Post-Modern Drunkard from happyrobot - updated 6/9/2026 12:35:10 AM https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp en-us <![CDATA[A New Home]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10742 It's been years since I've posted here, and I know we've mostly moved on to Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, or our non-digital lives, but this is an official acknowledgment that my primary writing destination has moved.

I have joined Substack, and launched Notes from Above Ground there. Substack works as a blog, and as a newsletter, so if you go over there and give your email address, new posts will be mailed out to you when I publish them. Or you can view the site for the archives, or follow via RSS.

It seems crazy to me that the future of the internet feels like email newsletters rather than knowledge being downloaded directly into our hippocampus, but that's apparently where we are in this brave new world of content.

The focus at Notes from Above Ground is a little different from Post-Modern Drunkard--there's less of a focus on the drunkard part of my life, that's for sure. Doctors call that Alcohol Use Disorder these days, any way. Notes from Above Ground retains my signature wit and rage, but focuses on life with chronic illness--the things it takes to keep me above ground, and the things that make staying above ground worthwhile.

I hope to see y'all there, and elsewhere.]]> <![CDATA[Notes on a Pandemic]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10732 I didn't open this to write anything in particular; I merely knew I needed to write, because after all this time, my last entry was "Notes on Sobriety" and I am not sober anymore. I don't know how you can be, at a time like this. Luckily, my liver and kidneys recovered enough so I could drink through this pandemic.

It's hard to find positives, but the persistence of my internal organs is where I find mine. I also have a wife who loves me and takes care of me, of course, but it's easier to talk about the drinking, especially with that whole Post-Modern Drunkard thing.

I don't actually have any other notes on the pandemic of note. I don't know what I can tell you, since we all are going through it, and it's all the same, and it's all different for all of us. Maybe we can get together on the other side of it, tell hilarious stories of the vaccine lines, close calls, delivery snafus, or whatever we went through. My pandemic has been singular--not great compared to some, not awful compared to others, but not finished yet.

See you on the other side of it all.]]> <![CDATA[Notes on Sobriety]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10669 Is It True? You're Sober Now?

Indeed. I have unspecified liver issues that could be anything from a reaction to antibiotics and Advil use, to autoimmune hepatitis (basically lupus moving into my liver), coupled with heavy alcohol use, so my doctors have ordered me to quit drinking. It's unclear to me if they told me this because any quantity of alcohol would be unequivocally harmful to me, or if they're worried that a heavy drinker like me is constitutionally unable to drink in moderation, but either way this request from a doctor is what's known in the biz as a "wake-up call."

How Long Are You Sober For?

I'm to come back and see the doctor in three months, so that's the lower bound. There was a tossed-off reference to reevaluating in "a year or two" that I didn't ask any follow-up questions to because that's a little terrifying. The upper bound is, of course, the rest of my life (at least, I hope the upper bound is in fact higher than the lower bound).

Is It REALLY True That You're Sober Now? Your Handle is "Post-Modern Drunkard" after All?

Yes, it's really true. I've been mostly sober since my liver was confirmed to be on the fritz back in March, and completely sober since the doctor told me I needed to quit entirely. That was eight days ago so I'm not pretending the fact is super impressive yet. I did spend a fair amount of time in the Bargaining stage of a Kubler-Ross journey, but at this point, yeah, I'm not drinking. at all. I will continue to use wine and spirits for cooking as it's called for, but that's it for now.

After all, what's more post-modern than a drunkard who isn't? [Temptation to go on a long rambling allusive reference to drinking and postmodernism replaced by this block of self-reflexive meta reference to doing the same. This is a joke I assume is only enjoyed by me. Lost in the Drunk Tank for Dummies.]

How Are You Handling It?

Better than you'd expect? It hasn't been sorely tested yet--I've not spent hours at a party where I'm desperate for anything to make my social anxiety go away yet--but I HAVE done karaoke sober, which is a trial by fire by any definition. I miss drinking, I won't lie. I enjoyed drinking--a lot, both with others and on my own, which is probably a sign that it's good for me not to drink for awhile. But my doctor asked me if I had trouble stopping, and I was able to truthfully tell him, "No, I can do it." And I can. Even if I don't like it.

