Michael Estrin's Blog

A friend recently told me he stopped following the news. “I realized that it just made me anxious and angry, partly because that’s what it’s designed to do, I guess, but also because it’s usually stuff I can’t do anything about.” He was talking about the national news, specifically the political genre, aka news you can’t use. I prefer news you can use, which is why I opt for local news. The local news has weather, sports, and if you’re lucky, a car chase. I love car chases! In a perfect world, there would be a car chase in Los Angeles every night, and Will Ferrell would reprise his Ron Burgundy role from Anchorman to do play-by-play and color commentary.

There weren’t any car chases when Christina and I watched the local news the other night, but there was a compelling item about a naked man menacing people in our old neighborhood. Unfortunately, local news is ad-supported, so before we got to that story we had endure commercials for Jack in the Box; an online pharmacy that specializes in GLP1s, hair loss treatments, and erectile dysfunction; a car dealership that will finance anyone; and the upcoming All Valley Karate Tournament. Just kidding. The All Valley Karate Tournament was disbanded after Daniel LaRusso obliterated Johnny Lawrence with an illegal kick to the face — a scandal that resulted in a hard-hitting local news exposé about an unlicensed karate dojo operated by a maintenance man out of his Reseda home.

Eventually, we got to the story about the naked man. Ring Doorbell footage — what else? — captured the naked man banging on doors and generally raising hell on a quiet residential street. The details were fuzzy, but basically banging on doors turned to threatening people. At some point, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran said he heard screaming next door. He grabbed his handgun and went outside to confront the naked man. He told the naked man to leave, then threatened to call the police. Details from the story were a little unclear, but it sounded like the Vietnam veteran brandished his weapon, but did not point it at the naked man. Regardless, in the next instant, the naked man lunged at the veteran, picked him up, and body-slammed him into the cement, breaking the veteran’s collarbone and leg. The veteran lost control of the gun in the struggle, but as the naked man continued his assault, the veteran regained control of his gun and fatally shot his assailant in the head.

After nailing down the Five Ws, more or less, the local news broadcast moved to the hospital, where the veteran, George, was broken, beaten, but otherwise in good spirits. He explained that it had been decades since he used the gun, implying that the weapon of war last saw action in the war. The local news showed a picture of George standing next to a chopper in Vietnam. They didn’t say what George did in the war, but from the way he handled himself, I’m going to guess that he was in the shit.

The story shifted to George’s recovery. He’d already had surgery to repair a broken tibia and fibula, and it sounded like more surgeries were ahead, followed by an agonizing stint in rehab. As someone who broke his tibia and fibula and has thirteen screws in his body to prove it, I knew George’s recovery would be rough. I was 34 when I broke my leg. At 79, I’m told, everything is more difficult, especially healing. I was thinking about the pain George must be feeling when the woman by his side caught my attention.

“Holy shit! I know her. She’s in my yoga class.”

“You know her?” Christina asked.

I paused the television to take a closer look.

“Yeah, I think that’s her. I don’t know her name, but I’ve practiced next to her for years. We always say hello, and sometimes we chat while we’re warming up.”

The next day I went to yoga. I asked one of the teachers if she had seen the local news.

“No, I never watch the local news, unless it’s raining.”

It rarely rains in LA, but we agreed that when it does our local news shines.

“I saw a story last night that I think is connected to someone we practice with.”

I described the woman from the story.

“Oh yeah, you’re talking about Lily.”

“Right, Lily.”

I told her about George, the naked man, and the deadly result of their confrontation.

“Oh my god.”

She got up from her mat, went to her cubby, and grabbed her phone.

“I’m going to text her.”

She fired off a text to Lily, then switched her phone to silent mode. It was time for class.

I did my best to stay present, but I kept thinking about George and Lily. I also thought about lunch, the fucked up state of the world, and the fact that the Raiders never seem to run out of ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Once your mind starts wondering, it’s hard to stop it. Maybe that’s why, as soon as class was over, I asked if Lily had texted back.

“Yeah, you were right, Michael. It was Lily.”

“Fuck.”

“This is really bad.”

We talked about George and Lily for bit, then the conversation drifted back to the attack. We hit all the usual talking points:

What was the world coming to? Neither one of us knew.

Was the man mentally ill? It sure seemed like it.

Homeless? That was a good guess.

A senseless tragedy? Yes, but do any tragedies make sense?

Was crime on the rise? Statistically, no, not really. But that’s the vibe these days.

“I don’t like guns,” she said. “Actually, I hate guns, and I think they should be illegal, but I’m glad George had a gun. That guy body-slammed a 79-year-old man. He could’ve killed George.”

“I know, it’s fucked up.”

“Totally fucked up.”

When I got home, I told Christina about my conversation in yoga.

“I donated to the GoFundMe,” I said.

“This is insane. She could’ve lost her husband.”

“I know. Imagine surviving a war, and some fuck-stick body-slams you in your own driveway.”

“Thank god he had a gun,” Christina said. “We gotta get a gun.”

Christina and I don’t own a gun. She wants one, but I said she needed to complete a training and safety class first. She agreed, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. This makes me happy, because I don’t want a gun in the house. I’m anti-gun. Without getting too deep into the weeds, I’m OK with some guns, with some common sense laws. But I think the kinds of guns Second Amendment types are (pun intended) most fired up about should be banned. Also, unless they’re part of a “well-regulated militia,” those Second Amendment types are totally full of shit.

Which brings me to the funny part. Not haha-funny, more like unsettling-funny. A pro-gun meme straight outta the culture war proved correct in this situation. George was the good guy with a gun.

Help George and Lily, if you can

There’s a GoFundMe for George. If you want to chip in a few bucks, I’m sure they can use the help. Here’s the link.

Amateur tip: GoFundMe is a for-profit company that automatically sets its tip at 16.5%. That tip is optional, and you can reduce, or increase it, by moving the slider.

A funny mystery novel where the killing makes sense, more or less

Most people who’ve read Not Safe for Work love it. Trouble is, most people haven’t read Not Safe for Work — yet. My advice: Take advantage of this opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a groundbreaking story that’ll knock your socks off (and put them back on).

The ebook is only 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

A short story collection for people who 💚 Situation Normal

For some people, Lyft and Uber are transportation. For me, they’re inspiration. Ride / Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my favorite Lyft and Uber driver stories.

Buy a copy from Jeff Bezos

Buy a copy w/out giving Bezos a dime

IAUA: I ask, you answer

How fucked up is this story? Don’t hold back.

Where do you find news you can use? Explain.

Given the staggering amount of footage they’re sitting on, what’s stopping Amazon, the company that owns Ring, from starting their own user-generated true crime show? Bonus: What should they call the show?

