE GONNA RIDE 'TILL THERE AIN'T NO GODDAMMIT GODDAMMIT MAKE THE MUSIC STOP KILL IT WITH FIRE DAMMIT DAMMIT TO HELL
Sorry.
Well, needless to say, it stuck. My classically trained composer's brain, which I spent four years and thousands of dollars honing the abilities of, latched onto the song like a fighting pit bull's jaws lock onto an opponent's flesh. It stayed with me for roughly three months, auto-playing most of the day. I would go to bed and sleep for eight hours, and when I awoke it would start up again. It was ever my close companion, through thick and thin, trial and tribulation, like Frodo's buddy Sam in Lord of the Rings only if Sam was a horrible, giant leering worm-beast with the face of Neil Diamond.
The best craiyon's AI art program can do with the prompt "worm with Neil Diamond's face."
It tormented me without mercy, pushing out any other music I tried to think of. There was no therapy, no cure; not even surgery could have removed it (I asked). These things take on a life of their own, and there is no turning them off or disconnecting or running away because THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE YOUR HEAD!
Eventually it faded, much to my relief. Other songs have come and gone, but thankfully none has lodged themselves quite so securely in my consciousness. It certainly left some scars, though, most probably little holes eaten in my brain, like some sort of Mad Cow Disease with a melody and a beat and I can dance to it.
The Future
There is no future. At least, none without the pain and suffering caused by earworms. Not even today's popular music, which completely lacks in melody, counterpoint and chord progressions, as well as any other identifiable musical characteristics, is exempt from turning into the debilitating, crazy-making affliction also known as the "stuck song." And yes, before you ask, I must insist that you young people remove yourself from the grassy area in front of my house. It's private property, y'all.
And there certainly is no future for me. Neil Diamond? He's back. He's back.
He's back, and the prospects for peace are negligible.
Yes, you. The internet. You are a jerk. Yeah, you heard me.
You're always yelling. You're always mad about something, some made-up "crisis" that you probably caused yourself, you jerk, and now you're all pissed off. You make shit up and believe it. You got Donald Trump elected president. You're lousy with porn and sick, stupid people doing sick, stupid stuff, with child porn, probably. You make children eat laundry detergent. You come to my house, and you show up with crap I want to unsee but can't, then you leave without explanation. Jerk. I show you a video I spent three weeks making, artful and clever, and you ignore it. Then some guy puts sunglasses on his dog's butt and you give him your rapt attention. Billions of views, "what a clever fellow," or some shit.. And you want me to pay you for this. Fucking jerk.
When you do give me something decent to read, a bunch of crap like this shows up at the bottom of every page:
Then that video pops up in the corner with that bald guy looking at me and bellowing about something pretty important I guess, but I have the sound off so he just looks stupid. Like you, internet. You're stupid.
To be accurate, these are technically not tweets, as Twitter would not exist for another 60 years or so. But in 1944 Adolf Hitler, feeling unfairly deprived of that platform, began his own right-leaning version of the future social media giant, which he called Mein Social. Its logo seems to have looked like this:
Hitler apparently posted repeatedly to this site, ramping up his output early in 1945 and peaking in April of that year. Unfortunately, since the internet had yet to be invented, none of his posts actually showed up anywhere until 2017, when they mysteriously uploaded to a backup server in a post office in Hamburg, Germany. There they languished unread until last week, when I found them while conducting some totally above-board "research" online.
I am now releasing these, the final messages the world will ever receive from Adolf Hitler. These give a fascinating view inside the mind of a dictator when his world is crumbling around him.
I have always thought of myself as a forward-thinking person. I like to plan ahead; failing to do so can result in nasty surprises, creating situations one is not prepared for. You risk becoming trapped in that most desperate of circumstances: having nothing in your life to be unreasonably terrified of.
I absolutely would not want anyone to go through that experience. It's a horrible, empty feeling, and, I swear, I would not wish it on my worst enemies. Just imagine--not being afraid of or outraged by something possibly going on somewhere that has no real effect on your life but offends you grievously. Think about it--how can you say you care about children when you're not even remotely freaking out?
I believe the current moral panic over drag shows will eventually fade, as all moral panics do. Either people will stop wearing clothes and accessories traditionally associated with the opposite sex due to new laws, death threats and other forms of intimidation, or, maybe, Americans will come to their senses and realize it's not actually a threat to anyone and they've been losing their shit over nothing.
HA HA HA HA HA HA. Kidding. Seriously, though, eventually the panic will end.
So--and this is a public service I am happy to perform--I have been racking my brain and examining our entire culture to come up with some ideas for the next moral panic. We should have months or even years left with the current model, but it never hurts to have somebody in the on-deck circle.
So I will present some ideas here. For illustration, I'm using Tucker Carlson screenshots from his old show on Fox News. Yes, I am aware he's been fired, and his rumored future show on Twitter will only interest people lacking the internet skills to find it, but I'm going with the assumption that Fox News will soon replace him with someone who looks and sounds just like him. You know, angry white guy in a suit, who resembles nothing so much as the bad guy in an episode of Charlie's Angels. The talent pool is pretty deep. They'll find somebody.
So here goes:
1.Magicians
Well, this is obvious. The stage magician sawing women in half, making people disappear, making flowers appear from nothing--either these are tricks designed to fool us, or these performers are tapping into a power not of God. If it's the latter, our children may learn to harness this power themselves.
Two words: parental rights. We have a right to mold our children into what we want them to be, to control their lives absolutely, and never have them question their roles in this world. We can not have them levitating about and throwing lightning bolts and shit. This might interfere with Bible study.
