Unless you swim or own a rowboat, there’s only one way to get to the island where I work, and that’s via the freeway. Know what happens on freeways? Nothing interesting, but traffic gets clogged at rush hour, so the bus is often tootling at 5 mph or simply stopped, as we inch across the lake.One sunny afternoon, a middle-aged white woman wanted the bus to go faster, and she complained about it all the way. “We’re not even in the carpool lane,” she said several times, between her other complaints about “so much traffic” at 4:45 on a weekday.She never shut up, really, but to keep this short I’ll focus on the part that’s pertinent, her complaints that the bus wasn’t in the carpool and transit lane.After she’d said it twice, I started working on a retort, and when she said it a third time a few minutes later, I said, “Use your noggin, lady. The diamond lane is all the way to the left. Our exit to downtown is all the way to the right. If the driver puts us in the carpool lane, he’d have to fight across four crawling lanes to exit.””Shut up,” she said, “nobody asked you,” so I shut up, because nobody’d asked me.
Another afternoon after work, my bus from the island got slowed by freeway traffic again, and I missed my connecting bus home. Since the #99 only runs twice an hour, I took the #H instead — it’s a longer ride, and a longer walk at the other end, but it gets me home.Riding the overcrowded bus, I was standing in the second doorwell, right behind the front sideways seats, where a middle-aged Hispanic dad sat with his pudgy, just barely pre-teen son. They looked like Hank and Bobby Hill-Herrera, and I noticed that the kid had noticed me.And I knew what he saw — a fat, nearly bald man in shabby clothes, a putz, a living punchline. The kid was sitting straight, but inside he was laughing at me, I knew, because I’m a man I would’ve laughed at when I was that kid’s age, so…Without any eye contact I made a grouchy face, and saw the kid smirk. I looked out the window and picked my nose, and from the corner of my eye saw that his eyes were rolling. I was becoming a story he’d tell his friends, about the disgusting old fat man picking his nose on the bus. For a better story, I put my picking finger into my mouth.
Feigning fascination with something out the bus’s front window, I stared wide-eyed straight ahead, letting my mouth droop open in awe, as if a flying saucer had landed in front of the bus. And yup, the kid turned to see what I was looking at.That’s when I lost it and started laughing, so the ruse was over. Everyone near the front of the bus presumably thought I was crazy, but the kid knew he’d been had.His father was weirded out by the laughing fat man, and pulled the kid closer to him, like I was a pervert on the prowl. Oh, how I wanted to wriggle my eyebrows sexy at them, but that might’ve gotten me flattened, so I blankly scratched my beard, and slowly let my fingers wander up my nose again, until the boy’s father turned away. But the kid was laughing.
Another afternoon, a homeless black guy got onto the bus that takes me home. He was carrying a stained and ratty blanket, among his other possessions.Settling into a sideways seat, he wrapped the blanket around himself but also over his face, leaving his shoes uncovered but nothing else. Completely obscured, he napped all the way until I got off the bus, and probably kept sleeping until the end of the line.That man wanted some privacy, understandably. There’s not much privacy, when you have no walls of your own, no door you can close, anywhere. The blanket was his wall, and door. You gotta respect that, or at least I gotta.
News you need,
whether you know it or not• Wendy’s turns to AI-powered chatbots for drive-thru orders
They’re doing drive-thru first, but does anyone think AI can’t flip burgers and make fries, too? Where
do teenage and “unskilled” workers fit into this brave new world?Is there any job AI can’t do? There’s nothing to prevent AI lawyering and
AI doctoring, AI auto-mechanicking and AI-tooth-pulling, and CGI-acted movies written and directed by AI, with popcorn popped by AI, too.The older I get, the more I’m looking forward to being dead.• Climate change not ‘serious risk’ to financial stability, Fed’s Waller says If
any
young whippersnappers are reading this, please file that quote away for giggles
after I’m gone. You’re going to need some giggles.
• Regulators are rewarding Sinclair broadcasting for lobotomizing local broadcast news • Google unveils plan to demolish the journalism industry using AI • Democrat Clyburn worked with Republicans to protect his own district at a cost to Black Democrats • Public health collective reacts to hospital dropping its masks• New York Times puzzled why neo-Nazi killed people • Integrating the Negro Leagues with Major League Baseball will take a long time, apparently • Buddy Holly wins Westminster Dog Show
• Some lawyers vow to not prosecute climate activists • Disasters, exacerbated by climate change, displaced more people than war in 2022 — the year Russia invaded Ukraine • Greenpeace sues Eni for aiding and abetting climate change • Experts urge increased attention to the threat of climate change and pollution on children’s health
• Police videos of a 65-year-old man in a walker being forcefully detained are finally disclosed after more than three years of stonewalling • Sweet plea bargain for cop who did “most of the beating” among several cops beating man who shot back at cops who shot at protesters from an unmarked van • South Carolina police shooting survivor says deputies opened fire on him and his mother ‘immediately’ • “A blunder that is just epic”: LAPD reels after release of undercover identities • Ogden police say they’re investigating punches thrown by officers captured in bystander video • Drunken cop shoots up hotel; gets sentenced to therapy; violates terms of sentence; gets probation • It’s hard to get neo-Nazi cops fired. Too hard. • Police sergeant pleads guilty to child molestation
• Republican leaders stand behind Santos after his indictment • Florida teacher’s union sues DeSantis over a new law that forces teachers to pay union dues through mail-in checks • South Carolina Republicans advance new abortion restrictions
Mystery links
There’s no knowing where you’re going• Click • Click • Click •
• Click • Click •
My browser history
without the porn• What two massacres in Texas — one with a car, one with a gun — reveal about America’s culture of violence • Rehabilitation: Escaped killer lived a quiet life, raised a family, and died at age 69 • How Oakland poured pollution on black neighborhoods
♫♬ It don’t mean a thing ♫
if it don’t have that swing• Aquarius — Renn Woods • I Love L.A. — Randy Newman • Just a Song Before I Go — Crosby Stills & Nash • Lookin’ Out My Back Door — Creedence Clearwater Revival • Piano Lesson — The Music Man
Eventually, everyone
leaves the building• Jean Argles • Heather “Dooce” Armstrong • Neville Chesters • Denny Crum • Billy the Kid Emerson • Rita Lee • Brian McKenna • John Stobart
5/12/2023
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a
kindness, along with anything off the internet that’s made me smile or
snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
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