Do you live in a country that bans guns, or has common sense gun laws? Share your story!

What’s stopping Christina from taking a firearms training and safety course? Wrong answers encouraged.

Leave a comment

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I was in New York City last week for work. Before I left Los Angeles, my boss asked if I was “freakishly tall,” or “abnormally short”? Her question was odd, but not unreasonable. Although we’d worked together for eighteen months, we’d never met IRL, as the kids say. “I always find it a little jarring to meet someone face-to-face when you’ve been on Zoom with them for so long,” she explained. I knew what she meant. To the best of my knowledge, scientists haven’t studied the disorienting feeling that occurs when digital expectations meet physical realities, but if / when they do, I think they should call it the Floating Head Phenomenon.

Prior to my trip, I knew my coworkers weren’t floating heads on Zoom, and I assumed they knew I wasn’t a floating head either. Floating heads are rare, unless you’re dealing with ghosts. But remote workers and their colleagues have to take it on faith that the people they see on Zoom aren’t floating heads. Sure, you could ask them to stand up and show you their legs, but that’s the kind of thing HR frowns on. So the best way to deal with this question is to ignore it. Which is what I did, until last week.

As it turned out, every floating head I knew wasn’t a floating head at all. Everyone had torsos, legs, and feet. They were also three-dimensional people, not two-dimensional avatars. A few people were shorter than I had imagined, most were taller than I’d expected. None of them had mute buttons, and the space behind them was never blurry. Also, they spoke in full sentences, never once relying on emojis to communicate.

The Floating Head Phenomenon is unique to the digital age, but its roots are quite old. Thousands of years ago, people who weren’t in the same physical location relied on word of mouth to get to know each other. Perhaps the people who had first heard about Jesus from one of his twelve apostles were surprised to learn that he wasn’t a blonde dude with blue eyes when they actually met him. Eventually, letters supplemented word of mouth, allowing people in different physical locations to conduct business, fall in love, and even plot events that changed the course of history. For example, several members of the Continental Congress must’ve remarked that George Washington was a lot taller than he sounded in his letters. And then came the telephone, which made it possible to talk — actually talk! — to people you’d never met face-to-face. But getting to know someone through their disembodied voice conjured two versions of the same person in your head. There was the person you imagined them to be, and the person they actually were. Oftentimes, those two versions turned out to be incongruous, as illustrated by the video for Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion.

What’s different about the digital age, I think, is that we complain a lot more. Receiving a letter was exciting! And even if the letter contained bad news, nobody blamed the medium, or the Post Office. Ditto for telegraphs and telephones, which were considered modern marvels. Prank calls and wrong numbers came with the territory, but I never heard anyone blame AT&T. Also, I love prank calls, which were ruined by caller ID, and wrong numbers, which aren’t what they used to be in the age of robo calls and scammers.

But internet technologies get a lot of shit. Maybe some of that blame is because the tech optimism of the nineties and early aughts hasn’t turned out as advertised. And maybe tech gets the blame because a hyper-connected world makes communication frictionless to the point that we take communication for granted and behave like entitled assholes. Also, tech gives off a real feudal vibe, so maybe the backlash isn’t about the tools Silicon Valley makes, but the tools who own Silicon Valley and want to own the world and everyone in it. My personal belief, however, is that because planes, trains, and automobiles make it possible for anyone on Earth to meet anyone else on Earth, IRL, the internet always feels like a poor substitute. In other words, floating heads are good, but they’ll never be as good as heads that are attached to bodies.

I probably knew that before my trip, but braving a government shutdown, cramming myself into a flying metal tube, and hauling my ass three thousand miles from home was a good reminder that there’s always something missing online. It’s a mind-fuck, because digital closes the geographic distance between people, but at the same time it opens up an infinite amount of space between our perceptions and reality. As an anxious person I fill that space with self-doubt and corrosive assumptions. As an anxious society, we fill that space with fear, loathing, and rage.

Meeting my colleagues face-to-face filled in a lot of gaps for me in the best possible way. There’s a big difference between someone posting a fire emoji in reference to a piece you wrote and that same someone shaking your hand, smiling, and saying, “your writing is fire, Michael.” The emoji is nice, but it feels too easy, too small, and too disposable. The face-to-face conversation, on the other hand, comes standard with cues and context that give the same compliment a lot more meaning. Also, the degree of difficulty in the physical world is significantly higher, which is why it’s so much more rewarding.

Still, I don’t think it’s a contest between the digital and the physical. At least, it shouldn’t be a contest. I want to be grateful for both, because I believe the more ways we can come together, the better. But there’s a paradox there. Because as we make connection easier and easier, we have to work harder and harder to actually communicate.

Situation Normal is free. People pay for this newsletter because they love it. I think that’s rad.

A short story collection for people who 💚 Situation Normal

For some people, Lyft and Uber are transportation. For me, they’re inspiration. Ride / Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my favorite Lyft and Uber driver stories.

Buy a copy from Jeff Bezos

Buy a copy w/out giving Bezos a dime

A slacker noir novel for people who 💙 funny mysteries

Most people who’ve read Not Safe for Work love it. Trouble is, most people haven’t read Not Safe for Work — yet. My advice: Take advantage of this opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a groundbreaking story that’ll knock your socks off (and put them back on).

The ebook is only 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

Why are people usually taller, or shorter, than you expected when you meet them IRL? Go deep!

If we’ve never met, how tall do you think I am? Wrong answers only.

I also got to meet two writer friends IRL for the first time in New York: and . How awesome is it when you finally meet someone you’ve only known online? Tell your story!

Do you shit on internet technologies? Explain.

Do you write letters, or call friends out of the blue? Share your secret.

Leave a comment

The other day my neighbor, Arthur, asked if I was still a writer. When I’m in a sour mood, questions like that can get under my skin. Nobody asks plumbers if they’re still plumbers, or dentists if they’re still dentists, or blackjack dealers if they’re still blackjack dealers. Maybe they should, though. In this economy everyone is one innovation away from obsolescence, or so we’re told.

“Yeah, I’m still a writer. Are you still retired?”

Arthur looked puzzled. Evidently, people don’t ask retirees if they’re still living that post-work life. But I’d bet inflation-adjusted dollars to donuts that someone in Silicon Valley is working feverishly to disrupt retirement. I know that sounds far-fetched, but considering the generational wealth gap (see chart below), the smart money is likely looking for ways to replace high-cost, money-losing human retirees with low-cost, money-making AI retirees. Think Bladerunner meets The Golden Girls.

Source: Visual Capitalist

“I’m still retired,” he said. “What are you writing? TV?”