So Have You Switched To Other Drugs?

Of all the FAQs I've received since my diagnosis, this is by far the most frequently AQ, either as a question or as helpful advice: "Why don't you just switch to pot?" usually is how it goes.

While I'm not anti-drug and I'm certainly not anti-people-who-drug, alcohol has always been my one and only drug love. The only drug I really care about, really. Other than a brief time where I was receiving morphine injections which miraculously made my pain go away in an instantly wonderful and intensely noticeable way, I've never much cared for any other drug. I take my Advil when I need it, and my Vicodin when I really need it, and I notice it works, but I don't get the same excitement I've seen in some others when it comes to those drugs.

But more importantly, every chemical that makes you intoxicated goes right through your liver. There's no shortcuts around it; anything I'd do to substitute for sweet delicious booze has the same problem as sweet delicious booze. So if I was going to cheat, it would be back with the bottle anyway.]]> <![CDATA[Republicans Are Tough Guys]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10667 Republicans are tough. That's what they tell you. They're so very tough. They know how to fight. They won't back down. They never complain.

Let's just take a look at a single day's worth of Republican bravery in the face of adversity.


The sheriff with the ridiculous facial hair tried to pick a fight with some ladies, and they laughed at him. He's so very tough!

Bravery in the face of verbal insults

Frank Luntz, pollster and badass extraordinaire, found some women and got into such an awful verbal altercation with them that they continued sitting around a fire chatting after the horrific interchange.

Vicious ladies sitting around a fire.

An Altamont wannabee got glitter bombed. This is actually the worse. My heart bleeds glitter for him.
Glitter bomb.

A tough Nazi got punched in public, and is now afraid of going in public. Don't punch Nazis in the face, though. You'll hurt your hands. Aim for soft vulnerable tissue, instead.

Punch a Nazi.

]]> <![CDATA[Brain Fog]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10666 One of the more annoying things about lupus--as opposed to the agonizing and painful things of the disease--is something known as the lupus brain fog. It makes up for in evocative language what it lacks in enjoyability. You can probably guess what it is--it's the feeing that I get that my thoughts are heavy and fuzzy--iron weights swaddled in velvet rather than easily accessible.

Thought isn't something that should be noticeably difficult. You shouldn't notice the effort in thinking; at least, I don't normally. I'm not bragging here: I'm not taking about doing calculus questions or a particularly difficult sudoku here--that kind of satisfying effort of conquering something with your brain or working your way around a complex problem from start to finish.

This is the entirely unsatisfying feeling of just not being able to manage thoughts you know you should be capable of managing. It's a living where every thought is like being unable to remember someone's name when you've KNOW you've known them for years, or not being able to think of the right word at all. Except not just for words, but for concepts and what you should do with your life.

I'm struggling with it right now. That last paragraph didn't say what I wanted to say. It was close, but I worked on it a lot. I'm frustrated most with "what you should do with your life." I can't quite get to what I was trying to say there about how the lupus brain fog keeps you from even being able to do the basics of what you need to do.

But that's the brain fog. Things that should be easy take noticeable effort, things that are hard are so much harder. And things that shouldn't be beyond me are.

This is just another reminder that there's no special virtue in getting sick. Getting tested this way doesn't make you a better person. It just makes you a sick person. In my case it also makes me angry, which is not so good when it comes to dealing with other people. There's no virtue in denying people health care so they have to go through this; you're not going to forge the new Van Gogh painting or David Bowie album out of an illness. This is just what happens; I'm not an artist, but if I were, I wouldn't be able to work through this. I can barely work my 9-5 job through this.]]> <![CDATA[Clown Posse]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10665 The deaths of David Bowie and Prince, coming so close to each other, were rough and tragic. Much has been written about them--some already by me, and since in both their cases I was only moderately aware of their extended catalogs beyond their hits (Bowie more than Prince), their deaths lead me to take a deeper dive into their oeuvres.

