our 81st weekly open mike
Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.
5/23/2026
Anything goes: 5/23/2026
9 responses to “Anything goes: 5/23/2026”
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I was in the shitter at the downtown branch of the public library. In one of the stalls taking a dump. One of the urinals in the shitter was busted, the water was running. As I listened to it from the stall, I noted that the sound of the running urinal water sounded very much like the running water from one of those Japanese zen rock garden waterfall trickets. The same soothing trickling sound. Isn’t that odd, I thought? Here in this filthy public shitter, from the filthy urinal, comes the same sound that the Japanese zen thing makes. Yet knowing it comes from such an ugly source lessened the soothing quality of the sound of the trickling water. Beauty truly is skin deep. If I heard a woman reading poetry or singing a lullaby and it sounded enchanting, and then I stepped out of the stall and saw she looked like Ann Dowd, the spell would be broken. I thought these thoughts as I wiped my ass and then smeared the shit paper on the stall walls. LOL.
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Dude, you can smear your shit paper all over my stall walls any time. Seriously classes up the joint.
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LOL
What can you say or do when a third of your friends (ie, one person) types out “lol,” the last time in response to me telling her I had fun at the Trade Fair? Jeez, “lol” was uncool and ridiculous over ten years ago, which I realized immediately and have never used that vestige of “internet or text-speak,” not even ironically, whatever that means.
Whenever I see it from her on a text I’m annoyed. She also says “enjoy” everyday which I also abhor, much like when my (English teacher) father grimaced on his deathbed when once again I couldn’t say lay, lain, or laid correctly.
What should I say, or just shut up as I have the last ten years I’ve known her? It’s lazy-speak, instead of “lol” she might have to spend some time, virtual seconds, coming up with a different response which actually says something, umm, like what? “Nice.” “Wish I’d gone.” “Alright!” Or what else?
Now I’m realizing that not only being an idiotic response it’s an insult to me, though sure I’d consider giving her a pass if she actually was “laughing out loud,” but I doubt it.
(Fifteen years ago I had a friend who would unfriend anyone on Facebook if they used the term “lol.”)-
Wouldn’t want to use a verboten word, but I did enjoy this. ‘LOL’ sucks, but it beats a response that’s written by AI, and a few of those have come my way.
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My Boring Manifesto
Yesterday I talked to an intelligent guy, my oldest friend, for an hour or two. We used to talk a lot but he got tired of me or something after fifty years and now we just talk on the phone about once a year, or on the street in town. (Unlike me he doesn’t seem very concerned about the coming Ai takeover and thinks/hopes it will make people better.) He seemed pretty interesting, upbeat and energetic, although he’s been getting monthly shots in the eye for some condition, but I felt boring with a lack of ideas and enthusiasm and responded with my usual monotone.
He was telling me about the podcast he likes and I said I don’t listen to any, I don’t need someone to tell me what to think, similar to when you have an ailment and everyone tells you about their cure that you HAVE to try, though I never do.
Why did I feel so boring? There is one person I do talk to a lot who’s very boring and a couple days ago he called to recite the play-by-play about his experience trying to communicate with the international Amazon call center to get his refund for gefilte fish. I often call him about my own probably boring stuff and recently told him the story of my experience at Labcorp. (Yesterday I gave a couple a ride to Eureka, they talked about their terrible neighbor, and how they now have to get a lawyer, and when I got home I eagerly called to tell him what I’d heard.)
Is it making me more boring talking often to a boring guy? I’m alone and need any social contact I can get but is this worse than loneliness? Maybe I should cut him off, he’ll be fine, he probably has others to complain to. Most of my few friends are kinda boring, maybe that’s just how life is?
Maybe I should listen/watch a podcast and get more ideas to spice up the conversations? Maybe I should HAVE a podcast? What would that be like?
So here are some options for this dilemma: back away from this boring guy in hopes of becoming less boring, start listening to a podcast, start my own podcast, or just shut up and try to enjoy my pretty good little life?
My podcast idea (remember when everyone had a blog, now it’s a podcast) is to be fully scripted with guests reading their lines with me. I have the conversations written already in the form of a few hundred typed-up dialogs about life and could plug them in but who would read them with me?
Face it, if I’m not scripted it’ll be boring: I can create something I think is interesting but need multiple revisions as I don’t think quickly on the fly, all my witty off-the-cuff lines could probably be counted on one hand. (I have one all-time great snappy comeback:
My neighbor was speculating about my lesbian sister’s sex life and said, “I wonder who’s on top?”