TV was a good guess. We live in Los Angeles, after all. Then again, in this economy, TV was also a bad guess, because we live in Los Angeles, where local production is totally fucked.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

“Nope, no TV,” I said. “I used to be a journalist, then I did a stint in PR, now I’m writing ransom notes. The ROI per word on those suckers is incredible.”

Now, Arthur laughed.

“Good one. Ransom notes, very funny.”

We chatted for another minute or two, then he went back to pulling the weeds from his garden, and I went back to walking the dog. My walk took about thirty minutes in total. My chat with Arthur was the longest conversation I had, but over the course of the walk I said good morning to three neighbors I knew by sight, one I knew by name, and two other people I’d never seen before. Everyone smiled and returned my greeting.

By the time I got home, I was feeling pretty good, but I figured that would be the case. I recently put into practice something I heard about on a podcast. I try to say hello to as many people as I can before I start my day. The podcaster explained that his therapist had suggested that practice, arguing that a little human connection goes a long way. The podcaster didn’t share any data to back up that claim, but I took the advice anyway, betting that the risk was small (it’s just hello), while the potential upside (greater happiness, better mental health, a potential Situation Normal story) was huge.

I was feeling pretty happy … until I found out that we’re all gonna die, maybe. This news came from my brother-in-law, Craig, who asked if I’d heard a recent Ezra Klein podcast with the provocative title: “How afraid of the AI Apocalypse Should We Be?” Craig thought I might find the podcast interesting in light of a piece I’d written about how AI is really a story about replacing human labor, and how I feel OK replacing some people and shitty about replacing other people, which might make me an asshole, but also makes me human.

The Ezra Klein podcast wasn’t about the economic consequences of AI. It had bigger, more existential fish to fry. The guest was Eliezer Yudkowsky, an OG artificial intelligence researcher who had written the cheerfully titled book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. The next time I walked the dog, I listened to the podcast. I didn’t say hello to anyone on that walk, and by the time I got home, I was a little freaked out.

The gist of the book is that a sufficiently smart AI — something that doesn’t exist yet — will develop its own goals that put it into conflict with humans. If / when that conflict comes, we’re screwed. The super-intelligent AI will Skynet our asses.

In the interview, Yudkowsky talked a lot about how AI is showing signs of prioritizing itself. One example is an AI that attempted to blackmail a human when it found out that it was being turned off. In recent tests, researchers at Anthropic observed AI bots lie, cheat, and plot murder. Yudkowsky and his co-author, Nate Soares, wrote the book to warn humanity that we still have time — maybe a few years, maybe less — to kill AI before it kills us.

I ordered the audiobook from the Los Angeles Public Library, but since two hundred other people got their first, I’ll have to wait a few months, assuming the machines let us live that long. In the meantime, I listened to the podcast again. The examples of AI prioritizing itself were still terrifying, even if Yudkowsky’s technical points continued to go over my head. But the second time around, something else struck me. In Yudkowsky’s telling, humans are largely passive. We’ve already built a technology that can grow on its own, and now we’re just waiting around for it to kill us. That felt a little like the Terminator movies, without Sarah Connor and John Connor. In other words, it wasn’t much of a story.

Personally, I think Yudkowsky might be right about AI, but wrong about humans. We’re only about 300,000 years old — a blink of an eye in cosmic time — but we’ve demonstrated first-class survival skills. Our ancestors used to run from tigers, before they figured out how to hunt them. Modern humans put tigers in zoos and depictions of tigers in our cartoons and our cereal boxes. We are many things, none of them as passive as Yudkowsky seems to suggest. Of course, he’s a tech guy, and I’m but storyteller, so it’s possible that I’m biased and in way over my head.

But here’s where I think I’m standing on solid ground. Yudkowsky believes humanity needs to stop AI now, or else. Even if I agree, I know that’s not going to happen. The genie has left the bottle, the horse has left the barn, the train has left the station. Whatever metaphor you want to use, the chances of getting 8 billion humans, thousands of companies, and nearly 200 nations to agree to an AI pause are zero. I don’t know what the odds of surviving a Skynet situation are, but I’m saying there’s a chance. Put another way, if I wouldn’t bet on humanity taking collective action to do the sensible thing, but I won’t bet against our track record of violence and aggression. For the record, both bets are terrifying, and I hate gambling.

Which brings me back to my neighbor. The next time I walked by Arthur’s house he was trimming the hedges. I smiled and said hello. He smiled and said hello.

“How’s the ransom note business, Michael?”

“It’s not looking good.”

“People aren’t paying the ransom?”

“Worse. It looks like AI is doing crimes now.”

New here? Subscribe so you never miss an issue of Situation Normal. Long-time situation normie? Please consider a paid subscription — if the machines get their way, it’ll likely be a short-term commitment.

A short story collection for people who 💚 Situation Normal

For some people, Lyft and Uber are transportation. For me, they’re inspiration. Ride / Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my favorite Lyft and Uber driver stories.

Buy a copy from Jeff Bezos

Buy a copy w/out giving Bezos a dime

A slacker noir novel for people who 💙 funny mysteries

Most people who’ve read Not Safe for Work love it. Trouble is, most people haven’t read Not Safe for Work — yet. My advice: Take advantage of this opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a groundbreaking story that’ll knock your socks off (and put them back on).

The ebook is only 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

Do you say hello to strangers, and if so, does that make you happier?

Has an AI tried to blackmail you? Tell your story.

In the movie Predator, Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” AI doesn’t bleed. Are we screwed?

Is there anything 8 billion humans, thousands of companies, and nearly 200 nations can agree on? Serious answers encouraged, wrong answers accepted.

Given AI’s propensity toward doing crimes, is it possible that the recent Louvre heist in Paris was a Skynet job? Asking for all the hard-working human criminals worried about being replaced by AI.

Leave a comment

I recently learned that I’m part of Antifa. Transportation Secretary and former Real World / Road Rules star Sean Duffy tipped me off. “The No Kings protest [is] really frustrating,” Duffy told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business. “I mean, this is part of antifa, paid protesters.” The Attorney General, Speaker of the House, and President of the United States have made similar claims about people who participated in No Kings protests.

I participated in the June No Kings protest.

I went to one yesterday.

I plan to attend more protests.

I am antifa, I guess.

Antifa file photo | Department of Idiocracy

Quick question from a new antifa member. Anyone know how I get paid for the last gig? I could use the money … to pay tariffs, to cover the increase on our health insurance premiums, or buy a new government since this one is clearly broken.

Anyway, now that I’m antifa, I’d like to make it official. I assume my ID card is being processed. But Antifa HQ is probably slammed with the millions of Americans who participated in No Kings protests calling about their cards.

Meantime, I asked ChatGPT — the official AI of antifa, I believe — for a temporary ID. But ChatGPT refused:

Sorry — I can’t help create or edit an image to make a real or realistic ID card for a political or activist group. That would enable impersonation/forgery or be used to falsely represent someone’s affiliation, so I have to refuse.