Prince and Bowie share a number of characteristics, including a frank celebration of sexuality. They were both incredibly prolific over decades, putting out albums at a clip that is almost overwhelming when you see it laid out. And there's something I initially found kind of exciting about their output, because a fair amount of it is quite frankly bad. Prince and Bowie are both some of the most influential and amazing artists in rock and roll, writing and performing a solid percentage of the greatest songs in rock and roll history, and yet they failed much much more often than they succeeded. For a long time I took comfort in this; many of their songs and actual entire albums of their careers are mediocre, bad, or nearly unlistenable at times. But they also produced Purple Rain or Ziggy Stardust.

I took this as comforting for a long time. It was a lesson to me. Artists need to swing for the fences, and a lot of what they'd put out would be crap, but you need to strive to achieve greatness rather than mediocrity. It put my unrelenting mediocrity in perspective.

However, the more I looked into it, the more I realized there was something I had missed. In October I discovered something shocking that turned this comforting lie on its head. In early October, I learned that David Bowie and Prince's attention had been split between their careers as epoch-defining musicians, and what it clear was their true calling--by October, it became clear to me that Bowie and Prince were instrumental in protecting us all from clowns.

It's easy to forget now that we've made it through on the other side, but October was filled with a terrifying surge in clown sightings and clown threats. It is clear that horrors spreading throughout the nation were due to the tragic losses of Prince and Bowie before a new Clown Slayer could be trained.

It is clear by now from my investigations that at some point in his career, David Bowie was inducted into the lonely calling of clown slayer. I don't know if it is something picked up during his Ziggy Stardust days, or if it came later. It is, however, clear to me that he was inducted into this by his mentor and partner, Freddie Mercury.

A more careful examination of Prince's career could tell us when he was inducted into the Clown Mysteries. But it is clear to me now that there was something to the immense amount of positive polyamorous orgone energy that both Bowie and Prince put into the world that kept clowns at bay, until their tragic deaths. Despite extensive experimentation, I've been unable to replicate this energy myself.

Back in October, I was despairing that there was any hope. The clown sightings were out of control. I take some comfort in their ebb. A new slayer seems to have stepped up; even if Bowie or Prince wasn't able to fully train him in time, it seems likely that Bruno Mars, albeit a poor substitute, has gotten things under control, if not fully handled. God help us all.]]> <![CDATA[Uber, but For Wrong Numbers]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10664 This happened to me at the beginning of November; I forgot to tell the anecdote because of the horror that was the election, but it's basically timeless.

So when I was preparing for my anniversary meal with my wife, up at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, I got a text message from a (347) number. One I didn't know.

"Oh yeah I love you."

It seemed a nice sign. I immediately showed it to Courtney--I could hardly not do so, since I saw it and started laughing. I also immediately texted back, "Wrong number," and got a quick response, "Oops your not tammie"

Tammie

I left it at that. We went to dinner, the dinner was great. We came back to the city and voted. The vote was not so great.

Three weeks passed. We went out to a friend's for Thanksgiving. We had a good time. We had a bunch to drink. And then we called an Uber. The Uber texted, as Uber's do. "I am outside. White Camry."

Normal stuff. Totally normal stuff.

It was only when I got home that I looked at my full text history.

And saw those people were the same people.

Tammie]]> <![CDATA[On the Greatest Political Satire of the 21st Century]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10663 My favorite piece of political satire from this century, beating anything put out by the Onion, is The Autopsy of the 2012 Loss by the RNC. It really is worthy of Alexander Pope, except in this case it was written by committee based on interviews with 2,600 people along with focus groups and professional politicians. So really it's like the SNL writing staff ran Reuters and wrote "A Modest Proposal" based on their research, and could refine their wit without needing to hit the Saturday night deadline.

It's written in the voice of an addict who knows they need to change but is unable to admit they've hit rock bottom. Except it's about politics rather than drugs or alcohol. It's really adept the way the narrative--written in a unique second person plural--dances right up to the edge of admitting that they understand their issues without actually addressing them.

They even call on their Higher Power a number of times! It's a really top notch piece of fiction. "We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, must be to embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform," they write, somehow without breaking character. "If we do not, our Party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only."

Without corpsing at all or acknowledging that they were contradicting nearly a century of Republican politics, they continued, "The RNC cannot and will not write off any demographic or community or region of this country."

"The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself," its authors write without a wink or a nod to let the reader know they're in on the joke. "We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue. Instead of driving around in circles on an ideological cul-de-sac, we need a Party whose brand of conservatism invites and inspires new people to visit us."