“Keith,” I said. “Have you ever fucked your wife in the ass?”)
Maybe I have to start listening to podcasts as there’s not enough interesting people or friends to go around so we need to rent them from the internet, so to speak?
Some of our biggest fears are being bored or being boring…-
Being bored is a bigger fear for me than being boring (obviously, if you’ve read my blog).
Your idea for a scripted podcast… “Typed-up dialogues about life,” dunno, man. You’re a good writer so maybe you could pull it off, but it’s tricky imagining it and trickier imagining it might be fun to listen. Maybe if it’s a sit-com and you’re a modern-day Jack Benny. But if it’s serious, dunno man.
My idea of the perfect podcast for you would just be you reading your sex stories, and then opening the lines for callers or reading incoming emails. Hell, I’d listen to that, long as it’s free and has no ads.
Just promise you won’t be selling something, or sponsored by a local tire shop or lawn-mowing service or whatever. All the podcasts interesting enough to listen to shove ads at me, and ads are never interesting enough to listen to. That’s why all the podcasts I’m even aware of are podcasts I used to listen to. My current listening list is nada.
As for whether you’re boring, someone who *never* has major updates or strong opinions or a unique observation to offer is probably boring, but someone who *always* has major updates or strong opinions or a unique observation is far worse.
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thanks for your comments, here’s a sample, imagine there’s a woman with a sexy voice in the studio with me
(this is all a silly dream, umm, can you make me a podcast, daddy?)
can it be just audio?
anyway, here’s a sample of a scripted conversation (all true of course, except it wasn’t a saxaphone):Side Hustles
He: Hey what’s happening? What’s new?
She: Well, I have a secret but I better not tell you. You’re a reporter.
He: Yup. You told me everything last year and then I reamed you out, meaning I just told the truth in a big anonymous story about you.
She: It’s your truth, not mine. You actually have no idea who I am.
He: I think I got the story down pretty well. I believe the last sentence you said was, “I’m a whore!”
She: I told you not to publish and you didn’t so maybe I can trust you.
He: So what’s the story.
She: Sorry, maybe later.
He: Okay. So what else is happening?
She: Well, I’ve been thinking someday I want to come back to Humboldt and get my saxophone.
He: Umm, I heard your land partners might have pawned that.
She: What? Who told you that?
He: I’d rather not say. You stopped making land payments years ago and your partners needed the money so they pawned it. They got a lot for it.
She: C’mon, tell me who told you that. If you tell me I’ll tell you my secret.
He: Okay but it’s not a big deal. I’m sure your secret will be better. What is it?
She: No, you tell me yours first.
He: No way, I don’t trust you. You’re a mother, you’ll do anything for your kids. Lie cheat steal. You’re the mother bear trying to keep your familial corporation afloat. You tell me first!
She: Okay, okay. The other day a friend of mine was going to get an erotic massage and I told him to hire me instead, at a reduced rate.
He: Oh, so like a massage with a happy ending? How did that go? Did you go right in for the BJ or actually give him a massage first?
She: Oh yeah, I have strong hands, he got the whole package.
He: Interesting. Well, okay, I’ll tell you who it was that told me about your saxophone. It was Diego. See it didn’t even matter because he probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
She: Oh Diego. Yeah he doesn’t really know anything.
He: I remember when I went to a massage parlor. I was enjoying getting the massage but she was eager to get the extras done and her hands kept getting closer to my erogenous zone.
She: Sure, she wanted to get ’em in get ’em out. You were holding up business.
He: So you think you’ll do it again?
She: I’m open.
He: You know, you could come back to Humboldt and give hand jobs to all these horny old men living in the woods up here.
She: And you would be my pimp?
He: Sure. I might even take my cut in BJ’s.
She: Well, I guess it would be a pubic health service, besides a little extra cash.
He: Yeah, everyone knows orgasms are good for prostate health.
She: And then I could get my saxophone back!
He: Yeah, you’ll be blowing out of both ends then!
She: That doesn’t even make sense. You are such a perv.
He: Well, I think I’ve met my perv twin with you!
She: Awww, you really do get me.
(She was my best muse because she’d often tell me to get my ass on a plane and come to Berlin where she’d fuck my brains out. )
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Big factor will be whether your co-star can deliver lines without sounding like she’s reading. But wtf, I’m a D-I-Y guy from way back, so if you want to do this as a podcast, absolutely do it as a podcast.
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thanks, probably just a zany idea…
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