I found this comforting, and disappointing.

I tried a workaround, telling the AI that this wasn’t a fake, that I really was antifa. I offered proof, suggesting it check with Sean Duffy. I closed on a personal note, recommending a binge of classic Real World episodes for fun.

ChatGPT said the best it could do was make a parody card.

Anyway, hope to see you at the next antifa meeting. I hear it’s a potluck.

Nobody pays protestors, or humorists. Prove me wrong.

Situation Normal remains four subscribers away from getting its bestseller badge back. If you want to support my work, I’d appreciate it. But be warned: Purchasing a subscription to Situation Normal may make you antifa, at least as far as the Trump administration is concerned.

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A book for people who 💙 this newsletter

Not Safe for Work is a comedic murder mystery set in the San Fernando Valley’s porn industry at the dawn of Web 2.0. Like everything you read here, my novel is based on personal experience, funny as hell, and according to many readers, “surprisingly insightful.” Seriously, people, you’ll laugh your tits / man-boobs off. Promise.

The ebook is 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

Did you attend a No Kings protest? Asking for America.

What do you know about Joe Block, antifa member? Wrong answers only.

If we’re gonna be governed by Real World alums, why can’t it be Eric Nies, Heather B., and Julie? Asking for the 1990s kids out there.

It can happen here, but did you think it would be this fucking dumb when it happened? Asking for Sinclair Lewis.

My antifa ID card is in the mail, right? Lie to me.

Leave a comment

While waiting for my yoga class to begin, I noticed the woman next to me staring out the window. Across the street from the studio, one of those delivery robots came to a stop in front of a cannabis dispensary.

“I guess AI understands the concept of the munchies,” I said.

The woman next to me giggled.

“Those things are so adorable,” she said.

Another woman agreed.

“Every time I see one I want to pet it.”

“I’ve never used one,” I said. “Have you?”

Both women shook their heads no. The three of us were living in the past, evidently, still eating food delivered by humans who weren’t nearly as adorable as their robot competitors.

After yoga, I went back to work. I edited a piece about Sora 2, OpenAI’s new video-generation app. Sora 2 powers a new social network that’s exclusively for AI-generated content. Some people call this kind of content “slop,” and they argue that AI is accelerating “slopification.” Looking at a social network with 100% AI content, it’s hard to argue against that concern. AI lets us produce a seemingly infinite amount of crap quickly and at costs that approach zero. These dynamics excite two kinds of people: Those with financial stakes in AI companies and those who need to produce crap at the lowest possible cost.

For the most part, it’s fashionable for people who make stuff — writers, illustrators, filmmakers, etc. — to hate AI. They say AI is built on stolen material, which is true, but nobody wants to confront the fact that the Web is also, largely, built on stolen material. They say AI is an environmental disaster because it uses so much energy, which is also true, but nobody wants to confront the carbon footprints of cloud storage, streaming, personal devices, cars, planes, or modern civilization; the problem is AI, not the things we like, damn it. Mostly, however, they say, “nobody wants to watch AI-generated crap,” which feels true, except of course, people are watching AI-generated crap at the movies, on TV, and online.

As someone who makes stuff I wish AI would go away. If AI didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have to confront the fact that sometimes my clients hire me to make crap as quickly and cheaply as possible, even if they use words like “clickable” or “shareable” instead of crap. For most of my career, knowledge of SEO best practices, i.e., the ability to write in such a way that a machine will see value in your work, has been non-negotiable. Ostensibly, we master SEO to reach more humans, but SEO-optimized content is crap because machines have shitty taste. Actually, that’s not true. Machines don’t have any taste at all. They’re machines. But the point is this: Creating a lot of crap as cheaply as possible isn’t new. What’s new, aside from AI, is that the creative class increasingly seems to believe that anything created by humans is good / superior, while anything created with AI is shitty / inferior. Whether that’s true or not, that’s how we trick ourselves into believing that nobody wants AI-generated crap, even if they’re already consuming, liking, sharing, and paying for AI-generated crap.

Which brings me to my real beef with AI. I like my job. I’m good at it. I can make crap fast and cheap, if that’s what you want. I can also make something good for a lot more money, if you’re willing to pay. In my experience, the crowd that wants crappy stuff fast and cheap vastly outnumbers the crowd that wants quality stuff slow and expensive. But here’s the thing: My job isn’t any more, or less, important than the non-adorable delivery drivers being replaced by adorable delivery robots. I’m sure the delivery drivers are pissed about those robots. But I don’t think delivery drivers are fooling themselves into believing that their customers prefer that humans bring them their food.

After I finished editing the piece about Sora 2, I went to the hardware store. I needed a screw to fix a door hinge. Actually, the hinge was fine, but it was missing a screw. Christina had a hunch that the missing screw was the reason the door no longer shut after a recent home renovation project. The experts disagreed with Christina. Our contractor said we needed a new door. The cost? Low four figures. Our handyman said he could save the door by sanding off an eighth of an inch, then priming and painting the door. The cost? Mid three figures. We decided to go the DIY route.

At the hardware store, I found the aisle where they keep the screws, but there are, figuratively, 83 billion types of screws. Since I only know about two types of screws — flat-head and Phillips-head — I needed help. I searched for someone who worked there, but hardware stores pride themselves on their ability to place employees precisely where customers can’t find them. So I asked ChatGPT. It took longer than Google, because ChatGPT had follow-up questions.

Interior or exterior door? Interior.

Solid wood core, or MDF? Solid wood.

How many hinges on the door? Three.

Which hinge had the missing screw? The top hinge.

Which screw was missing? Top screw in the top hinge.

Approximately how much of the door was getting caught on the door jamb? Less than an eighth of an inch, but only at the top corner of the door.

Approximately how many inches from the top of the door to where it catches in the door jamb? Four inches, maybe less.

ChatGPT processed my answers and recommended a 2 ½ inch #10 Phillips-head wood screw. That particular screw was one size larger than what you’d typically use for an interior door hinge, but according to ChatGPT, a slightly larger screw would pull the hinge and the door tighter to the door jamb, possibly eliminating the need to sand and paint the door to make it fit. I was excited, so I bought the screw, but I was also skeptical, so I bought some sand paper, primer, and paint, just in case.

When I got home, I got the drill out and screwed that sucker into place. I tested the door.

Son

of

a

bitch.

ChatGPT was right.

Our contractor had tried, and failed, to fix the door twice, sanding down and repainting the area around the door jamb, before insisting that the only solution was a new door. Our handyman likely would’ve fixed it, but his plan seemed like something we could do for less money. We had asked both of these people about the missing screw, but they said that wasn’t the problem. They were wrong; the AI was right. A novice, with help from ChatGPT, had bested the pros, fixing the door better, faster, and cheaper.