The end result is a pitch perfect satire of a clueless political party just self-confident enough to make the same terrible mistakes for the rest of their life. It's like A Confederacy of Dunces with actual Confederates.

It's not a fault of the satire writers that they pulled the "we've hit rock bottom" satire one presidential election too soon. Oh well. They can do a sequel later this a month. ]]> <![CDATA[It's Jacket Season, Mothafuckas!]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10662 It's jacket season at last, bitches. It's time to choose between the six great looking and stylish jackets hanging in your hall closet that are only comfortable in a narrow 20 degree band of weather that last for three weeks, tops. It's time to wear the shit out of them, girlfriend.

It's time to get out your cardigans.

It's time to shotgun pumpkin spice lattes. It's time for apple cider beer pong. It's time to inhale goddamn apple cider donuts until your breath is two parts cinnamon-sugar for every one part carbon dioxide.

It's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers..

It's fog and brisk breezes. It's the smell of woodsmoke. It's leaf-peeping until your eyes bleed ochre and gold. It's time to get lost in a corn maze, only to find your way out and drive to another corn maze.

Put away the sunblock and the beach umbrella. It's the autumn, bitches. Rake, or GTFO.]]> <![CDATA[The Arch of History and the Ship of Theseus]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10661 All last week, New York City's City Hall Park had a 3D printed recreation of a destroyed arch from the city of Palmyra, Syria. This arch, known as the Monumental Arch or the Arch of Triumph, was destroyed last year by ISIS. ISIS is basically if 4chan acquired weapon, destroying things of cultural value to get a rise out of the international community in the hopes of provoking overreaction. They might also have been afraid of the idolatry of the Temple of Baal, even though Baal hasn't had worshipers for millennia and is probably pretty weak, as far as deities go.

NYC Palmyra Arch

So they blew it up, along with a lot of other Palmyrian ruins that didn't even have a hint of idolatry to them. While this is not as actually appalling as the actual people that have been murdered by the 4chan of the Levant (including the head of antiquities in Palmyra, who was murdered and hung on a column of the main square of the site), there is something utterly despicable about causally destroying something that managed to survive nearly 2,000 years--something insulting to future generations that we can never get back or reconstruct.

Except it turns out we can. Not just using 3D printing to recreate, but through actual reconstruction, a process known as "anastylosis."

Anastylosis is complicated process--it consists of picking up the original stones, and putting them back where they belong. Despite what I thought as a kid, dynamite doesn't actually do a good job of destroying things--it just does a pretty good job of spreading those things around in in a chaotic fashion. Archeologists have centuries of experience restoring piles of stone in more or less their original configuration. A number of our most cherished archeological "well preserved" runs are actually reconstructed. I admit there's something a little disappointing about seeing the Library of Celsus and learning that it didn't last all this time without a little help and reconstruction work, but you can nevertheless console yourself with the fact that the Library of Celsus is AWESOME in the original sense of the word. And it was reconstructed after it was destroyed in multiple earthquakes a millennia ago, without any photographs to guide the process.

Library of Celsus


The ruins of Palmyra, which those ISIS fucks destroyed just so we'd think that they really were a bunch of fucks, can be fixed. They can be restored. The Syrian Army has retaken Palmyra. The Institute of Digital Archaeology, in collaboration with UNESCO, is replying 5,000 3D cameras to partners in the Middle East to create a digital record of historical sites and artifacts threatened by those fucks in ISIS. There is a 3D printed recreation of the Monumental Arch sitting in NYC right now.

One of my favorite thought experiments is the Ship of Theseus. In brief, every single piece of Theseus's ship is replaced over time. Every board, plank, sail, mast, and nail. Not a single piece of the ship remains from the same. Is this ship still the same ship? (A more mordantly funny version can be found in the book and movie "John Dies at the End,).

Palmyra is destroyed by assholes, and rebuilt, using most of the same stone by trained archeologists using computers and digital photos to do so. Is it the same city of Palmyra?

