You see it every single day here in Los Angeles: People staring at their smartphones while they are supposedly working, or while walking down the street with their dog, or while driving their car (as they dangerously weave between the lane lines), or while at a Taylor Swift concert. These people are usually completely oblivious to anything that is happening around them, and so it is apparent that smartphones are great at blocking out situational awareness, perhaps by design. These people will be the first ones to go during a zombie apocalypse, and when you think about it, they are already in a semi-zombie state anyway, so it isn’t much of a stretch.
More often than not, these same people also have their Bluetooth earbuds crammed into their ear canals as tight as possible so that they can listen to music, or podcasts, or news, or Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker audio books. It is my opinion that they are intentionally tuning out the world and living inside their own personal bubbles. They never respond to you when you say “Hello” as you cross paths (making them seem rude, cold, and indifferent). They don’t hear you when you yell “Watch out!” as they blindly step onto the street while staring at the screen of their smartphone and walk directly into the oncoming path of a speeding city bus—ironically throwing themselves under the bus.
Then again, maybe it’s best to let Darwinism take its course and not interfere with the natural laws of the universe.
The headlines speak for themselves, “Man dies while taking selfie in front of a bison bull.” “Man dies falling off of parking structure while playing Pokémon GO!” “Woman dies in car crash while sexting her boyfriend.” The list goes on and on. Does this imply that smartphones are deadly? No: It only proves that there are too many dumb people walking around amongst us.
I don’t believe that smartphones have truly made people any smarter than they were before smartphones were invented, in fact, I’ll argue that the opposite is true because this has been my experience. It amazes me that even with the entire knowledge and history of the world at their fingertips—knowledge and history that previously required people to either go to a local library or ask their grandparents if they may thumb their way through their latest Encyclopedia Britannica edition—people still believe that Elvis is alive; that the earth is flat; and that the moon landing was a hoax. Indeed, cognitive dissonance is alive and well in the U.S.
I do believe that too much Internet bandwidth is consumed by the millions of pointless, viral cat and TikTok related videos du jour instead of by people seeking knowledge or facts, both of which appear to be in short supply these days. The last time I checked, knowledge and facts are still tariff free, so there is no additional cost to obtain them…and yet they languish. Half-truths, untruths, myths, rumors, and outright lies seem to rule the day.
Now that smartphones have AI capabilities, I think this is only going to accelerate the dumbing down of Americans. It’s going to be interesting to see how it progresses. I used to believe that AI in its absolute sense was isolated to city, county, state, and federal government politicians, you know, the smartest people in the room—just ask any one of them—and you can see how that turned out for us. If you believe that AI is somehow going to save us, you may only be half right because AI also has the potential to destroy us. I sense that AI will end up doing both in an endless creative destruction cycle. Buckle up, kids.
If there is a dystopian AI controlled Tyrellian evil robot future on the horizon, people won’t even look up from their smartphone screens long enough to notice. The masses will be led to their demise by means of a viral, cleverly gamified extermination program in which all of the “accidents” will seem plausible. May I suggest starting with the ones who have the most daily screen time as they pose the most danger to society? Come to think of it, this gives doomscrolling an entirely new meaning. Just kidding—obviously, it should start with the politicians.
During my post-lunch walk today I saw a woman walking an outwardly spoiled Yorkshire Terrier on a leash while also pushing a fancy pet stroller. You know the kind; fresh groomed cut; shiny white fangs; ribbons and bows; blingy designer collar; claws painted fire-engine red. Remember that I’m writing about the dog here, not the woman.
Seeing that dog immediately transported me back to when my Aunt Lois’ pampered Yorkie, Coco, ran up from behind me and viciously bit me on my right Achilles tendon for no reason. It was a completely unprovoked attack. I was thirteen years old, and the injury hobbled me a little bit and so I limped around for a few days afterward looking like some dumbass poor suburban white boy trying to emulate the homeboy street walk of a hardcore inner-city gangbanger.
It’s strange how a mundane observation like seeing that Yorkie can immediately trigger an unpleasant experience from decades past. It also occurred to me how ridiculous it was that a little dog could be a PTSD inducing monster for a grown man. Coco’s bite was the first but certainly not the last dog bite I would ever receive from a lapdog, but the embarrassment of getting victimized by that spoiled little dog still haunts me, and although punting Coco across the room did flash across my mind at the time, retaliation was not an option because my Uncle Benny was standing right next to Aunt Lois with a half-crooked smile. It was as if he was saying, “Welcome to my world, kid.”
I had a best friend named Mark Flaata who lived on the corner of Cartwright Avenue and Chandler Blvd in North Hollywood, which was only a couple of blocks west from the apartment I was living in with my mom and siblings which was near Cahuenga Blvd and Chandler. Mark’s mom ran a small business named Showtime Kennels out of the house. The red and white sign on the corner of the property read:
Mark apparently held an unpaid intern position with Showtime Kennels management that could best be described as Kennel Technician III, which involved the following dog kennel related maintenance tasks:
Pick up the empty food bowls. Wash the empty food bowls. Scoop up the dog poop. Hose out the pee. Fill the water bowls. Feed all the dogs.