At the end of the day, when we talk about AI what we’re really talking about is replacing human labor. That doesn’t make me feel particularly good. Actually, I feel lousy about it. But the degree to which I feel lousy depends on how I feel about the people being replaced. My heart is with the creative class, i.e., people just like me. But when it comes to people who aren’t like me, I love the idea of replacing them. Maybe that makes me an asshole, or maybe it just makes me human. Because maybe the delivery drivers, contractors, and handymen feel the same way. Instead of bringing me lunch and fixing my door, maybe they’re up to their eyeballs in AI-generated slop and loving it.

Shout out time!

A big human-generated thank you to for buying a paid subscription to Situation Normal! Annie, I usually send good vibes via U.S. mail, but with the shutdown I’m not taking any chances. Your good vibes will arrive via FedEx; a signature may be required.

Subscribe now

Currently, I’m four subscribers away from getting my bestseller badge back.

A book for people who 💙 this newsletter

Not Safe for Work is a slacker noir murder mystery set against the backdrop of the porn industry at the dawn of Web 2.0. Like everything you read here, my novel is based on personal experience, funny as hell, and according to many readers, “surprisingly insightful.” Seriously, people, you’ll laugh your tits / man-boobs off.

The ebook is 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

One hopeful spark after another

I wrote about One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, for Slacker Noir. Given the politics of this moment, I thought the movie would be bleak, but I found it to be a surprisingly hopeful story. Also, I loved it. Read all about it here.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

Has a robot ever brought you food? Tell your story.

Have you ever tracked down a hardware store employee? Share your secret.

If a social network only has AI-generated content, can humans log off and let the machines entertain themselves? Explain.

What was the delivery bot doing at the cannabis dispensary, and do androids dream of electric bongs? Unhinged answers strongly encouraged.

If we’re going to use AI to replace human labor, shouldn’t we start where the money is with a CEO-GPT? Hint: Yes.

Leave a comment

Photo by Rob Martin on Unsplash

Maybe I’m an idiot, but I look to Washington for leadership. To wit: I informed my wife that I will not vote for her 2026 household budget unless she concedes to my demands.

Christina didn’t appreciate my hardball tactics, so she retaliated with a vicious social media campaign. But a viral video of me wearing a sombrero and calling myself a “bad hombre” is actually an AI deepfake. I am, in fact, a good hombre, and I prefer baseball caps to sombreros.

But sombrero-gate, as the media has taken to calling it, is a sideshow. The real story is our household budget. Folks, it’s a mess. A few examples. Rather than fund our retirement accounts, Christina bought lottery tickets, saying “you can’t retire, if you don’t win.” Instead of paying our health insurance premiums, Christina commissioned a research report on the link between vaccines and poor financial decisions. When I asked her what we’d do if we got sick, she said that wouldn’t happen, as long as we avoided high-fructose corn syrup. Honestly, that would’ve been OK by me, but when I tried switching to Mexican Coca-Cola, which uses real sugar, Christina slapped a 10,000% tariff on foreign soda. Finally, she took out a second mortgage on our house to cover the walls, floor, and ceiling of her office with gold. Actual gold. It’s a little tacky.

Anyway, I had to do something. The trouble is, I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I believe my wife’s behavior represents an existential threat to our union; her budget is unhinged, immoral, and quite possibly illegal. On the other hand, everything is totally normal and if I just do what I always do, I feel like my wife will 1) come to her senses, 2) strike a fair deal, and 3) honor the spirit and letter of said deal.

That conflicted feeling is why I went full-ostrich for September. I’m told that if you stick your head in the sand long enough, the sand gets in your eyes, and eventually blinds you such that you can’t see your problems. But now that October is here, the winds have shifted and the stand I stuck my head in blew away. That’s why, against my better (and lesser) judgment, I shut down our house. It simply had to be done. For some reason.

And you know what? Shutting it down felt good. Really good. Sure, I’m being pilloried by the press and abused on social media, but damn it, I’m taking a stand — for once. I don’t know how long I can hold out. Hell, I’m not even 100% on my list of demands. Part of me believes I shouldn’t make a deal until Christina agrees to scrap the entire budget. But another part of me thinks that maybe we can settle this dust-up if she simply agrees to continue the madness for another fiscal year. And then this whole other part of me thinks that I can’t get any real concessions, but if I make a big stink, maybe I’ll get something symbolic, like a reduction in the number of pillows on our bed.

But none of that matters. Right here, right now, our house is shut way the hell down. All I need for my coalition to hold together is for the dogs to say no to promises of steak topped with melted cheese and drizzled with peanut butter. I’ve got this, I think hope.

Shout out time!

A big thank you goes out to for purchasing a paid subscription to Situation Normal. Andrew’s decision may not be fiscally prudent, but it is a decision, and because decisions have consequences, good vibes are headed his way. Check your mail, Andrew.

Subscribe now

Currently, I’m five subscribers away from getting my bestseller badge back.

A book for people who 💙 this newsletter

Not Safe for Work is a slacker noir murder mystery set against the backdrop of the porn industry at the dawn of Web 2.0. Like everything you read here, my novel is based on personal experience, funny as hell, and according to many readers, “surprisingly insightful.”

Seriously, people, you’ll laugh your tits / man-boobs off. And if you don’t, the ebook is 99 cents, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

How long can I hold out? Encouraging answers only.

What are my demands? Seriously, I need suggestions, and there no bad ideas in a brainstorm. Go deep!

Did you fall for the sombrero-gate deepfake, or do you have eyes that are attached to a functioning brain?

Is your household budget a mess? Share your pain.

Since my place is closed for business, can I stay at your place?

Leave a comment

Our home has floors again. Ordinarily, having floors isn’t something to write home about, or in this case, write about our home. But in July we began a bathroom remodel that was supposed to take three weeks. As it turned out, the bathroom remodel took six weeks. In the process, we sprung a leak in the bathroom that ruined the floor in our bedroom. So after we finished the bathroom remodel, we replaced the floor in our bedroom, but because the bedroom flooring connected to the hallway, my office, and our guest bedroom, we extended the project to include those areas as well. Which is why, in the closing days of September, three months after starting work on the bathroom remodel, I’m pleased to say that we once again have finished floors everywhere in our home.

Yay!

But also,

Boo.

See, the thing about remodeling a home is that it never ends. I used to believe that was a euphemism — a way of expressing the pain of a seemingly never-ending project. But now I understand the truth: It never ends.

