On Millionaires’ Island, all the men are skinny and white and most have beards. All the women are anorexic and frequently walk their poodles. All the children are above average. And all the drivers are inexplicably polite.There’s a four-way stop at the corner near the office building, where I cross the street every morning and afternoon. There are exceptions, of course, but most drivers from all directions wait for me, and not only while I’m in the crosswalk. They wait before I even step off the curb. They remain waiting after I’ve passed in front of their vehicles, all the way until I reach the opposite curb. There are two lanes of traffic northbound and southbound, and I’m the only person crossing on foot, but the driver in the inside lane waits, even after I’ve already passed? The driver in the outside lane on the other side of the street waits, even as I’m just starting to cross, twenty seconds from being in front of his car? It’s not even good manners; it’s absurd.My theory is that every intersection on Millionaires’ Island has a camera, and the island is so rich and white that the cops have nothing else to do, so someone’s actually watching the screen, and mailing tickets over the tiniest traffic infractions.
Along my short walk to and from the island’s bus station, there are lawn signs that ask, “How does $15K sound, for preschool?”It sounds like a hell of a lot of money. Fifteen thousand dollars to watch your brat for eight hours, five days a week? That’s about $5,000 more than I pay in rent for a year.
An email was sent to everyone at work, telling us that someone at work contracted COVID-19. A few years ago, an email like that was thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening. And I know COVID is still killing lots of people, but that memo sure didn’t pack the wallop it did in 2020.
Here’s my first more-than-slight annoyance at Haugen & Dahl, but even this is mostly a laugh.We did a mailing with hand-addressed envelopes, for the personal touch. But after I’d dropped a week’s worth of hand-addressed letters — 30 or so — into the company’s mailflow, they were all back on my desk the next morning, with a very nice but very strange note from the company’s mailroom. Of course, I saved for retyping later:”Thank you for writing the address clear and large but this is a little TOO LARGE for the USPS. Please write smaller, and fit the entire address into the lower-right-quarter of the front of the envelope. Envelopes are sent through scanners that will reject it if the address is not in lower-right-quarter!”Since the 1990s, when I was addressing hundreds of envelopes mailing my zine, I’ve always written the address very legible and very large — huge, really, with the zip code even huger. I wanted my mailings to get through with no misdirection by USPS, plus the huge lettering sorta signals the recipient that this is not just another piece of junk mail.That’s how I’ve addressed every envelope I’ve hand-addressed in the past thirty years. Is there really a problem, with scanners unable to read large addresses? The Post Office has never returned my mail because the address was written too large. Only the mailroom at Haugen & Dahl has done that.By hand, I re-addressed mt thirty envelopes with much smaller penmanship, all while shaking my head.
As I peed at the urinal at work, a short guy I’ve seen around the office walked up to the kid’s urinal, and peed. When I came back to pee again two hours later, the same man walked down the hall in front of me, into the men’s room and held the door for me to follow. He walked to the little urinal again, and I stepped to the big one again. I ain’t judging. The man’s short, so he prefers the short urinal. When I came back to pee again at a little past noon, he was there again. That’s three pees in a row, we’d peed side-by-side. There’s a rule against talking while someone’s peeing but I broke the rule and said, “We must be synchronized, peeing on the same schedule.”He ignored me until he’d finished his business, and as I zipped he said something to me, but through an accent so cloudy I had to think it over before understanding that he’d said “Excuse me?”The language barrier ate my wisecrack.”Ah, nothing,” I said with a smile, but I was wearing a mask so he couldn’t tell.
If you don’t hear from me for a day or two, don’t send a search party. I’ve been having internet connection issues the past few days. This entry was posted from the library. Not sure about tomorrow’s.
Most Republicans, I believe, have general confidence if the judicial system — more than I have — but not even one of them is willing to say, “Let justice work its course,” about Trump’s indictment.That’s how in his thrall they are, how much they fear or worship their orange messiah.
News you need,
whether you know it or not• Majority-Black town fights to stop land being seized for gravel quarry rail link It’s a tradition ripe to be challenged and changed — starting just about with the Emancipation Proclamation, any time America has built something dangerous, toxic, or disgusting, it goes where the black people are. • CBS faces backlash over 60 Minutes interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene I haven’t watched 60 Minutes in many millions of minutes, but from the article it sounds like an idiot interviewing an idiot. Sounds like 60 Minutes, actually.• ‘Bending the knee’ to insurance lobby, Biden admin delays Medicare Advantage reforms • DeSantis may be learning what the copyright world has always known: Disney’s lawyers don’t fuck around • McDonald’s temporarily shuts US offices as chain prepares for layoff notices While tragic to the ex-employees and their families, the news of more layoffs is so ordinary it’s hardly news. The link isn’t to the news, though, it’s to readers talking about it, and about how shitty they’ve been treated by giant corporations. Punk Rock Museum opens in Vegas
• Police nearly beat him to death. Six years later, he’s being prosecuted for it. Again. • Woman wrongly charged in officer’s traffic death set to sue Phoenix
• Republicans push for stricter election laws, despite scant proof of fraud • Far right troll ‘Ricky Vaughn’ convicted of election interference for tricking people into voting by phone • Judy Blume worried about intolerance and book banning in the US • Donald Trump held an intimate dinner with J6 families to hug them, says his lawyer • The medical examiner ruled the death of Kelsey Carpenter’s baby an accident – yet she faces life in prison.
Mystery links
There’s no knowing where you’re going• Click • Click • Click • Click • Click
My browser history
without the porn• Even in his own obituary, John Jenrette had to yield the spotlight to lovely Rita, his devoted wife from long ago. • Behind Oklahoma! lies the remarkable story of a gay Cherokee playwright • “Identify how you want to identify, and God bless you!”: Michael Bublé on fans, faith and fitting in I’m not a Michael Bublé listener and didn’t read past the headline, but I’m struck by the common sensory. It’s no more complicated than those six words — “Identify how you want to identify — yet so many people take great offense over other people deciding intimate things for themselves.• Unconstitutional TikTok ban would open the door to press censorship • The $37m question: why do US states elect judges in expensive, partisan elections?
♫♬ It don’t mean a thing ♫
if it don’t have that swing• Buzzard — Armageddon • Hail to Thee, Fat Person — Allan Sherman • Joy — Apollo 100 • Overture from The Barber of Seville — Gioachino Rossini • Take Me to the River — The Eurythmics
Eventually, everyone
leaves the building• Chabelo • Tony Coe • Ryuichi Sakamoto • Steve Skeates • Seymour Stein • Leo D. Sullivan • Yunupingu
4/3/2023 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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