It's enough for me. Or at least enough to emphasize that assholes like ISIS don't win. They cause pain. It's easier to destroy than it is to do anything worthwhile. But they don't win.
]]> <![CDATA[My Dark Secret Pharmacy]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10659 Back in January of 2004, a couple of months after I started my first full time job, I got really sick. It was a cold that just lasted and lasted. It was before I'd been made full-time, so if I missed work, I didn't get paid, so I just kept coming to work and coughing through it all.

This was 2004, so it was ten years before Obamacare made getting sick into a trip to a four-star resort, so it took me a long time to go to a doctor. When the cough persisted, and people started really noticing it eventually basically forced me to go to the doctor.

The doctor did those standard doctor things: he took my temperature, listened to my lungs, told me to cough a bunch, and then told me he had to give me the bad news.

"Mr. Stuart. I have to give you the bad news. You will never ever be president; you have pneumonia. In this trying time, as you adjust to the fact that, even once you turn 35, you are no longer be qualified to be president, I merely ask that you get this prescription filled, take the pills for ten days, get some bed rest, and you will completely recover, except for that gaping hole in your soul where the possibility of being elected President of the United States once resided before this terrible completely curable illness took it from you."

Reader, I wept in that office for hours. Then I filled my prescription, missed a couple of days of work, spent the weekend in bed drinking fluids, took my antibiotics for the required ten days, and recovered completely.

Except I can never be president. That is a career path that has been stripped from me by this common, treatable disease.

It was the worst news I ever received from a doctor.]]> <![CDATA[How to Talk to a Woman When She's Recoiling from You So Fast That She Has Visibly Redshifted]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10658 These days, many woman walk around, blissfully ignorant of you and your desires for their attention. They wear headphones, and either listen to music, or pretend to listen to music.

That doesn't mean you can't talk to them, despite their clear indication that they don't want you to.

Of course, not all women are open to being approached. In fact, not a single one of them is open to being approached because that's precisely why people wear headphones in public.

However, if you still believe your wishes to talk to a woman override her desire not to speak to you, here are some pieces of advice on how to attempt to do so as she recoils from you so fast that she redshifts away from you.

As the light of her form increases in wavelength and shifts into the red spectrum as she flees from your presence at a significant fraction of the speed of light, it can feel like an obstacle difficult to surmount. It is even more difficult to surmount than getting her to take off her headphones and talk to a creepy guy (e.g. you) approaching her in public when all she wanted to do was live a life untouched by skeevy PUAs.

It can be attempted, though!

What to Do to Get Her Attention

  1. Stand in front of her (with 1 to 1.5 parsecs between you).
  2. Have a confident, easy-going smile.
  3. If she is still looking at you, simply attempt to get her attention by broadcasting via a radio telescope. Send out signals in her direct line of vision so she can hear it.
  4. The fact she has refused to take off her headphones is a boon in this case. She will be able to hear your signals. They will be distorted by the Doppler effect and will have the effect of making your voice sound deeper, so make it brief, but know that you will sound manly for once.
  5. Broadcast on as many frequencies as possible "I want to talk to you for a minute."
  6. If she gives you the finger, that means you're getting through to her. You should do what we call "Acknowledging the Awkwardness" by giving her a rueful shrug so as to say "guilty as charged." You're halfway home now.
  7. She, on the other hand, will be well on the way past Proxima Centauri by this point.
  8. Try to keep the conversation going. There may start to be some delay at this point due to light speed lag due to the cosmological distances between you, but fear not. You're used to long delays in hearing back from women you've attempted to talk to! This is just like that!
  9. If she refuses to speak to you at all, she may have slipped into the event horizon of a black hole. You've won an important moral victory, regardless.
  10. Try again next time. Definitely don't give up or leave any woman unharrassed. If she's in public, she's fair game. For you and your ilk.
]]> <![CDATA[Notes on Accidental Virality]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10657 Yesterday, while reading an article about Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins--the one who didn't walk on the moon, but instead floated in the module and took maybe the loneliest photo in human history--I saw a quote that I quite liked, so, as I do a couple of times a week, I took a screenshot and posted it to Twitter.

Here's the tweet.



Yes, that's the actual Like and Retweet count. A liberal blogger who follows me liked it, and retweeted it. Emily Nussbaum, TV writer for the New Yorker, follows him, and liked it, and retweeted it.