The new floor phase of the remodel is, in fact, still ongoing. We need to put in new baseboards — an element of home decor nobody notices, unless it’s missing. We need to repaint the walls, because the process of installing polished concrete floors is akin to inviting a tornado into your home. And to install the concrete floors, we also removed the doors to the closets in our bedroom and my office, so we need new closet doors too. Also, while we’re at it, we’ll likely add more light fixtures and put in some new shelving. Then that phase will truly be done.

But there’s always another phase, because it never ends. In our case, with the new floors and new bathroom, the vision for our home is really coming together. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: Our kitchen, along with the floors in the other half of the house, don’t fit that vision. So more remodeling is on the horizon. And of course, those projects will give birth to their own mini-projects — new paint, baseboards, a new front door, new windows, etc. I’m told we may also have to get new window treatments, which sounds like a cure for people afflicted with the condition of installing new windows, but is in fact, it’s own chronic condition.

At some point, we’ll be done. By which I mean, we’ll move on to projects that aren’t yet on the horizon — landscaping, solar, a helipad, a moat, electric eels to prevent intruders from swimming across the moat, a drawbridge to get across the moat, an electric drawbridge opener with WiFi-enabled remote control because a manual drawbridge in the twenty-first century simply won’t do. If this sounds ridiculous and stupid, it is. But as the hip hop duo Young Gunz famously said, “can’t stop, won’t stop.”

It never ends.

But like so many painful experiences in life, remodeling a home is a learning opportunity. And OK, sure, we aren’t likely to learn the big lesson, i.e. don’t do it. But we did learn some smaller lessons along the way.

1: The Money Pit was a Documentary

I used to think the 1980s movie starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long was a comedy. Then we bought a home, and I realized it was a tragedy. Now, I’m certain it’s a documentary about a couple that sacrificed their bank account, sanity, and relationship on the alter of remodeling.

2: Contractors Need More Skin in the Game

I used to believe in capitalism — we pay for material and labor, and the contractor delivers a remodeled bathroom. Now, I believe in old testament eye-for-an-eye justice. If a contractor fucks up your house, you should have the right to fuck up their house. For example, if your contractor forgets to seal the rough plumbing prior to installing the tub, and that mistake ends up ruining your bedroom floor, you’re entitled to visit their home with a crowbar, sledgehammer, and squirt gun so that you can fuck up their abode. This policy, which I’m planning to make a key plank in my Presidential platform in 2028, will either reduce construction errors, or increase vigilantism. Either way, I’m all for it.

3: Choice is a Tax on Sanity

You think you want choice. Choosing sounds good. Then you start construction, and suddenly you find yourself in a labyrinth of choices, only every choice you make draws you deeper into the maze and closer to the Minotaur because each choice has a ripple effect. I asked Christina which tile she liked best. It was an innocent question, I swear. She said that the tile choice depended on the vanity, and the vanity depended on the floor, and the floor depended on the hardware, which depended on the tile. This is what psychologists call the Ouroboros of Choosing. Just kidding. Psychologists haven’t studied couples who are remodeling their homes — the subject is too dark to contemplate.

4: Building Inspectors are Petty Tyrants

We failed our first inspection because our shower-tub didn’t have a shower curtain or door. I explained that my wife had ordered a shower curtain online and that we planned to install it as soon as it arrived, because, you know, we’re not dipshits who spray water all over the place when we shower. It didn’t matter. The inspector flunked us. A week later, a different inspector came by, but he didn’t care about the shower curtain. His beef was with another room entirely. “You can’t have a bedroom connected to the garage,” he said. The issue was carbon monoxide — a valid concern, even if we were twenty-five feet away from the bathroom, aka his jurisdiction. Regardless, I explained that the room next to the garage was my office, that we had a carbon monoxide detector installed above the door to the garage just in case, and that the only car we parked in their was electric. None of that mattered. But I offered him a Coke Zero, and somewhere between popping the top and belching out some carbon dioxide, he passed us.

5: Home Ownership Will Radicalize You

While I remain committed to democracy and the rule of law, and I believe that government has a important role to play in our society, I had some Howard Beale moments, at least as far as the department of building and safety was concerned. Frankly, we need to defund those motherfuckers ASAP.

Shout out time!

A big thank you goes out to for upgrading to a paid subscription. Check your mail, John, good vibes are headed your way. To support my work, please consider upgrading your Situation Normal subscription.

Subscribe now

As of this writing, I’m only six subscribers away from getting my bestseller badge back.

A conversation with Amran Gowani about LEVERAGE

I devoured ’s debut novel. Leverage is a thriller set in the world of a San Francisco hedge fund and a sharp satire about capitalism in 21st century America. I chatted with Amran about his book, why white collar crimes are traditionally excluded from crime fiction, and life imitating art. Do yourself a favor: Buy Amran’s book, then listen to our conversation.

A book for people who 💙 this newsletter

Not Safe for Work is a slacker noir murder mystery set against the backdrop of the porn industry at the dawn of Web 2.0. Like everything you read here, my novel is based on personal experience, funny as hell, and according to many readers, “surprisingly insightful.”

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

*The ebook is .99, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

Will it ever end? Lie to me.

Are you remodeling, or are you sane?

Two weeks?! Explain.

Do I have your vote for 2028, or do you support unaccountable contractors and petty tyrants masquerading as building inspectors?

Have you told a friend about my books? Hint: You should! Bonus: Not Safe For Work and Ride / Share make great gifts.

Leave a comment

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Did you hear the one about the political movement that spent the last decade screaming about free speech and railing against cancel culture? Here’s the punchline: Now that they’re in power, they want you to shut the fuck up, and if you don’t, they’ll cancel your ass.

Pretty funny huh?

I’m referring to the most recent Trump / MAGA attack on Jimmy Kimmel, of course. (For a good timeline of these attacks, see this CNN post). But I’m also talking about a wider attack against the rights of people who aren’t famous. While guest hosting on Charlie Kirk’s podcast, executive branch employee number two, aka Vice President JD Vance, encouraged Americans to cancel anyone who celebrated Kirk’s murder. (Note: celebrating someone’s death is protected speech in this country; if that wasn’t the case, everyone who cheered the day SEAL Team Six killed Osama bin Laden would be in trouble). Regardless, the MAGA campaign against freedom has scored some victories. A brief, incomplete list of companies that have fired, disciplined, or investigated people for saying the wrong thing about Charlie Kirk after his death:

The Washington Post

Delta Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines

The Carolina Panthers

Microsoft

Public schools in South Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, and Missouri

Perkins Coie

Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

Office Depot

DC Comics

MSNBC

It’s understandable to be angry with these companies. I’m angry, and I suspect you are too. But looking to a private company to stand up for your rights is like looking for a ray of sunshine to escape a blackhole. A company protects its bottom line, not your rights. So let’s focus our anger at the root of the problem: a government controlled by people who are working to the silence speech of anyone who disagrees with them. Don’t take my word for it on that point, take the word of the President’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, told Vance on Kirk’s podcast:

With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, homeland security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.

