A reader let me know (thanks, Tom) that the company I’ve paid to send emails to ‘subscribers’, announcing recent posts on this dumb website, is inserting ads in the emails. I ABHOR ads, so I’m no longer a customer of that company. Their software was hinky anyway.

Subscribers will still get email reminders twice weekly, but they’ll come from me, with no middleman and no ads.

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Never would’ve guessed as it was happening, but you and me and the rest of America lived through the good old days.

We’ve enjoyed several decades when racism was frowned on, women had increasing autonomy, LGBTQ+ rights made major advances, and equality was so widely accepted as a good thing that even major corporations pretended to believe.

Among decent people, the assumption has been that these trends would continue, as humanity made its way toward the Star Trek future we’d been promised.

But whatever’s been better about America since the 1950s is being dismantled, and our future looks more like Blade Runner, or The Terminator.

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Since Trump’s election, I’m having nightmares, often. Sometimes several in a night. They’re not usually about Trump specifically, and it took dozens of nightmares before I noticed what they have in common.

In most of my worst dreams, something that’s good has gone rotten. On what should be a pleasant walk, I find myself lost. Inside a familiar building, it’s suddenly made of cheap plaster, crumbling around me. It’s Seattle so it’s raining, but my jacket is made of sponge. My dad, who never raised a hand against anyone, comes back from the dead to punch me in the face. I’m eating a hamburger, dang it’s yummy, but something crunches in my mouth, and it’s my teeth disintegrating.

All this is my subconscious screaming in horror, as the place I was born and raised, where I’ve lived my whole life, topples not accidentally, but on purpose.

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There are billboards all around Seattle with the tag line, “This city lives for Sunday.” Can you guess what they’re selling? Take a moment. Take a guess.

They’re selling pro football. “This city lives for Sunday” is 2024’s advertising slogan for the local NFL team. In addition to the billboards, a friend tells me there are TV and radio ads, and there’s a “This city lives for Sunday” mobile app, etc.

Hating football almost as much as I hate advertising, maybe I’m oversensitive or overthinking it, but that jingle seems … insulting. Seattle is dead six days a week, but comes to life when the football team plays?

And why do the Seahawks need advertising? They’ve sold out 173 home games in a row.

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Walking past a tiny place called Off Alley, on Rainier Avenue in Columbia City, I was intrigued. It’s a very small restaurant, with decent prices. Funky design, without seeming snooty. Unusual cuisine, but affordable. After a few disappointments, though, I always scope out a restaurant’s website before going, and here’s what’s at Off Alley’s website:

“An automatic 20% service charge is added to all orders, 100% of which is retained by Off Alley.” That means the clams, blood sausage, and potato, listed at $17, will actually cost $20.40, before tipping.

Why would anyone eat at a restaurant that lies on the menu?

12/12/2024

itsdougholland.com 
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