He alternated days with his brother Alan, and Mark was not allowed to go around terrorizing the neighborhood with me until his chores were done, so I volunteered to help so I could get him out on parole early. This was my apprenticeship phase of learning how to work with all of the cute pampered AKC (America Kennel Club) certified four-legged savages that you can imagine. I believe that you could have called my position, Kennel Technician Lackey I.
Mark taught me the ropes and I was a quick study. The three most important things were #1: Do not let a dog escape, and #2: Do not get the dogs wet while hosing out their dog run, and #3: DO NOT EVER turn your back on the dogs while inside or exiting the kennel or they will almost certainly bite you. I believe that #3 should have been #1 because it was unquestionably the most hazardous part of the job, but I wasn’t willing to go to Showtime Kennels management to file a grievance.
As it turned out, Showtime Kennels is where I learned to truly fear the small breed dogs like Maltese, Pekingese, Phalene, Pomeranian, Shih Tzu, and my least favorite, Yorkshire Terrier. These were neurotic, yappy, compact, savage little beasts, and even though I was helping Mark feed them their yummy horse meat soup with a generous scoop of kibble (in the exact proportions based on the size of the dog, of course), they barked, snarled, and gnashed their teeth at me more often than not. You’d think we’d be friends, but this was never the case: I was their eternal foe and perpetually on the menu.
Whenever rule #3 slipped my mind, sometimes the gnashing teeth found themselves embedded into my ankle or sometimes my lower calf if the little devil put in some extra effort and lunged a little bit. This was way back in the 70’s so there weren’t any emergency room visits or filing of personal injury lawsuits through the likes of the Larry H Parker law firm; it was simply a life lesson for volunteering in general. I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, a little swab of witch hazel and some gauze and a strip of duct tape over the bite wound, and I was good as new.
You might ask: But what about getting rabies? This was highly unlikely because most of these animals were AKC certified purebred breeding and show dogs, and they lived a life in the lap of luxury exclusively indoors, insulated from the outside world (much like a modern-day celebrity) so there was practically zero chance of ever getting rabies from them because these dogs were never, ever allowed to fraternize with the mutts or the squirrels or the cats or the rats in the neighborhood.
The usual feeding routine was that before we started, we’d blast Emerson Lake & Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery on the old beater Hi-Fi system in the garage and smoke a little bit of weed to get primed up. It helped me relax and allay the fear of getting chomped on (again) by someone’s precious little ill-mannered and extremely unpredictable lapdog.
When feeding time came around, the dogs sensed it, and the anticipation was palpable as we filled the bowls and loaded them onto a cart to roll down the dog run. The dogs would start barking and banging against the chain-link gates of their kennels in an almost unbearable cacophony, and this is why we blasted ELP on the stereo.
Some dogs had a very rhythmic chain-link gate pounding routine that went like this:
They would stand on all fours on the concrete deck about a foot away from the gate, bark three times at the sky, lunge at the gate with their front paws to make the gate rattle, bark three more times through the fence, drop back to the deck, reposition, and repeat.
Some dogs would run around in a circle rapidly two or three times, lunge the gate and bark five times, rest, bark five more times, drop, rest, and repeat. I think the rest was so they could catch their breath because they got gassed out from the overly enthusiastic barking due to their tiny lungs.
Other dogs were much more obnoxious and would stand on their hind legs with their front paws against the chain-link gate and rattle the gate with the rhythm of their unrelenting barking. Think of this as a dog bark synchronized with the metallic rattle of a slightly loose chain-link gate. Charming.
One of my feeding hacks was to open the gate just wide enough for the food bowl to squeeze through—strategically placing the metal bowl between the gnashing teeth of a mean dog and my quivering hand—and then slide the metal bowl across the concrete deck with a flick of my wrist as you would toss a Frisbee. I was able to develop some impressive accuracy and get the bowl to stop exactly where I wanted it, which was at the back of the dog run just in front of the doghouse. This would also get the menacing little dog to chase the bowl down and put some distance between us. The grating sound of the metallic bowl sliding across the slightly abrasive concrete deck is something that I’ll never forget.
While the dogs ate, the din of the kennel dropped dramatically for about thirty-seconds, and the only sounds you could hear were the metal buckles of their dog collars banging against the metal food bowl, and the chomping and the crunching and the gulping of the food. It amazed me how quickly these little monsters could woof down their food. I’d bet a dozen of them could finish me off in five minutes—like furry little land piranhas.
I’ll also never forget the yelps and the remarkable blue streak of expletives flying out of my mouth whenever I forgot rule #3 and felt the sharp, immediate pain of small canine teeth embedding themselves into my flesh from behind…again. Over and over, I had to fight back the urge to punt the perpetually angry little dogs over the fence onto Chandler Blvd and into the unknown suburban landscape. That would have been mean and inhumane, right? Yeah, right.
I never counted how many times I was bitten, nor tracked the breed-to-bite ratio—although I’d guess Yorkie’s would rank #1—but it was definitely more than enough to last several lifetimes.