And from there, thousands of people Liked it, and Retweeted it. It went viral. NPR personality Kai Ryssdal tweeted it. Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics tweeted it. Terry Teachout tweeted it. Keith Olberman tweeted it. John Carmack, co-creator of "Doom," the most important video game of my teenage years, tweeted it.

According to Twitter Analytics, 751,342 people have seen this tweet as of two days later.

So, it was a minor viral sensation. And it has almost nothing to do with me. It's not something amazing I created. It's not something funny I said. I just happened to share something that I found fun, and plenty of other people also found it fun, and it's gone around a bunch of places.

So what's it like being a viral sensation? Not a full-blown viral sensation, but a really truly minor league viral sensation? First of all, this is not a typical viral sensation. There's nothing much complicated about it. It's not offensive, or controversial. No one is hurt by this. I'm also not a woman, so I basically got no real harassment for this.1
1As a slight change, the same day I tweeted this tweet, some rando from the internet got offended by something someone said to me, and Facebook stalked me as a result. My Facebook page isn't connected to my Twitter account, so they had to put some work into it, and for some reason decided to be vaguely threatening about it.

So I feel like this is basically a distilled experience in the bland side of Twitter, rather than the racist or sexist side of Twitter such as the monsters going after Leslie Jones right now.

So, mostly the effect is that my mentions have been a mess. I'm used to getting maybe a dozen responses, retweets, or likes a day. I'm trained to check out my mentions any time I see a number there, indicating there is something new, because it's almost always a friend of mine saying something to me or approving of something I've said. Occasionally it's a rando trying to pick a fight based on doing a keyword search, but I don't seek people out and I don't do a lot of hashtags to get in on things that are trending. So I'm used to Mentions meaning something. But now that it's 48 hours later I'm still getting a Like or a Retweet about every two minutes from that. I have to stop myself from checking every single time.

The actual responses I get are almost all lame. Rather than retweeting something just to share it, a fair number of people try to make a joke. The vast majority of people on Twitter turn out to significantly less funny than they think they are. Many of the rest are belligerent. It is almost impossible to filter out the people who think the moon landing was faked from the people who are joking about the moon landing being faked. As John Scalzi has said, the failure mode of clever is "asshole," and there are a lot of assholes who think they're clever on Twitter. In the entire affair, I got one joke in response that I actually laughed at.

Those who aren't making an unfunny joke of their own spend their time quoting the same joke. I got dozens of people writing "I walked on your face, moon!" from Buzz Aldrin on 30 Rock. No other joke. Just quoting the reference, because apparently quoting something that was funny counts as a joke, these days.

The other assholes I got messages from are people who obviously just replied to whatever the most recent tweet was on a celebrity's account to harass them or try to talk with them, like the guy who called Keith Olberman a masturbator for...well, no reason I could tell but I'm going to be honest in saying I didn't look too close into it.

All in all, it was a weird experience. And out of the 750,000 people seeing this tweet, I got a grand total of 9 followers out of it. I guess I recovered from being viral pretty quickly, with no lingering aftereffects.


]]> <![CDATA[You Won't Believe What the New Ghostbusters Is Doing to Your Childhood Memories]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10656 It may seem heated when man-children on Reddit complain about the female reboot of Ghostbusters "ruining their childhood," and destroying their beloved movie franchise. After all, the classic Ghostbusters and the less-than-classic sequel still exist. Paul Feig didn't break into our houses and steal our limited edition DVD copies of the movies, or snap them in front of us. You can still watch the movies.

However, as much as it pains me to say it, the redditors are right. Paul Feig is, in a sense, ruining our childhood memories. But you were doing so yourself, every time you remembered them anyway.

This is because our old notion of memories as a recording we can re-experience and watch passively is incorrect. Every time we access our memories, we rewrite them. It is a survival mechanism: every time we remember something, the memory is rewritten again, incorporating knowledge we've acquired in the meantime. This is unavoidable; it is how we learn and grow.

Yes. As much as it seems impossible, even bros sometimes learn and grow.

Anything new that reminds us of our old memories, anything that forces us to remember them--say, for instance, a new movie that reminds us of our old favorite movie--progressively ruins those old existing memories by replacing them with new versions of them, which will involuntarily incorporate the fact that Ghostbusters can now also be women.