If it's the former, and these are merely tricks designed to fool us, I, for one, do not want to know.
2. Mimes
Yes, this is some seriously low-hanging fruit here, as no one likes mimes. But how are they a threat to children, exactly? How can we make our case?
Well, they don't talk. THEY DON'T TALK. This obviously endangers children, who may learn to imitate the mimes, then grow up to be adults that know how to shut the fuck up. This could lead to, among other undesirable traits, a habit of listening to others.
Mimes are clearly grooming our children, and it must stop. Lock them up in a box, I say.
3. Bob Ross
Oh, this guy. This guy.
First of all, the guy is constantly painting happy trees. HAPPY TREES, people.
If children grow up believing that trees are happy, they might not see them for the clear existential threat that they are. Children could come to respect them as valuable living things, and fail to understand that trees are giant, monstrous beasts that provide homes and food to vermin, cause pollution, and need to be removed so four more people have a place to park their cars.
He also teaches that you can do anything you can imagine, that you have control over your world, that nature is beautiful, and that little mistakes can become happy accidents. What kind of lesson is that? The danger here is that it will distract children and not prepare them for their true destiny: a utopian future of banned books, active shooter drills, and working with industrial solvents in a factory at age 12.
And that hair? It's clearly...ethnic. Multi-cultural and woke. Woke, woke, woke. Like he's saying it's okay for white people to borrow from a culture not invented by white people. Like that's okay.
Also, from the looks of it, his hair could have squirrels or something living in it. Squirrels. Need I say more?
4. Dogs Playing Poker
Dogs do not play poker. DOGS DO NOT PLAY POKER. I mean, they can barely even hold the cards. WHAT ARE WE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN? And how does this help them learn how to handle industrial solvents?
5. Spelling Bees
These contests groom children by teaching them to spell big words. And that, my friends, is the slipperiest of slopes. It's a gateway, clearly, to learning what those words mean. And that could lead to...reading. Reading books. That's right. Books, which, as we know, are often written by authors. This is not the future we want.
Also, if kids know big words, how are we as adults supposed to show them how smart we are? I am at a loss.
6. Mr. Bean
He's cute, he's funny, and he's clearly unarmed. This will turn our children gay.
It's possible that I may have gushed a little too excitedly on the wonders of turning text prompts into images through the use of AI technology.
Yes, I had a terrific amount of fun for a few weeks, but novelty does wear off eventually, and the more I thought about it, the more I worried about the obvious dangers of this technology falling into the wrong hands. And by "wrong hands," of course, I mean "the general public." In other words, people.
People are scum. They will use this technology like they've used every advance throughout history, to screw each other over. Now it can be done with machine-like efficiency.
Then there's that other danger, that AI will take over the world and make the perfectly sensible and defensible decision to eliminate humanity.On one of my last forays with Craiyon, I decided to ask a direct question:
I'll take that as a yes.
And now we have Chat GPT and the like, which can generate a wall of grammatically correct text based on some simple prompt, making writers like me obsolete, or would if we weren't already obsolete due to the fact that nobody reads anymore. It does appear that there are still some bugs in the technology, as AI doesn't seem to be able to tell the difference between facts and the feverish internet ranting of whatever randos that it is trained on. Or maybe that's a feature, I don't know. But using algorithms to predict the next word in a sentence based on people's usage of the language is bound to have problems, because, as we know, people use words wrong a lot.
If my experience with autosuggest is any guide, I'll be better off choosing my own words for the balance of my life. I was writing a comment on another blog recently and wanted to include a reference to an event in which some lizards rode a natural raft across the ocean to another island and proceeded to colonize that new island. The words "lizards rafting over from another" resulted in the suggested next word planet.
Uh, yeah. I'll just continue to do my own writing. Sorry, Skynet, I don't need your help. I was writing professionally when you were still playing Pong, you dumb bastard.
And now, regarding the Twitter experience...
I wrote here about my experience with the bird-logoed social media site. Shortly thereafter, one Elon Musk bought Twitter, and between his demonstrated misunderstanding of how free speech works, and the fact that I prefer that billionaires not make more money off me than necessary, I abandoned ship, and have not looked back.
I have been following the news, however, and have managed to derive more than a little schadenfreude from watching Elon flail about as advertisers and users flee and his new acquisition loses money to the point where he is telling everyone that Twitter, for which he paid the princely sum of $44 billion, is now evaluated at $20 billion. Tempering my joy somewhat is the knowledge that he mostly is putting other people's money at risk, because that's what billionaires do. That's how they get to stay billionaires despite legacies of repeated failures, and how they retain power and influence despite obvious idiocy.
And Elon has that in spades. I mean, the man can't even get off a passable that's what she said joke, which I'm guessing any half-bright nine-year-old could pull off.
Two problems billionaires always seem to have: they never think they're making enough money, and they don't get humor.
"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "I don't know. Ha ha ha ha ha."
In any case, Twitter is now in my rear-view mirror. Which, I think, is an option now on the new Tesla vehicles, along with a steering wheel.
As for the last part of the title of this post, that whole "King of the Fifth Grade" bit, you can find the full explanation here. Things have certainly changed since I wrote that back in 2011; I now live in a world where the Kansas City Chiefs are a budding NFL dynasty, with three Super Bowl appearances and two championships in the last four years. My football life has never been better, and the best part?
I have wanted to try this since I saw my first example on Twitter. This is craiyon, formerly known as DALL-E mini, and every other artistic medium that ever existed is now obsolete.