If nothing else, being a volunteer Kennel Technician Lackey taught me one thing: Little dogs simply cannot ever be trusted.
Now you’ll understand why I flinch and break into a cold sweat whenever a small dog starts barking.
There are few things in life that are more satisfying than a nice glass of cold water—especially when you are thirsty—but who decided that we should all be drinking an entire gallon of water a day and practically waterboarding ourselves on a regular basis? Was it the bottled water companies? The metal water container companies? The American Plastics Council? The urologists union?
When I was growing up in the San Fernando Valley, the only water I drank was from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) city water supply that came directly out of my tap…or sometimes I drank it from a garden hose if I was desperate and close to dying from dehydration. I didn’t mind the sun warmed water with the funky black rubber taste coming out of the hose. I only drank water when I was thirsty and stopped drinking it when I was satiated. Seemed like a natural thing to me.
I also drank water out of those colored see-through plastic acrylic cups, pastel colored aluminum cups, and those weird, funny smelling primary colored Tupperware cups. I’m sure that I consumed some toxic materials and microplastics along with the water, but in my defense, there weren’t any California Proposition 65 warning labels at that time. Yes, I’m a survivor.
Back then, there simply wasn’t a daily water volume standard: You drank water when you were thirsty and that was about the only reason to do it. For me, maybe it was about a pint or so, unless I was doing some physical activity—like skateboarding—which would maybe double that amount. If I had some spare change, I could also buy a 16-oz Coke (which is mostly water anyway) at Bamford Liquor store on the corner of Magnolia and Cahuenga boulevards for 15 cents. All in, it was maybe a maximum of 1.5 quarts of daily liquid intake, nowhere near the 1 gallon per day (GPD) volume as “recommended.”
This new GPD standard has given rise to the following:
Mass consumption of bottled water in clear disposable plastic containers that make it impossible to differentiate whether or not your coworker is drinking water or day-drinking vodka at their desk.
Expensive designer water; Perrier; San Pellegrino; VOSS, etc. I’m not sure why people are willing to pay 1,000x the cost of tap water, but they do.
Portable metal tankards of all sizes, often used for lifestyle and political statement stickers. I read that people are now getting tendinitis from carrying around their ridiculously large one-gallon jugs. It has also been reported that several small dogs met their demise when their owners dropped said jug due to finger fatigue.
Urinating 10x the normal frequency. This, my friends, is going to wear out your bladder. This may also give your friends and coworkers the impression that you have a bladder infection or a prostate problem.
Depletion of the public water supply from all of the excessive drinking and flushing. Indeed, we are simultaneously drying out the planet and pissing our lives away.
Furthermore, nothing looks sillier than an adult puckering up to drink from their disgusting encrusted straw with god only knows what kind of bacteria living on it, especiallymen. Also, you probably aren’t going to die from dehydration during your commute or when going to the supermarket for groceries, so it is completely unnecessary to bring your dumbass super-sized drinking vessel with you.
Were people ever regularly drinking a GPD of water? No! The closest thing to it that I could find was from way back in 1945 when the U.S. Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences recommended eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day—that’s all. This adds up to a total of 64-ounces, which is only a half-gallon. Apparently, someone in a corporate boardroom somewhere decided to round this up to a gallon to perhaps sell more bottled water and portable water container products. I stand by my list of suspects noted at the beginning.
You might think that municipal water is unhealthy, however, many bottled water companies use municipal water as their source and simply run it through a series of process treatments like pre-filtration, Reverse Osmosis (RO), Ozonation, UV lighting, post-filtration, and mineral additions, and now it can be sold as “purified” water. We already know that highly processed foods are bad for you, but what about this highly processed water? Just asking questions.
Sourcing municipal water is super cheap too. For this exercise I’ll use the common measurement of one acre foot of water, which is 325,851 gallons. One acre foot of municipal water costs an average of about $1,000, which is only (rounding up) about .004 cents per gallon. Super cheap was an understatement: It’s practically free!
Packaging this newly processed gallon (3.78541 liters) of purified water (which I’ll round down to seven half-liter units) in 500ml plastic bottles is going to cost about 2.6 cents each, including labels, for a grand total of 18.2 cents to package a gallon of water into seven 500ml plastic bottles give or take a half penny. This is how the bottled water companies sell bottled water for massive profits. This is also how we are getting totally ripped off when we pay 39 cents for a 500ml bottle of water at the corner mini mart.
Clean, safe municipal water is a relatively new thing too. It used to be that drinking local water was genuinely dangerous and could make you incredibly sick or kill you, so people used to drink a lot more beer, wine, and spirits because they were simply safer to drink. By all appearances, people back then must have been under the influence of some level of alcohol consumption day and night (and may have been a happier lot), however, I don’t think it was ever recommended by anyone to drink a gallon of any of these alcoholic beverages a day but knowing human nature and a little bit of history, some certainly did. This also suggests that the great thinkers and artists and writers did their best work while under the influence.
msnarky 