Think about the first time you saw Ghostbusters. Remember how much you enjoyed it, how much you wanted to be Venkman but rather suspected you were more of a Ray or Egon at best. Merely by accessing this memory at this moment, you risk the fact that you're also not a Holtzmann further decimating your childish misguided conception of yourself.

So yes, the hyperbole was right. The new Ghostbusters reboot is ruining you childhood memories by forcing you to form new, more maturely articulated and complicated versions of your old memories. And it will do this whether you see the movie or not. The female reboot is going to steal your childhood innocence and stupidity whether you like it or not.

Welcome to adulthood. Try not to kick and scream about it so much, you grown up manbaby.]]> <![CDATA[Gotta Collect It All!]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10655 Things I have collected in my time.

  • Baseball cards until I was caught stealing from my favorite baseball card shop (remember when that was a thing!) and then was too embarrassed to ever go back.
  • Comic books.
  • Regular books, preferably all with the same edition and cover art
  • OK Cola cans.
  • Absolut Ads
  • VHS then DVDs then Blurays
  • Magic The Gathering Cards
  • Various suits of armor and matched weapons within World of Warcraft.


I'm not touching Pokemon Go. I'm terrified of Pokemon Go. If I get anywhere near Pokemon Go I know I'm not capable of stopping. I'm not sure I'm even capable of slowing down. Ten years ago I spent literally 8 hours a day playing video games and collecting suits of armor and grinding out levels and armor and reagents and stuff.

Pokemon Go is a dagger aimed directly at my ability to be an adult, a Sword of Damocles designed to sever me from my hard-won ability to function as a 37 year old man and if I try to catch them all--hell, if I try to catch even one--I'm gone. It will all be for naught and I'll be hip deep in [common Pokemon characters] and searching for my next [rare Pokemon character] fix.

I can't even research a proper Pokemon joke to fill in the blank for fear it might tip me over.

I salute all of you out on the streets leveling up your characters or fighting for gyms. I'm not saying it's not for me. I'm saying it is for me, and I need to stay away lest I lose this version of me which I love only go become what I once was.

Stay strong.

-Stu]]> <![CDATA[How To Get the Bikini Body You Deserve]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10654 [Article retracted]

The Management would like to apologize for the article that was previously published in this place, entitled "How to Get the Bikini Body You Deserve."

Due to lax standards necessitated by extreme cuts in our editing and fact-checking departments, we neglected to recognize until significantly after publication that most of the "tips and tricks" recommended by the writer to be used in obtaining a bikini body are illegal in all 50 states and most territories.

Our house council would prefer that we not use the words "false imprisonment" or "conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping" or "illegally transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes" in the absence of a conviction as such by law enforcement but morally we feel we must be straight with you, our valued and faithful readers, and admit that the "tips and tricks" and other techniques advocated by our now-former employee in his article "How to Get the Bikini Body You Deserve," may very well rise to that level. They are certainly immoral and appalling, and for that, we apologize unreservedly.

Moreover--and let's just be straight with you here--we rather suspect, irregardless, that you do not deserve a "Bikini Body."

Our deepest apologies to our readers, our advertisers, and all members of the law enforcement community,
The Editors]]> <![CDATA[Towards a Comprehensive Theory as to the Fate of Prince's Guitar]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10647 By now you've seen the footage. It's been plastered all over the internet. I've seen no certain explanations. But the question must be asked: What was the fate of Prince's guitar after his performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance?



The moment in question, in Gif form:

The Magic Guitar

There are many theories. Only time can tell us which one is true. But here are my top four contenders.