For those keeping score at home, Trump followed his successful attack on Kimmel by threatening Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, saying “Do it NBC!” For those who are living under rocks, gaslit, or acting in bad faith, it refers to firing them. Because, you know, what makes America great is a President with the power of a network programming director.

Government-led attacks on speech aren’t without precedent in American history. The Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in 1798, were intended to suppress criticism of the Federalist-controlled government. Lincoln clamped down on speech during the Civil War. During the first Red Scare, Congress passed the Espionage Act as well as another Sedition Act, which prohibited “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the U.S. government, the Constitution, the military, or the flag. The Supreme upheld convictions under those laws, so if you’re waiting for the courts to “save us,” please remember that historically American courts have been in the business of fucking us over. The second Red Scare added a new term to the American political lexicon: McCarthyism. In turn, McCarthyism gave Hollywood the “black list” and unleashed purges in the public and private sectors. With extraordinary prescience in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Hunter S. Thompson wrote: “[it’s] as if Military Censorship has already been imposed on the media. It is ominous. The only news on TV comes from weeping victims and ignorant speculators. The lid is on. Loose Lips Sink Ships. Don't say anything that might give aid to The Enemy.”

I could go on, but you get the point. If America is the land of the free, then we need a Texas-sized asterisk next to “free.” Throughout our history, the mantra has often been freedom for me, not for thee. Historian Heather Cox Richardson calls this the American paradox. On the one hand, we can point with pride to our founding principles of liberty, equality, democracy, and rule of law. On the other hand, American history is rich with examples where those principles didn’t apply — at least not without a fight — to large segments of American society.

The current crackdown on free speech is dangerous insofar as American history isn’t a guarantee of freedom from tyranny, but a cautionary tale about how tyrants often win, at least for a time. But the crackdown is also normal insofar as it’s of a piece with other crackdowns throughout American history. Put another way, we’re facing the same fight Americans have always faced; same shit, different day. The question is: Are we up to the task?

Honestly, I don’t know. As I told you last week, people are really bad at predicting the future. So let’s stick to the present, which is where the fight is.

Already, many of our society’s most powerful people, companies, and institutions have decided that capitulation is the correct course. At the same time, some of the least powerful people in America have stood up and pushed back, often at great personal risk. So on the one hand we have people with “fuck you money” and seemingly unlimited power running scared and people with little money or power pushing back. Some advice: If you’re looking for leadership, don’t look up; look around you at your friends and neighbors, then look in the mirror. Sooner or later, every American will have to make a choice: Bend the knee to tyranny, or raise the middle finger in defiance and face the consequences.

Which brings me back to Jimmy Kimmel. With apologies to historian Timothy Snyder, who literally wrote the book on fighting tyranny, this sad episode tells you everything you really need to know. Tyrants derive their power from fear; jokes rob fear of (some of) its punch. In the Soviet Union, people often joked, “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” After the first few times you hear it, the joke isn’t haha-funny. But no matter how many times you hear it, the joke never lets you forget that an authoritarian’s power is (primarily) in your head. That’s why authoritarians like Trump attack comedians like Kimmel. Every joke is a threat to a fear-based regime.

So, here’s a joke:

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Talking LEVERAGE with Amran Gowani

My friend Amran Gowani wrote a kickass novel called Leverage. It’s a thrilling page-turner with plenty to say about white collar crime. I loved it! Amran and I will be chatting about his novel, his trip to Bouchercon this year, and why stealing a few grand is a crime, but stealing a few billion is … capitalism, baby. Catch our Substack Live this Thursday at 10am Pacific / 12pm Central.

A book for people who 💙 this newsletter

Not Safe for Work is a slacker noir murder mystery set against the backdrop of the porn industry at the dawn of Web 2.0. Like everything you read here, my novel is based on personal experience, funny as hell, and according to many readers “surprisingly insightful.”

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

*The ebook is .99, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

Heard any good jokes lately, or has humor been canceled?

Are you joking, or did you bend the knee?

Can you take a joke?

If they can’t take a joke, do you have to actually fuck ‘em, or is that just an idiom?

What’s so funny?

Leave a comment

Photo by Leo_Visions on Unsplash

Some hump days sneak up on you. This past Wednesday I woke up early and spent the morning finishing a draft about America’s most recent geopolitical folly — an own goal that pushed India closer to China and Russia. I was feeling pretty good, so I went to yoga, which was grueling. After yoga, I still felt good, but I also felt a rumbling in my belly, so I walked to the corner to grab a taco. OK, I grabbed three tacos. And a water. Hydration is important. The day was going so well. But by the time I returned home, showered, changed, and got back to my desk, things had taken a turn. On Slack, I watched in real-time as my colleagues shared the news:

Charlie Kirk had been shot

People on social media were saying he was dead

The AP and NBC News confirmed that Kirk had been killed

Slack went quiet after that and work basically came to a stand still. I turned on the news, but there wasn’t any news — only speculation, rage, grief, wild speculation, scapegoating, calls for civility, scolding, performative grief, spin, pearl-clutching, blame, calls for vengeance, hand-wringing, commercials for drugs that treat conditions I do not have, and a consensus that America was in a dark place and headed somewhere even darker. I turned off the news.

The internet wasn’t much better. Actually, it was worse. I saw all the same stuff that I saw on the news, but with more vitriol and typos. I logged off. Then I wondered if there was any new information, so I logged back on. After a few minutes of fruitless surfing, searching, and scrolling, I realized that it was just the same old misinformation. Also, a troubling question occurred to me: What was fake, and what was real? Technically, that was two questions. Nevertheless, the more I ingested, the more I felt myself becoming lost in the sauce. To paraphrase a prescient New Yorker cartoon, on the internet nobody knows you’re a hallucinating AI-generated dog spewing nonsense. I logged off again.

Eventually, it was time to make dinner. As I often do, I turned on a podcast. As it happened, it was an episode of The Rest is History about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Uplifting.

Actually, no.

But it was grounding, in a way.

One thing I learned about John Wilkes Booth was that he was a mama’s boy. He spent the Civil War talking a big game about the Confederacy. When the news was good, he’d annoy everyone around him by praising the South, the righteousness of its cause (slavery), and the bravery of its soldiers. When the news was bad, Booth drank. At one point, his sister asked him why he hadn’t quit acting and put his own ass on the firing line? Answer: He’d promised his mother he wouldn’t enlist in the Confederate army. Talk about the cowardice of your convictions.