  • That guitar was crafted from the bone from the opening of "2001," and when thrown was transformed into a satellite of love that is currently orbiting us right now, bouncing radio signals communication songs of pure sex around the world which are intelligible in any language and can be heard even by the deaf.
  • Or, knowing that he would one day die, that he was mortal like all the rest of us even though he was not like all the rest of us, Prince played his solo and then tossed his guitar directly into heaven, knowing that they would one day be reunited and he and David Bowie would need something to jam on.
  • The guitar simply disintegrated after he'd used it, reduced down to component molecules after Prince had used up its very essence in playing Music. It was reduced to dust and inhaled by the audience at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Everyone in that audience would go on to impregnate someone or be impregnated within a month. Those kids are eleven now, and they are telepathically linked, fabulous, and will usher in a new Age when they reach puberty and the age of consent.
  • There was no guitar. The orgone energy produced by Prince's libido was what was being played, and the waves of ecstatic sensual joy brought by his skillful manipulation of mass/energy brought us to this moment. This was done with no muss or fuss or even a guitar. It is merely a beacon reverberating forwards and backwards through space time, a bold declaration that even though this age has brought us Trump, all is not lost, and humanity can love and be loved.


As a bonus, here's an example of what that looks like when a move like that goes so so wrong, with Krist Novoselic throwing his bass up in the air and catching it with his face.
]]> <![CDATA[Trump 2016]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10646 As the likelihood of Trump being the Republican nominee for president increases week by week, I decided I should probably get on the Trump bandwagon. Honestly, I find his "Make America Great Again," kind of a terrible slogan, stealing as it does from Reagan and heartening back to an America that never really existed outside of people's fevered racist dreams. I decided to invest in classier, more classical slogans via appropriating some of the classic poetry of white peope.

Make America Poetical Again!

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Trump 2016

All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Trump 2016

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori
Trump 2016

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Trump 2016

This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Trump 2016

it's
spring
and
         the
                  goat-footed
balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee
Trump 2016]]> <![CDATA[New York Values]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10645 Ted Cruz, in his quixotic attack on Donald Trump, declared that he is against New York values, and that New York values are not Iowan values.

Now, I've lived in New York and I've lived in Iowa, and I've lived in other places in the Midwest, so I think I can talk a little bit about New York values vs Non-New York Values.


New York Values
  • Walking fast
  • Standing on the right, walking on the left
  • Only being seated when your entire party has arrived.
  • Asking people what they pay for their apartments ten minutes after meeting them.
  • Arguing about whether you should toast a bagel and about how much cream cheese is the right amount.
  • Not ever knowing your neighbors name, but definitely not caring if they're gay, or a different color, or a different religion, or even if they're Republican, as long as they turn their music down eventually.
  • Paying over $100 a person for the best food you've ever had
  • Paying only $2 for the best food you've ever had, from a cart, under a subway stop, even if you can't pronounce it properly.
  • Never taking leftovers home
  • Being able to get home at any time of the night no matter how drunk you are.
  • A general understanding that immigration is why our meals are so good and why our restaurants succeed.



Non New York Values
  • Taking up the entire sidewalk walking abreast.
  • Separate checks for everyone.
  • Still saying the word "homos"
  • Caring deeply if your neighbor is even a different offshoot of the same sect of the same religion as you.
  • Paying $6 for the same fast food you can get anywhere else in the country.
  • Drunk Driving
  • Caring deeply about incandescent bulbs for some asinine reason.
  • Wearing your backpack on your front.
  • Crocs
  • Terror at people from another country, or even another county.
]]> <![CDATA[The Snark of Solomon]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/postmoderndrunkard.asp?id=10641 I glossed over this yesterday in our discussion of shibboleth in the Old Testament because it would have been a messy digression, but the Old Testament has a definite distaste for the clever. Very rarely in the Old Testament is being smart or clever shown to be a good trait.

It's the search for knowledge (of good and evil) that gets Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden. Abraham is commended for not questioning God's demand he sacrifice his only son. Joseph's superior knowledge and ability to understand dreams leads to all of Israel being enslaved by Egypt. And of course the clever people in the shibboleth story are the murderers.

The stories of the Hebrew Bible are not filled with impressive trickery like Greek Mythology. There's no Biblical Odysseus that I know of. The person who the Old Testament refers as their wisest person would have been eaten alive by the Sphinx in a heartbeat. "Why don't you just cut the baby in half and split it?" is not a brilliant solution unless the rest of your civilization has been drinking straight out of lead pipes for generations.

Solomon probably wasn't actually wise, he was just very sarcastic. The Gileadites murdering people because they sound Catalonian is about as sophisticated as these stories get. I guess that's what happens when the only Trickster God in your stories is the Adversary himself.]]>