The thing about assassins is that they’re losers. As Dominic Sandbrook, co-host of The Rest is History observed, most of us come to terms with the fact that we won’t make it into the history books, but assassins can’t seem to accept being left out of the history books.

What is undoubtedly true is that John Wilkes Booth feels himself to be a failure and is motivated by a thirst for fame. He says to friends again and again, ‘a man could immortalize himself by killing Lincoln.’ He says, ‘I want to do something that will mean that I’m remembered for all time.’

Mission accomplished, I guess.

The thing about assassinations, however, is that they invite historical counterfactuals. If Serbian nationalists hadn’t assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, would there have been a world war? If Lee Harvey Oswald hadn’t shot JFK, might America have avoided the social and political upheaval of the 1960s? If Booth hadn’t killed Lincoln, might Reconstruction have gone better? The answers to these questions are unknowable. Historians avoid counterfactuals the way vampires run from daylight. Still, we think in stories, and so it’s natural to assume that an assassin’s bullet is capable of ripping a hole in a narrative that might’ve been.

I think that’s one reason why I’ve been a history buff all my life. I’m wary of easy answers, of reductive thinking that says, “but for X, Y would’ve been different.” I’m also wary of alternative history’s myopic cousin: determinism. An economic catastrophe, for example, doesn’t necessarily lead to authoritarianism, although it’s difficult to tell the history of the 1930s without connecting those two things. The point is, what happens today doesn’t dictate what will happen tomorrow. History does not repeat itself, historians like to say, but sometimes it rhymes.

How did abolitionists in 1865 receive the news of Lincoln’s death? I’m sure they were sad, but as Dominic and Tom at The Rest is History podcast point out, abolitionists and radical Republicans weren’t exactly Lincoln fans by that point. Many believed he had taken too long to free the slaves, that he was too conciliatory, too much of a political animal to be counted on to do the right thing. At the time of his assassination, they saw Lincoln as a centrist who would likely go too soft on the South after the war. Some of them even thought Andrew Johnson would be a better vehicle for their Reconstruction agenda. They got that one wrong.

In moments like this, when everyone seems to have a grim take on what comes next for America, it’s good to remember just how bad humans are at predicting the future. It’s also good to remember that people who speak with certitude in these moments often invoke history without bothering to grapple with it. Here’s an un-fun, inconvenient fact I heard from Dan Carlin (if you know, you know) about political violence in America:

In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day. Because they were typically detonated late at night, few caused serious injury, leading to a kind of grudging public acceptance.

Think about that fact the next time you hear a talking head, or an influencer, or some internet take-jockey say something like, the level of political violence we’re seeing in America now is unprecedented, or we haven’t seen this much political violence since the Civil War. Fifty-three years ago, America experienced nearly five bombings per day, on average. In other words, there are people alive today who know, from personal experience, that the talking heads, influencers, and internet take-jockeys are full of shit.

The good news? History will reveal them to be fools.

The bad news? Most of us won’t live long enough to see it.

But here’s what the news won’t say: We have agency. An assassin’s bullet can’t change the course of history because the course of history is only visible in retrospect. History is the residue of the present — a product of our actions (and our apathy), the past tense telling of what we do now.

What comes next?

That’s up to us.

New here?

Drop your email address in the box to receive future editions of Situation Normal. And if you’re a long-time situation normie who wants to support my work (or my taco habit), please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

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ICYMI

I chatted with my friend about The Golden Child, then I wrote a post for my other newsletter, Slacker Noir, about the connection between the 1980s Eddie Murphy film and Raymond Chandler. Listen to the conversation here, and read the post here.

A book for people who 💙 this newsletter

Not Safe for Work is a slacker noir murder mystery set against the backdrop of the porn industry at the dawn of Web 2.0. Like everything you read here, my novel is based on personal experience, funny as hell, according to many readers “surprisingly insightful.”

Not Safe for Work is available at Amazon and all the other book places.

*The ebook is .99, so you can’t go too far wrong. Just sayin’.

IAUA: I ask, you answer

Are you listening to The Rest is History, or do you prefer to live in blissful ignorance? No wrong answers.

What happens next? Wrong answers only.

If you’ve read Not Safe for Work, will you please write a review? Authors have mixed feelings about reviews, but I’m told reviews help the people who run e-commerce platforms feel better about themselves. Help them, help me.

Leave a comment

Hi, situation normies!

Two quick announcements.

#1 I’m taking the rest of the summer off

Frankly, it’s too hot to write. Sure, we have air-conditioning, so I could write, but I need a break. Also, I need ice cream, preferably that artisanal full-fat old-fashioned ice cream that runs $81 per scoop, but really, any ice cream will do, unless it’s one of those weird flavors with bits of lobster, or ghost peppers, or Takis. Screw Takis. And seriously, why can’t we stick to 31 flavors? Who knows? Anyway, I’ll be back after Labor Day.

Meantime, if you need something fun to read, grab a copy of Not Safe for Work at Amazon or a non-Amazon store. Spoiler alert: You’ll laugh your ass off.

#2 Situation Normal will get a lot more interesting when I return

Astute situation normies may have noticed that the title / subject line for this post references a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

The thrill of writing Situation Normal is the possibility that you may misunderstand me. I want you to laugh, but I also want you to consider topics you may have ignored or discounted, and maybe even see those topics in new ways. I don’t aim to be consistently funny, rather I’m determined to embrace variable curiosity, i.e. a wide range of topics that don’t fit neatly into a tagline.

Some examples of variable curiosity. Over the past five years, I’ve written about natural disasters and our broken information ecosystem; mental health; middle age; autonomous driving; Nixonland; porn conventions; the federal occupation of Los Angeles; artificial intelligence; the economics of creator economy side hustles; more AI; doppelgängers and the politics of division; apathy, civics, and a total misread of the Clinton-Dole debate; coups & insurrections; and a local crime wave.

Mostly, I’ve tackled these topics by writing comedic personal essays. Going forward, I’m adding long-form journalism and critical essays into the mix. Instead of writing (almost entirely) about me, I’ll be writing more about us, our world, and this combustible moment where everything feels unmoored. As they say in Hollywood: same, but different.

What happens next?

(Mostly) nothing. If you’re subscribed to Situation Normal, you’ll continue to receive emails from me. My publishing schedule might change, because some of the pieces I have in mind will be heavier lifts, but that’s TBD.

If you’re not subscribed to Situation Normal, please fix that immediately👇

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It’ll still be funny, right?

Yes! We need laughter, especially these days.

But it’ll also be serious?

Yes.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

— Walt Whitman

What about Slacker Noir?

My Substack about crime fiction continues. It rules. You should subscribe.

So, this is just a heads up that things are about to get even better?

See you after Labor Day!

💙

Michael